First off, a big thank you to Alan for pimping us in his post today. We've already got his Recess Rampage blog linked over on the right, but if you haven't checked it out yet, do so as it's a must read.
I'll try to live up to Alan's description of our blog as having strong analysis. Here's a hand I played the other night against a very solid regular whom I had running at 12/10 VPIP/PFR. It looks really weak-tight, and it's possible I made a bad play by checking the flop and then just folding the turn, but I'll try and explain my thoughts afterwards:
Seat 5: CO ($210)
Seat 6: HERO (button) ($225.90)
Seat 9: UTG ($196)
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to HERO [Qs Qd]
UTG calls $2
CO raises to $10
HERO raises to $35
CO calls $25
*** FLOP *** [2c Jd Td]
CO checks
HERO checks
*** TURN *** [2c Jd Td] [Ac]
CO bets $60
HERO folds
Pre-flop, I'm very happy to see queens on the button. The CO's raise doesn't scare me too much. There's a player limping UTG, and he could be isolating with a non-premium hand. Even at 12/10, he is a good enough player that this would definitely be in his arsenal. My re-raise is definitely for value. If he had 4-bet me, I would probably have to stack off and hope he has AK or JJ. But he just calls me. This is something solid, tight players do not do very often out of position. I THINK the hands he'd be most likely to do this with are JJ, TT, and AKs. 99-88, and QQ might be possible. He might slowplay AA this way. AQs, 77 and lower, or KK I really can't see.
The flop comes JT-high with two diamonds. Thinking about this in a level-1 way, my hand looks great. It's an overpair to the board. I have 82% equity vs. a random hand, and this is basically what level-1 analysis is. But now let's go another level and think about my equity vs. my opponent's actual range. If his range is JJ,TT, and AKs, my equity is 35%. If I add in 99 and 88, I get up to 65%. The problem is, if I bet, 99 and 88 will fold, while JJ,TT, AdKd, and maybe even AcKc will check-raise all-in.
So what if I bet 60 and fold to a check-raise? JJ-TT and AKs represent 10 total hands (3 combos each of JJ and TT since there's a J and a T on the board, and 4 AKs combos). 7 of these hands check-raise me. Betting risks 60 to win 75. The EV of that play is 75*(3/10) + (-60)*(7/10), which is less than zero. So betting would be incorrect, if I've got his range right. If he check-raises with the other AK hands, too, then it's obviously even worse. If AA is in his range and he check-raises that too, then I get a fold only 12/28 of the time, and that's where this starts to be a losing play. If he were a bad player and I thought I could get value here against AJ, then I would bet. But he really has AJ pretty much never. Betting would be +EV only if 88 and 99 are in his range and AA is not. Then JJ-88 and AKs would represent 22 total hands and he would be check-raising 7-10 of them, depending on whether or not he check-raises his non-diamond AKs hands.
But I am also almost sure that I can wait until the turn to fold out 99 and 88 (which, again, I'm not even sure are in his range at all). Being in position will allow me to play the turn pretty well. If that's the case, then checking the flop and betting the turn if a blank comes and he checks again has all the advantages of betting the flop and less of the disadvantages, as I don't think he would check again in order to check-raise with a set or straight flush draw. If he checks again on the turn, I can bet without more confidently.
The turn brings an A and he bets. This is a spot where I think Level 3 analysis (what does he think I have?) is important. When I re-raise before the flop and then check this flop, I think my hand looks a lot like AK or AQ. Yet he bets an A on the turn. That leads me to believe that he's looking for a call or a raise, because he's got a set. Once I am pretty sure I'm beat, there's no point in peeling and hoping he checks the river or I spike a K or anything like that. Time to pitch it.
It's possible he was on level 4 and went ahead and bet 99 on the turn, but 1) I really doubt it, since we don't have much of a history and you can't trust many random players to fold anything, and 2) if he did, it's a great play, and I've just got to give him credit.
-BRUECHIPS
Episode 436: Jesse Fullen
2 weeks ago
4 comments:
Good hand, and I like your read and actions based on them.
I don't think you would have needed to stack off to a 12/10 player all-in preflop though when you hold QQ. I think you'll often be far behind, unless you've seen him push all-in with AK preflop before.
In my experience, 12/10 players often don't consider AK to be an all-in preflop hand.
If the dynamic of the hand had been different...for instance if he had opened in middle position and I had re-raised from a seat or two behind him, I'd agree. Or if I thought he was kind of a standard 12/10 player that I didn't know anything else about.
BUT...Brackchips has played a lot with this guy and has told me that he plays AK like AA preflop. Also the fact that he's in the CO raising a limper and I'm re-raising widens both our hand ranges enough to the point where I think I'd be willing to put it all in for 100 bbs with QQ. It wouldn't be a fist-pump shove, but I think it's +EV.
Question for you: if you're folding to a 4-bet from him, are you re-raising him? I think if I'm folding to the 4-bet, and I'm playing this passively on the flop when he calls, is there value in 3-betting?
Just because you might fold to a 4-bet doesn't mean you shouldn't 3-bet with AK preflop.
AK has a lot of value preflop, and you want to capitalize on it by either taking down the pot immediately or getting a call from a worse hand.
Of course, against this opponent with the read you have (that he plays AK like AA preflop), you know you shouldn't fold to a potential 4-bet, nor should you fear it.
If you had known that your opponent played AK like AA when this hand happened, you could have ruled out AK from his range and perhaps played the entire hand differently.
I think he would play AK like AA preflop and 4-bet them both MOST of the time. I think flat calling this bet is something he does only sometimes with ANY of his hands. My guess is, like I said, that he does it some small percentage of the time with AA and AKs, and then maybe a little more often with JJ and TT.
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