4 Ways to the River (1 Viewer)

[tsossong18]

Hello all, I'm looking for some opinions on this hand I played to get some perspective on what the optimal way to play this hand and see if I could have done anything better. Not many hands that I play with end up 4 ways to the river in this fashion with a decently large pot like this so this hand has been lingering in my head. I'll try and give as much detail as necessary without making this too long but if you have any questions on certain details I will try to explain my thoughts or any sort of history with players in the hand. Here we go..

1/3NLH at Lumiere Place Casino in St. Louis on a Saturday night close to midnight. Games are 10 handed (very annoying they do this) but for this hand we have 3 villains involved in the hand. This is my first time to this card room as I just moved to the area and have been in the game for about 2 hours now. I am sitting on a stack of about $250 and in the small blind.

• Villain 1 (V1) - ~$400: Older gentleman who is UTG+1. We have no playing history with V1 but have watched him play a few big pots where his hands were played essentially face up. He made a very noteable nitty river check after 3betting pre and barreling pot for 2 streets when he held KK against someone with QQ. Very straightforward player who is a little on the nitty side.
• V2 Late MP - ~$350: late 20s early 30s male who we have recently clashed with. Since clashing he had been very aggressive/steamy and in the berating mood.
• V3 CO - ~$150: Early 30s male who is very loose and is moving to Vegas at the end of the month to "play professionally". He won't last long...

Action begins with V1 who limps, V2 raises to $20, and V3 flats. I look down at in the SB and think of my options. I think all 3 of my options are reasonable. Folding is certainly okay being that I'm out of position, but I rule this out considering the villains in the pot are donaters and I want to play pots with them. Raising seems not as good considering V3 only has about $150 to start the hand and I am essentially calling him off with a decent 3bet size and there is still V1 to act behind as well as V2 being the original raiser. Doesn't seem like a good spot to raise this hand as a bluff. Calling seems fine as well since I have a potential nutted hand and can get away from it if i happen to completely whiff. I decide to flat, BB comes along and V1 calls as well.
Pot: $100
Flop comes .

I elect to check, and it checks over to V2 who bets $40. V3 flats, and I consider my options again for about 15-20 seconds. I'm never folding which I think is pretty obvious with my 9 flush outs to the nuts, and 3 inside straight draw outs. 3 betting doesn't seem terrible but V3 flatting here tells me he has something decent considering he only has $90 left behind at this point and I don't want to chase out other action. I'm not always flatting but probably 80/20 flatting vs 3betting given this specific scenario. Also I don't feel I'm deep enough to be 3betting here without completely committing myself to the hand. I decide to flat, BB folds, and to my surprise V1 flats as well.

At this point I'm trying to put V2 on a range being that he has been the aggressor throughout the hand. I am mostly putting him on sets (Ts) and overpairs since he is betting into 5 people but also adding in some flush draws and AK/AQ type hands. Not many since I have the nut flush draw in my hand which takes out a decent bit of them leaving really only ,, and as [possible flush draws for him. For V1 and V3 at this point I'm ranging them on Ts and some flush draws. V3 could have some sort of straight draws based on seeing the types of hands he's been playing and given his position. V1 could have sets of 5s or 2s given his play of limping pre and calling V2's flop bet but his play has been so face up I would really expect him to check raise these hands being 4 ways. V3 I would expect to jam sets based on previous play so I discount these hands out of his range considerably. I am most concerned with V2's hand and I'm sneakily suspicious of V1's hand, not so much V3.

Pot: $260
Turn is

I don't like this card as now my flush outs are not to the nuts and I am planning on folding to any jam from V2 or any sizeable bet from any of villains. V1 checks, V2 thinks for 10 seconds or so and checks, and V3 checks behind.

Pot: $260
River is

Obviously a very good card for me. I consider leading here but my stack size and really everyone elses stack size makes it awkward (other than V3 who I'm not worried about at this point for $90). I feel that I won't get too much action from anything other than a flush or full house so I elect to check in hopes that someone bluffs with the intention of just calling. This is the street where I feel I have no clue if I could have made a better decision and want feedback on.

So I just decided as I was typing the last sentence of the river that I will leave the following action details out until I get some analysis/feedback on the hand as is and leave some suspense to come. Let me know what you think of my play, what you would do different, and what you would do if:

A) V1 bets between $150-$200
B) V2 shoves for ~pot
C) V3 shoves for $90

Also for fun add in what you think happened on the river!
I think it's a good exercise to go through all the scenarios, and I will add in what actually happened which I think will surprise most of you. Look forward to hearing everyone's opinions and hope to learn something!

