To Call or Not to Call, That is the Question

Replay Poker Poker Strategy
63

I can’t imagine a worse board for KK in a 4bet pot. I assume your flop checkbacks are unbalanced, meaning you only do this when don’t like the board and never as a deception play with a strong hand. So this opens the door to bluffing, and if anyone on the site is capable of pouncing on perceived weakness it’s Kaei. (See #887114690)

I’m torn on whether a cbet is good despite the board sucking for your exact hand.

Your 4bet should have folded out the ambitious parts of his 3betting range since SPR is only 2 after the call. Even most pairs should be folding as the implied odds for set mining aren’t correct (calling 30 million to win potentially 210 million, the needed price is around 10-1 and Kaei knows this). I can easily give him JJ, AQs and possibly QQ and AK if he elects not to 5bet these sometimes.

But you still have AA, AK, and QQ as the 4better. A cbet should still have some decent fold equity since Kaei may called preflop with a wider range than most even OOP. It’s worth pointing out this was a 4 handed table, so we should be expecting looser play regardless.

I would probably have cbet/given up to avoid opening the door to being bluffed out by an aggro player.

But as played I think you have to fold on the turn to a shove. The logical bluffs are really just KQc and KJc.

64

I think those that play me frequently would also vouch that I take a fair number of “trappy” lines with strong hands, and especially here, with a low SPR, it is going to be easy to get all of the chips in even without a bet on the flop. Of course it is also a fairly wet board, where both ranges are likely to have a lot of equity, which acts to discourage slow playing strong hands to a degree.

But it’s not at all rare for me to pass on a continuation bet with a strong hand. I’m mostly playing my range on the flop, rather than my actual holding, especially against stronger players.

Still, I agree… any time you check you expect to open the door to at least a slightly higher frequency of bluffs, and that is exactly what makes this spot a bit more difficult, and hence why a small c-bet on the flop makes the decision a bit more cut and dry in the event that the response is an all in raise. But making decisions easier with a specific hand… I don’t really think that is the road to finding the best plays on each street; more broadly you want to think about how you want to play your entire range, and if for a given board you want to c-bet everything (usually a small c-bet then), or carve out a balanced checking range for a small segment of your hands, with a larger c-bet for the hands that take that line.

On the whole I think this board favored the 4! range. What does Kaei 3 bet from the big blind over a cutoff range? Of course we don’t know, but 4 handed and with some confidence that he can push a lower ranked player like me around, I think it is likely broader than the range in orange below:

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The calling range then is likely also broader than the hands below in green:

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Notice that he still has most of the strongest holdings (even a sliver of KTs), but that that does not make up the majority of his range. Note also that a range anything at all like this still has a ton of gut shot straight draws (which I’ve also got with KK too, of course), and that many of these make up reasonable bluffing candidates.

My 4! range? Well, it’s live poker, so who know what it really looks like, and I don’t have a chart for 4 handed (where there is less bunching effect, and so I should be able to 4! a bit wider), but:

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I’ve got a sliver of KTs also, far more top set hands, but also far fewer middle and bottom set.

I guess where I’m going: I have a range advantage on this board, but I don’t think it is gigantic, and while I have more top set, I think he has more total sets on this board, and so nut advantage is even murkier, and so I’m leaning toward thinking that having a check back range is probably ok, and that rather than a small continuation bet with most or all of my hands, a larger CB with a smaller part of my range might make sense.

When it comes to calling here, if you think your opponent is likely to be very balanced, then calling a small percentage of the time with a bluff catcher like this makes sense. But humans tend to almost never be all that close to perfect balance, and if you think there will be too many wild bluffs, KK slips into a high frequency call quite quickly. Conversely, even a slight decrease in bluffs from the optimal frequency, and I think KK probably becomes a 100% fold.

65

That’s a much wider calling range than I expected. It’s interesting in the calling chart that 66 and 55 are 100% calls and 99 is a 51% fold. I expect most of mid and low pairs to be folding to a 4bet given the implied odds. But I won’t argue with a solver :smiley:

Something tells me this particular players doesn’t have a slight decrease in bluffs, and very likely quite the opposite, especially given my observation he will frequently attack with overbets if he senses any sort of weakness. If 55 is in his range now I might lean more towards call.

