If we look at a normal shortstack calling range versus our 3b and assign something like 88+/AJ+/KQ, we see he only hits the flop with a pair or better about 43% of the time. This means we should expect a fold from him about 57% of the time. So our shove needs to work 15%, we expect it to work about 57%, and thus we make a really nice profit everytime we shove here. Even if give villain a tighter range of TT+/AQ+ when he calls preflop, he is still missing the flop about 50% of the time. This often times seems very counter intuitive to players, to just shove AK without a pair, but as we see with FE and a small SPR, it can be a very lucrative play.
There is 1 SPR. Say there is $10.75 left in the effective stack. If we run the same numbers through a FE calculator (expecting 24% equity if we get called), we see we need a fold 22% of the time breakeven. Assuming that our opponent’s range is about the same when he calls us preflop, we are still showing a really nice profit by making this shove. Even against the tighter TT+/AQ+ range we are still happy with our shove. The big thing to remember is that unpaired boardway combos (AQ, AK, KQ, etc.) make up so many extra combos than pair ranges (both pocket pairs and also pairs that hit the flop due to discounting). So at 1 SPR, we should shove this flop and enjoy the profit that comes with it.
There is 1.5 SPR. Say there is $16 left in the effective stack. If we run the same numbers through a FE calculator (expecting 24% equity if we get called), we see we need a fold 35% of the time to breakeven. This still isn’t terrible. Even against the tight range we still have some profitable buffer in the shove, and we are still happy with our buffer against the wider 88+/AJ+/KQ range. But we notice a massive jump in necessary folds from the 1 SPR pot. This begs the question “could we have created a smaller SPR pot preflop to make this ship a bit more profitable?” Had we 3-bet a pinch larger PF, say to $6.25, it would have created a smaller SPR pot on the flop that would make for a more profitable shove. If we could create that same SPR, while not changing his C-Range versus the 3-bet, we should consider doing so. But if by creating that smaller SPR we change the hands he calls with, and thus the way he hits the flop, we could be doing ourselves a major disservice.
There is 2 SPR. Say there is $22 left in the effective stack. If we run the same numbers through a FE calculator (expecting 24% equity if we get called), we see we need a fold 45% of the time to breakeven. This is just barely profitable against the tighter range of TT+/AQ+, and doesn’t offer a lot of buffer even against the looser range. Creating a 2 SPR pot with hands like AK, that will either miss often, or TT, that will face a lot of overcard boards, is usually something we would want to avoid. And again, this brings us back to preflop. Could we have created a better SPR? Could we have 3-bet bigger, while maintaining favorable ranges, and made a smaller SPR? Or, could we have 3-bet smaller and created a larger SPR that allows us more flexibility? Again, these small SPR pots are very visible from PF, so we need to be thinking about them as soon as we think about our 3-bet size (or if we even want to 3-bet). This SPR work, with FE and such, is something we want to do off the table, so that it is automatically internalized when we play these situations in real-time.
Also, this spot never comes up the other way around. We would never open raise, face a 3-bet, and then flat with AK in a pot with this kind of SPR. We would either 4-bet preflop, or fold if we thought the 3-bet range was really that strong. The same thing usually with a hand like TT, or AQ. When facing a 3-bet preflop we decide right then and there if we are happy with our hand (and commit), or not happy with our hand (and fold) when small SPR pots are threatened.
The SDV situation
When we have a strong hand that turns into SDV, it can create an awkward spot in a small SPR pot. While we might consider a hand like AQ on an A98 flop SDV with a deeper SPR, we would consider that value in shallow SPR pots. So this section will focus on things like KK on an A high board, or QQ on a K high board. These awkward spots happen at higher frequencies as our pair gets smaller and smaller preflop.
Let's look at an example. Say the button opens, we 3-bet QQ, and he calls. The flop comes A86. Let’s break this down by SPR:
Less than 1 SPR. At this SPR we should probably just shove. Even though we usually only have 2 outs when we are called, we do get called by second best hands on occasion. Villains will sometimes call things like JJ or 99, and of course we never expect him to fold hands like AK or 88. We only need him to fold about ¼ of the time for a purely breakeven shove, and usually when we get involved in a spot like this with QQ we expect him to be making mistakes with pieces of his range. We are never folding this spot anyway, and checking can create many awkward and possibly -EV situations. Checking to let him shove isn’t a terrible option, but often times they make a mistake to the shove here, and shoving keeps us from facing very odd turn decisions.
1 SPR. At this SPR we should consider check/feeling. Now, a big goal of mine when I started writing this book was to avoid saying things like “check/soul-read” or “check/feel.” However, this is one of those odd situations that necessitate it. We need to feel how quickly our opponent bets, the size of it, and put together a plan. There are times against bad opponents that we just check/raise with value in mind. There are times against certain opponents when we just check/fold because the board smashes his calling range and he wouldn’t bet as a bluff. If we defaulted on check/shoving against bad players and check/folding against tight players we would do just fine here. Again, there is no “always right” answer here because the situation is so dependent on feel and our opponent.