PS - I didn't keep it short. I left out some of my thought processes. Hopefully some good questions come up in discussion. I'm gonna be honest with you if I had thought of things or not because I have nothing to gain from lying. I'm here to learn! Hopefully I expressed everything well enough to show my thought level and process decently well.

 

[DrStrange]

Preflop is a clear fold. Hero is putting $20 at risk with $230 left behind creating a SPR between two and three. That is the domain of big pairs and big aces, not suited ace-rags. Hero is going to need a monster flop to proceed while risking flopping a pair of aces / no kicker and then deciding what to do. Three betting is even worse given Hero's short stack and bad position. The only time that makes sense is based on villain / table reads. Perhaps there will be times when Hero knows the table will fold to a shove from the small blind (and yes I think Hero should be shoving if he is raising.)

The flop is almost perfect. I like a check/raise all-in plan. Hero's equity is fleeting since his naked ace is not the best hand at the moment - he has to draw to improve. Villain's $40 c-bet into a $100 pot looks like a weak stab with a big ace followed by a call. That puts $180 in the pot, so Hero is putting in $40 to catch up then raising $190 into a $220 pot. That seems sized large enough to have good fold equity and if called, Hero has good equity vs the expected over pair. Yes Hero is suffering if one of the villains holds a set but that is relatively rare vs an over pair or perhaps an inferior flush draw.

Please note there are meta game reasons to be highly aggressive here on the flop. Hero needs to have big draws in his check / raise range as well as big pairs, sets and perhaps the rare stone bluffs. A check / call line implies Hero is drawing when he follows that up with aggression only when the flush hits.

I wouldn't be in Hero's shoes on the turn since all my chips are already all-in. The pot is $260, Hero has $190 left behind. If Hero had position, this could turn into a bluffing situation. As Hero holds the worst position, he has a rough decision to make. Jamming might not fold an over pair. V3 has $90 left, he might call with a wide range of hands given the pot odds. We don't know Hero's table image, could it be sold that Hero holds a two in his hand? makes some sense but not much else unless Hero has a loose enough table image.

Hero runs the risk of getting checked through on the river but betting exposes Hero's hand. There is never a time to fold here given the stack sizes unless someone tables their full house early or maybe if all three villains jam all-in after Hero checks. I think a check/call line is best vs normal villains.

I grade the hand this way:

Preflop = F Calling a 7bb preflop raise with a 83bb stack is a mistake. is a fine speculative hand with deep stacks. It is a problem waiting to happen when playing short stacks vs a raise.

Flop = D Hero missed an opportunity to put everyone to the test while taking very little risk. Hero's draw could easily be a 15 out draw - 9 flushing, 3 gutshot, plus the other 3 aces. Hero actually has ~53% equity vs KK/QQ/JJ which is the most likely holding that calls Hero's check/raise. Check/calling the flop wastes the powerful equity Hero flopped.

Turn = C Taking a passive line seems plausible without knowing Hero's table image. It surely exposes Hero to getting bluffed off his hand. I think betting is better, but that is oh so easy to say now that we already know the results of the street.

River = Incomplete Hero is in a pickle. A bet surely looks like a made hand and likely isn't getting called by ace high or a pair of nines (for example). I can respect a check/call line or a small bet - say $90 into a $260 pot. Hero should not fold absent some remarkable action.

Lastly, strategy threads get better discussion when then streets are revealed only after people discuss their plans and reasoning. For example, it is easy to say bluff the turn now that we know everyone checks it through but that isn't so obvious prior to seeing the action. (yes I know someone could be slow playing the full house.) While the river is an interesting situation, all the streets have things to discuss.

Thanks for posting -=- DrStrange

 

[Rhodeman77]

I planned on saying pretty much what @DrStrange said. It is always better to put your opened to the test. On the flop all the chips should have been in 100%

After that, I pretty much stopped reading since your decisions should have been over by then.

Hope it went well for you.

 

[onerand]

Doc is usually right. I skimmed the above but check-jam flop and jam river as played. Pre flop you are too shallow to call 20 on this position, but you are allowed to gamble in a casino.