66

It might be worth pointing out the 100% calls for 66 and 55 don’t necessarily create more combos than the roughly 50% calls with 99. It’s 100% of the hands that are left, and so depends on the pool that originally made the 3 bet. In the 8 max charts I was using, the big blind 3 bets with 99 42% of the time, while with 66 and 55 it is just 26% and 8% respectively. So while 100% of 26% with 66 is in fact more combos than 50% of 42% with 99, 100% of 8% with 55 means 55 should have significantly fewer combinations… if you were playing some kind of AI or solver anyway. It’s hard to guess how a given human approaches the situation.

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67

Yes, the question is here as to what hands he might shove with that you are beating. If he is a wild and loose player it could be any small pair, but if he looks to be fairly tight, it doesn’t look good for you.

A lot of players would have jammed with 12 BB, but you were quite right to consider whom you would call against, and whom you would fold to.

It is a close run thing, but I think I would have folded, leaving myself with 10 BB’s, but at 10BBs in a tournament, and not yet in the money, I would be inclined to shove or fold, because you can’t really afford to pay to see draws.

If you are very close to the money it is quite a quandary. On RP you are not playing for real money, so it is a bit different. Would you prefer to creep into the money by waiting for other players to make mistakes (they will, they will!), or are you only interested in winning the tournament, in which case you might want to play double or quits?

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68

Here’s a nice one for the thread, especially as we haven’t looked at many pre-flop call or fold decisions, and at the mid-levels of this site you don’t find yourself facing a 5 bet very often either.

csy123 in the high jack opens, CK in the cut off 3 bets, I 4 bet in the small blind with AsQs, csy folds, and CK shoves all in. Call or fold?

69

Having AQs in the SB facing an open and 3bet all choices feel wrong. You can’t fold. You can’t flat and risk playing it OOP. AQs doesn’t feel strong enough to raise with even 5 handed. I feel like a 4bet/fold is probably least wrong. I don’t have much experience playing CK, but I would assume AK is the worst he can have once he 5bets. For me it’s a straightforward fold, given the payout is only ~2:1 and we’re very likely behind his entire range.

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70

I agree that against most players on Replay, a 3 bet is a very strong hand, and AQs doesn’t fair so well against that range.

But what should the 3 betting range look like? This is the #1 player on the site, and so while there is the possibility he’s making any of a number of exploitative adjustments that would modify his range a lot, I’d default that his 3 bet as the cutoff over the highjack open looks something like this (note that the high jack was also a strong player, and so is presumably opening with a reasonably wide range from that seat).

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Notice here how many combos AQs is in great shape against. So for me, the 4 bet was pretty much automatic… but what to do facing the 5 bet was not. I think the ranges here probably play somewhat close to if I had been the original high jack raiser facing a cutoff 3 bet, and so here is then what my 4 betting range might look like:

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Note that I’m also supposed to be 4 betting with AJs, ATs, A5s, A4s, KQs, KJs, KTs, JTs and even 76s and 54s some of the time, though the only pure 4 bet hands are AKs, AA and KK.

Of course I wasn’t actually the highjack, and have to worry about two opponent ranges rather than just one. I felt at the time that that ruled out calling, or at least made it less attractive, though I think now that calling might still have been an option, as I don’t imagine the high jack will 5 bet squeeze with a really high fraction of their original opening range.

What is the 5 bet range supposed to look like? There are actually only a small number of hands that are supposed to make the 5 bet, and no hands employ a pure strategy.

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Against this mix, note that AA is only slightly more dense than A3s (it may look the opposite, but A3s did not 3 bet at a 100% frequency), and there are trace amounts of A4s, A7s, KJs, and KTs, in addition to the obvious hands that crush AQs. To be honest, folding seemed reasonable, especially as I think most human players find it hard fishing out some of these lower frequency 3 bet and 5 bet hands and just won’t pull the trigger.

But what is AQs supposed to do in this spot??? It looks like it is mostly supposed to be a fold… and the charts here assume the 5 bet was not all in, and so with the larger sizing… yep, I think now that perhaps it really still should have been fold. Looks like I might need some WD40 for my fold button…

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71

Spot 1 – 74 off is a 100% no look call with a big stack … first any hand should have about 28-30 equity in the pot which is probably a bit short of pot odds … but one must factor in the value of the 32k tournament chips v. 5.4k tourney chips …. 32 k chips have a very high % of chips in play but equity in the prize pool is much lower … so on a per chip basis the big stack’s chips are worth less making it cheaper to call… so call!
If I am hu and have 100 chips and my opponent has 1 and first place is $100 and second is $40 …. Opponents chip is worth at least $40 … my chips are worth at most $1 each

