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May 22, 2016
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I’ve been watching an old series by ginger where he goes through 10 videos of him coaching someone who’s average buyin is around my level – the $5-$20 range. I’ve already found this super helpful for refreshing my HM2 knowledge, and I’ve been trying to pause the video a lot to run similar checks on my own numbers.
While doing this I was looking at some of the largest pots I’ve ever played and found this one (I had to delete my original database a year ago so lost about 6 years of hands, however in some ways this is a blessing as I know hands since then are played somewhats similarly to how I do now). I didn’t post it at the time but I think in retrospect it is worthy of some study. I’ll put some of my thinking throughout the hand to provide a jumping off point/some discussion points.
PokerStars Hand #177198247953: Tournament #2067782327, $5.00+$0.50 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level II (30/60) – 2017/10/21 18:06:27 WET [2017/10/21 13:06:27 ET]
Table ‘2067782327 51’ 9-max Seat #8 is the button (won the previous hand)
Seat 1: davivargas (10628 in chips)
Seat 2: MrJam1n (9758 in chips)
Seat 3: R.Castelaci (7577 in chips)
Seat 4: micsa2121 (10000 in chips)
Seat 5: Shagy1710 (10183 in chips)
Seat 6: ScotLib (9943 in chips)
Seat 7: dimfil197000 (8978 in chips)
Seat 8: tidodo (11945 in chips)
Seat 9: ziggo90 (8787 in chips)
davivargas: posts the ante 6
MrJam1n: posts the ante 6
R.Castelaci: posts the ante 6
micsa2121: posts the ante 6
Shagy1710: posts the ante 6
ScotLib: posts the ante 6
dimfil197000: posts the ante 6
tidodo: posts the ante 6
ziggo90: posts the ante 6
ziggo90: posts small blind 30
davivargas: posts big blind 60
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ScotLib [Qc Tc]
MrJam1n: folds
R.Castelaci: raises 90 to 150
micsa2121: folds
Shagy1710: folds
ScotLib: raises 330 to 480
dimfil197000: calls 480
tidodo: calls 480
ziggo90: folds
davivargas: folds
R.Castelaci: calls 330
Pre-flop QTs is a reasonable part of my light 3 betting range, especially as it plays well post. Targeting UTG+2 is a little questionable if he’s playing his range correcntly and tightening up in EP, but often players at the $5 level do not make this adjustment correctly, as well as over-folding to a 3 bet. However I was surprised by the 2 cold calls behind, the first one seems likely to be reasonably strong, or incredibly fishy, and I only had 6 hands on him at the time so it’s hard to find out which. The second one seems more likely to be a weak player who likes calling too much so worries me less. His stats off 66 hands are 30/11/3, so he does seem like a bit of a calling station pre. Given the pot odds offerred and the multiway action I feel UTG+2 caps their range hard when they flat call, as the stronger part of their range has a lot of incentive to get more chips in given the amount of players in the pot.
*** FLOP *** [8d 4s Qs]
R.Castelaci: checks
ScotLib: bets 826
dimfil197000: calls 826
tidodo: calls 826
R.Castelaci: calls 826
Not a terrible flop but quite dry. I believe looking back that I was betting too protect against the flush draw and too try and fold out some overcards, as betting in to 3 shows some considerable strength. However as I have only a weak TP I’m not sure I like this play in retrospect. Checking hands like this strengthens my checking range, and allows me to call down in certain situations. It also stops me getting blown off by anyone with a flush draw who decides to play it aggressively. Once I bet and 3 players call it’s hard to range them in a way that I am ahead much of the time, but again the passive lines taken can potentially cap their ranges, as it’s a wet enough board that many sets would be raising to get it in given the size of the pot already.