 

[tsossong18]

Thanks all, especially DrStrange. I have much more to say about the hand and the table in general. First I will say what happened and reveal villains' hands. Also I will add in that this is the first hand I have gone to the internet to discuss so I'm trying to figure out how to make the discussion as beneficial and interesting as possible as I go. So thank you for your advice on that as well Dr.

Unfortunately, as I feared and Dr mentioned, the river ended up checking through. What will be most surprising to most of you is the hands villains showed up with. As I tried to hint at in my description of V2 and V3, they are bad. Very bad. And I had steamed up V2 a good bit at this point so it makes it a little less surprising. I was in his head pretty good at this point.

V1 held
V2 held
V3 held

V3 was pissed at me because he flopped top two and acted like I was in terrible shape after the flop. Then he saw V1's hand and realized he was beat by him. V2 was mad as well. V1 was essentially clueless of the situation.

Preflop is a clear fold. Hero is putting $20 at risk with $230 left behind creating a SPR between two and three. That is the domain of big pairs and big aces, not suited ace-rags. Hero is going to need a monster flop to proceed while risking flopping a pair of aces / no kicker and then deciding what to do. Three betting is even worse given Hero's short stack and bad position. The only time that makes sense is based on villain / table reads. Perhaps there will be times when Hero knows the table will fold to a shove from the small blind (and yes I think Hero should be shoving if he is raising.)

Dr, in a game with tough villains this is the clear play to me. Obviously being OOP is the major downfall here in this particular situation. If V3 is not in the hand, I am folding every time to this raise size. Given that these players are extremely weak/steamy punters, it is the sole deciding factor of what caused me to call. Your analysis here is spot on for GTO play vs. any decent players.

The flop is almost perfect. I like a check/raise all-in plan. Hero's equity is fleeting since his naked ace is not the best hand at the moment - he has to draw to improve. Villain's $40 c-bet into a $100 pot looks like a weak stab with a big ace followed by a call. That puts $180 in the pot, so Hero is putting in $40 to catch up then raising $190 into a $220 pot. That seems sized large enough to have good fold equity and if called, Hero has good equity vs the expected over pair. Yes Hero is suffering if one of the villains holds a set but that is relatively rare vs an over pair or perhaps an inferior flush draw.

I agree with this as well. I was very close to jamming as that is the only other option besides flatting and overall I like check jamming best. I didn't want to put my whole stack at risk at that moment because I am starting to build up a roll. Yes, I am aware this isn't optimal. In the back of my mind I know that decision is why I have thought so much about this hand and lead to the awkwardness of the following streets in this hand. I am fresh out of college and just got my first job. I'll save all the personal story and just leave it at the fact that overall this isn't an optimal play nor is not being properly rolled etc. etc..This is what butchered the hand as you all have mentioned.

However

Please note there are meta game reasons to be highly aggressive here on the flop. Hero needs to have big draws in his check / raise range as well as big pairs, sets and perhaps the rare stone bluffs. A check / call line implies Hero is drawing when he follows that up with aggression only when the flush hits.

Again, you seem to be spot on. As previously mentioned in my short bio to V2, I have played extremely aggressive on coordinated boards and that is what lead him to being so steamy. I have painted myself an aggro image to the table so he as well as V1 and V3 are aware I have a wide range here.

could it be sold that Hero holds a two in his hand?

Yes, me having a 2 in my hand is very possible. So more reason to be shoving big draws here on this turn as well to balance my range.

As I mentioned Dr. I think your analysis is very spot on in almost all aspects and seems to be great GTO strategy. I will say however that in this situation with V1 being essentially playing face up in all pots that I had seen him, V2 and V3 being weak and loose, a GTO strategy is not the best strategy. Playing exploitative here is by far better IMO given that they have these hands in their ranges. V1 was the most surprising of all to limp his QQ and let V2 be the aggressor. This was not like the play I had seen from him in prior hands, but also I had only seen him play in HU pots and none that went past the flop multiway. V3 had been playing essentially every hand and tabling hands such as J5o, Q4o etc. and in some situations he was the preflop raiser. V2 for the most part thought he could bull his way around but was playing way too loose.

My position in the hand is most certainly what makes it all awkward and what makes me think back to this hand because I am never in these situations. I feel like it is hard to express my thoughts out extremely well through a keyboard but hopefully more practice of sharing and discussing hands through the internet will help me to improve doing so. I am actually a solid player and am a winning one as well. My avatar is from a tourney that I played in with a player pool that included Doug Polk and Faraz Jaka if that helps give me any sort of credibility lol.