Spot 2 – your outs are likely 3 Qs and 2 9s for about 20% equity in pot and pot odds r about 28%… u r blocking opponents st8 draws w/ Q …. So I would fold … but bigger Q is why is anyone ever in a cash game w/ less than 100bb ?? you can’t give your opponent bad implied odds to call u when they r on flush/st8 draws thus never maximizing your big hands play down a level and put 100 or 200 bbs in play

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72

spot 3 - call …likely have 9 to 14 outs or nearly 50% pot odds … and why not raise w/ Ac3c on button … this hand generally plays better as the pf raiser than the pf caller … plus if the sb 3 bets pf you have a better feeling of where u r at in the hand

73

In #926321282 I face a pot sized river jam from the 8th ranked player on the site. After previously calling a large turn raise can QQ possibly be good here? What do you do?

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74

LOL, of course fold… please fold. :cold_sweat:

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75

So what do you do? I’m imagining that a lot of players that are more used to full ring play will look at the 3 bet over the button raise and think that the continuation range might look similar to what you’d see in an 8 handed game where the big blind 3 bets a button raise, in which case the cold calling range for the button might look something like the hands in green below:

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But this is heads up play. The button is raising far wider than the button will in a multi-player configuration, and it’s only making a min raise, which also allows for a very wide range (you could even bet 100% here with a min raise). Given the width of that range, the 3 bet range can also be much, much wider, and so unless there is reason to believe that the opponent is being overly conservative with their 3 bets, you could actually call with more than everything in green and blue above (basically every suited hand, and even trash like Q3o, J6o and 53o). Now if the 3 bet frequency is really low, and seems to only represent something like JJ+ and AK, then the story will be very different. But let’s assume for now that the sinister villain is going post flop with a lot of hands.

The flop of 9d4h3c sees a smallish (1/3 pot) continuation bet from hero on a board that doesn’t favor hero’s range particularly (some equity advantage, but that is probably more than offset by a disadvantage in nutted hands). The call of this bet gets rid of a fair amount of random garbage, but in position, villain can float quite a bit wider, and so probably almost any suited cards that are not spades continue, along with any pair, many gut shot draws, and even some naked over cards perhaps.

The board on the turn of 9d4h3cTd creates diamond flush draws and many straight draws, and still on the whole favors the villain’s range. Hero’s bet of just over 1/3 pot feels like marginal value, maybe a hand like 77, 88 or A9s, but could of course include many hand classes. The villain’s raise is slightly larger than a pot sized bet, and feels relatively polarized.

  • value: all combos of all sets, T9, and some combos of 43, AT, KT and JT, and maybe JJ once in a while
  • bluffs: 65, 76s, 87, J8, QJ and maybe even KQ (though hero heavily blocks these last two holdings), and almost any two diamonds (especially with a 4 or a 3)

The river of 8s and final pot sized bet from villain (which will put hero allin) adds QJ and 76 as value, but while QJ certainly makes sense, note that QdJd is not a possible combo given that hero has QdQs, and so that mostly just leaves QhJh and QcJc likely to get to the turn. The 3 cards to a straight perhaps also somewhat reduces the frequency with which sets will make this river bet (though the river bet is still reasonable for them). Hands like AT and JJ might also still make the river bet also. With the pot odds offered, hero just needs to be ahead 1 time for every 2 times they are behind.

In a situation like this with the following conditions you probably just have to call:

  • plenty of busted draws that might now consider bluffing the river
  • an opponent that can bluff on the river (some just almost never do)
  • a holding that beats at least a few of the value hands that might make the bet (that’s iffy here, but I think there are likely to be at least a small number)

If you think villain is over bluffing here (more than 1/3 of the time their bet is a bluff, since this was roughly a pot sized bet), then you should actually be calling even with hands like 87. You might call and lose 65% of the time… but that’s enough for the call here to be profitable (especially if you consider that hero’s stack was a little smaller than the pot).

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76

Here’s a tough spot. What would you do?

Hero has KcJc and is the big blind 4 handed, and has been getting 3 bet at a high frequency by the villain (currently in the cutoff seat). Villain has also been raising over hero bets frequently post flop, and generally has been a bully. Stacks are roughly $16.9 million effective on a $100k/$200k table (Sin City).

