100NL river spot

[Birkin]

This hand was played by a friend of mine, but it was interesting enough that I thought I'd post it here:

BB is a tight-ish regular, definately a thinking player. No history of note, but he know's that we're a decent player and not a complete retard.

Preflop:

Hero is BTN with Ks4s

3 folds, Hero raises to $3, SB folds, BB calls $2.

Flop: (Pot $6.50)

Ah5h6d

BB checks, Hero bets $4, BB calls

Turn: 7d

BB checks, Hero checks

River: Kd (Pot $14.50)

BB bets $4.50, Hero?

Thoughts on all streets appreciated.

[Gardner]

Don't raise pre flop against a decent player with K 4?

[Birkin]

With 2 tight players in the blinds, I think that raising around 30% of buttons is pretty standard, especially as our image is tight, and because we're considered to be a decent player, regulars aren't going to go out of their way to play a pot OOP with us. tbh K4s is literally the bottom of our BTN raising range in this spot, but I'm still sure its ok, especially with no history of any of the blinds 3betting us light yet.

[Patrick25]

Yeah you should be raising fairly frequently on the button with any two cards if the blinds are tight... that's like poker 101...

I don't feel like I have the right to analyse this hand since I'm still very novice in a lot of areas, but I would probably just lay it down on the river. Seems like his play makes it very likely he's got either a weak ace, is drawing, or is slowplaying something that's got you crushed. I just don't see the value in calling/raising here when he's probably calling a raise and this isn't a bluff enough of the time for a river call to be profitable. Even though you're in position this is a marginal spot and you could pick better places to bluff.

In my very humble opinion.

[Birkin]

Was never considering a bluff-raise here, was wondering whether a call or fold is better.

I'll give a few of my thoughts here:

Preflop - i've already said why i think raising 3x here is fine.

Flop - I think cbetting this board texture is pretty standard, although i feel we may have to fire multiple barrels quite a lot because he's never folding a hand like 88 here.

Turn - I think if we bet this turn we pretty much have to fire the river regardless, and once we check the turn we can never bluff the river profitably as we rep nothing really. The check seems fine, still don't see him finding a fold with 88-TT here. There's also a chance that he's improved his hand from a 1pair to a pair + draw type hand too.

River - i'll post what i think later.

[igisjana]

pretty standard all the way down to the river, i'd say. cbetting that board is obviously standard, and his call doesn't really narrow his range at all. he could have a weak ace, 88-TT, a flush draw, an open-ender or even middle-pair. gutshot seems unlikely because of his check on the turn and considering he's a quite tight player i don't think he's going to value-bet bluff the river with a missed flush draw, so let's take that out of the equation. i also think it almost looks like a blocking bet there on the river (but that'd be weird, concerning we checked the turn, so there's really nothing he'd do a blocking bet with; if he has something good enough for that in certain circumstances, he's probably right to value bet in this particular spot). considering the fact that he's giving us 4 to 1 and we're probably ahead around 15-20% of the times, i would probably be calling the river bet there. but on the other hand, thats just my initial thoughts, didnt really think about it in depth.

[Birkin]

I agree with connor in that the hand is played in a standard way until the river, and it seems the best line to take.

I don't think villain ever has a missed draw on the river here. He knows he reps very little if he bets here, and i'm sure he'd bet a lot bigger too. I don't think he can ever have a straight draw either, as i don't really think he's flatting BTN raises with hands like 9Ts, he's more likely to 3bet or fold these.

It looks a lot like a blocking bet to me, or a value bet. The sort of hands that he'll blocking bet are probably A8s+. I'm guessing that he'll also value bet hands like 88-TT here. So if we assume his river range, is 88-TT, A8s+-AJs, A9o-AJo, then its a call given the price we're getting:

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

57 games 0.047 secs 1,212 games/sec

Board: Ah 5d 6h 7d Kd
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 31.579% 31.58% 00.00% 18 0.00 { Ks4s }
Hand 1: 68.421% 68.42% 00.00% 39 0.00 { TT-88, AJs-A8s, AJo-A9o }

People may think that this is a good spot to bluff-raise if we had air here, given that villain's range is so weak here, but I disagree. We rep nothing by raising this river, except maybe K6 or K5. Every other value hand in our range we bet the turn with.

[igisjana]

Maybe add K10h, KJh to his range? Missed flush draw that turned into a hand you can bet with on the river? And also why do you think he'd do a blocking bet the river with A8+ there? After our check on the turn on such a board, he can be almost certain that an ace is good, so value betting it would be the way to go wouldn't it? I mean he's getting called by Kx there (and there are a lot of Kx in our range) and also maybe 88-TT. I know the bet sizing looks more like a blocking bet, but I don't think we should call it that rather than a value bet. but i'm probably missing out on something here.
definitely no missed draws on the river, i agree with that. but now that we know the numbers (how do they change if we add k10h, kjh or something to his range?) we can all agree that we should call there, right?

