Should I call this river raise after the turn has checked through?
Hi guys,
I was playing at my regular $2/$5 place last night. There was one limp before it got to me in C/O and I opened to $25 with T♠8♠. The button, who's been playing a pretty solid game all day, 3bets to $70 off a $500 stack (and I have him covered). I call and the flop comes T♥8♣4♦. I check to him, he bets $50, I call. I realise I can raise at this point but I know he's gonna cbet close to range here, and I wanted to keep his bluffs in (and I was intending to check jam any safe turn if he fires again, so I can get the money in good vs. a likely overpair). However, the 3♠ turn checks through. The river comes the Q♦ and I figure I can get value here from AQ, KQ and other showdown-bound hands that pot-controlled on the turn. So I bet $125, and to my surprise he tank-raises to $375.
Hero...?
would recomend u use gtow instead of whatever u did in pio. the pre ranges u have look really wonky to me and the outputs in general don't match. its going to work better if you look at 50 bb ranges given the sizings used and what the spr will be if you call preflop
Okay thanks; I used the ranges recommended in Modern Poker Theory and adjusted them slightly for how I believe live play differs from equilibrium. The stack sizes uses in the solve are simply the dollar amounts of how much went in pre and how much was left behind going to the flop. Why is it better to use 50bb ranges?
You have no idea how much fear I have in my heart that some day I’ll be sitting in a cardroom only to have gobbledygeek walk in and sit on my direct left armed with the knowledge of the heuristics I use to build 3! continuation ranges.
If your ranges are correct then they will make your opponents indifferent and it will not matter that they know them. It's only going to matter in cases where there are imbalances in your ranges - so if anything it sounds like you need to update your heuristics.
So the #1 thing to understand about postflop solutions is that the first actions on the flop are predominantly a reflection of the assumptions (especially the ranges) used for the sim. I'd think of it like a filtering function where the aggressor bets an amount and the defender calls an amount to make the ranges cohere with each other (though obviously with very different compositions), so that the solver's shows up on the turn (or facing a
Okay cool that makes sense, thanks for the info, very interesting. So you think if IP did bet J9 in this hand and get raised 3x, they would fold? It's pretty close mathematically. If you count the jacks as outs then they are getting the right price to call.
If your ranges are correct then they will make your opponents indifferent and it will not matter that they know them. It's only going to matter in cases where there are imbalances in your ranges - so if anything it sounds like you need to update your heuristics.
1) The post you quoted was a joke
2) No one plays GTO. By definition, a heuristic is an approximation, so if someone were to know the exact method you use to arrive at raising and calling decisions, they'd be able to counter-exploit you in a way that's usually infeasible in practice.
3) I hold my most useful data and heuristics as bartering chips for others who have something of value to trade with, or at least as tokens of appreciation for poker friends.
Okay cool that makes sense, thanks for the info, very interesting. So you think if IP did bet J9 in this hand and get raised 3x, they would fold? It's pretty close mathematically. If you count the jacks as outs then they are getting the right price to call.
In practice, I would have bet J9 more and checked gutshots more assuming the same as you. Which it very well might do in other seemingly similar spots or with subtle changes in assumptions.
You'll drive yourself crazy dissecting the exact quirks of how a solver plays each individual hand in a single sim, and I find it's more useful to understand how it plays buckets of hands as a whole across many sims.
Okay thanks; I used the ranges recommended in Modern Poker Theory and adjusted them slightly for how I believe live play differs from equilibrium. The stack sizes uses in the solve are simply the dollar amounts of how much went in pre and how much was left behind going to the flop. Why is it better to use 50bb ranges?
because of the dead money / remaining money pre and then the spr postflop. i don't know how to post ss here because im a moron so you're going to need to open up gtow and look at what im looking at. but you're going to see you're playing large segments of your range way too passively pre (if you don't think you can jam them here profitably i doubt you can call t8ss so i don't think that potential excuse will hold much weight) and missing other parts of the calling range. thats the issue with making up ranges as opposed to using pre solved or data mined ones.
there's really no world here where you want t8ss > atss postflop lol. even in the chart you showed, i don't think you're understanding the significance of a mixed vs pure strategy for a hand combo and what that means for their individual ev's. if it's mixing, that means defending is going to be similar ev to calling at equilibrium (neither strategy outperforms the other), whereas when its pure defending that means the ev of calling is > 0. yet you're eliminating a bunch of +ev hands for realistically no reason to add 0 / losing ev defends (mostly to justify the spew pre in this hand imo)
i said this in another thread but i think there's a good chance the way you're using pio especially for the games you're playing in is going to end up being an overall detriment.
