Homework #1
It's finally here, the first homework assignment for my students. Here's how it will work:
I post a hand, you analyze it and tell me what our brave donkslaying hero's thought process is (or should be) in the hand and how he should proceed. Sometimes I'll give the complete hand history, other times I'll leave the next action blank for you to describe, but in all cases I expect you to think about the hand ranges of all players involved (on each street), how they would typically react with each part of their hand range and what our Hero should do based on that. I'll try to provide plenty of reads and current game dynamic to make developing a hand range easier.
In our first example, our Hero has been playing about 24/20, pretty LAG game. Hero has been 3betting a good amount and playing generally aggressive with both good hands and bluffs. Hero hasn't shown down any bluffs but based on the aggression it should be obvious to anyone paying attention that he hasn't had the nuts every time.
SB has also been a very LAG game preflop at stats of 29/19 and being generally aggressive postflop. We've seen some minor bluffs being shown down from SB, but nothing too ridiculous. SB seems to a decent hand reader, at least insofar as he can recognize when it's likely someone has a weak hand.
MP is generally a weak player, he doesn't reload his buyin to full, he doesn't play his hands very strongly and generally can't read hands very well. He's the soft spot at the table for sure.
Now here's the hand:
Poker Stars - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $3/$6 Blinds - 6 Players
SB: $825.00
BB: $597.00
UTG: $954.65
MP: $300.30
Hero (CO): $671.00
BTN: $484.80
Preflop: Hero is dealt 3
3
(6 Players)
UTG folds, MP raises to $18.00, Hero calls $18.00, BTN folds, SB calls $15.00, BB folds
Flop: ($60) 7
5 J (3 Players)
SB checks, MP bets $18.00, Hero calls $18.00, SB raises to $66.00, MP folds, Hero calls $48.00
Turn: ($210) 4 (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero bets $135.00, SB calls $135.00
River: ($480) A
(2 Players)
SB checks, Hero ???
On the river the effective stacks are about $450. What should hero do? Launch the bluff or take the showdown? Most importantly, tell me WHY ?
When all the students have responded I'll decide who I think has the best answer/analysis and perhaps after the first 5 homeworks whoever has the most correct answers will win a prize. Maybe some free coaching time or something.
I post a hand, you analyze it and tell me what our brave donkslaying hero's thought process is (or should be) in the hand and how he should proceed. Sometimes I'll give the complete hand history, other times I'll leave the next action blank for you to describe, but in all cases I expect you to think about the hand ranges of all players involved (on each street), how they would typically react with each part of their hand range and what our Hero should do based on that. I'll try to provide plenty of reads and current game dynamic to make developing a hand range easier.
In our first example, our Hero has been playing about 24/20, pretty LAG game. Hero has been 3betting a good amount and playing generally aggressive with both good hands and bluffs. Hero hasn't shown down any bluffs but based on the aggression it should be obvious to anyone paying attention that he hasn't had the nuts every time.
SB has also been a very LAG game preflop at stats of 29/19 and being generally aggressive postflop. We've seen some minor bluffs being shown down from SB, but nothing too ridiculous. SB seems to a decent hand reader, at least insofar as he can recognize when it's likely someone has a weak hand.
MP is generally a weak player, he doesn't reload his buyin to full, he doesn't play his hands very strongly and generally can't read hands very well. He's the soft spot at the table for sure.
Now here's the hand:
Poker Stars - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $3/$6 Blinds - 6 Players
SB: $825.00
BB: $597.00
UTG: $954.65
MP: $300.30
Hero (CO): $671.00
BTN: $484.80
Preflop: Hero is dealt 3
3 (6 Players)UTG folds, MP raises to $18.00, Hero calls $18.00, BTN folds, SB calls $15.00, BB folds
Flop: ($60) 7
5 J (3 Players)SB checks, MP bets $18.00, Hero calls $18.00, SB raises to $66.00, MP folds, Hero calls $48.00
Turn: ($210) 4
(2 Players)SB checks, Hero bets $135.00, SB calls $135.00
River: ($480) A
(2 Players)SB checks, Hero ???
On the river the effective stacks are about $450. What should hero do? Launch the bluff or take the showdown? Most importantly, tell me WHY ?
