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Here’s a fun one…
Playing in the Sunday Million flight last night. I’ve played 248 hands with this villain who is playing a 24 VP/22 RFI/12 3! I also have a potentially relevant note that this player double barrels more than most, especially against BB defends. V is the table chip leader with 96 bb and opens 2.3 bb from UTG. Folds to us in BB, we have 41 bb and are holding Jd8h. We defend.
Flop comes Qh8d2s. We check. V bets 1.9bb into pot of 5.94. We call. T is 3s. V bets 6.61 into pot of 9.86. We have 36.25 behind. We don’t love it, but we call because we still have 2nd pair and because of our note on V.
River is the 6d. Final board is Qh8d2s3s6d. Pot is 23.07 bb, we have 29bb behind. We check, V shoves. What are you doing and why?
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6 Replies
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I’ll be honest, I’m really starting to question the wisdom of the wide BB defense. I know implied odds say it’s clearly the right play, but I’m finding that the rare occasions when I flop something of real value are greatly outweighed by all of the situations exactly like this, when I flop a very marginal hand and get sucked into calling off a couple of streets.
As for the specific hand, I’m letting it go on the river. He’s aggressive but still raising from UTG and triple-barreling on a board that is pretty decent for a BB defense range. I think I would need a read that villain is a bit of a maniac, or a known triple-barrel bluffer, to make this call. It’s worth noting that 24/22 is aggressive, but not maniacal by any means.
You’re behind AA/KK/AQ/KQ/QQ and maybe some small sets if he has those in his range. Middling pairs likely go into pot control mode and don’t triple barrel. What UTG bluffs might he have in his range? AK/AJ/KJ and maybe some random suited Aces. I’m not willing to call off here.
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Does it change anything if I told you V in hand is ACR Pro Vanessa Kade? So she’s very good, but also very aggro. The thing about a very good player is that they are more than capable of going for it here with value or having some good bluffs. But when I’m up against a really good player, I also know that they aren’t likely to over-value their hands. I really don’t think KQ takes this line. It either bets small on the river for value or even checks behind. I think even some AQ combos bet smaller too. But let’s give her all the AQ hands. Now there are around 30 combos of reasonable polarized value (AA/KK/QQ/AQ).
But if our note on her is right, and we do have some track record to believe it, it means she is taking aggro double barrel lines with hands like AK/AJ/AT/KJ on boards like this one. She’s targeting weak Qx and 8x and hoping to either draw ahead or get us to fold. Certainly not all of those combos take this triple barrel line, but if even only half of them do, that’s 32 combos and we have the odds to call. We only need to be right around 35% of the time. If our read is right, and I think it is conservative enough, we’re going to win more than 50% of the time.
It’s not a comfortable call, and we arguably are not all that high up in our distribution, so this could still be a mistake even with our read and our odds. But I did make it. She had AT.
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Oh and she can have 88 too, but we block that which is quite relevant, so it only adds one more combo.
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Okay, I suppose when you’re up against an aggressive pro you sometimes have to hold your nose and just go into x/c mode all the way. As uncomfortable as it might be. She’s certainly aware enough to recognize your line as reflecting a capped range (“I would have heard from a strong hand on the flop or turn, and the river check seals the deal”) so she can apply max pressure on your range.
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Now she has a note on you that says you will call a triple barrel with 2nd pair, bad kicker.
The leveling begins… -
So easy to get in marginal spots out of position. Would folding SB and BB 100% of the time actually be better EV than the way a lot of people defend them?
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