*** TURN *** [8d 4s Qs] [3c]
R.Castelaci: checks
ScotLib: checks
dimfil197000: checks
tidodo: bets 2684
R.Castelaci: calls 2684
ScotLib: calls 2684
dimfil197000: raises 4982 to 7666 and is all-in
tidodo: folds
R.Castelaci: calls 3581 and is all-in
ScotLib: calls 4982
On this turn I check, which I think is uncontroversial, and then call a half pot bet from the button after UTG+2 calls as well. Although I am not in love with my hand, the other players haven’t shown a great deal of strength, and I’m getting pot odds of 4:1 so only need to win 20% of the time. When the player behind me shoves this puzzles me a lot as it doesn’t match up great with the rest of his line. However as it’s a relatively small shove compared to the pot it seems strong, as he can’t expect a huge amount of fold equity? I can see some sets playing this way, although obviously I block top set. Given the board it’s hard to believe it’s a pair and flush draw either. To be frank in game I was completely baffled by the line as far as how to range him! However once button folds and UTG+2 calls we’re left needing to call 6k to win 25k, meaning we only need to be right 17% of the time. But with 2 opponents how often can we be winning? Some percentage of the time they can have 2 spade draws, or some players will just tool out when the pot gets this big but it’s hard to find what we beat. Can we count some extra outs against some of the hands that are beating us? Q’s might sometimes be good but not if they boat up an opponent. T bringing us to 2 pair does not put us ahead of much of the opponents range. I’d be interested to hear everyone’s thoughts on this spot as it caused me a headache in game! Eventually I decided that in this case it would be much worse to fold incorrectly as we were early in the tournament, and a stack this big could propel me to a deep run so closed my eyes and called.
*** RIVER *** [8d 4s Qs 3c] [2c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ScotLib: shows [Qc Tc] (a pair of Queens)
dimfil197000: shows [Jc Jd] (a pair of Jacks)
ScotLib collected 2802 from side pot
R.Castelaci: shows [As Js] (high card Ace)
ScotLib collected 26847 from main pot
dimfil197000 finished the tournament
R.Castelaci finished the tournament
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 29649 Main pot 26847. Side pot 2802. | Rake 0
Board [8d 4s Qs 3c 2c]
Seat 3: R.Castelaci showed [As Js] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 6: ScotLib showed [Qc Tc] and won (29649) with a pair of Queens
Seat 7: dimfil197000 showed [Jc Jd] and lost with a pair of Jacks
I remember being shocked when I saw this at showdown, as I hate how JJ played it all the way through. UTG+2 makes some sense, but I’m surprised he didn’t play this a little fast early. Main takeaways? I’m a luckbox, and despite the fact I won I’m really not sure I can find much of a range for the 2 of them that I beat on the river, so this could be the 1% I win
Thank’s in advance.
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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This deep the 3bet is fine if you think UTG1 is opening too wide/will play badly post, but this isn’t typically a hand you should 3-bet vs an EP open, especially when shallower. It’s a little unclear what you mean by “my light 3bet range”, but this needs to vary by position, it can’t jsut be “these are the hands I 3-bet with no matter what position and I the original raiser are in”.
Once you do get so many callers in a 3-bet pot, you need to recognize that your hand is “overrepresented”. Although you have top pair, you are nowhere near the top of your range. Presumably AQ,KQ,QJ,KK,AA, and QQ are all in your range, and many of them may be in opponents’ ranges as well. So it’s pretty ambitious to think that you can bet a hand this weak for value. I’d start by checking and possibly even fold if more than one opponent puts money in before the action is back to you.
Turn is a clear fold to the initial bet and call, never mind the check-raise. I think it’s telling that you are just pointing at the pot odds you’re getting and not talking about ranges for the Villains. OK, you need to win 25% of the time, so now look at realistic ranges for these players and determine whether you actually have 25% equity.
Basically what happened here is that you 3-bet an overly weak hand for your position, which maybe you had exploitive reasons for doing, but once you end up going to the flop four ways, you need to accept that your hand is overly weak for the situation, and that you will probably be giving up a lot, including in some spots where your hand seems strong in absolute terms. In a four-way, three-bet pot, top pair with a bad kicker is pretty far from the nuts.
February 8, 2017
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Foucault said
Basically what happened here is that you 3-bet an overly weak hand for your position, which maybe you had exploitive reasons for doing, but once you end up going to the flop four ways, you need to accept that your hand is overly weak for the situation, and that you will probably be giving up a lot, including in some spots where your hand seems strong in absolute terms. In a four-way, three-bet pot, top pair with a bad kicker is pretty far from the nuts.