1.5+ SPR. At this SPR we should be doing a lot of check/feeling. A bet would just allow our opponent to play too closely to perfect, and always check/raising or check/folding would be too exploitable. Again, we need to feel out our opponent’s timing, sizing, and put it all together with his range and betting tendencies with different hand strengths. At this SPR we are forced to play poker, and again, to think about whether we could have created a different SPR preflop. Usually, as a good player, we prefer to either size (assuming it doesn’t tweak our opponent’s range unfavorably) so we create automatic decisions (small SPR) or maneuverability (deeper SPR). Also, at something like 1.5 SPR we usually want to avoid check/call the flop then check/fold the turn. It isn’t to say that the line is never valid, but usually check/call with intentions of stacking off later is better than check/call with intentions of folding later.
Again, this is one of the tougher spots that comes up in our postflop game. Often times it is avoidable preflop, either by sizing our betting or choosing a different line (like flatting rather than 3-betting and creating a tough SPR against a tough range of hands). Just make sure to think about FE, their range PF and postflop, the board texture, and the validity of each line. Over time these situations get easier. Just make sure that we do a lot of the math work off the table, so that when we face this situation it is simple, profitable, and automatic.
The Resteal Pot
Playing resteal pots can be tricky because we use such a funky range at times. This section will focus mostly on the times that we restole and were called. We don’t do a lot of flat calling versus resteals in our game, so it isn’t a situation that arises very often. Players tend to be too extreme in these pots. They either CB them too liberally, or they CB them too rarely. Our goal is to explore some situations and talk about what makes a good play in these pots.
In this first hand we have 85s in the BB. It folds to the button who opens to 3x, the SB folds, and we 3-bet to 10x. The button is a 15/13 with an ATS of 36% and Foldv3b of 70%. He ends up calling and we see a HU flop of K75 with 20.5x in the pot. We have our two choices as usual, we can check or bet. Let’s explore both of them:
Check. We check because we are thinking that he won’t fold to a CB very often. We are effectively giving up, as going for a c/c here with bottom pair is usually a pretty bad play. If we think he either hits the flop too much, will float too liberally, or will raise us too often, then checking is very valid. Like we’ve mentioned before, when we bluff we want
to take potshot bluffs. When postflop goes badly (either a bad villain, bad board, etc.) we can just consider the 3-bet to be the potshot, and can cut our loss at that. But something to consider is that 3-betting preflop OOP with not many ways to win the pot (either outright PF, with a CB, etc.) can be a very losing endeavor with these weak hands.
Bet. By betting we are assuming that we are going to be able to pick up the pot right now. We assume that he missed the flop enough, won’t fight us often, and will push the fold button. We did catch a pair, but our pair is so low and weak that it doesn’t really change our decision at all. If we look at a calling range of say 66-JJ, AJ-AQ, KJ-KQ, we see he hit the flop about 56% of the time. Even if he floats every pair 88+, we still make a fair amount of profit with a ½ pot bet. If he calls, we can make a decision on the turn, usually just giving up (again, we like to take potshot bluffs). Another barrel here would often times be risking about ½ of our stack to run a very exposed and uncertain bluff.
The big factors swaying our decision are our opponent and his range, board texture, how his range hit that board, his likelihood of fighting us (floating or raising), etc. Another thing to consider is what we represent. Now, we only need to care about what we represent against players that can and do hand read. Against a straight forward and/or bad player it doesn’t matter. But against a good player who can hand read well, we can’t CB all of our bluffs here and check all of our AK type hands. Our CB range would be too weighted towards bluffs, and he would outplay us every time, especially with position.
The simple way to combat a good player is to either change our 3-bet range or change our CB range. Changing our 3-bet range and making it a pinch stronger preflop is never going to be a massive leak. Especially if our opponent thinks that we 3-bet very liberally (maybe by checking his HUD stats on us), when we decide to only use a strong range against him from OOP, we make our life a lot more profitable. We can handle his 4-betting, avoid tougher spots, and allow ourselves to hit stronger postflop. Again, think about what we represent while making these plays. If we are super polarized in our CB range here, then any good opponent is going to punish us for it. However, we can remain polarized against bad hand readers and just play straight forward.
Let’s look at another example. Say the CO opens to 2.5x and we 3-bet KK from the SB to 9x. The CO calls and we see a HU flop. Say the CO is an A-Fish running 29/17 with an ATS of 55% over 60 hands. The flop comes J86. Let’s look at our options:
Check. If we think checking would induce a ton of bets from our opponent, then checking is certainly a good option. There are times when we could go for a check/call, or even check/raise, if we knew how our opponent would react to it. As a default, checking is probably not going to be best given the propensity for players to peel with position.
Bet. Betting is the default option here. Our opponent just called our 3-bet and probably has a relatively wide range considering he is on the fishier side of the spectrum. Now, we don’t have a massive sample size on him, and we probably don’t have a ton of information on how he handles these 3-bet pots. But, we do have a strong hand, lots of second best hands can and will call, and we can handle a raise sometimes. Betting something like ½ of a pot-sized bet (PSB) to ⅔’s of a PSB is the standard and very valuable in situations like these.
