€100+10 NL HE MTT: Should you bet this Turn?

[primrose]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Table Format

MTT

Buy-in

100+10

Currency

€

In this hand I'm on the final table of my local twice-weekly Casino tournament. I'm chipleader with about 30% of all chips and get on the Button. There are 9 people left. Blinds are 600/1200 with a BB Ante.

Because of the constellation I would raise almost anything on the Button (you gotta bully people if you have the bigstack); this hand is more than good enough. I raise 2400 and both blinds call. They're both pretty typical, non-scary live players.

The Flop comes (Pot=8400). It checks to me. I Cbet 2200 (would do this with or without the middle pair). The SB calls and the BB folds.

The Turn comes (Pot=12800). The SB checks. Not sure what to do now. This is generally a good card to bet; it's... not actually super in my range, but it doesn't really matter because people will give it credit regardless. They won't think logically about my range; they'll just see a scary overcard.

On the other hand, a Queen or Ace is probably not folding, and I beat most sixes and all fours. So I'm kind of only getting called by better. My default play in such a case is just to check, so I do that.

The River comes (Pot=12800). The SB leads 8000.

Pretty unpleasant spot. My hand is kind of under-repped; it looks like I have nothing, and I'm getting a pretty good price. This bet is also not polarized because polarized betting isn't a thing for most people. People bet marginal hands pretty often.

But they also don't bluff enough, and betting a 6 or 4 is a bit of a stretch (second pair is one thing, but this would be fourth or fifth pair). But they could fire missed clubs for about this amount; this would not be that surprising of a play. Nonetheless I decide to fold. Did not get a reveal.

I'm still most unsure about whether checking the Turn here is correct. If my opponent has clubs or a draw, then checking means passing by a pretty easy opportunity to take down the pot. If they have 2 pair or better they'll raise the turn and you can fold pretty easily, so it wouldn't be a terrible outcome (although it would lose about 4000 chips more than the line I took). If they have an Ace (A5 with a club or something) and just call, then... well I would probably either check or fold on the River anyway, so it probably amounts to the same as if they raise the Turn. So I guess the question is whether folding out draws/denying equity from overcards is worth it?

Still not sure, it's kind of a weird case where my intuition says a bet makes sense even though it's not really as a bluff or for value.

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
J6o is not a standard open from BTN, but you already explained, why you are opening more wide.

Flop
I am fine with C-betting here to clean up equity and keep the betting lead, but I might go a little bit larger than just 25% pot. I dont mind ending the hand right here, and if someone gives action, my plan would already be to check back most turns, unless its a J or 6.

Turn
You said it yourself. If you bet again, worse hands will usually fold (except maybe draws) and better hands call, so a bet is not very effective.

River
You went very small on the flop, but he called with another guy left to act him, so he probably had at least something. 75 and 53 got there now, so the only busted draw is clubs, and it cant be with the A or 7 of clubs. So I dont think, he has many bluffs, and you are pretty low in your range. I fold here and move on.

 

[enno]

Have seen many times where a player in position makes a small bet preflop and on the flop, and then checks the turn - his opponent then makes a fairly large bet on the river to take the pot.
With a min-raise preflop and an even smaller bet on the flop giving your opponent pot odds for a flush draw, you are setting yourself up for the scenario above.
My question is-as chip leader would larger bets preflop and on the flop make a difference? This might depend on your opponents styles.

 

[amonlima]

No, it's already wrong in the price, this combo is not open, J6s is ideal for playing open, J6o is fold

 

[fundiver199]

Because of the constellation I would raise almost anything on the Button (you gotta bully people if you have the bigstack)

Have seen many times where a player in position makes a small bet preflop and on the flop, and then checks the turn - his opponent then makes a fairly large bet on the river to take the pot. With a min-raise preflop and an even smaller bet on the flop giving your opponent pot odds for a flush draw, you are setting yourself up for the scenario above. My question is-as chip leader would larger bets preflop and on the flop make a difference? This might depend on your opponents styles.