When all the students have responded I'll decide who I think has the best answer/analysis and perhaps after the first 5 homeworks whoever has the most correct answers will win a prize. Maybe some free coaching time or something.
posted by WiltOnTilt at 6:09 PM
8 Comments:
wow, this definitely looks interesting!
In order to be able to analyze this you have to provide a read for MP though ;)
Good catch haian, the UTG read was for MP. I changed it in the blog entry so hopefully it's less confusing.
Aaron
ZOMG fold preflop you fish.
- Spikeyjak
Pre-flop....
Ok so we see the weak MP open up to a 3x BB raise, which, a call from 33 is fine. When SB calls that's good to see for our pot to be bigger if we hit our set.
Flop...
C-bet from the MP who we've seen is a weak player. Trying to put him on a range I'd say 50% top pair, 20% overpair, 20% middle pair, 10% floating. With this board I would either fold or raise, but I don't like smooth calling here because it forces us to make a big bet on the turn to win the pot. Once the SB raises, I definitely fold.
Turn...
Check from the SB. I see this as one of those WAY ahead or WAY behind times. I think by betting we're looking at fold or a raise, but alas we see a check call. I doubt the 4 has helped out our villain so I've gotten to put him on TP or MP most of the time.
River ...
This really seems like an AI, check/fold situation. After one more check, it really leads me to think that the SB is weak, but I just think in the long run shoving is a -EV move. It's a $480 pot and to make money in this situation we need to fold/called and win 50%ish percent of the time. I fold and wait for a better time to get in all my money.
jmson23@hotmail.com
FLOP
The SB has a wide range for squeezing on this flop: Jx,J7,57,7x,77,66,55,44, maybe 88 or 99 but I think he'd be more inclined to squeeze with these preflop, 86 or 64 for the OESD. 98 for the double gutter and of course complete air(its unlike MP has hit such a dry board and your hero's call screams weakness).
TURN.
The chk/call on the turn helps significantly narrow villains range. Obviously he doesn't have air. I doubt villain sticks around for that sized bet with any missed draws so there out. If the villain had a set or 2 pair or has hit his straight with 86 we can be pretty confident that he's betting that turn oop. He doesn't want to give a free card as there are alot of cards that can either kill his action or give his opponent the winning hand. Any 3, 6 or 8 brings 4 to a straight and any Q, K or A may kill his action if we have a Jack. So we can rule those hands out.
Whats left of his range:
7x and 66 may make up a small % of the villains range here but I think the majority of villains range is Jx. So I think we are going to have the best hand basically never so we need to figure out whether a bluff will be profitable.
RIVER.
On the river we can conclude that the villain does not have AJo as the villain would have to be 100% sure you were going to bet the river here to go for a check raise.
So the villains most likely holding is KJ,QJ,J10. His chk/call on the turn and chk on the river looks like he's trying to get to showdown cheaply. The ace is a great card for hero as it has changed the board and it has obviously not helped the villain. Therefore I think launching the bluff is the play. villain not only has to worry about an ace but a set could play this way (calling the flop on such a dry board to let your opponents catch up).
The only problem with this is repping a hand containing an ace that would play this way- A7 maybe AJ. So I dont know if your opponent thinks deep enough to discount an ace from your range, but I just dont think he can call a river shove with such a great scare card.
villain may call that turn bet with a draw so that will make up a small part of villains range on river
The way he played, SB has marginal top pair or 2nd pocket pair hand at best, probably picked up a draw on the turn, but the A on the river is a perfect scare card for him. Hero's line actually seems very strong therefore hero can easily represent a set or even AJs so firing the bluff on the river is definitely +EV in this particular hand. In the long run though this river shove is marginal at best and any thinking played would pick off.
Ok I'm so lost in this hand. I'd be folding to the flop raise, I mean are we calling for value or to bluff on a later street? Even if our hand is good here we're only 3:1 at best, and I don't see how we can get this to showdown and be good.
Either way our line does look strong, like we're trying to rep 55/77, maybe AJ.
I disagree that this is a shove/check situation. We have almost a pot sized bet behind and villain obviously has a weak hand. If we did have a strong hand that ace is pretty bad for us as it kill our action.
I like a bet on this river. But would be looking at sizing it somewhere around $320. Imo that looks more believable and is just as effective as a shove. Also it doesn't need to succeed as much as a shove to make it +EV
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