POTD #188 I Try to Trap Linus Loeliger and David Yan
A backwards poker special. I bet when I should check and call when I should raise.
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Yesterday, I planned to open the post with a quick and easy guide of how to play inequal stack spots preflop. Then, as I am liable to do, I got distracted and wrote about an 11-year-old Run It Once video I made instead. Today, I will get straight to the meat of the problem, with three simple rules of how to adjust your three-betting ranges when stacks are unequal.
Your strategy should be dictated by the opener’s stack size. Everyone dreams of flatting AA and inducing four- and five-bets behind you, but if you are deep with an opener, the best way to win a big pot is to start by making them put more money in the pot. If the opener is shallow, you can trap AA or three-bet small.
Ask yourself: If I had the same stack size as the opener, what would I do with AKo? If you would shove when shallow, but are currently much deeper than the opener, you need to three-bet to a large size. You can read more about this spot in yesterday’s hand, but remember, even versus a 25bb stack, three-betting to 5bbs won’t get it done. You don’t want to price your opponent’s KQo or J9s into seeing a flop.
Ask yourself: If I had the same stack size as the opener, what would I do with AA? Would you flat as a trap? Then you still flat as a trap. Would you three-bet small? Then you still need to three-bet small, but you need to create a small three-betting range that is different from your big three-betting range with AKo. Playing two three-bet sizes is too complicated? Guess what, you already do it. Normally your big size is all-in; now it’s 4x.
I hope you enjoyed this handy guide, and I’d like to thank subscriber Mike Goodman for suggesting I do this. If you’d like more guides like this, please suggest them to me. I am easy to reach and eager to please. On to today’s hand.
Triton London 2023 - Event #6 $60k NLH 7-Handed
(4k/8k/8k) (SB/BB/BBA) 200k starting stack. Registration is open.
It folds to Linus Loeliger (382k) on the button who makes it 16k, I (767k) have J♥️J♠️ in the SB and call, David Yan (135k) folds in the BB.
Flop (48k) J♦️T♠️4♣️: I check, Linus checks.
Turn (48k) 5♠️: I bet 60k, Linus calls.
River (168k) 4♦️: I bet 150k of Linus’s 306k, he calls and mucks.
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What I Was Thinking
I thought that with a short-stacked David in the BB, inducing a squeeze would be appealing, especially because I thought Linus would be opening too wide on the button and David is a player who is capable of making some big exploitative deviations.
I was not sure if I got leads on the flop with my range, but I certainly did not think that top set would be a hand that I’d lead very often. When Linus checked back the flop, I thought he had a lot of middle-of-range type hands, and I wanted to put pressure on those hands. I did not think I would play block on the turn; I thought my predominant size would be an overbet into a capped range, and I thought it was appropriate to bet that size with top set. On the river, I became concerned that I blocked too much of Linus’s river calling range and thought I would not be allowed to over-bet with range, because he might have his share of trips and I should rarely have trips or better, so I decided to bet full pot. He called and mucked.
What I Got Wrong
When you are playing exploitative poker, it’s rare for you to rely on another player to help you find the best exploit. If I think Linus is opening too wide on the button, I should three-bet him more, especially with strong hands for value. That is a much better way to get value out of my hand than to flat, hoping David is trying to exploit the same thing and shoves too wide. This is especially true because— let’s say Linus is raising too wide on the button and opening a hand like 53 suited. Well, if I flat and David shoves, Linus is handcuffed; he can’t call an all-in with five high because he thinks David is making a move. However, if I three-bet non-all-in, Linus can four-bet bluff with a bad hand or flat with a speculative hand.
So my preflop play is a bad exploit, but it’s also a bad theory play. When stacks are unequal, you should rarely trap to try to get 135k from a short stack when you could get 382k from the big stack. I am flatting hoping David will put in 17bbs with a bad hand, when I could three-bet to 8bbs and get half of that every time Linus flats a three-bet. To combine the theory and the exploit here, when I three-bet preflop, David is still supposed to stack hands like 55, ATo and A7s. If he has a read that Linus is opening too wide and I am countering him by, say, always three-betting A8o and KTo, he can pretty comfortably start stacking off A9o and KJo. He only has 16bbs, we have wide ranges, and there is a lot of dead money out there.
In theory, the flop plays differently than I expected. Since I am afraid of David squeezing preflop, I get rid of some of my loosest preflop calls and always three-bet my good hands, which means that on a board like JTx rainbow, I have a very weak range and almost always check, and Linus almost always bets. I called preflop because I thought David might do something crazy and Linus might respond with something crazy, so I am not sure why my counter was to over-bet the turn. Checking the turn allows Linus to take a stab at the pot and allows me to check-raise with top set and get more money in the pot vs. draws. I was correct that overbetting the turn is the most common size for me, but JJ is still not the correct hand for it. I should check. While I do not like my turn strategy, it doesn’t lose that much EV. We have 7x pot to play and one card to come and I bet big with top set. It all seems fine to me.
My river play is fine. I have the nut full house, but I block some top pair hands that Linus will always call on the river, and I don’t have many hands in my range that would want to overbet all-in on the river. However, it also felt like a line where I rarely induce river shoves from Linus, and by betting 150k, I cap my potential river winnings at 150k, when I want the whole 306k.
Types of Errors
Very bad tricky preflop play
Played my hand in a way where I couldn’t get all-in with the nuts postflop
Grade
This is one of those hands where when I bet the river, I remember feeling nervous. Not nervous because I was value betting such a strong hand, but nervous that I was going to show this hand down and look like an idiot. Outside of my preflop call, no decisions I made today lost much EV, but every decision feels wrong. I knew I was overbet or check on the turn, but I did not bucket my hand in the right range. I knew my river strategy would be polar and I could go all-in or fold, but I was worried that I could not shove a hand like AJ when the four paired on the river, so I picked an in-between size that doesn’t lose much EV, but also basically guaranteed I could not win all of Linus’s chips with the second nuts. This hand began with a greedy preflop play that was incorrect and ended with a river play that was not greedy enough. I had a hand that wanted to play for stacks, and at every opportunity, I failed to put myself in the best position to do that.
C
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