This was a trap that I would fall into for a long, long time. After making a light 3bet, I would frequently feel obligated to play it aggressively after flopping a decent hand or draw. I would think along the lines of “I can’t make light 3bets if I’m not fighting for the pot postflop” so, anytime I flopped a decent made hand, I could justify value betting by telling myself “I’m bluffing here a lot so villains are going to call wide.”
I was focused so much on the hands I would be 3betting as a bluff that I kind of forgot that I would 3bet at least as many value hands. Long story short, I eventually learned to consider my entire range for these situations. Hands similar to yours are among the worst made hands you will have (JJ-99 might not even 3bet preflop). In a heads up pot, I can see the merits of a value bet. You’re mostly representing AA/KK/AQ when betting into 3 players, you’ll be up against a better hand almost anytime you get action (or a flush draw, but how many suited combos cold-call 3bets preflop). After someone cold-calls a 3bet (this is often a pair 99-QQ) and we go to the flop 4 ways, I’m really only looking to build a pot if I flop two pair or an 8+ out draw. I agree with Andrew that we can check-call a bet if no one else calls, but strongly consider folding anytime two people put more money in on the flop. Our hand is just not very strong, and only drawing to at most 5 outs if its behind.
I don’t hate the QTs 3bet but I prefer flatting it. You’re going to flop equity relatively often but EP open ranges include a lot of hands that have you dominated. There are 4 players left to act, you’ll very rarely get action from a worse hand, and you’re forced to fold preflop anytime you face a 4bet. I prefer call > fold > 3bet most of the time. If there are aggressive 3bettors behind me I’m probably looking to fold QTs in the hijack. I would prefer to put a hand like A5s, 87s or AJo into my 3bet range. Those hands are borderline to very bad flats against an EP open, so you’re not wasting a playable hand the times you get 4bet. Any hand with an Ace reduces the likelihood that villain has the top of their range (we block 1/2 AA and 1/4 of AK). 87s allows us to cover more boards, making our entire 3bet range harder to play against on flops that don’t have any Broadway cards.
As played I’m folding to the initial bet and call on the turn. I can empathize with the temptations of building a massive stack in the early game, but hard to imagine it’s happening nearly often enough to make up for the times our stack gets crippled.
November 28, 2015
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I was going to go to bed about 30 minutes ago, but decided “nah, let me just check TPE quick”. Boy am I glad I did! I can’t even explain how much I have learned about 3-betting ranges from this discussion. God, I love this site!
I don’t have nearly as much experience as the three of you do so it’s pretty pointless to give an opinion about how this hand was played. It’s kind of like the winning acts already performed and now I have to go out on stage next….Sucks to be next, right? Well, not exactly….
” but this needs to vary by position, it can’t jsut be “these are the hands I 3-bet with no matter what position and I the original raiser are in”.” You also said “especially as stack sizes get shallower”. If stack sizes are deeper/shallower, could this hand be more useful as a 4-bet/fold to 5-bet pre? Also, what do you think about AQo in place of the QTs as a candidate for a 3-bet light hand?
“Once you do get so many callers in a 3-bet pot, you need to recognize that your hand is “overrepresented”. Although you have top pair, you are nowhere near the top of your range. Presumably AQ,KQ,QJ,KK,AA, and QQ are all in your range, and many of them may be in opponents’ ranges as well. So it’s pretty ambitious to think that you can bet a hand this weak for value. I’d start by checking and possibly even fold if more than one opponent puts money in before the action is back to you.” So basically Andrew, you are saying we need to recognize the strength of our hand, with the number of opponents involved, and adjust our play? By recognizing relative strength of our hand this should ultimately dictate how we behave given the current board and the effects it could have on the behavior of everyone else. Like, if we continue here we are almost forcing our opponents to play optimally because their calling ranges would basically be all the hands that would (or should be) ahead of ours?
