Thought Process Thread.

[samohhh]

Hand 1 : Hero is a very solid player. Does not mess around a lot. Pretty straight Forward. player in his early 30's , looks very serious and has never shown down a weak hand.
Villain: A very good aggro reg. Has final tabled the Aussie Millions, APPT Macau and is a regular in Macau. Very good player, understands the game.

Effective stacks : 65bb. ( Hero has 65 bb and the villain has him covered).

Level : 100-200.
Hero UTG+1, Opens to 550, MP1 flats, Button flats, SB (villain) flats.
Flop : 822r.
SB checks, Hero bets - 1350, MP1 Folds, Button folds, SB - check raises to 3050.
Action : ???

I want you thought process given all this information. Keep in mind image, hand ranges, sizing, position and stacks.

[rentdollarinplay]

not sure what you are looking for here, reads relating to history between 2 would be useful so would be turn and river barreling frequency of villain.

If you want standard line, then call with your entire value range allowing hero to keep ranges wide. Assuming he is aware of hero's straight forward image, dry board, hero betting into 4 players etc, folding overcard type hands could be prudent (case can be made for floating with overcards with more info).

[samohhh]

Sorry sunny.. Hero is Villain is good enough to know that hero is straight forward. Hero has AK.... Was too sleepy when I keyed this in.. Sorry...

[vinay_suchede]

hmm.. nice post sammy.. got me thinking a lot...

ok.. my first reaction would have been to give up.. at that moment I would have thought I have to call 25% of my stack to bluff catch oop.. and then fold to a turn or a river barrel .. it wouldn't have seemed worth it (considering also that Hero is a straight forward player)..

now the above is exactly what the villain is exploiting and is thus having a hand which is heavily loaded towards total air.. considering he was ip, if he had nutty hands he would have taken a better line rather than to raise a dry board and hope the "straightforward" hero spazzes by getting creative..

my way to combat this (I wouldnt have been able to do this at that time obv) would be flat the raise on the flop... turn if the villain has air (and it looks like he does) he would more often than not check it due to pot commitment issues with second barrel... so turn goes check check (if it doesn't I will give up to the 2nd barrel).. by river if I dont clip A/K .. I donk shove.. if I clip A/K.. check call.. what do you all think?

[$$TtotheMFingROLL$$]

When a good player flats from SB, after so many people in the pot, he is basically trying to setmine 22-JJ, and maybe SCs like 9Ts+ if he feels he can play people postflop . I dont think he is playing with any A in his range. cause he would rather try to squeeze than flat a Ax type hand from SB. Premiums are out as well, cause again he would rather squeeze or reduce the number of PF callers.

So on the flop , His check raise on such a dry board reps PPs, most likely 33-TT, or complete air, to make hero fold , exactly the kinds of hand he has. Think floating a street is fine, but I think given the image, shove will actually work here enough times to make it profitable, although its high variance.

[SuicideSpree]

An observation I have to make here is that our c-bet size seems a bit on the large side given how dry this board is. I would have liked to keep it smaller. Edit: Thought it was three players, not four. Sorry.

An aggro reg can have a pretty wide range pre-flop in this spot. All suited aces, pocket pairs QQ and below, suited connectors are possible.

I have to think that if you are as straightforward as you say and he knows this, his raise here is light never and there is massive cause for concern. If you are straightforward, I doubt he would choose to steal a pot in this manner. Your range looks like strong aces, pocket pairs etc, to him and this is a very poor board to try bluffing because you are unlikely to believe him. I doubt he'd try and steal with air hands here and i doubt he would turn medium strength hands into bluffs, so IMO this is weighted heavily towards hands he wants to get it in with. I'd just fold here because I think we are crushed way too often.

Edit: I think the problem with calling here is that unless we are willing to put in large percentages of our stack (or all of it) without improving, this call is terrible and I really don't think we are going to be good at showdown very often, with our Ace high. Personally, I am not a big fan of the guessing games you will have to play if you decide to flat here.

[rentdollarinplay]

hmm.. nice post sammy.. got me thinking a lot...

ok.. my first reaction would have been to give up.. at that moment I would have thought I have to call 25% of my stack to bluff catch oop.. and then fold to a turn or a river barrel .. it wouldn't have seemed worth it (considering also that Hero is a straight forward player)..

now the above is exactly what the villain is exploiting and is thus having a hand which is heavily loaded towards total air.. considering he was ip, if he had nutty hands he would have taken a better line rather than to raise a dry board and hope the "straightforward" hero spazzes by getting creative..

my way to combat this (I wouldnt have been able to do this at that time obv) would be flat the raise on the flop... turn if the villain has air (and it looks like he does) he would more often than not check it due to pot commitment issues with second barrel... so turn goes check check (if it doesn't I will give up to the 2nd barrel).. by river if I dont clip A/K .. I donk shove.. if I clip A/K.. check call.. what do you all think?

if you are floating IP and if turn is checked, 100% bet turn and follow through on river .. u are repping a big pair here. Thats why villain's turn and river barreling freq is helpful to know. If he takes one stab with a flop c-r then gives up then we are printing $$ all day vs these players.

Of course shallow stacks are not tht great fr these plays in mtts

[samohhh]

Thank you for the great inputs on the hand. Now I am just trying add some method to the madness and tell you how I approach the hand. To start off, its not my hand, its a hand played by an Indian tourney reg in Macau.

Board Texture: Whenever I look into a hand, I look at this first. on an 822r board, what is the villain check raising me with? What's is Value range? To understand this, I look at the range.
Range: Villain is on the SB and peeled out of position. The villain is a good player and I dont expect him to peel with a hand which hits the board hard, other than 22 and 88. Even if he has 89ss, 78ss type of hands, he wouldn't check raise. Same with 33-JJ I would think. So basically there is 1 combo of 22 and 3 combos of 88 where he can raise for value, and with the rest of his range , he is mostly flatting. So basically its 4 combos for value vs air.
( could be a flawed way of thinking but that why I am putting it here).

Image and Action: I usually tend to look at this together coz it helps me. When a player like hero bets hard on that board into 4 people, the first idea the villain would get is over pair. Although its a pretty good board to c-bet your entire range ( if you dont agree, let me know), the villain doesnt know that, and in this spot , considering the image, it still looks pretty nutted. However, the villain is capable. He knows that almost always, only over pairs continue on that board and with AK, AQ type of hands , hero is likely to fold.

I with this information, would call here and re-evaluate turn . I dont know about the villains barelling frequency in this spot, however I know that he is a tourney reg , a good player and will not try to get creative in the 2nd level of the day. Usually tourney regs get creative post antes when there is considerable money in the pot.

[samohhh]

The turn is a Kh. Still rainbow and the Villain leads for 4200. Action?

[vinay_suchede]

@sunny.. yeah ip that would be ideal as you say..

anyway, back to the hand

interesting turn card and the bet.. just the ideal one to make this spot more complex.. I may have donked this turn with bet/fold in mind.. (my earlier check call line was if it went check check on turn and river I would check call)

it seems hero checked.. and now he is getting bet into.. I would fold in this spot even though I have clipped the K.. villain is betting even though K hits our range and he is betting with little eff stack behind... this tilts his range towards the nutty hands to me... thus in effect a K on the turn doesn't change anything for the hero actually (what if we had AA/KK/prem pp to begin with instead of AK).. my plan is still to fold to a turn barrel..

Edit : PS: Sammy include A2s also in his value range imo..