Am I a station? Do you call this river jam? (1 Viewer)

boltonguy

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Anonymous 6-max fast fold on Ignition.
Ignore the equity % - I have hidden villain hole cards.
Preflop open to 3BB from HJ only SB calls

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Hero bets 1/2 pot on flop and is X/R by SB

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Hero calls with FD blocker. Villain leads turn for about 3/4 pot.

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89 got there but Hero calls. V could still be firing the FD which is more combos than 89s from the SB especially. Villain jams river.

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Do you call this jam?
 
Smells like a set of 5s or a lucky two pair all the way down. Doesn’t smell like a single draw and seems like they were pushing two hard even for a double draw to hit on the river.
 
probably crying call for pot odds. not surprised if i lose. wouldn't fault a fold here, it's pretty close to 50/50.
 
Coin flip for me. Kings is probably good here enough of the time to call, but feels like a flopped set, maybe 89, maybe A8c.
 
I would like to see a reraise on the flop to punish his draws. Since you (and probably me too) are going to pay off his sets anyways, you may as well get the money in when he is drawing as well...your pot equity is much higher against his calling range here. This also makes the river play not as gross.

By the river, you are mostly beat. JT, QK, any 8, they all beat you. What do you beat he plays this way? Missed flushes, AT, and QQ. I think the right play is fold your one pair. I doubt I am folding.....but Im telling you what I think the right play is.
 
Smells like a set of 5s or a lucky two pair all the way down. Doesn’t smell like a single draw and seems like they were pushing two hard even for a double draw to hit on the river.
I would totally play any flush draw, especially one with a gutter as well totally like this. Also, AT....and maybe even 89s. So many hands. Imagine if you are villain and you have KQs or QJs here. Hero's range includes all the aces and you have the blockers to the suited spades here. It also includes many gutshot with overs, yadda yadda. This flop nails a preflop cold caller.
 
I haven't played online poker in years and there is no description of Villain's play. Check raising larger than the pot, betting 70% pot, then roughly pot again on the river disqualifies a missed flush draw/OESD. Unless, of course, you are a maniac.

Based solely on bet sizing, which appears to be very well calculated, the most reasonable conclusion is a made hand on the flop. Likely a set of five's as @Eloe2000 stated.
 
So I didnt do the math in my head but my spidey sense was tingling. It just seemed like there were so many bluffs on this board in draws that didnt get there and with the 9 on the river that removed another combo of 89s, and I have a hard time believing KQ was blasting this hard unless it was suited and I block both the suited KQ combos that would blast away. So three combos of 89s + two combos of 57s to play like this for value versus lots and lots of bluffs - I "should" be good here over 33% of the time plus I HAVE POCKET KINGS and I overvalue overpairs!! I agree that sets play this way against such a scary board but if V has 77, 55 or TT I am getting stacked with KK. I'm never scared of sets until I see them turned over at showdown!

Hero scoops!

Edit: I honestly never considered the bottom end of the straight and would have called if an 8 was on the board. Of course he was crazy to fire all the way down IMHO. He must have thought I was on a draw that missed.

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Ballzy call, glad it worked out for you. This vindicated Re-raising post flop, which I am happy to see. I never saw 46 either, but it totally makes sense and fits into the raise flop with a good draw theory. I was expecting JT if I had to pick one hand.

TBH, I like V's play better than the line you took. His line is +ev....he just happened to run into KK. (I would however, prefer it be done with the better sides of the straight or the flush draw). All streets are great for his range. He has all the 8s, you have none.
 
So I just put this in Flopzilla and there were definitely 6 more combos I should have been scared of that I didnt think about notably: As8s, Ts8s, and 86s
 
Ballzy call, glad it worked out for you. This vindicated Re-raising post flop, which I am happy to see. I never saw 46 either, but it totally makes sense and fits into the raise flop with a good draw theory. I was expecting JT if I had to pick one hand.

