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I played this hand recently at the Wynn. Around 10am, the 5-10 game was closing down from the night before but was not done yet. I sat down for about an hour before I headed off to an event.
I’ve just been on a small heater and won 2 hands in the last orbit primarily on aggression (no showdown) so one of the regs might’ve been looking to make a play on a guy who looks like he’s pushing people around maybe (just a guess).
Literal old man coffee (he had joked earlier about being 84, and he was drinking coffee) opens to $30, I decide to call and the guy a few seats to the left does also. This was full ring, but everyone else folded pre flop so they are not in the link. They check to me on the flop so I lead out 6 chips. Guy down the left calls, OMC folds. Turn = check, I bet 15 chips, he calls. River, he checks, I bet 30 chips, he insta-shoves. You can see all that in the hand replay. You might even be asking yourself why did I make the call? It really looks like he has a 7 there, or an over pair.
Is the thought process below solid / makes sense? Or am I just a total maniac who got lucky against a bluffer?
This guy has been staring at me since the flop. I’m not even sure he looked at the board on the turn or the river. Total deer in the headlights look and feel. He’s doing the mouth covering thing which looks ridiculous and he appears nervous. Like rapid eye blinking, nervous fingers, just overall tense and wound up like a spring. Then the betting tells – what range is he playing where he check-calls flop & turn and only ramps it up to a shove on the river? It smelled to me like he had some level of show down value, but after I bet he decided he was losing unless he pushed me off something. Unless he magically has a random 7? This does not seem very likely. Its a pretty hefty turn bet to call for just middle pair terrible kicker. What about over pairs like AA, KK or very rare QQ? First QQ is just unlikely and why shove the river. That is 2nd nuts so just min raise for value – that would look suspicious. AA? KK? Maybe he just doesn’t like those hands oop so he didn’t 3 bet pre, but most people will conventionally 3 bet pre with those two pairs so this possibility is discounted a touch. What else would he do this with? Pair and a flush draw? Maybe he paired the turn and had diamonds? A2dd isn’t totally crazy as a draw to call the flop/turn. Maybe he has a weaker Q? QJ/QT? A better Q? I feel like a better Q would raise the turn with the diamond draw still out there to charge a higher price to draw to the flush. What it felt most like to me was a missed front door flush draw trying to bail out of calling down to that point. That plus the lol live reads == crying call.Positive results, but was it the correct decision?
TIA.
Hey Michael,
Really interesting hand. Glad it worked out. As i was watching the hand before on Share My Pair I had some thoughts that echoed yours. Namely, what the &%*$ is he repping here?
Pre-flop
When he limp/calls UTG we can pretty much exclude all premiums from his range. His range is full of small-medium pairs, suited connectors, and weak suited aces. He almost NEVER has AA-QQ and very rarely has AQ (you also block AQ which is good, but i don’t think he’d play this hand that way).On the flop
Q75dd is an interesting flop for his range. If we put him on lots of small pairs and suited connectors then his value range looks like: sets of 5s or 7s (6 combos), 57 suited (3 combos) and worse Queens like QJ or QT (4-8 combos) depending on how many offsuit combos you give him. He also has lots of flush draws combos as well along with non-diamond combos of 86s and 64s. I gave him AT-A2, JTs-45s, J9s-64s. If you remove hands with diamond blockers he has like 16-20 combos of strong draws.
He can also certainly have some 7s (i don’t define these as value or draws). Obviously we aren’t worried about hands with 7s in them. Going to the turn we are well ahead of his range except for 9 combos of sets and two pairs.On the turn
It’s reasonable he would check/call with that entire range on the flop. When the turn comes 2h and he just check/calls his range becomes very capped. It would be very weird for him not to raise his 2 pair plus hands on the turn when the safest card in the deck comes and a flush draw is still out there (you have a lot of flush draws in your range). It depends on how much of a thinking player this guy is – but especially out of position he should be raising his value hands here so that he can value bet the river. If he just calls the turn then how does he get value on the river? By check raising? Probably not. There are lots of hands like QT or QJ or maybe missed flush draws that you just check back on the river. So i think we can really discount a lot of his value combos. Maybe we leave him with 1 combo of 55, 1 combo of 75s, and 1 combo of 55 instead of 3 each. His range is now super weighted towards worse Queens and drawing hands.Random 7s: I think it’s unlikely he continues with too many 7s here given the card is the 2h. For one, the 7 on board is a diamond, so he can’t have hands like A7 or 87 of diamonds with a flush draw. I’d expect him to call with some 7s on the turn if it brought a backdoor flush draw or straight draw. So if the turn had been another spade, a 6, an 8, or a 9, we could give him some combinations of hands that have a 7 which picked up some significant equity. With the 2h most one pair hands with a 7 should be folding out of position.
