POTD #171 Monte Carlo Monday: Leading Week Begins

How to react to a surprising lead

A thread on 2p2 that was formative to my development as a poker player was Craig “Irieguy” Hartman writing about “betting impetus”¹ , the concept that if you bet on a previous street you would have an advantage on future streets because you had control of the hand. This was true in the games he was describing; players over-folded at almost every node, and betting early and often gave you control of the hand. Having the betting impetus had a real psychological benefit in those games, since people did not want to play back versus aggression, but in a perfect world with rational actors, it should not have any strategic benefit. There are two reasons for this. When you bet often, you are putting money in the pot; you are paying for the privilege to get the impetus. The question is not do you want it, but is it worth the price you are paying for it. The other factor is, there are no rules within the game preventing someone taking the impetus from you. One can raise over an opponent’s bet while in position, or check-raise over their bet while out of position, or, as we will be discussing this week, check-call and lead the proceeding street. Position matters in solver poker because it provides a strategic advantage. Having the betting lead does not because either player is allowed to take it any time if they want; you are not guaranteed to keep it because you had it on the previous street.

Check-calling one street and leading the next used to be called a “donk bet” because it was a play used exclusively by donkeys. Before the solver era, as people started focusing on questions like “who has a range advantage,” check-calling and leading in some spots ceased being the mark of a donkey and became the mark of a shark. If the flop was T73 and the BB check-called a c-bet from the preflop raiser, the PFR would shut down on a 7 turn; savvy BBs would start leading because they recognized they had trips more often than their opponent and could bluff with straight draws and get value from trips. Once solvers entered the picture, people started running tests to see which situations had counter-intuitive leads, and there was an arms race of sorts: The best poker players in the world were the ones that could find the most obscure solver leads.

If you wanted to sell action in Super High Rollers or be considered one of the great Heads Up players or get accused of RTAing, there was no better way to showcase your savvy than finding unconventional leads. The reality is, many of these leads don’t add much EV and certainly don’t add much EV if your opponent doesn’t know you’re supposed to lead and will put in too much money vs. a check. Odd leads are plays that show off how much you’ve been studying, but they aren’t necessarily the best exploitative poker plays. This week on POTD, we are going to look at a series of hands where I faced odd leads, made bad leads, or should have led myself. By the end of the week, I hope we can improve our ability to lead and play vs. leads. We will begin this week with a Monte Carlo Monday hand; if you want to know more, simply read on and follow my lead.

Triton Monte Carlo 2024 $ 20,000 +20,000 Mystery Bounty 7-Handed (Event #3)
(1k/2.5k/2.5k) (SB/BB/BBA) 200K Starting Stack. Registration open. Bounties not in play

HH: Triton App

It folds to Kiat Lee (51k) in the SB who calls, I (349k) raise to 7k with 9♥️9♣️, Kiat calls.

Flop (16.5k) A♦️5♣️4♣️: Kiat checks, I bet 4k, Kiat calls.
Turn (24.5k) 2♥️: Kiat leads 5k, I shove for his 41k total, he calls with Q♥️3♥️ and doubles up.

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What I Was Thinking

At 20bbs, I thought I played shoves from the BB, so I thought my preflop value range would be very strong and I could raise on the smaller size, so I chose one chip smaller than 3x and went with 7k. It’s rare for Kiat to have an ace preflop, so I thought I would pure bet my range on the flop; since I pure bet my range, I did not think I would play a big size and decided to bet quarter pot with range. The 2 turned, filling a four-card wheel, and Kiat led, which confused me. I thought that he has very little 3x given he never limp-calls an offsuit 3 pre. If he rarely has a 3, an ace, or TT+, I figured my hand was often the best, but there were a lot of bad rivers for me, so I shoved to the end hand on the turn. I did end the hand, but not the way I hoped: I got all-in drawing dead to win the pot.

What I Got Wrong

My preflop size is too small. I was correct that I play a lot of shove from the BB and shove hands as strong as AJo, which means my raise-calling range is quite strong. The problem is, just because my value range wants to make a small raise doesn’t mean my whole range does. I am bluffing with hands as weak as 72o from the BB and my range is polar, so I should make it larger even if my value range is rather strong.

I do pure c-bet the flop with range. 99 without a club frequently bets 75% pot and calls a shove, but with a club, quarter pot is the preferred size. However, what I do on the flop and the turn is contingent on how price-sensitive Kiat is to my preflop sizing. When I size down, he calls K2o, Q3o and a variety of suited twos and threes that might fold to a larger preflop raise size. When he has all those extra gutshots on the flop, many with an overcard to 99, I should have been more interested in betting a larger size on the flop to charge those hands.

Kiat’s turn lead is not a play in equilibrium; I have many more top pair and offsuit 3x hands than him. However, we are not at equilibrium, not because of Kiat’s turn lead, but because of my preflop size. Kiat’s range vs. range equity increases by 4% and he has a straight 1.1x as often when I make it a small size preflop, and then he does get to play leads on the turn, including with his hand. When we give Kiat a wider preflop range with more wheels and he leads the turn, 99 still plays aggressively as me. It always raises, but it raises non all-in and mixes vs. a shove— folding with a club and calling without one. Just calling the turn loses around 0.2bbs, and shoving the turn loses around 0.3bbs compared to raising small. Raising small is the best play on the turn, but raising and calling a jam with a club loses around 0.6bbs. To be frank, there was no fucking way I was finding the correct solver play on this turn— whether I called, shoved or raise-called, I was losing around 0.3bbs or so.

Types of Errors
Preflop sizing error

Grade

I opened this newsletter writing about a donk bet, and my mindset in this hand was not all that different from my mindset playing $11 SNGs in 2006. “lol this donkey led in this stupid spot, what an idiot.” Turns out I was the idiot for sizing too small preflop and, instead of actually playing a hand of poker on the turn, focusing on how dumb my opponent’s play was. I doubt I would have ever found the raise/fold, but I should have given more consideration to an exploitative “maybe he is leading here because he has a straight” and tried to figure out what Kiat was up to in an obscure spot. Had my only mistake in this hand been my turn play, I would have given myself a B- that I might have upgraded to a B, but I got a pretty simple preflop spot wrong in a way that actually does cost me quite a bit of EV… it’s hard to lose more than 0.1 of a BB raising pocket nines preflop off 20bbs, but I did it. So I will have to change my grade to a

C

1. I tried to find the original impetus thread and found another thread discussing the impetus thread that has a dead link to the original. Remember, while it might seem like everything on the internet will last forever, it will not.