1) The post you quoted was a joke
2) No one plays GTO. By definition, a heuristic is an approximation, so if someone were to know the exact method you use to arrive at raising and calling decisions, they'd be able to counter-exploit you in a way that's usually infeasible in practice.
3) I hold my most useful data and heuristics as bartering chips for others who have something of value to trade with, or at least as tokens of appreciation for p
Okay, well I think the main factor when deciding on 4betting/calling/folding when faced with a 3bet in live low stakes NLHE is the player type we're up against. A large portion of the player pool is only 3betting QQ+ and AK, which obviously has massive implications with how to proceed. It's safe to assume that the majority of players are playing this way until shown evidence to the contrary, and much safer to make that assumption than the inverse assumption - that they're 3betting as wide as they should, and including bluffs etc. Sidenote - of course position is also a big factor in how to proceed as well; I call wider in position and 4bet/fold more out of position. I really don't think there's a need to overcomplicate these situations with complicated heuristics, and there's a lot of diminishing returns in doing so regarding the work involved relative to the EV gained. I'd estimate that less than 2% of the players in my local game think in terms of combos.
In practice, I would have bet J9 more and checked gutshots more assuming the same as you. Which it very well might do in other seemingly similar spots or with subtle changes in assumptions.
You'll drive yourself crazy dissecting the exact quirks of how a solver plays each individual hand in a single sim, and I find it's more useful to understand how it plays buckets of hands as a whole across many sims.
Yes, I confess I would certainly be betting almost all open-enders IP in this hand too, and I appreciate that solver output can be difficult to interpret, especially if one only looks at a single hand and not many similar situations for greater context.
because of the dead money / remaining money pre and then the spr postflop. i don't know how to post ss here because im a moron so you're going to need to open up gtow and look at what im looking at. but you're going to see you're playing large segments of your range way too passively pre (if you don't think you can jam them here profitably i doubt you can call t8ss so i don't think that potential excuse will hold much weight) and missing ot
Okay, but the dead money/remaining money I entered for solving this hand is exactly as it was when the hand was played; it is unclear why changing that to 50bbs instead of 86bbs would be a better way to do it?
I'll take a look at GTO Wizard later today.
Which sections of my range am I playing too passively pre? Are you referring to the 50% of QQ and JJ that I included as calls in the solve? Are you saying these hands could/should consider 4bet jamming for 86bbs? I have them doing that about half of the time in the solve and I think it's certainly a profitable shove vs a villain who is 3betting the BTN as they should. I just don't like to do so at 100% frequency and I like to protect my calling range vs a 3bet with these hands some of the time.
Which parts of the calling range am I missing? I have ATs as a call also. Thanks for the info on a mixed vs pure strategy for a hand combo and what that means for their individual EVs, I've noted it and interested to learn more if you're willing to expand on it. I removed some hands when calling vs the 3bet because they are likely to be dominated (some Kx suited and A9s) - so you're saying that's a mistake? I prefer calling with T8s than these hands because it is less likely to be dominated and better connected.
I use Pio for study away from the game. I don't try and use Pio strategies in my local $2/$5 game, but I find it a useful tool for looking at hands for various reasons such as how to play/balance ranges, which hands to check-raise, bluff with etc. I realize there's a lot more to it than that but for now that is more than sufficient for the study I need to do.
unless im misunderstanding the ss you showed, you have oops range as 1/2 88-qq, 1/2 AKo, AQo, AJss, Aqss, 1/2 a4ss-a5ss, 1/2 of 65ss-t9ss, 1/2 t8ss-j9ss, qtss, qjss
this is poorly constructed with the amount of dead money pre compared to stacks and the rake in general
studying is great but solvers are basically large calculators. especially something like pio it's really easy to make mistakes with input and end up with incorrect conclusions. is why i think gtow or something of that ilk is better for the vast majority of people.