“Turn is a clear fold to the initial bet and call, never mind the check-raise. I think it’s telling that you are just pointing at the pot odds you’re getting and not talking about ranges for the Villains. OK, you need to win 25% of the time, so now look at realistic ranges for these players and determine whether you actually have 25% equity.” I used Flopzilla, and some things you have said to me in the past when referring to ranging our opponents when ranging this situation to try and reflect what you are saying here which I think is this: Given the number of opponents in the pot, and all the action on the turn, this is how I ranged the situation we face;
AA-QQ,88,44,AQo,KQo,AQs,KQs-KJs,QJs,98s. I understand this may be a little wider than what we really face and it might not. Either way, we are looking at this:
39 total combos. 7 of those combos are sets, which we are drawing absolutely dead to.
12 combos of overpairs that we have 11% equity against.
18 combos of toppair (which is probably a lot wider than what the case really is) which we are dominated by and have roughly 7% equity against.
2 combos of flushdraws, one of which has a pair +fd (98s) which we have 70% equity against but could change by the river.
“I would prefer to put a hand like A5s, 87s or AJo into my 3bet range. Those hands are borderline to very bad flats against an EP open, so you’re not wasting a playable hand the times you get 4bet.” What I am to understand from what you are saying is that the idea behind a 3betting hand/range is one that allows us to hit multiple avenues of strong hands like Flushes and Straights, on wider ranges of board textures like broadway boards and middle card connected boards, with the added benefit of having blocker cards. Is this what makes it more difficult for our opponents to be able to accurately play well against us? Because it’s harder for them to know which cards help us vs which cards help them and makes it much easier for us to adjust and play accordingly?
May 22, 2016
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Thank you for all of the comments/feedback!
I posted the hand up as I have to agree with Andrew and Duck that my play was poor. I found the hand (which I played about a year ago) filtering through my database and it immediately caught my eye because I thought ‘How the hell have I ended up in a situation where there’s 400bb in the middle and I’m there with QTs top pair no draw”. This rarely seems like a good idea, but I was interested to get feedback on the process that had led me there. Since last year I’ve done a lot more work looking at constructing light 3/4 bet ranges, as I feel this can be very profiitable and make me much harder to play against, and have moved towards using suited wheel aces a lot more.
Pre-flop I still quite like, as long as I can be sure the player is not particularly positionally aware. I’ve had a lot of success in smaller buy-ins using an aggressive 3 betting strategy, as so few players at that level do and you tend to get over-credited. However as Andrew says I need to be aware that I’m playing extremely exploitatively when I do this, and that I have all of the stronger hands in my range as well so don’t need to go crazy post-flop just because I showed aggression pre. I suspect part of this leak is because I’m not very balanced post, as most of my strong hands get bet a lot, but again, at the level I’m currently playing at this is hard to change as many people underbluff even faced with passivity. This in turn makes it much less likely that I will be exploited though, as even if I show passivity there are not many players who will then put me in particularly tought spots.
I’m glad you’ve been able to learn from my mistakes Maniac, and I like a lot of your analysis post. Your range analysis certainly puts in stark context just how bad a shape I’m in, and it’s something that even now I can be a little susceptible to under-adjusting for if the pot odds seem ‘just too good’.
I believe the reason Andrew wouldn’t recommend 3 betting QTs against UTG opens off a shorter stack is that we don’t have enough post-flop manouverability to make it profitable. At smaller stacks depths blockers become more important, as they lower the chance that you’re raising in to the top of an opponents range, so hands with Aces and Kings are more valuable but i hope Andrew jumps back on to explain this much more coherently!
February 8, 2017
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ScotFish said
I believe the reason Andrew wouldn’t recommend 3 betting QTs against UTG opens off a shorter stack is that we don’t have enough post-flop manouverability to make it profitable. At smaller stacks depths blockers become more important, as they lower the chance that you’re raising in to the top of an opponents range, so hands with Aces and Kings are more valuable but i hope Andrew jumps back on to explain this much more coherently!
As a general rule, we want to polarize our 3bet range as our stack gets shorter. Whereas at larger stack depths we want to focus on postflop playability, we typically want our short stack bluffs to be hands with blockers that aren’t quite strong enough to flat call. Depending on position and stack depth, having an A in our hand blocks ~14-18% of value 4bet combos. A queen rarely blocks more than 10%. Aces also block villain’s most likely 4bet bluffs and a larger percentage of hands that might flat a 3bet.