[Patrick25]

You guys are probably good enough to call there but my play just isn't advanced enough to be able to correctly judge a marginal situation like this one, so I'm still at the stage where I'm folding that river.

Maybe someday

[Birkin]

I'm not really sure if he's calling pre with KT or KJs tbh, it seems kinda bad for a reg to be doing it.

I disagree that we're really likely to have Kx here, as we'd take this line with pretty much our entire BTN raising range that missed flop + turn. We might also take a similar line with a 6x or 5x hand, which makes him more likely to value bet 88-TT, which is why i think its a call.

[igisjana]

I think basically every Kxs hand is in our button raise range but not even half of the 5x/6x hands. And loads of those 5x/6x hands we're likely to raise the button with have him crushed (a6,a5,56,57,67 all suited and off and k6s k5s). there's not that many reasonable 5x/6x hands left that we can have that he has beat., maybe 68s or 54s but thats about it. that's why i thought we'd only be ahead about 15-20% of the times, but as he's giving us more than 4to1 it's still a call.

[Birkin]

Yeah you make a fair point, I'm not sure how thinking a player this guy is so not sure if our percieved range can be considered in such depth...

Call!

[Patrick25]

So what did your friend do

[igisjana]

it's funny how me and nick don't really care what really happened but only about what the mathematically right decision was. it's a bit sad that i've made poker to such a theoretical thing for me

[Birkin]

Not being results-oriented is a good thing Connor!

I'm never posting results of this hand here.

[igisjana]

I was bored, so here's my mathematical analysis in detail about the hand. We assume that our opponent is perfectly mathematical and knows our calling range on the river. he is also never value-bet bluffing the river in this spot and he correctly assumes we call his river bet with 68 or better. Then our calling range consists of:

Any Ax hand (excluding AA): 4*48=192 hands
Any K10o+ hand (excluding AKo and any Kxs and KK): 3*12=36 hands (only K10o+ as K10o- is not in our Button-raise-range)
Any Kxs hand (excluding AKs): 4*11=44 hands
Any Pocket pair higher than or equal to 55: 6*10=60 hands
Any 56 or 57 hand: 4*4+4*4=32 hands
Any 67 hand:4*4=16 hands
Any 68 hand:4*4=16 hands
Any 78 and 79 hand:4*4+4*4=32 hands.
In total our calling range consists of 428 hands.

Hands in our range that have K4 beat:192+36+44-4*3+60-6*5+32+16=338 hands, which is about 79% of our calling range. Our opponent knows that we have K4 beat 79% of the times, so if he does not have K4 beat with at least 79% of his range, he should not make the value bet on the river. And as we assume he is a perfectly mathematical player, we must assume that he has K4 beat at least 79% of the times and we should only call if we get better odds than 79to21 or roughly 4to1 (and that's only if he has us beat with EXACTLY 79% of his range, i.e. the very lowest percentage he'd bet with here).
Of course, we assume he's never bluffing, so including that might give us some extra % but not that much.

I haven't thought about the maths in great detail, so if there are any obvious mistakes with how many hands there are in our calling range and stuff, tell me please.

X

[igisjana]

forgot about 89, so our odds are even worse

[Birkin]

This isn't our percieved range in this spot...

We always bet turn with Ax, so it's not in our range.
We always bet turn with 55-77
We always bet turn with 89,56 etc etc etc..

Our calling range on the river is:

Kx hands, 7x hands, 6x hands (we probs fold bottom pair)

Tbh he's behind our calling range on the river if he has TT - 88

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

1,530 games 0.047 secs 32,553 games/sec

Board: Ah 5h 6d 7d Kd
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 76.471% 76.47% 00.00% 1170 0.00 { K4s+, Q7s, J7s, T7s, 97s, K8o+, J7o }
Hand 1: 23.529% 23.53% 00.00% 360 0.00 { TT-88 }




With regard to the so called "value-bet" bluff, I think betting something like 1/4 - 1/8th pot is fine as a bluff on the river assuming villains calling range is static (undetermined by bet size). This is not a spot where it would work, but I can't think of one atm....

[igisjana]

i'd check the turn with a monster/ace every once in a while in this spot. inducing n stuff because it looks sooo weak.not in general, but just to mix up my game. so we can like weight those hands less than the others but not take them out of our range completely. i dunno.

[Birkin]

I think the board is too draw heavy to check back turn with a monster against a player with no history. I think we'd miss too much value here.