Again, thanks to all for commenting and sharing your analysis, I really appreciate it!

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

Agree with the check jam on the flop, but as played I think you have to lead out on the river. I'm afraid you lost some value here. You can't count on people to make your bets for you (that's one of the bad things about playing out of position).

 

[Adam Crowley]

It's impossible to know the GTO strategy 4 handed but I think it would probably be closer to flat calling this exact hand to balance your calling range and keep in the hands you dominate as opposed to flipping vs big over pairs.

There is no two ways about the fold pre either. You just don't have the position or stack to exploit these opponents in this spot. The SPR is too low which makes stacking off with a wider range post flop a much smaller mistake even if they get it in a little bad.

Agree that c/r on the flop is a lot better. You will get called by the short stack villain 100% but you can fold better from the other two and your equity in the hand will increase as well.

 

[Mental Nomad]

Dr, in a game with tough villains this is the clear play to me. Obviously being OOP is the major downfall here in this particular situation. If V3 is not in the hand, I am folding every time to this raise size. Given that these players are extremely weak/steamy punters, it is the sole deciding factor of what caused me to call. Your analysis here is spot on for GTO play vs. any decent players.

This, right here, is your biggest leak. I see several people telling you calling the raise is a blunder, but you're still convinced otherwise... And you'll have to decide how to play a suited ace out of position much more often than how to value bet a rivered flush.

You're still thinking you were correct to get in, out of position, with too little money behind to work it, because "the opponents were bad." I promise you, event the worst opponents will still be bad on the next hand! You should take advantage of that when you have a hand that lets you, in a position that lets you take advantage of them, with an SPR that lets you take advantage of them. The fact that they're bad players doesn't mean you should set yourself up for failure.

You need to fight the tendency to look at the results (you were right, they had garbage hands) and use that as a justification for having gotten involved (the fact that you made a flush is irrelevant to the pre-flop action.)

I can just as easily point to the action to make a case that the Dr. was obviously correct, and you should not have gotten involved! Namely, this: the action shows how difficult it is to control the action when out of position. It's harder to semi-bluff a flop or to value-bet a river when out of position in a fat multi-way pot! You paid heavily to play, and got your cards, but didn't get the big payoff.

I think the smart move is to first learn to play these kinds of flops, turns, rivers really well against these kinds of players. (And oh, how we love to play these kinds of players.) After that, you'll be in a better position to understand how to play your opening hand. Of course, once you're that savvy, you'll realize your opener was a good hand to limp in with, and a good hand to throw away to a raise.

Also, since nobody is mentioning it... if V1 was really playing their hand face up, they wouldn't have limp-called pre-flop. More likely they would limp, they'd be raised and called, you'd piss your $19 away, and then V1 puts in a fat raise. V1's QQ holding is about 49.5% to win, at that point (given the four hand holdings you described.)

 

[tsossong18]

This, right here, is your biggest leak. I see several people telling you calling the raise is a blunder, but you're still convinced otherwise... And you'll have to decide how to play a suited ace out of position much more often than how to value bet a rivered flush.

My position in the hand is most certainly what makes it all awkward and what makes me think back to this hand because I am never in these situations.

Nomad, I'm unsure if my responses didn't make it clear or not but I certainly realize that the call preflop is not good, as well as I almost always (never say never or ALWAYS) just fold there. If I didn't make it clear then I am saying it here now that I realize it is a bad call. I understand the concept of multiple people saying something to you and you still only believing your own reasoning behind something is a mixture of harmful things such as being naive, stupid and a few other things. I have thankfully understood this concept for a while now in life but yes it did come with time. It is quite obvious Dr. Strange is a smart player by his analysis and you seem to be pretty knowledgeable yourself. I agree with you both, bad call preflop given SPR and position.

You need to fight the tendency to look at the results (you were right, they had garbage hands) and use that as a justification for having gotten involved (the fact that you made a flush is irrelevant to the pre-flop action.)