TBH, I like V's play better than the line you took. His line is +ev....he just happened to run into KK. (I would however, prefer it be done with the better sides of the straight or the flush draw). All streets are great for his range. He has all the 8s, you have none.

Yeah I like the idea of re-raising on the flop. Would have been interested to see if V folds there. Probably without a spade and getting bad odds to continue to a reraise. And agreed the runout definitely favored his range but to your point he is on the bottom end and I called his X/R and turn bets so I think the jam was a bit too optimistic given the strength I must have had to make those calls. Of course his specific hand does unblock spade and club draws so the solver would probably approve his jam. "Unblockers" are definitely a solver-thing.
 
@grebe Snowie has V donking 1/2 pot on the flop. The X/R is not GTO correct. Also Snowie has Hero calling the X/R, not re-raising.
Running the solver to see with more realistic ranges as Snowie's BB vs LJ ranges are super complex and not realistic.

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Putting this hand in perspective may be worthwhile. Both players are approximately 100BB's deep.

Absent description of villain, how often do you anticipate players are going to stack you off as played with the low end of the straight?
 
Putting this hand in perspective may be worthwhile. Both players are approximately 100BB's deep.

Absent description of villain, how often do you anticipate players are going to stack you off as played with the low end of the straight?

With the low end - often in this player pool IMHO. I just never saw the low end looking at the board. If the river had been an 8 I hope I would have seen it!
 
With the low end - often in this player pool IMHO. I just never saw the low end looking at the board. If the river had been an 8 I hope I would have seen it!

The answer to the question makes the last half of your post irrelevant.
 
Solver definitely has V X/R 71% here with his exact hand:

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My exact hand is a call 98% of the time. Kings that unblock the draws raise more with :kd::kh: raising the most at 22%. Maybe as I block some of the draws the solver sees it more likely that this is not a draw raising and V has more value combos?

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Honest question: if you want GTO why ask advice? I mean, what does it say to do on river? There’s your answer.
 
Solver has V firing his exact hand on turn 50% of the time, 11% with an even larger sizing:

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All combos of kings folding about half the time:

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And then V jamming river 100% of the time. Maybe I was playing against a GTO bot.

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Hero calls his exact hand 74% of the time given the great club and spade blockers. Looks like Hero played it OK given the mixed strategies and scooped!

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^^Interesting.

In Hero's position against an unknown Villain, I would have called the flop, checked the turn and fold to a C-bet better than half of the time.

Probably would have looked Villain up on the river if checked back on the turn.
 
Look at this river from Hero's POV:
  • All combos of AA are folding, probably as they dont block anything
  • Half of the 77 combos are folding and they made a set! :7d::7h: calls 100% maybe because it unblocks busted flush draws that would be bluffing? Combos of 77 with a club are only calling 33% as it blocks the busted FD?
  • Over half the KK and QQ are folding, specifically the combos without spade & club blockers to :kc::qc: and :ks::qs:.
  • How in goodness sake is :ac::tc: calling here 38% of the time?? Maybe because it blocks both :ac::8c: and :tc::8c:?
As @grebe said this runout sure favors V's range; in addition to the ranges blockers play a huge role in the solver's mixed strategy.

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And then V jamming river 100% of the time. Maybe I was playing against a GTO bot.
How can this possibly be right?
I think I get what solvers do and I think I understand the point of GTO play, but I find it maddening so I don't really know much about it.
But how can it tell you that GTO play is to jam that river 100% of the time? When V is literally ALWAYS behind here?

EDIT - I suppose the answer is that the solver knows Heros are folding more than 50% of the time here? is that it? If you know you're going to win at least 51% of the time, it's profitable to jam every time?
 
How can this possibly be right?
I think I get what solvers do and I think I understand the point of GTO play, but I find it maddening so I don't really know much about it.
But how can it tell you that GTO play is to jam that river 100% of the time? When V is literally ALWAYS behind here?

EDIT - I suppose the answer is that the solver knows Heros are folding more than 50% of the time here? is that it? If you know you're going to win at least 51% of the time, it's profitable to jam every time?

