Sunday Special #15: An Uncommon Size Leads to an Uncommon Line

A hand from prolific commenter Lion King

My (Sam’s) thoughts are included in the footnotes. If you reading this via e-mail, it might be an easier read on Substack where the footnotes require less scrolling back and forth. Click here. On to the Sunday Special where we have a first time submitter.

The submission has been lightly edited for content and clarity

My name is Loris, I am 27 years young and I play mostly low to mid stakes online and I plan for my poker dream to soon become reality

After finishing the German equivalent of high school I decided to go to a German state police, because I always had a strong sense for justice and honestly I didn’t have a clear plan for my future with my young age of 18. In my college years I got into poker and in a fateful night while I was sitting in my student dorm in the middle of nowhere (the police college was placed in a very small, isolated village) I asked myself, if there is more to ask from life. I decided back then, about 8 years ago, that I at least wanted to give the poker dream a try, so I won’t regret it later on when I look back at my life. Because I have to work the usual 40 hours with shifts and I only play tournament poker, I do have much time to study poker and only so many days I can actually play poker. So when I don’t have obligations to fulfill my day starts with a Club Mate drink and around 1 hour of poker study before my actual day begins!

(Note from Sam: I assume based on your frequent commenting that on hour often includes Punt of the Day. It is appreciated)

$30 Big-Field GG Poker on a Sunday. 8 Handed. Registration still open

Hero opens to 2bb UTG+1 w A♣️T♥️, folds to the BB, an Argentinian with low 6 figure winnings, who calls with 27bb left, Hero covers.

Flop (5.53bb) Q♠️T♦️9♣️: Hero c-bets 3bb, BB calls.

Turn (11.53bb) J♠️: BB checks, Hero checks.

River (11.53bb) Q♣️: BB bets 5.77bb, Hero takes 1 timebank, shoves for 22.92bb effective, BB takes 2 timebanks and folds.

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What I Was Thinking

Preflop:
The whole table had between 12-36bb under 40bb, so I’d only raise to 2bb.
I would only deviate with a bigger size against heavy calling stations
that flat me to death.¹

Flop
This flop hits my range very hard. We have all sets, I suspect BB to maybe have 99 but no other set. We have overpairs and all KJ.² Against weaker opposition I would purely exploit between 1/3 and 2/3 sizing on the flop³, because I expect my low stakes opponents to call too many gutshots and low pairs against the 2/3.⁴However I expect this opponent to play better than the field, besides his 6 figure winnings he also had solid stats – no more reads at this point. I still expect regs to be to sticky on the flop, but against better players I throw some more big sizings with bluffs like Ax+bdfd and draws.⁵

I decided that I also wanna have some Tx in my big-bet range. I get more value from Jx, pairs+draws like 98, JT type of hands and also A9 bdfd I don’t expect him to fold on the flop. Having Tx in this range makes it also harder for him to range me.⁶ His flat does cap his range imo, but against the big size I see some more slowplays from regs than against a smaller size.⁷

Turn:
Amusingly the turn gave me the most headache. I was thinking about some concepts Sam talked about like linear betting on those drawy boards like in POTD#154 and I will certainly get value from Tx, 9x + flush draw, but finally I decided against it – not knowing exactly how my range should look like and if I should ever bet for a small sizing on the turn.⁸ A small sizing would allow me to bet more 2p and trips on the turn. We should still bet this turn frequently, even tho I doubt that I would find a big c-bet w AK.⁹ In hindsight I think a double barrel would be appealing, because I think that many Qx will fold against the double barrel – so I get worse hands to call but better hands to fold.¹⁰

River:
As soon as I saw the river I wanted to bluff it. I often check two pair and sets on the turn that river full houses.¹¹ His bet size looks exactly like a straight.¹² At this point I checked my opponents information. I would only bluff here against an experienced player that is able to bet/fold hands as strong as a straight.¹³
My bluff gains extra credibility because:

• My big flop size that looks strong for the experienced eye¹⁴

• I would play two pairs and sets like this very frequently

• I only“ have around 25k winnings on GG Poker and look therefore more like a weaker, unexperienced player imo. ¹⁵

I also added one timebank to my river desicion to make it look more like a fake tank¹⁶. I appreciate my exact holding as a bluff, because the T♥️ blocks more QTs combos, but I doubt that he would use ½ with his full houses, he looks somewhat capped to straights and I expect that he wanted to value target my overpairs and Qx with his size.¹⁷

Am I under or overbluffing? Let’s do some combo counting! I would play QJ, QT, TT, 99,Q9s this way – so 23 value combos.¹⁸ I would love to still have AK in my range but I doubt I would find the 2/3 on the flop with that holding.¹⁹ I felt like the 2/3 c-bet size was an “in the mood“ size I would not often use with my exact holding. This convinced me even more to use it as a bluff. From the 12 combos of AT that are left let’s say I would play this line ¼ of the time so I have 3 bluffing combos. I would also find T9 with this line so let’s say I have 5 bluffing combos.²⁰ He needs to be good around 30% on the river when he decides to call my raise and because I only have 5 bluffs out of 28 hands that are in my range I am still under bluffing and BB made the right decision by folding.²¹

I also do like his line, because I also suspect field in my spot to be even more value heavy than me in this spot.²²

Types of Errors

Unprecise in my turn strategy –
didn’t know if I could split into 2 sizes and how thin I could barrel
Underbluffing river

Final Thoughts and Grade

I am unsure if I should put a middle of range hand like ATo in my big c-bet range.²³ I like the exploit of using a strong c-bet size against my mid stakes opponents, even more experienced regs, but by analysing the hand I discovered that I leave the door open for counter exploiting me with tight folds. Using this big c-bet size forces me to find unintuitive river raises to find balance later on – basically ace high hands, because the rest of my easy to find river raises like JT and A9s are still in my 1/3 range.

So how do I grade a big c-bet size I still do like for exploitative reasons, paired with a turn that caught me off-guard and a nice river bluff raise, that I certainly underbluff with range? I found my direction by searching POTD #74 where Same wrote. “I am grading a hand I played, not my overall strategy“.

I do like the decisions I made throughout the hand and I am sucker for Hugo Boss – let’s give it a B.²⁴

If you made it to the end of the post and are interested in being the subject of a future Sunday Special, let me know. Do not be shy if you have a lack poker skill or accomplishments. No solver analysis is required from you and I’d much rather have hobbyist poker players, who are good writers that can produce clean copies and clearly articulate their thought process than editing the writing of 99% of accomplished poker players.

1. It depends where the calling stations are. Raising to a larger size with calling stations in middle position, will just create profitable squeeze opportunities for LP players. Raising big to charge a calling stattion in the BB is always a reasonable play.

2. A common thing I see in Sunday Specials are people’s heuristics to determine who has a range advantage often focuses on who has the nuts, second, third, fourth nuts more often than their opponent. In a hand like this some of your range advantage is from the set advantage, but a lot more of it comes from the fact that you have QJo more than your opponent and you never have 65o. Your preflop range is much stronger, almost all big card boards favour you, nuts advantage or not.

3. Assuming this means bet 1/3 pot with bad hands and 2/3rds pot with good hands. I think this is a little too predictable and something many opponents will be able to figure out, but you can certainly weight things like this as an exploit. It looks like you have a big enough range advantage that a one size half pot strategy should be fine.

4. This board is still good enough for your range that you just want to start funneling a lot of money in the pot and betting on the larger size anyways. You can split sizes, but betting half pot with range is also fine, especially vs opponents will never fold 9x or Tx to half pot.

5. You raised UTG and hit a really good flop for your range. I think you are overthinking the best way to exploitatively construct your c-bet strategy a little here, especially vs an opponent who appears to be pretty compotent. Just bet often and pick a size that will put pressure on anything worse than top pair with your range. However I do agree that barreling off total air will probably work well given your image, unfortunately we do not have total air.