If we had something like JT (though we normally wouldn’t considering the opponent), we could easily consider checking. We have a SDV hand and are very interested in winning the minimax game. But when we have a stronger pair like KK here, it starts to look more like a value hand, especially as our opponent gets fishier and fishier. It should also be noted that just because we bet the flop with KK doesn’t mean we abandon all hand reading skills go for a “bet/bet/shove” line every time. We still need to keep in mind pot size thresholds, and ensure that we are creating a pot size that our opponent will continue with enough second best hands to make it worthwhile.
Let’s look at one last example here. Say the button is a TAG with a 32% ATS and 80% Foldv3-bet. He steals, we 3-bet J6s from the SB and he calls. We assign him a range of 88+/AQ+/KQ. Let’s look at a few different flop types to see how often he hits:
Notice that because his range has such a large number of broadway combos he hits Axx, Kxx, and Qxx flops at a high frequency. However, if we look at a board like a Jxx or Txx we see that he misses them more than half of the time, making for a possibly profitable CB. But remember that just because he “missed” the flop doesn’t necessarily mean he will fold to a CB, especially IP. If we think he plays straight forward, then a simple Flopzilla analysis can lean us towards or away from a CB. But if we think he peels at higher frequencies, or bluff raises flops a decent amount of the time, then we should usually just consider our 3-bet the potshot, and not waste our time with bluff CBing.
The Tricky 3-Bet Pot
There are times when we get a little tricky preflop and flat a 3-bet with something like AA or KK in an effort to keep our opponent’s range wide and mistake-rich. However, these postflop spots can get awkward very quickly given the reverse parlay that often times comes up. Let’s look at an example where we open AA from EP, a LAG 3-bets from the button with a 6% 3-bet, and we decide to flat call. The flop comes T♦9♦3♣, we check, and he bets. If we look at our options:
Fold. We called PF to allow our opponent to make mistakes. We are not folding yet.
Call. This is an OK option, but how are we going to play the rest of the hand out? Are we going to c/c the turn again? Are we going to CR the turn? Are we expecting him to bet the turn or check behind a lot? Often times calling is the best play here (we played our hand passive preflop so we would let our opponent make aggressive mistakes). But calling puts us in a really bad reverse parlay, especially if our opponent would play the turn very well. We put ourselves in a spot where we can always get out maximized, while he can almost always minimize his losers. This is the type of situation we want to avoid whenever possible, so the call against a good player can be fairly bad for us.
Raise. Going for the CR against a good player effectively allows him to play perfectly. He will stack off well, fold well when behind, and rarely makes mistakes. If we are against a bad player who stacks off poorly, then a CR can be a great play here. But against better players, it just allows them to play perfectly and, again, puts us on the bad side of the reverse parlay.
So being that no option is great, does that mean that we don’t want to sometimes play tricky and flat a hand like AA PF to a 3-bet? Not really. It just means that we need to be selective and aware of the kind of opponent we are doing it against. Against a good postflop player, flatting preflop just won’t accomplish all that much. If he keeps folding to our 4-bet PF, we should consider 4-betting that situation as a bluff as well. But against a bad postflop player who would overvalue single pairs and/or bluff a lot when they face weakness, a flat preflop can be awesome with the intentions of usually check/calling down. Or, if we know that they will overvalue pairs like QQ on 9 high boards, then we can go for the CR on the flop to get stacks in. Our plan of either check/calling down or going for a CR somewhere is dependent on what range we put them on and how we think they would play that range. If their range is bluffy, then let them bluff. If their range is TT-QQ type hands, then go for CRs on boards they would stack that range off on.
My big suggestion would be that if you are confused whether or not to call or 4-bet that situation preflop, lean on the side of 4-betting. Players, especially in the micros, tend to make more mistakes versus the 4-bet on average, so abuse it. Save the tricky flat call for situations that are against perfect opponents in perfect spots.
The AK 3-Bet Pot
Playing AK in a 3-bet pot can be relatively difficult. We will miss the flop about ⅔ of the time, and even when we hit that other ⅓, it can still make for some awkward situations. Let’s look at both situations.
Hitting with AK usually creates a WAWB situation. Let’s look at a spot where MP1 open raises, we 3-bet AK from the CO, he calls and we go HU
to an AT7 flop. If we give our opponent a range of 99+/AQ+ we see this:
Against 99/JJ/QQ/KK/AQ. We are way ahead. Our opponent is drawing to 2-3 outs, and we are crushing this part of his range.
Against TT/AA. We are way behind. We pretty much are drawing dead and are getting crushed by this part of his range.
Against AK. We chop.
If we pull out Flopzilla we see he has TT/AA part of his range about 10% of the time, and has the part of the range that we crush or chop against the other 90%.
Let’s say he checks to us and we think about our actions here:
Bet. Most people instinctively go to bet here. We caught a strong hand, and our first thought with a strong hand is to fire a bet out there. But, what happens if we bet? He probably folds most of the range that we crush (the 99/QQ) part of the range. He never folds the part of the range that crushes us (TT/AA). So a bet really only gets action from better hands, hardly ever action from worse, and allows our opponent to play pretty close to perfect.
Dynamic Full Ring Poker Page 15