I think, this is a very good point. If Hero is attempting to "bully" the opponents, then the goal is to make them fold. And this time at least it did not work, since both players called pre and one of them on the flop as well. So the question is, could larger sizing have resulted in the desired folds? If we are not getting a lot of folds preflop and on the flop, then we are burning chips by playing a hand as bad as J6o, because even when we hit, we are still kind of in the dark, and the hand will often play out, like it did here.

 

[primrose]

Have seen many times where a player in position makes a small bet preflop and on the flop, and then checks the turn - his opponent then makes a fairly large bet on the river to take the pot.
With a min-raise preflop and an even smaller bet on the flop giving your opponent pot odds for a flush draw, you are setting yourself up for the scenario above.
My question is-as chip leader would larger bets preflop and on the flop make a difference? This might depend on your opponents styles.

I think betting larger is incorrect both before the flop and on the flop. The main reason is that whatever you want to achieve with a larger bet, you most likely already achieve with a small bet. I didn't write down stack sizes of the blinds for this hand (my stack was 60k), but they were probably around 20k. Betting 2200 may look small in relation to the pot, but it's actually a big deal for most people to call. I think betting really small is one of the powerful exploits in late-stage live tournament poker that you should just use all time. (Granted I was pushing it a bit with the 2200 sizing -- which is the kind of thing I do, like I tend to push things and see with how much exploit you can get away with.) You could certainly bet 2600 instead, but i think going over 3000 would be a serious mistake.

And preflop it's sort of similar, also I think people under-adjust their ranges to opening size and they're probably not defending wide enough to begin with (you have to realize 18.2% equity when defending the BB against a minraise), so raising larger will make their play closer to correct.

And this time at least it did not work, since both players called pre and one of them on the flop as well.

Well, I posted the hand because it didn't work on the flop. There are a lot of hands where I open some garbage, get one caller, and take the pot down on the flop with a small cbet. I can't prove this since I have no stats for live play, but I'd be pretty shocked if any button RFI has negative EV in spots like this.

 

[eetenor]

In this hand I'm on the final table of my local twice-weekly Casino tournament. I'm chipleader with about 30% of all chips and get on the Button. There are 9 people left. Blinds are 600/1200 with a BB Ante.

Because of the constellation I would raise almost anything on the Button (you gotta bully people if you have the bigstack); this hand is more than good enough. I raise 2400 and both blinds call. They're both pretty typical, non-scary live players.

The Flop comes (Pot=8400). It checks to me. I Cbet 2200 (would do this with or without the middle pair). The SB calls and the BB folds.

The Turn comes (Pot=12800). The SB checks. Not sure what to do now. This is generally a good card to bet; it's... not actually super in my range, but it doesn't really matter because people will give it credit regardless. They won't think logically about my range; they'll just see a scary overcard.

On the other hand, a Queen or Ace is probably not folding, and I beat most sixes and all fours. So I'm kind of only getting called by better. My default play in such a case is just to check, so I do that.

The River comes (Pot=12800). The SB leads 8000.

Pretty unpleasant spot. My hand is kind of under-repped; it looks like I have nothing, and I'm getting a pretty good price. This bet is also not polarized because polarized betting isn't a thing for most people. People bet marginal hands pretty often.

But they also don't bluff enough, and betting a 6 or 4 is a bit of a stretch (second pair is one thing, but this would be fourth or fifth pair). But they could fire missed clubs for about this amount; this would not be that surprising of a play. Nonetheless I decide to fold. Did not get a reveal.

I'm still most unsure about whether checking the Turn here is correct. If my opponent has clubs or a draw, then checking means passing by a pretty easy opportunity to take down the pot. If they have 2 pair or better they'll raise the turn and you can fold pretty easily, so it wouldn't be a terrible outcome (although it would lose about 4000 chips more than the line I took). If they have an Ace (A5 with a club or something) and just call, then... well I would probably either check or fold on the River anyway, so it probably amounts to the same as if they raise the Turn. So I guess the question is whether folding out draws/denying equity from overcards is worth it?

Still not sure, it's kind of a weird case where my intuition says a bet makes sense even though it's not really as a bluff or for value.