On the river:
Given this analysis, i think the 7 is actually a reasonably good card for you on the river. Yes, sometimes he will have gotten stubborn with a 7 and gotten there. But i think that is very rare given the details of the turn. But really the 7 only further reduces the combinations of hands that were beating you before. Furthermore, every single draw has missed. So he has a ton of hands that he might be looking to bluff with in this spot and very very few value hands that make sense to raise with. I don’t think it’s necessarily true that (if he played 55 or something this way) he wouldn’t jam the river over your bet. He’s giving you a price of about 2:1 on the river call. Of course, it’s also true he might min-raise as you stated. Overall though, it doesn’t make sense. This is a pretty bad play out of him IMO, espeeeecially when he shows up with 33 (lol). With an about 2:1 price this is a slam dunk bluff catch.That analysis was from a more exploitative or hand reading perspective. This type of analysis makes sense especially in live poker as people are rarely balanced.
Out of interest, let’s look at it from a more GTO perspective and see if we should be calling on the river with KQs. It becomes a slightly closer spot:
Your own range is pretty uncapped in this spot except for having QQ (you’d probably 3bet it preflop). So when you go bet/bet/bet you can have all the big value hands like sets and fullhouses. You can also have AQ and KQ (suited and unsuited). I’m not sure if you’d always bet QJ or QT on the river – I think it’s probably a check. You should also have a reasonable amount of missed draws that want to bluff the river. I think the best possible hand to bluff the river with would be like 86s w/o diamonds as you wouldn’t be blocking his bigger flush draws that could fold to a bet. Anyways, you have lots of value hands and lots of bluffs.
Obviously you’re calling with 55 75 or 77. Your bluff catchers are hands with just a queen in them. Out of these hands, AQdd is the worst hand to call with as it blocks so many flush draws. KQdd is probably the next worst. To be unexploitable, we need to call with about 56% of our range to deny your opponent an outright profitable bluffing opportunitY. Unless you’re going to triple barrel every single flush draw and straight draw, our range should have way more than 56% value hands when we bet the river. Probably closer to 70%. So if we only need to call 56% of the time to be unexploitable, then we can fold 44% of our range. The first 30% to go are all of our bluffs (maybe 30% of our range) and some value hands. The first hands you should be looking to fold are AQ and KQ of diamonds since they block hands your opponent might bluff with.
However, that is ONLY correct if we assume your opponent is theoretically balanced. Which, as we can see is so wildly inaccurate that it’s almost laughable. If he’s bluffing with 33 on the river here then he has WAY too many bluffs and you should look to call down more lightly. Overall, I think your call is a slam dunk bluff catch. Just keep in mind that against a better player KQ of diamonds might be a candidate to fold.
Kevin – Thanks so much for the additional analysis. I felt it was a thin / questionable call and I admit it was made mostly on lol live reads / gut check given the analytical preponderance slightly toward folding. I appreciate the validation that my game-time thought process was in line with solid hind-sight analytics, and the choice to use additional factors in this decision was reasonable.
really nicely played
im hoping some of the time you would be 3betting pre!
i like flop/turn/river and on the river when you get check raised i really dont think he is going to have many 7x or boats as its hard to call 2 streets with 7x cause he cant have a FD with it and for boats if he had 75 or 55 or somehow got to the turn with 22 i could only imagine he would be check raising with these hands!
Ryan – a reasonable point on the 3-bet. Yes. A certain percentage of KQs on the button would be a 3 bet. At that time, spades and clubs were the control for three bet, diamonds/hearts for open or call an open (because you can’t do it the same all the time).
I agree that it made more sense for V to check-raise the turn because as that is the final drawing street, so a hand like mine with a top pair, good kicker and a 2nd nut draw its pretty reasonable to call a turn raise for value because a value check raise would lay a good price to go for the flush draw plus improvement to trips or two pairs tossed in as probable good extra outs (no straight).
I will even sometimes check raise a 7 in V’s spot there to try to get weak Qs to fold and maybe shake loose weak flush draws. But check raising with such a thin value spot where you are likely behind is tricky and risky so the feel of the opponent has to be just right on player history. Myself and V did not have much history.
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