your logic for choosing t8ss over the suited broadways doesnt really make sense. you can also check this for urself really quickly if u start clicking around in a few different pre sims. you're going to see that the mixes at low rake are the first hands to get cut in high rake, and you're randomly removing +ev defends from ur range to add what are (in high rake) -ev defends. you can do whatever you want and play however you want, but i think it's dangerous bc you're making clear errors range construction wise and think that they're theoretically justified.
i keep trying to tell you that because of your open size the situation is akin to a 50bb solve because of stacks left after his 3b and what they post flop spr would be. it doesn't really matter how deep you actually are in effective bb, just the amount in the pot compared to what you're risking. if your argument is he is going to play tighter than the 50bb sim because its actually 500$, that's going to make your flat with t8ss losing more. i don't want to keep going in circles about that point though
when you look at gtow make sure you look at the difference in solves preflop between 500nl and 50nl. you play in a high rake environment so you're going to be much closer to the 50nl solve and you're going to see what a drastic impact it makes in these spots. to put things in perspective, you're probably better off not having a calling range here preflop than doing what you're doing (im not advocating that as the solution fwiw)
to add, the biggest ev blunders in your range construction compared to equlibrium here are by far flatting with your value hands to protect your calling range or w/e you think you're doing. its like a 1.5-2bb error to flat with AKo or QQ as opposed to 4bet, whereas calling with something like t8ss is a .02 bb mistake. these assumptions rely on button playing probably a good deal more aggressively than he is in practice but it's worth looking at the ev's and seeing where you can potentially be making a catastrophic mistake. second biggest is folding something like KQss pre where you're making a ton of ev continuing. you're just going to be better off using presolved ranges as opposed to trying to make your own unless there's something like the 72 bounty in effect
unless im misunderstanding the ss you showed, you have oops range as 1/2 88-qq, 1/2 AKo, AQo, AJss, Aqss, 1/2 a4ss-a5ss, 1/2 of 65ss-t9ss, 1/2 t8ss-j9ss, qtss, qjss
this is poorly constructed with the amount of dead money pre compared to stacks and the rake in general
studying is great but solvers are basically large calculators. especially something like pio it's really easy to make mistakes with input and end up with incorrect conclusions.
This is the range I'm defending with:
It should include ATs, I must have missed that when I was entering the range. Can you tell me what else is wrong with this range? What range would you use?
Yes I could certainly improve my skills with Pio and that's something I'd like to work on.
I don't have any preflop sims I can access/use. What do you recommend?
It definitely makes sense that that mixes at low rake are the first hands to get cut in high rake.
I see what you're saying regarding a 50bb solve. But what difference does it make if the SPR is the same in both cases? I don't think this particular villain is going to play tighter than the 50bb sim because its actually $500.
Yes noted about looking at the 50nl solve in GTOW rather than the 500nl solves, that makes a lot of sense.
So you're saying I should 4bet rip or fold vs the 3bet at this stack depth?
What stakes do you play?
This is the range I'm defending with:
It should include ATs, I must have missed that when I was entering the range. Can you tell me what else is wrong with this range? What range would you use?
Yes I could certainly improve my skills with Pio and that's something I'd like to work on.
I don't have any preflop sims I can access/use. What do you recommend?
It definitely makes sense that that mixes at low rake are the first hands to get cut in hi
GTOw has like 50 different pre solves. I'm telling you to look at the 50bb one because that's most similar to what's going on in the hh you presented (your open and his 3b size are fairly similar sizing wise to like a 5/10 hand with 500 effective stacks. the range you have is problematic where you're flatting hands that are much higher ev as 4bets, folding hands that are fairly profitable as calls, and adding random -ev combos to your range. you have these weird human biases for making these decisions that don't have much relevance if you're going to try to actually solve the spot. whether you want to implement the solutions in game or adjust is up to you
I play play money poker :(
GTOw has like 50 different pre solves. I'm telling you to look at the 50bb one because that's most similar to what's going on in the hh you presented (your open and his 3b size are fairly similar sizing wise to like a 5/10 hand with 500 effective stacks. the range you have is problematic where you're flatting hands that are much higher ev as 4bets, folding hands that are fairly profitable as calls, and adding random -ev combos to your range
Okay I'll take a look at GTOw tonight and get back to you. Yes I understand what you mean with the 50bb solves. I'll also run the solve again in Pio with the changes that you've suggested and see how it affects the results; might be an interesting experiment. I definitely have human biases that affect a pure game theory solve, that's true.
