Find my mistake and explain why (hand reading exercise)

This is a hand from today where I knew I made a significant mistake immediately after the hand and was pissed at myself.

Villain is a slightly more passive than avg 21/14ish tag

This hand definitely made me consider an important concept I forget a lot of the time.




PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $6 BB (4 handed)
Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

SB ($1160)
Hero ($1436.05)
UTG ($269.10)
Button ($664)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6, 5.
2 folds, SB raises to $21, Hero raises to $60, SB calls $39.

Flop: ($120) T, 4, 3 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $78, SB calls $78.

Turn: ($276) 7 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $180, SB calls $180.

River: ($636) K (2 players)

Hero goes all in

i guess i wont ruin it by answering first

yea that would such a bitch move lol

fold pf.

or raise $3 more pre.

WHO THE FUCK YOU THINK YOUR FUCKING WITH IM THE FUCKING SAUCE.

I presume SB checked the river too?

The river push? Why not bet $300-400, you mighty get a call out of him then. I doubt he's calling AI on the river.

He's taken a bit of a weird line, finding in difficult to put him on a hand. What would he call a 3-bet PF that he would check call flop and turn? A10s doubtful, if it is ,\he's slightly worried you have JJ+? Or mayb he haslower PP like 55/66/88/99?

He's folding any of those hands with the river K to a push

I guess you're repping AK or JJ+. He's folding this river like 99% of the time. Though I have no idea at these stakes LOL

My guess after looking at it a lot.

Since you're both deep you need to play it like you are. The PF 3bet is way too small in general and you fail to adjust to the fact during the hand (bet sizing) that you are 200bb deep.

God I hope I'm way off.

i think it's a combo of pokermuzz and bigspenda's posts.
the river pot was too small, especially sicne he likely has a hand that cant stand a river overbet after the K hits.
i mean wouldn't even a semi passive tag tend to raise AA/KK somewhere before the river?

i think betting the turn was a mistake. you now have a monster draw, but there is enough behind to make it a mistake to call a push, and it would be a very bad thing to have to fold here simply because you failed to check behind on the turn. (this assumes that villain is only CRing on the turn with a set).

pgil, i think he has a straight on the turn

pgil, i think he has a straight on the turn

I would just say you didn't consider what your hand would look like to villian and what he could be holding to decide how much he would call because of it. If he's a reg he's not stacking off with JJ-QQ or AT here. But he would have called a reasonable value bet.

Essentially what you did is play your hand like you play play a bluff, which is make it very hard for him to showdown without a near nut hand.

To have made all this easier to take his stack is your bet sizing should have been larger throughout the hand to give him better odds to make the big river call later in the hand.

(hopefully this is close...)

the fact that villain called 2 big pot sized bets suggests he's got a PP. i don't think a reg would call that off with even AK here.

with that overbet...you're only stacking him if he hit a set, and mucking everything else.

in that case, you might be better off with a really weak bet on the river...like 1/3, and hope he bluffs his stack away.

(how many brownie points did i get???)

You need to bet slightly more on the flop and turn so that you have less than a pot size bet on the river - so its easier for villain to become "pot commited" with less than the pot left on the river?

I agree with the above, I put him on a stubborn 99-AA, and that river bet folds out a shitload of his range, because you left too much in his stack by the time the river hit.

Although maybe the answer is that you acted out of turn on the river.

Hmm interesting.

This is a cool way of getting us to comment on a hand we'd normally steer clear of because of the standard/stakes involved

My comments would be: that flop bet could be higher if we've got our eyes on his stack (and you're not drawing for second pair are you, so this wants to be a big pot if you hit).

But it's the river push that raises questions for me. Does this really have the highest expectation?
What's he got left, 800? How often does he call the push here?
Surely he'll call 300 frequently enough to make it worthwhile, plus there has to be a chance that even a fairly passive tag will chuck it back at you once in a while, especially with a set?

then i am a dumbass

k results-

my normal default play in sitautions like this with the disguised nuts in a 3bet pots is to put in money as quickly as possible, and shoving river even if it means a semi-gross overbet as I also make plays like this as a bluff cause I'm kinda crazy like that. Essentially its just sklansky-shorthand that when I am 6+ tabling its very likely my best long-term +ev bet is a shove with the nuts, not to mention metagame benefits.

but not here... here my river play is terrible

btw the small 3-bet pf isnt a mistake as I am in position and I want to build a pot both for deception and because I have a great hand to play a big pot with, also having the initiative against a passive tag is very good thing.

So here in my mind is his range street by street.

Pf call= QQ-22, (this also depends on his mood/image of me which is probably strong/aggressive) AJ-AQ, KQ, ATs, KTs, QJs (maybe), and then possibly KK or AA with KK being more likely than AA. Also, again depending on image he can be in with the same kind of hand I have- JTs, T9s, etc.