This is one I understand very well. I am not results oriented. I realize that you have to put someone on a range and go from that. I had enough history with V2 and V3 to properly range them here and be "right" which I don't believe makes me results oriented. If you include T5o in V3's range of calling a 6.66x raise, my exact hand is crushing a large portion of his whole range which is essentially any two cards or ~95% of his range. I will post other hands I played with V2 but he had done similar things with K7o and worse hands so I'm beating a lot of his range as well and had actually faced the decision of playing a not so great Ax on an A high flop against him and outplayed him. I say all of this while still understanding that we look back at square 1 and understand that my position puts me at a large disadvantage in this situation causing everything down the line to be bad including the whole hand. Again, I understand and admit to that. I'm just trying to justify that I know it's a loser's mentality to be results oriented. I am a very mathematical person. I'll leave it at that for now.

I can just as easily point to the action to make a case that the Dr. was obviously correct, and you should not have gotten involved! Namely, this: the action shows how difficult it is to control the action when out of position. It's harder to semi-bluff a flop or to value-bet a river when out of position in a fat multi-way pot! You paid heavily to play, and got your cards, but didn't get the big payoff.

I agree with you both here and there is no denying it. The awkwardness of the turn and river cement this and certainly make me feel the way I did about this hand and puzzled on how to get value out of it. I should have went with my gut to check shove the flop as played and there would be no discussion on the entire hand. Case closed

Also, since nobody is mentioning it... if V1 was really playing their hand face up, they wouldn't have limp-called pre-flop. More likely they would limp, they'd be raised and called, you'd piss your $19 away, and then V1 puts in a fat raise. V1's QQ holding is about 49.5% to win, at that point (given the four hand holdings you described.)

A very very good point. V1 had the obvious squeeze and didn't do it which you would assume his plan would be to squeeze given that he limped with queens. He was involved in a hand where he had KK and 3 bet someone pre who almost 4 bet him but hesitantly called. V1 barreled the flop and turn on a dry board and nittily checked back river and his opponent had QQ. Both hands seemed obvious but he seemed to be a little nitty.
Anyhow, another good point as to why I shouldn't have been involved in the hand that somehow has been overlooked and should have been on my mind/something I realized by now.

Thank you very much for your analysis Nomad, very good points and helpful!

 

[tsossong18]

Also I'm getting my other copy of Flopzilla on my new computer so I'm about to play around with the ranges. For now I will take your word on QQ being 49.5% favorite to win and honestly have no doubt about that particular number but I'm interested to see my hand against V2's and V3's ranges

 

[Mental Nomad]

Nomad, I'm unsure if my responses didn't make it clear or not but I certainly realize that the call preflop is not good,

Good; I misread your reply, then. It seemed to me that you were agreeing that a preflop fold was "spot on for GTO play vs. any decent players," but not given "these players are extremely weak/steamy punters."

Also I'm getting my other copy of Flopzilla on my new computer so I'm about to play around with the ranges. For now I will take your word on QQ being 49.5% favorite

Don't know Flopzilla, but PokerStove is free on Windows. Didn't run ranges, but here are the pre-flop equity figures given the four holdings:

30,172,259 games 13.722 secs 2,198,823 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 32.486% 32.42% 00.06% 9783033 18889.25 { Ad4d }
Hand 1: 49.459% 48.96% 00.50% 14772729 150243.25 { QdQh }
Hand 2: 10.660% 09.58% 01.08% 2889755 326590.25 { QcTs }
Hand 3: 07.395% 06.75% 00.65% 2036209 195236.00 { Th5c }

 

[tsossong18]

Flopzilla is essentially pokerstove. I was able to get it for free through a promotion. I used ProPoker tools to run the ranges. We all had about a 25% equity giving V2 50% of his range, V3 80%(I think that is even being a little tight lol) and V1 40% of his range. I gave him 40% there because he decided to limp call which I feel 40% accurately describes that play given how deep he is. If we want to be results oriented, my exact hand on the flop is the following. Actually, here is exactly what I ran
http://www.propokertools.com/simula...=he&h1=Ad4d&h2=QdQh&h3=Th5c&h4=QcTs&s=generic
http://www.propokertools.com/simulations/show?g=he&h1=Ad4d&h2=40%&h3=50%&h4=80%&s=generic


From a mathematical standpoint, given that our hand only has ~25% equity vs these ranges, we do not have the correct direct pot odds nor implied odds given our position to call, thus mathematically justifying that our decision to call pre is poor.

Discussion is a great thing. I think we put the last nails in the coffin on this one. Thanks again guys, I really appreciate it. If you have time, please check out my new strategy thread and let's get into it over there!