POTD #32 Getting a Speeding Ticket in Paris

From Steve O'Dwyer and not the noted French police officer pictured

When I started POTD, I thought having a “Types of Error” section would help me and the reader spot specific leaks in my game, but oftentimes I have used that section to focus on something simple, the Goldilocks problem: Is the amount of money I put in the pot too much, not enough, or just right? When you’re value betting, it’s helpful to think of how much money your hand is worth; when you’re bluffing, it’s helpful to think of what hands you’d value bet with that size. A reason I focus on the amount of money I put in the pot is because putting the wrong amount of money in the pot tends to be much more costly than other technical mistakes. If you pick the wrong size or have your range strategy wrong or pick a combo that is slightly off, there is a good chance that versus a human player who doesn’t know your exact strategy and isn’t countering it perfectly, you will be fine. If you regularly put three times as much money in the pot as you’re supposed to, it will hurt in the long run. In today’s hand, I get every postflop decision wrong: some with too much money, some with not enough, but only one is really costly.

HH: Pokernews Update

EPT Paris 2024 25k #6

Level 4 1k/1.5k/1.5k (SB/BB/BBA)

It folds to me on the button and I raise to 4k with 7♦️5♦️, Steve O’Dwyer calls in the BB off 115k

Flop (10.5k): A♠️9♠️8♣️ Steve checks, I bet 3k, Steve calls

Turn (16.5k) 9♦️: Steve leads 4k, I raise to 16k, Steve calls

River (48.5k) K♣️: Steve checks, I put Steve all-in for 92.5k, he calls with A♥️2♥️

What I Was Thinking

I thought A98 was a pure c-bet button vs. big blind, and I thought the boards I checked would be the ace-high boards where the BB has a lot of straight draws but the cards are smaller, like A76 with a flush draw. I thought my hand, a bad gutshot, would mix between big bet and block, and I rolled a small number and blocked. On the turn, Steve’s lead makes sense; he does often check/call the flop with a 9, and leading the turn small from the BB when the middle or bottom card pairs is a normal play. I thought my turn bluff-raising range would consist of a variety of flush and straight draws, along with some no-equity bluffs with key blockers like KsTx. I rolled an aggressive number and raised; Steve called. On the river, I thought my value betting range would be trips or better, and my bluffs would be hands like mine that played the board or worse, so I thought the appropriate size was all-in. Steve called with A2.

What I Got Wrong

The flop is a high-frequency check with hand and range, and when I bet on this board, I favor a bigger size. I got the mechanic about the types of boards I check wrong as well-- A98 checks more often than A76-- but most importantly, I didn’t consider checking on the flop, which is my highest frequency play.

On the turn, my logic is sound, and while 75 never raises, 65 does a ton of raising. 65 is also a hand that bets large on the flop close to 100% of the time, because it can fold out some T6 the BB has, which makes it less likely the button gets straight-over-straighted. Raising 75 is technically wrong, but it doesn’t lose much, and 75 resembles the types of hands that might raise. What I got wrong on the turn was my overall range strategy, which includes raising a ton of random no draw hands like K2cc. It’s a bluff that looks pretty wild, but it blocks the BB’s strongest non-full house 9x hands, and I can get bad top pair to fold but also get called by JT and flush draws occasionally and win at showdown.

Sometimes I punt because I make a complex technical mistake. In this hand, my river mistake started from an avoidable mistake: I misread the board. I didn’t realize that on the river, all non-full house nines chop; therefore, if I have a hand like Q9, picking overbet all-in is very optimistic. It means I need to get called by a bare ace more often than he has a full house. That’s hard to do. My river range is polar, but even half-pot in-position bets on the river are polarized. Most of my bluffs have 0% equity; a bad 9 still has 90% equity, but a lot of that equity is driven from hands that we chop with or hands that will check/fold. However, even on a 2 river, K9 through J9 rarely go all-in despite having a ton of equity. The reason for that is that they’re trying to get called by a 9. If you have a 9 in your hand and your all-in is trying to get called by a nine, it makes sense to bet a smaller size that will get called by an ace more often. It’s also hard to bluff for overpot when you can’t bluff with blockers, your opponent won’t have a nine often enough when you’re value betting and will have it too often when you’re bluffing.

Types Of Error

Misread the board
Bad flop strategy

Grade

For a hand where I got every decision wrong, I actually think I did okay here. None of my decisions lose a ton of EV. If I had 6♥️5♥️, this would be a normal, solver-approved poker hand. It’s better to bluff 65 than 75, because you want OOP to have T7, but it’s not that costly. The main problem with this hand is in aggregate: I would have been putting way too much money in the pot on the river with bluffs and trips. It’s not the most costly play to expand your bluffing and value-betting ranges. However, it’s possible that when I have trips in this spot, I would have read my hand correctly, but I did not this time, when I had a bluff representing trips. That could be a big problem facing an observant opponent. Overall, this hand wasn’t too bad, and I gifted chips to Premium Subscriber Steve O’Dwyer, but when I misunderstand my range strategy because I made an error as simple as misreading the board, it’s hard to give myself a good grade.

B-