Villain raises to 3.5 big blinds, and hero defends after button and small blind fold. I prefer 3 betting KJs as the big blind against a CO raise, but don’t think flatting is any kind of large mistake here. The flop comes 7c3dJd, and hero has top pair, good kicker, and a back door flush draw.

Hero checks on the flop, and villain c-bets for a little over 1/3 pot; hero calls. The turn is 6c, and hero picks up a flush draw and decides to lead turn for just under half pot, making a pot of close to $5 million if villain calls.

Villain does not call, but instead jams all in, over-betting the pot by almost 3 to 1. Hero’s top pair is now mostly just a bluff catcher, but there are lots of natural bluffs available, villain has made several raises like this in prior hands, and any king might represent an out against at least a few hands in villain’s range if we are currently behind. Call or fold?

77

Assuming that the Jack is just a bluff catcher “hero” possibly has 11 or 14 outs and does not have pot odds to call. In addition he might read the shove as an attempt to prevent a draw to something better than top pair. All depends on what prob he assigns to a bluff.

78

It comes down to how I interpret V’s turn overbet. Keeping in mind V is a top player and unless I suspected he had been drinking or tilted I would read this as extremely polarizing. I discount even QQ+ from this range as it’s not strong enough for this sizing. This is a either set or very strong equity bluff. Against the value end H can hit a club that doesn’t pair the board, of which there are 8 left. Maybe H’s king and jack are live if V has 76s but I wouldn’t entertain this possibility for now. H has 15% equity against value. Most of the strong equity bluffs I can come up are pair + combo draws that give H only about 60-70% equity. Take 65d for example, which could be an equity shove, V can hit a flush, 6 4 or 5, having 9+2+4+3 for 18 outs, giving H about 65% equity. There are quite a few combos like this. But the number of such combos needed is too high to negate the very low equity against the value side. So this is just a snap fold.

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79

During the game I felt this was probably a reasonable call, but I really think it ultimately comes down to the ratio of bluffs to value that I have here, and even looking at my own play I’m honestly not sure what that mix is.

Let me try to back into my own range then… We start on the flop with my cut off opening range, which I’m just going to assert usually probably look something like this 4 handed (though I’ll constantly be making adjustments based on the patterns of play at the table):
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The small flop bet does not do much to condense that range, and I think I would make a small bet like this with every card in range at least some of the time (though I’ll check a lot with most of the range too, given that the board doesn’t create either a huge equity or nut advantage for me). Turn again is 7c3dJd6c.

I agree that the giant raise over the turn donk from the big blind is polarizing, and probably contains few thin value type hands (though I do think I’d make this over bet with QQ+ against certain opponents prone to call anything with a draw). The main value hands seem to be JJ, 77, 66, 33 and 54s, of which there are 14 combinations. QQ+ has 13 combinations, but full combinations are probably not present, as they probably won’t be included against most opponents. 76s is probably similar, and so maybe only adds one or two combos.

Possible bluffing candidates are extremely numerous… really hundreds of combos (every flush draw, a huge number of straight draws), but again I won’t always make a bet like this with every draw, and will largely select bluffs of this size from the draws with lower showdown value if they miss. At this size, at equilibrium, you can have nearly as many bluffs as value bets with a perfectly polarized range where your bluffs have no equity. If the bluffs have equity, that allows more bluffs to be included profitably. I think it is reasonable to assume that if I’m value betting 33 this way (really the weakest hand you’d naturally consider), then I might also feel free to bluff with a pretty large set of hands, and I’ll propose the following possible range for this over-bet (though again, while it seems strange to say so, I’m not honestly sure what bluffs I’ll actually pick, as I’ll only have a single holding, and I’ll often just use some kind of randomizing function to slot it in to the most natural bet sizes):

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Against this range, KcJc actually has almost 48% equity (47.96), and the call is correct. If I have Ax and Kx flush draws in range, the call becomes even better. If I’m only making some of the bluffs listed some fraction of the time (say 50%), and am using Ax flush draws or a lot of the combo draws only very rarely (say 5% or less), then it’s a money loser.

Notice also that I actually have fewer combos of bluffs than value in this sample range, and yet it is still basically break even for KcJc (small profit to call).

On the whole, I think against me, I think the call was probably correct… but I’m honestly still not completely confident, and think it was a tough spot for hero. I’d love to see if a solver calls with this hand in this spot.

