Trips on the river, good kicker

Replay Poker Poker Strategy
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V’s image is as usual. There is one player at the table who needles me a ton and calls me out to the rest of the table. Calling me a pro and just generally being facetious concerning anything he has to say about me or my style of play. I think he thinks I’m a fish and wants everyone else to think so too… :slight_smile: He is NOT the V in this hand. Main V is trying to win and does reasonably well in this field but may be hitting a wall going higher. Plays a reasonable number of pots, mostly passive pre, only 3!'s premiums, doesn’t get OOL much, can bluff but rarely. Pretty fit or fold mostly. He says he respects my game regardless of how other people see me, for what that’s worth.

Tasman Sea
20k/40k FR 9 handed
6.3M effective with V, other stack sizes will not be relevant.

Pre (60k) utg, utg1, utg2, mp, btn calls V completes in the sb and H Qd8h x’s option in the bb. 7 ways to the flop.

Flop (280k) 8s3s2h, x’s all the around 7 ways.

Turn (280k) 5d, V sb leads pot 280k, H bb calls, everyone else folds

River (840k) 8c, V sb 840k, H?

With V’s psb of 840k there is now 1.68M in the pot and V has 5.1M back, H covers. What are we doing here as H? What does V’s range look like? What can he have for value, what are his bluffs and do we beat any of his value? What can we get called by if we raise? Should we raise?

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Okay well, loving it Dayman, let’s get this going! Thanks for your time, it will be really interesting, I’m sure!

The image you have of him is really important here IMO. Passive pre, doesn’t bluff much. He’s not bluffing here neither. Important question : what is his betting pattern like ? He always bets pot with a decent/good hand? Difficult to analyze it if we don’t know that I think.
By reflex, I would just call in this limited 10 second-time we have. But anyway, is it really the best option ?

What would his value hands be, with which he would be beating you ? 22 (9), 33 (9) (-> really not sure if he checks on the flop there, I don’t have enough info), 55 (9),A8 (4), K8 (4) ; 38 (4), 28 (4), 58 (4) (suited only or also o?, let’s say all). → 47 combos. If we remove 22 and 33 it gives us a total of 29 combo’s only though.
Value hands, which you beat : J8 (4), T8 (4), 89 (4), 78 (4), 68 (4), 48 (4). → 24 combos
99, TT, 53, 52 all are not in his betting range river there IMO, if he limps 99 and TT of course.

I hope I didn’t forget many combo’s…:grimacing:

Honestly, I see him having 55 (or 22/33) here by betting pot turn like this, or A8/K8 and maybe J8/8T/89… Still beating you too often.
He seems so strong by betting that amount in the SB, and by re-betting river. With all these 8x combo’s that you beat, wouldn’t he bet smaller turn?

Raising with a medium-strong hand here, against a passive player, who doesn’t bluff much, is really not a good move considering all combo’s here, he beats you too often here, also regarding this turn sizing. I also feel like that raising river too much with medium/strong hands often is a major mistake in cash game by a lot of players, especially when you’re only playing against one opponent. So IMO, just a call.

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Preflop
7-way limped pots make my eyes roll. Obviously your check in the bb is fine.

At this point main V’s range is likely almost any two cards. I think he would raise pre with big premiums like JJ+/AK so we can take those out of his range. Likely he folds the really junky stuff like J2o. Most everything else can be there for a small blind limp range.

Flop
I wouldn’t mind a bet from you here. You can clean up your equity by getting random overcards to fold and you can get a little value from a bunch of 8x hands and draws. Chances are you’re ahead right now. On the other hand a lot of turn cards are going to make you unhappy so maybe

Turn
My read would be that a generally straightforward Villain is virtually never bluffing here from the small blind into 6 other players. I also doubt that he would be betting 2nd pair hands like A5. The pot-sized bet from most players here I would take as a tell of “I’m strong right now”.

For his range at this point, I would give him straights (64, A4), overpairs (say TT-99), all sets, 2 pair hands (most likely 85, 53, 52, 32, maybe 83s or 82s), decent 8x (say A8-98). I think weak 8x like 87 or 86 mostly check but maybe there are some of those in there too.

I put this into Flopzilla to illustrate:

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Overall this is a very strong range - we are likely behind most of the time (and this is with the 87 and 86 left in). If we think that he occasionally bluffs then the picture’s a little better. But overall it’s an uncomfortable spot and we still have 5 more players to act after us. So personally I would fold but maybe that’s too nitty. If we think he occasionally bluffs with flush draws and/or OESD then I can get behind calling the turn bet and evaluating from there.

River
When he leads again on the river 8, I think he is again virtually never bluffing.

In terms of his range, he’s likely going to check his overpairs and counterfeited 2pair hands from the flop. So this leaves him with 3 of a kind and better.

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We are going to have the best hand about 27% of the time against this range, plus a few chops so our equity is approximately 29%. Facing a pot-sized bet we to win 33% of the time to call, so this is a fold if our assumptions are correct.

If we think he’s ever bluffing (all of the draws missed so it’s possible he might go for it with say 7s6s) then it’ll be a borderline call. He doesn’t need to be bluffing very often to make this into a call.

