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Top Two-Pair on the Turn Facing Aggression
This spot came up in a $400 WSOPC ring event. I was on the last 3 tables, already in the money. In the last half hour or so before this spot came up I won a big flip, and was the chip leader at this table. My table image up until now I judged to be solid, willing to take flips, with VPIP in the low to mid 20’s. Villain is a successful circuit player with some WSOPC rings. I’ve noted he plays a lot of hands. The tournament director announced a break while this hand was being dealt.
Hero’s chip stack is roughly 550k. Villain’s is roughly 450K. I believe the blinds were about 5k/10k/10k.
Hero opens to 25k in MP with AQo. Folds to the BB. Villain in the BB calls.
Flop (65k) comes QJ6r. Villain checks, Hero bet 35k, Villain raise to 70k, hero calls.
Turn (205k) is an Ace giving hero T2P. Villain bets 100k. Hero thinks for a few moments and then shoves. Villain snap calls and tables 66. Villain’s set holds up.
Villain and I discussed this hand the next time we saw each other in a tournament. He told me he felt like he got lucky on that one.
I was never folding. Should I just call? Part of what crossed my mind while I considered this hand was that if I could nearly double up on this hand, I’d have a great shot at winning first place. So I was willing to incur some extra risk. And who knows? Villain could be bluffing and the fold would get me a nice, big pot.
What do you think? Did I overplay this hand on the turn? Did Villain overplay his?
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9 Replies
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I think you played it fine. Villian can show up with hands like QJ/AJ which we dominate, just unfortunate that they had one of the top hands they could.
I like your flop bet sizing too. I’d potentially just call turn, allowing him to keep bluffs in his range and letting him fire another barrel on the river. The only concern would be a K or T peeling off on the river that would be concerning for us, but would also be concerning for our opponent.
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On this board AQ is either way ahead or way behind. The equity vs 66 (the worst hand you are behind) is only 9.1% while the equity vs T9 (the best hand you are ahead of) is 81.8%. The risk of being overtaken is small and you should be focusing on getting value from worse hands.
Do you think that the line the villain took (call, check-call, lead) indicates a linear or polar range? It is a line I am unfamiliar with, but I would lean towards a polar range.
Jamming into a polar range often results in your opponent calling with better and folding worse since the weak hands in his range are poor bluff catchers. I therefore think that a call is best here.
If you think that the villain leads the turn with a linear range that contains weaker two pair and top pair type hands, then jamming can be good.
Regarding villain’s play. I think that both check-raising the flop or check-calling flop and then check-raising turn are better ways to play bottom set than to lead the turn.
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I noticed an error in my post. The villain’s line was: call, check-minraise, lead. I thought he check-called on the flop. Not sure how to interpret the minraise, but I still prefer a call on the turn.
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Another concern was that KT was in both our ranges on this flop. One would think that 16 combos of KT would be a cause for concern for both AQ and 66 on this QJ6 flop, and then be an even bigger cause for concern on the Ace turn. The 16 combos of AT should be enough to drive the math on this one, eh?
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I did a quick GTO+ run with this hand. Using the bet sizes from the hand and hopefully some reasonable ranges.
For the villain the solver chooses the check-minraise line on the flop 9.15% of the time, with 66 always in this range. It also leads on the turn with that hand.
For the hero the solver chooses to raise with AQs on the flop and then call on the turn. However, the equity difference between calling and shoving is negligible (only 0.02-0.05 bb).
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Sometimes solvers will yield surprising results. Did the solver output give us indifference between calling and shoving on the turn? Or did it favor calling 100% of the time?
Maybe the reason why the EV difference between calling and shoving the turn was so narrow in the solver was that there was still one more street to play. Unless the river made the board even more coordinated than it already was, it was going to be difficult to lay this hand down even in the face of a shove on the river. In the absence of a King or a Ten on the river, this would be a tough laydown if villain shoves.
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The solver did favor calling with all combos of AQo, but since the EV difference is small it essentially is indifferent.
As you say solvers can be surprising. Since it only has villain taking the check-raising line 9.15% of the time, we are in a rarely used part of the game-tree. It chooses a different line for most of the KT hands. That may also explain the small EV difference.
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Actually at equilibrium I should have gotten stacks in on the flop. After his bet on the turn at equilibrium I should only call, as TV says.
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