I think some more range study for you will help you in this spot. You state "not actually super in my range" You want to check to see how many AX hands you have in a 25% bet range- You have QQ AQoff AJoff etc etc--You also want to put max pressure on the SB which means you can easily bet turn with 36% of your range--J6 wants to check but not because you do not have Ax in your range

 

[primrose]

I think some more range study for you will help you in this spot. You state "not actually super in my range" You want to check to see how many AX hands you have in a 25% bet range- You have QQ AQoff AJoff etc etc--You also want to put max pressure on the SB which means you can easily bet turn with 36% of your range--J6 wants to check but not because you do not have Ax in your range

The 25% cbet range is almost any two cards. The only things that aren't in there are absolute garbage like 29o which I'm probably folding preflop... probably... and maybe QQ. Anything else I'm cbetting either as a bluff or for value, and I wouldn't use different sizes with anything.

 

[enno]

You say “you gotta bully people if you have the big stack”.
You can never bully with a min-raise.

 

[primrose]

Still unsure about the Turn so I decided to look at it myself a little more

Say my opponent defends this range:



Now I have them calling the Flop bet with with any pair, flushdraw, OESD, gutshot, or set (not two pair, those probably raise right away).



This range has this breakdown on the Turn:


So there are 45 flushdraws, 20 OESDs and 31 gutshots for a total of 96 draws among 289 combos. Of those 8 also have the Ace, so that's 88 combos of draws that I'd like to bet against. Then there are also 20 combinations of 88, 77 and stronger 6s, which might fold. So let's say 108 combinations where betting is good.

Conversely, we have 4 sets, 15 two pairs, 8 top pairs, and 84 middle pairs, for a total of 111 combinations where betting is bad because they're beating me and I don't think they're folding (the stronger hands that might fold are the 20 combinations I've mentioned above).

Of course the amount that these bets are good vs. bad is not necessarily the same. If I am betting the turn, I'm betting it for at most 4000, so I'm not losing that many chips. So betting the turn into a stronger hand is... let's say -3500 EV (not -4000 since I could always spike a second pair on the River). Betting against a draw is... very hard to say actually. Flopzilla doesn't let me filter out the Aces which are now top pairs out of the draws. But let's assume the draws have about 30% equity, rounded up a little because they could also bluff when missing, which I don't want either. If a bet folds those out then it's worth about 3800. Much more than that against the 20 combinations of stronger pairs that might fold.

All of this is a back of the envelope calculation... which unfortunately is so close that you could easily get a different answer by tweaking some of the assumptions. I guess I'm somewhat leaning toward not betting now because defending all gutshots is a bit wide and if they defend less then betting gets worse. If they defend some random Ace high hands, betting also gets worse. But seems very close ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Argument for betting is that sometimes people panic and do really weird things, like it's not actually out of the question that someone folds a Queen there.

 

[fundiver199]

A small blind defend range should be way narrower than this. He also should not call on the flop with just a gutshot, when he has another player behind him and a short stack. So I think, this is overly optimistic.

 

[primrose]

A small blind defend range should be way narrower than this.

Ohh, yeah, I forgot that the player who called the Flop bet was the SB rather than the BB. Yeah, this will change things. The turn bet should get worse then because there are more Queens and Aces. Tbh I think this is a mistake I make a lot while playing, like just categorizing either blind as "wide defend range" without differentiating SB from BB. This is something I should try to improve.

He also should not call on the flop with just a gutshot

maybe, though I'd point out that if the bet folds out everything except pair+ and OESD and flushdraw, then the small sizing is pretty effective. I think SB is probably more likely to continue with just a gutshot because he has the BB to act after him, so he could hope to get paid off big if he hits.

 

[primrose]

Version #2 (still defending gutshots)


With new breakdown:

Yeah, this makes it significantly worse, especially because 9 of the remaining flushdraws have an Ace in them.

Alright, I'm sold on checking the Turn.

 

[Poker Orifice]

fold pre
as played, > Bet turn

 

[primrose]

I'll just state one more time that if you are not opening this hand on the BN in this scenario, you are not maximizing your edge. You may be a positive ROI player, but you are not as positive as you could be.