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Nice work tacos. My thinking in game was along these lines. I don’t think when V bets pot he is ever bluffing/semi bluffing into 6 players on the turn after the flop x’s around. So I was giving him top pair or better when he bet pot on the turn. I do think he has a lot of worse top pair than Q8 so I called but was kind of meh about it. On the river though when the 8 pairs I think he’s slowing down and looking to bluff catch his weaker 8’s (T8, 98, 87, 86 maybe even J8) especially vs me. He knows I go for it. His very strong hands I can see him x/r some of the time but going for a big bet otr mostly. I think I typed in the chat as soon as he bet… Damn and then this is not good… lol. Unfortunately my inner fish kicked in and I paid him off… he had 83o and x flop with top 2 and boated the river. As far as the flop goes I just wanted to keep the pot small as I’m oop to 5 players that can have about anything. Mostly weighted towards over cards but these guys can have some over pairs too and flush draws with overs aren’t folding and making a huge bet I think is over playing this quite a bit in a limp pot. I was looking to see an okay turn and then get some chips in or give it up early.

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Great analysis, thanks for your time. IMO, on this free site, with this level of poker, folding would be a mistake, even against this player. Ok, we are 4% down to make this a good call, but these 4% can easily be forgotten.
I doubt you would have folded though if you had had 5 seconds to act haha ! But if you think you still would have managed to fold, that would’ve been be a great lay-down!

Don’t think that’s true neither. For me calling is not bad here. Don’t worry dayman :money_mouth_face:

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This is it right here, the spots that separate the very good players from the great ones. Not just recognising them but having the discipline to go with your read. Like I said in my reply to tacos, this player betting pot into 6 players on the turn, I knew I didn’t want him betting the river. Especially didn’t want to see a big pot size bet and I typed in the chat as soon as he bet that it wasn’t good. I should have made the disciplined fold. When I go against my reads I’m usually wrong.

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Hmmm, yeah okay, I understand that, but still, when the pot odds just tell you that a call is kind of EV+, you can consider calling. If you’re playing for real money, a lay-down like this is really good, but on Replay, this call was just good. If you’re going to have a mindset like this you’re going to overfold and lose equity. I have to admit that this player and setting would have been pretty key for a lay-down, but still, a call is good, and if I would have been in your spot, I wouldn’t blame myself for not folding, because it was and IMO still is not a bad move, even after our analysis.

P.S. There also is a difference between having a bad feeling in a given hand and the decision you have to make, whether it is EV+ or -. Sometimes, you can have a bad feeling with a hand, feeling that you’re beat, but a call for example can still be EV+…

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The WSOP Main was just lost by a player who consistently was trying to pick bluffs off on the river. Almost all the calls were EV+, if he was playing against a well balanced opponent. Unfortunately, he wasn’t and he didn’t adjust for that. Ensan didn’t have a big 3-barrel bluff for days and yet Sammartino still called with marginal bluff catchers. All his bluffs were sized down on the river and all his value bets were sized up. It cost Sammartino huge pots and the opportunity to win the whole thing.

The point is, if you play with a guy who enough to have him down as tight passive with very few bluffs, then there is no need to take big hits in marginal spots. You are not being exploited by over folding compared to theoretically optimal ratios. You are exploiting him by denying him those giant river bet payoffs. In multiway pots specifically, all ranges tighten and continue to tighten street by street.

In this hand, a fold is fine, if a bit on the tight side. A call is ok as well. A raise would be fine at the end of the tax year if you needed some more deductions :slight_smile:

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I’d rather pay the taxes as dumb as that sounds… lol. Even a 100% deduction is kind of crappy if you have to lose 100% of the profit the deduction would be for. Yeah this is what I’m saying @ValueFish. Lots of people saying the play GTO, no one does because no one can. This fold would be an exploit for sure, but I know this guy doesn’t have bluffs and is so passive that he’s not over valuing hands like J8 T8 and such. So what this comes down to, if we do the math (which honestly I have not put this in Flopzilla, tacos was kind enough to do it though) on both flop and fold, I believe we will find the EV of the hand is higher with a fold even if it is +EV to call. The best play is always the one with the highest +EV.

EDIT:

This is dumb, disregard. EV of call has to be negative if the EV of fold is higher since folding is always going to be 0.

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Hmmm not sure about that, but I see what you mean.

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You’re absolutely right to question that… the EV of folding is always 0 so I’m going with it’s too early in the day, I was up till 3 am… lol.

I will say that I think calling here is -EV though and 0 is higher that negative. Not saying the call is horrible, I just truly believe vs this player it is not the best play.

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Yeah ok, gotta put in context that it’s on a free poker site, with lots of questionable players. I mean, if you know the player really well, then ok, but not if you played with him during 2h only :slight_smile:
(Just my opinion !)

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I think your call was fine. Even sitting here analyzing with Flopzilla it was really close between calling and folding (K8 is a marginal call, Q8 a marginal fold) so you can only be making a small mistake either way. As ValueFish said, at the table with a few seconds to act, you can’t really tell whether you’re making a +/- 4% EV call. Making the call but feeling gross about it means that your instinct was about right in terms of where you stood.

I think you can bet smallish - say 30-40% pot - on the flop and get many of the 2 overcard hands like J9 to fold. That type of hand has a significant amount of equity against you with 2 cards to come so getting those folds is quite valuable.

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It’s an option IMO, check/call is fine too, depends on your table, if there are lots of dynamics or not… Often, it doesn’t get checked all around, so check/call is IMO the best option if you’re looking at it overall.
Like you say, also depends if you’re playing against pretty good/not calling station players, who just call two decent overcards like J9, JT, … etc…Also depends on how you play yourself though, aggressive or not.

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