Flop- I cbet slightly less than 2/3 which is my default in 3bet pots he calls.

so his most likely holdings here are in order: Tx, JJ, QQ, 99, 88, 77, 66, 55, TT, 44, 33, KK, AA- which is actually a pretty small range as these things go.

Turn- I hit my straight, I bet 180 into 276. I think this bet is good as it allows him to C/R with his sets and is probably small enough that he sticks around with 88+ and definitely with Tx, JJ and QQ. (its not impossible that I am double-barreling here)

River- K. This is where I fuck up bad. I'm like OMG I HAVE TEH NUTS!!!! and shove after he checks for like 1.3 times pot. The only good point of this play is that I could be "repping" AK and a thinking player could make a hero call with just about anything from his range. But hes a passive tag and my image is less terrible than usual so hes probably not going to do that, also the king is a terrible card to make a value overbet on as a TON of my double barrels just filled and I could be making a thin value bet with AK.

So whats the right bet? After some thought I think 380 is the best bet there, which falls under the heading of between 1/2 and 2/3 pot. Basically in 3bet pots with a very strong hand I think I lose value with some kind of minibet (200ish) which is also terrible, terrible metagame. But if we have his perceived range as dominated by JJ, QQ and to a lesser extent Tx and smaller PPs by the river, but heavily tilted toward JJ QQ, our river bet extracts max value from this range while still leaving him room to C/R shove any weirdly played set, AA or KT.

So: Very counter-intuitively shoving the nuts on the river in a 3-bet pot was a 200+ dollar mistake (as I think he calls 380 at least 70% of the time). Weird huh?

I feel like if I move up in stakes I need to get better at these kind of situations...

You assuming ...

70% he calls 380
10% he calls shove
20% fold

then?

Originally Posted by sauce123

Turn- I hit my straight, I bet 180 into 276. I think this bet is good as it allows him to C/R with his sets and is probably small enough that he sticks around with 88+ and definitely with Tx, JJ and QQ. (its not impossible that I am double-barreling here)

But if he's passive, doesn't that mean that he's more likely to use an overpair as a bluff catcher rather than a good hand, and therefore it's necessary to put his money in the pot for him (Esp. on the turn)?

shove here is a good bluff

gabe- haha yea exactly, and balance doesnt mean shit if he calls approx. never

euphorcism- i dont get what ur asking... do u want me to do the ev equations for u?

Ash- i said he was a passive TAG... not a passive player. This means that of all the reg 600nl tags I think he plays slightly more passively than most of the winning ones, that doesnt mean hes a passive fish...

Originally Posted by gabe

shove here is a good bluff

If opp is very good and thinking is a shove here good then? Of course, i'm not sure we're ever running into this kind of opponent at 3/6.

just cause hes good and thinking doesnt mean he can call a shove here with 99

I don't know if he would call with 99 for 380$ anyways, might as well shove and get value from sets, two-pairs, etc, plus it balances out with teh bluff shoves

Originally Posted by Alexos

I don't know if he would call with 99 for 380$ anyways, might as well shove and get value from sets, two-pairs, etc,

Which are obviously not reraising the river.

Sauce discussed this with me for like 10 mins and i agree def a valuebet.

alexos- lol thats exactly what I thought during the hand but its definitely wrong- check out my post.

What was villain's river action (obv check...)

You say that villain is passive, but that doesn't mean he's incapable of folding QQ/JJ, does it?

He can't have AK.

He can't really have AA.

Since he's passive he might have KK... Checking river here is sexy if he did it with KK.

Most likely imo is QQ-77. I don't see what the huge mistake is tbh.

If your image includes shoving the nutz a lot then NH (otherwise value-betting river is more convincing). It's not like he'll fold 1010 or KK but he has a very tough call with QQ or JJ which are his two most likely holdings.

edit : I answered thinking we had 6 high on river lolz...

I would tend to check the turn here vs a more standardish player since getting raised off our draw this deep would suck bigtime. You mentioned that the player was passive though so I like your turn bet.

I suppose you might be thinking that checking the turn is good since a standard villain will value/block with QQ or JJ after you check the turn (and then might call since your turn check makes river look bluffy). But a passive villain may very well just check river as well even if the overcard didn't hit so I'm not sure what you're so worked up about. NH.

Originally Posted by Genitruc

Operation Play Poker (take 4389278) : Play 21.5k raked hands between March 18th and April 30th and be a B to the ONUS WHORE

# of raked hands completed so far : 5.3k

Caveman.

Originally Posted by Anosmic

Originally Posted by Genitruc

Operation Play Poker (take 4389278) : Play 21.5k raked hands between March 18th and April 30th and be a B to the ONUS WHORE

# of raked hands completed so far : 5.3k

Caveman.

Handing in 1st chapter of my thesis April 18th FTW