6. Having Tx in your c-betting range and different sizes is always a nice play. If you play two c-bet sizes and mostly block Tx, but want to bet big with some of your highest EV top pairs AT is reasonable, but KT and JT are your highest EV and “best” Tx, even if AT has them outkicked.

7. I think it’s unlikely he has a set, two pair or J8, but KJ is still possible.

8. The bigger problem here is your hand doesn’t have enough linear equity. He can just have Qx or Jx that is way ahead of your hand. A linear turn bet here might look like betting QhTh that can get called by Ad9d or Ts7s or JcTc. You don’t need to play a huge size on the turn, but you do want to put pressure on some his marginal continues so once again half pot is fine and fine with AT, which should get a lot of Qx and Jx to fold right away.

9. When you raise EP and play multiple c-bet sizes it’s often best practice to put AK high in the ranges of all your c-bet sizes.

10. Getting worse hands to call is rare, but it’s a pretty good spot to bluff this is a very good card for your range, especially after your large c-bet size, which should get him to fold a lot of Kx.

11. Correct

12. King high or queen high straights using an 8?

13. Also correct, but you also need it to be vs an opponent who might block an 8 or trips because getting a king to fold should be difficult.

14. I agree with this

15. I don’t necessarily agree that looking unexperienced might make him think you’re underbluffing. It might just make him think that you’re unpredictable and someone he can’t fold a king high straight too. However, I do think that you being inexperienced means that it’s unlikely you will find unusual linear turn bets with straights and two pair, which should give your range a lot of full houses.

16. You are probably leveling yourself a little here. I think a snap shove from an unknown looks a lot stronger than a tank shove from one.

17. He should play QTo likes this, so blocking QTs doesn’t matter much. I agree in theory betting half pot with a full house doesn’t make sense, but he might think your range is capped and pick a size like this to induce a crying call.

18. I think you should probably try betting the turn with sets and top two more often.

19. Unless you had exactly AsKs, checking the turn with AK would be a crime against poker (it doesn’t actually lose much EV, but I’d never do it in this situation).

20. I think you are a little too focused on blocking boats and perhaps not focused enough on the other part of your opponent’s range. If he’s regularly bluffing with a ten or a nine. You might not want a ten or a nine in your bluffing range. The weird solver bluffs that are hard to find here are just running it with some of your weakest pocket pairs or Ax hands. Jamming pocket fives or A6s are reasonable plays here. I’d assume you don’t think you’re ever bluffing hands like J9 or A9 on the river because you don’t think you’ll ever c-bet them to this size, which is likely true, but that’s one of the downstream consequences of playing a c-bet size that is good hands + bluffs and another one that is mostly middle of range and traps.

21. On boards like this blockers matter and a key question here is would you ever shove a king high straight. If you do, he can’t really fold a king high straight. If you are only shoving boats, then a hand like say KQ or Q8 knows you don’t have 23 value combos, and can call wider. In a spot where you’re opponent needs to call with 30% equity and your opponent’s bluff catchers all have blockers, your bluff to value frequency can’t bet 3:7 or you will be in a lot of trouble.

22. If he used two timebanks he likely had a straight, but I wonder if he had a king or an eight.

23. It’s a fine play

24. I think overall it’s a fine hand. The board is so good for our range that c-betting 2/3rds pot with anything that isn’t exactly top set is likely a fine play. The solver doesn’t really like bluffing with AT, but it like bluffing with A9 and it also likes bluffing with hands like pocket 66 that are very hard to find as humans. I do think it is possible you are actually over bluffing this river. There are a lot of counterfeited two pairs, sometimes you bet the turn with a set, you might turn AQ into a bluff sometimes, etc. So I think your B is an acceptable grade, but if I played the hand I might give myself a B- for some small technical mistakes.