Can you please provide some context as to how much EV you're talking about when you say "its like a 1.5-2bb error to flat with AKo or QQ as opposed to 4bet, whereas calling with something like t8ss is a .02 bb mistake"? There is obviously a huge difference between 1.5-2bb error if you're talking about within the context of 200bbs or 20bbs; I don't know what you're referring to and so the significance of what you're saying is unclear. I expect it's something like "flatting with QQ has an EV of 88bb whereas 4betting has an EV of 91bb" - would help a lot if you could clarify that.
I'll definitely review my 3bet calling ranges after our discussion, thanks for the pointers, I'm trying to improve and I appreciate it a lot.
Okay I'll take a look at GTOw tonight and get back to you. Yes I understand what you mean with the 50bb solves. I'll also run the solve again in Pio with the changes that you've suggested and see how it affects the results; might be an interesting experiment. I definitely have human biases that affect a pure game theory solve, that's true.
Can you please provide some context as to how much EV you're talking about when you say "its like a 1.5
when you look at the gtow solve it will list the evs. 4bing and 4b jamming AKo are worth about 5-5.5bb and calling is worth 3.5. in comparison calling t8ss is 0ev at low rake and around -.02bb to call at high rake. with that being said i think unless button is bad in an exploitable way beyond he 3bs too tight, you're going to underperform that by a good amount with t8. anyways no more posts in this thread for me, gl
when you look at the gtow solve it will list the evs. 4bing and 4b jamming AKo are worth about 5-5.5bb and calling is worth 3.5. in comparison calling t8ss is 0ev at low rake and around -.02bb to call at high rake. with that being said i think unless button is bad in an exploitable way beyond he 3bs too tight, you're going to underperform that by a good amount with t8. anyways no more posts in this thread for me, gl
Okay, thanks for the input, I appreciate it a lot.
This loojs like ****in…. Classic TINO play. Where is raise announced?
Your problem is you cant raise for value on the flop because it turns your hand face up because you arent bluff raising enough. I mean maybe im wrong, but thats the only logical reason to not raise on the flop.
Okay and how do you conclude this is higher EV than other options? What's the reasoning behind check-raising so much in this situation, out of position after defending against a 3bet? Are you trying to play GTO here, or exploitative? Interested to learn and hope you can explain. There were very few check-raises when I checked this hand with Piosolver. T8s was check-raising about 15% of the time but even then the EV was almost identical to calling.
Before you go way down a GTO rabbit hole you need to look at preflop ranges and see if they make any sense. The two spots that gto are completely wildly off of real ranges are LP 3 bet spots (CO vs btn probably the furthest off), and IP cold call ranges (youre supposed to cold call super tight and strong, but nobody does that)
absolutely zero live players, even the very most aggressive ones, are 3 betting at correct frequencies CO vs BTN. Btn is supposed to be 3 betting J9 almost 100%, T8 sometimes, TT/88 half the time, as well as plenty of Tx that V simply doesnt have.
As others mentioned, you should be over folding pre against what is almost certainly too strong of a 3 betting range, so T8 has no business mixing it up, but i dont really hate the call, mostly because V is likely turning their hand face up. On a ten high board, V will often have an overpair or no pair. Your 2 pair is the nuts, and most solid players get away from one pair hands facing a raise, unless youve cultivated the type of image that can let you take his stack in this spot.
I mean youre looking at gto’s river spot here without looking at how GTOs 3 betting range gets here and asking yourself if its anywhere within the realm of what V has. The Q is a scare card because of all his J9 QT that he practically doesnt have.