I find it interesting. I think jamming the river is only effective if Villain continues the story on the turn. According to the solver, which spits out mathematical probabilities, stakes are irrelevant, so ideally, the hand should have played out the same irrespective of the stakes. And as a follow up, does stack sizes matter? Are you bluffing off half of your stack at 200BB's?

Trying to be objective, I can see this sort of aggressive play in frac games and in high stake games where you would expect players to have experience with solvers, but what about the typical $1/$1 - $1/$2 home game and $1/$3 - 2/$5 tables at the casino?
 
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How can this possibly be right?
I think I get what solvers do and I think I understand the point of GTO play, but I find it maddening so I don't really know much about it.
But how can it tell you that GTO play is to jam that river 100% of the time? When V is literally ALWAYS behind here?

EDIT - I suppose the answer is that the solver knows Heros are folding more than 50% of the time here? is that it? If you know you're going to win at least 51% of the time, it's profitable to jam every time?

I'll try but please keep in mind that I'm still learning this and am far from expert so I may be right, wrong or close. Happy to be corrected by the experts.

In GTO, both players have perfect knowledge of each other's strategies; they know in every spot exactly how their opponent will play every combo in their range and at what frequencies. In a specific spot, laying specific odds, Villain's goal is to balance bluffs and value bets across combos in her range so that Hero is indifferent to calling, meaning that the EV of both actions calling or folding is the same. If Villain overbluffs relative to odds laid, Hero can call more than at equilibrium and increase his EV; If Villain underbluffs, hero can fold more than at equilibrium and increase his EV. GTO is all about equilibrium and creating this indifference, which removes the ability for hero to increase his EV through choice of action and thus V cannot be exploited. That is why GTO is often contrasted with exploitative strategies. If you know that you opponent is unbalanced you should exploit that to maximize EV; you cannot exploit a balanced opponent. In these anonymous fast fold games I think GTO is a good choice because generally you know nothing about a specific player so you cannot exploit them. I will say that after over 50k hands at this stake I know that the player pool does have biases that can be exploited; you can only exploit the pool on average but not a specific player if that makes sense.

So based on odds laid, Villain needs to look at her range with which she arrives at a specific spot and break that range into a polarized portion consisting of value bets and bluffs (at a ratio that matches the pot odds laid I think) and a portion of medium strength hands that are checking for an OOP V to X/C if Hero raises or possibly win at showdown if IP Hero checks through.

I'm not super clear on the math here but I think if V is laying 2:1 odds, hero needs to be good 33% of the time at equilibrium. I think that means that V needs 2 bluffs for every 1 value combo in her range in this spot to be balanced. Again I may definitely be wrong on this specific math. So the solver splits the range into a set of value combos, identifies 2 times the number of bluff combos, etc. to build the selections for each entered bet size such that the value/bluff sets of combos are balanced according to the pot odds laid and facing a certain bet Hero with perfect knowledge of V's strategy is indifferent to calling or folding as the EV of both is the same.

So I think in this case, V is jamming this combo 100% of the time in the solve because a) jam is the only bet size I included for river action for V in the solve (V can only jam or check in the solve - but I think that mirrors a real V's choices here) and b) odds laid stipulate a ratio of value hands to bluffs and this hand makes it into the bluff category as it is bottom of range and Villain probably never ever wins by checking given Hero's actions and the strength implied.

This specific combo wouldnt have any chance to fit into the check portion of the range, so strategy is 0% check / 100% jam; with two hearts it unblocks combos in Hero's range that would increase the likelihood that Hero arrived at the river with a busted flush draw. Note that :6d::4d: also jams 100% for the same reason. Both combos are extremely unlikely to win at showdown (maybe less that 0.01% that 6 high is good here given the actions prior) and may be able to get Hero to fold hands that these combos unblock that cant win either like a busted FD.
 
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Holy cow - can I get in some games with this BlackNite guy??!!
This guy must have an endless supply of money to play like this!!
Good lord did you take him for $700 over just those 3 hands?
 

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