80

It is a 9 handed table with blinds of $100k/$200k. I’m in the high jack seat (two seats before the button), and our opponent is in the seat before that (low jack). UG+1 open limps (200bb stack), low jack limps behind with Ks6s (45bb), I limp behind (215bb), button limps behind (110bb), and the big blind completes (210bb), and we go to the flop 5 handed with a pot of just over $1 million (5bb).

The flop is Js5s4c, giving the low jack a flush draw. It checks around to me, and I bet $2.5 million, significantly over-betting the pot.

It folds around to the low jack. Should he fold, call, or raise all in?

I’ll be bluffing here some of the time, but as the raise was made into 4 opponents, the number of bluff combinations likely drops. I also can’t have 7s6s, since the low jack has that six, and that eliminates the most reasonably likely straight flush draw that the low jack might dominate, though 8s7s still seems like a reasonable candidate. The only other bluffs that seems reasonably likely are As4s and perhaps 7c6c, though there will be a sprinkling of strange hands (hard to know if I’ve been drinking). Value seems mostly limited to sets, though who knows if there might possibly be thin holdings like AJ, over pairs, or 2 pair (those all seem more reasonable if there had been fewer potential callers).

The low jack chooses to call, and we go to the turn with a pot of just under $6 million (30 big blinds), and the low jack has $5.8 million left behind.

The turn brings the six of clubs, for a board of Js5s4c6c. The low jack checks, and I make a pot sized bet (effectively going all in). A call from the low jack risks roughly $6 million to win $12 million, and he has 9 flush outs, and might hope that any 6 or king might also count as an out against at least some of my range.

Should he call or fold?

81

It should have been a snapfold postflop. The key question for this player to ask is what type of hands do you overlimp with and then overbet into 4 players postflop? 55 44 54s. Maybe even an ambitious J5 J4 suited sometimes, if most pots are getting limped around, why not join the party? I remove JJ+ and AQ spades+, I don’t expect top 10 players to get cute in the HJ after two limps. Given the dynamic nature of the board and number of players who saw the flop, your value hands need protection badly. Keeping in mind your overlimp, I don’t see too many logical bluff combos. Some suited mid aces. A4s A3s 32 76 spades obviously, but a bluff here with a non not-draw with this many players is insane IMO. Even a nutted equity bluff into 4 players is questionable and I would view it as unlikely. If you get flatted by any one of these players you have zero clarity if the draw completes. In other words I would view this as an exploitative unbalanced protection bet. Given the tendency of many Replay players to chase any draw for any price, there’s a good chance one of them as a draw you can charge. So I snap fold, especially given the ~40bb effective stacks, SPR is too low to chase.

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82

Here’s one were I’m on the opposite side against a very strong player who looks almost certain to be in the top 10 also quite soon.

I raise from the highjack with A9o over a prior open limp from the lowjack. It folds around to the big blind who cold calls. You’d usually need a stronger range to call here with the lowjack still to act, but in this case the lowjack seemed relatively unlikely to limp raise, and so I thought @Lysandros was still likely to call reasonably wide here. But he also 3 bets at an impressive frequency, and so the lack of a 3 bet capped his range in my mind, getting rid of most premium pairs and the strongest aces. I was imagining something like the hands in green below.
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During the game I was also assuming that TT would be 3 bet at a significantly higher rate than in the chart , though not at a 100% frequency.

The lowjack calls and comes along for the ride, and we go three handed to a flop of 3dAhAs. Both players check to me, and I make a small continuation bet of $2 million into the pot of $6.8 million. Lysandros calls, and the lowjack folds.

The turn is the ten of clubs for a board of 3dAhAsTc, Lysandros checks, and I make another bet of roughly 40% pot, $4.25 million into a pot of $10.7 million, and face a raise to $12 million. I call.

On the river, a 5 of spades, Lysandros bets $50 million into the pot of $34.5 million. Right from the turn it felt like the way TT will play, but he had been 3 betting so frequently that I thought at the time that he seemed unlikely to hold many combos of that hand, and that AK also was out of the question, and AQ also seemed somewhat unlikely to take the line. Further, I was in good shape against all of the likely Axs holdings except A3s (though again, would any of those hands except A3s take this line???). I’d also seen him make overbets before with surprising holdings, so I felt there was a non-zero chance that he might be bluffing here with a completely unexpected hand.

Should I call, fold, or employ a mixed strategy (and how often should I call if you choose the last)?