I’m in the process of studying 3betting strategy and am very aware of holes in my understanding, so please take my advice with a grain of salt. I’m quite sure Andrew can provide better (or at least more precise) reasoning but I’ll do my best. I’m also feeling pretty foggy today, so I can’t be sure that I’m not explaining things poorly or missing a critical piece of the puzzle. Anyway… I see two more reasons that hands like QTs become worse 3bets as our stack gets shorter:
1. We risk being denied our equity by giving our opponent the opportunity to 4bet. This can be a problem at any stack depth but is much more important when risking a significant portion of our chips. Seeing the flop before facing more bets gives us opportunities to make strong hands before we commit many chips, and we can get away from our hand cheaply when we miss. Granted, we sacrifice the fold equity of 3betting, but that’s probably less of a priority than minimizing risk and maximizing our chance to realize our equity. In this specific hand, QTs doesn’t want to call HJ vs an EP open at <=40bb but, as a general rule, our middling suited/connected hands are more interested (preflop) in realizing their own equity rather than denying equity to the weaker parts of villain’s range.
2. To your point about maneuverability, shrinking the stack to pot ratio makes it much harder to play marginal made hands (unless you’re really short). QTs rarely flops better than top pair with a marginal kicker, but it’s really hard and usually incorrect to fold top pair once the pot gets large relative to our stack. Say we 3bet to 6bb and the raiser calls, the pot will be ~14.5bb on the flop. If we started the hand with <= 30bb, the SPR is lower than two. It’s pretty hard to recommend folding flopped top pairs with <2 SPR (at least on most board textures), but you’re rarely a big favorite vs. range, so we don’t really benefit from putting ourselves in that situation. Hands that make dominating pairs (ie AK-AJ,KQ) are much, much happier getting it in with one pair on the flop. We’ll also have less fold equity when we flop draws, as villains will be more committed to their marginal made hands and we rarely have enough chips to make two meaningful bets, let alone a third barrel.
I hope that’s helpful. I need a nap.
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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Well said, DDD. The bottom line is that when you’re shallow, you want to focus on how well your hand plays when it flops a pair, which is OK but not great for this hand (as illustrated here). When you’re deep, you have a lot more room to pressure marginal hands in an opponent’s range in a 3-bet pot, and it’s nice to have draws when you do that.
What you need to recognize is that when you go four ways to the flop: (a) you’re no longer that deep; and (b) you have to run pretty good to run into three marginal hands that you can pressure (or, in this case, value bet with top pair bad kicker).
February 8, 2017
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Maniackid11 said
What I am to understand from what you are saying is that the idea behind a 3betting hand/range is one that allows us to hit multiple avenues of strong hands like Flushes and Straights, on wider ranges of board textures like broadway boards and middle card connected boards, with the added benefit of having blocker cards. Is this what makes it more difficult for our opponents to be able to accurately play well against us? Because it’s harder for them to know which cards help us vs which cards help them and makes it much easier for us to adjust and play accordingly?
Yes, board coverage with hands that frequently flop strong draws is what we want from bluffs that don’t have strong blockers. Since our value 3bets are often exclusively big pairs and strong Broadways, we want some of our bluffs to hit boards that miss our value range. If our only 3bet bluffs also have 2 high cards, villains can figure out that our best hand on a lot of boards is an overpair, and that our value range may only consist of overpairs. Although it would be nearly impossible for villains to confidently make that read without playing a ton of hands against us, many players will default to playing against a high card/big pair range after calling a 3bet (often without meaning to), until they have evidence that our range is more complex than that.
We become harder to play against when we make it more difficult to accurately narrow our range. Having hands like T8s,87s,65s,A5s-A2s (not necessarily all of those, that would be too many bluffs for many situations) in our range allows us to have at least a few combos that can flop very strong hands on most board textures. You don’t want to mix in too many of these hands because 3betting too often will eventually make you easier to play against, and hand strength still remains important. For example, you probably shouldn’t 3bet 54s in a spot where you’re folding 98s, but 54s might be a good bluff in a spot where 98s is part of your flatting range.
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