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What Would Steve Do? — KJ
Recap of the Hand
8k sb / 16k bb / 16k ante
Steve has 266k chips or 16 bb to start the hand.
Steve has KJ off-suit.
Steve opens to 40k or 2.5 bb from the cutoff. The bb calls Steve’s open. He has a big stack of over 1.8 million chips.
The flop is Tc6d3d. Both players checked.
The turn, the bb leads out for 50k or 3.1 bb. Steve decides to raise all in for his remaining 13.5 bb. The opponent calls with JT to win with top pair.
Just thinking out loud
You have 16 bb, your opponent has a +100 bb. I don’t blame him for calling a small open (2.5 bb) in the big blind with JT. If you shove pre-flop instead, your opponent is less likely to call with a hand like JTo. That being said, I don’t love a hand like KJo when I have 16 bb. For me to open, I would take a good look at all the stack sizes left to act. I would find the number of bigs the button, sb, and bb have before the opening raise. With the most likely caller (the bb) having a big stack, I would be very careful about which hands I’m attempting to steal with. I’m not sure KJo is one of them for me.
Combos on Flop
— 3 combos for sets (TT, 66, 33)
— 6 combos for over-pairs w/o blockers (AA, QQ)
— 3 combos for over-pairs w/ blockers (KK, JJ)
— 9 combos for two-pair (T6, 63) — which should be rare 🙂
— 12 combos for top pair (AT, QT, T9, T8)
— 9 combos for top pair w/ blockers (KT, JT)
— 12 combos for middle pair (A6, 76, 65)
— 12 combos for bottom pair (A3, 43, 32)
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— 16 combos for ace high (AQ, AT, A9, A8, A7, A5, A4, A2)
— 12 combos for ace high w/ blockers (AK, AJ)
— 16 combos for open-enders (54)
— 16 combos for gut-shots (98, 87, 75)
In total,
— The value range has (9 sets + 18 over-pairs + 18 two-pairs + 66 top pairs + 36 middle pairs + 36 bottom pairs) or 183 combos.
— The bluffing range has (160 ace high + 16 open-enders + 48 gut-shots) or 224 combos. The flush draw affects the bluffing range hands far more than the value range hands. Notice, the 160 ace-high combos are currently beating the KJ on this flop. This means, your opponent more likely bluffing with the best hand (ace high) than bluffing with a worse hand (straight draw).
— Overall, KJ is beating about 64 of the 407 combos or 15%. These combos, at-worst, have 10 outs (6 to hit a pair and 4 to hit a gut-shot).
Pre-Flop Options
— Fold KJ — I think this is the best option.
— Limp KJ — I think this is the worst option. Yes, you might see a cheap flop but the 3 players (button, sb, bb) need to allow it.
— Open to 2.5 bb — This is an ok option in other spots but not at these stack sizes. The bb will be calling too wide because his stack is deeper than most. Without fold EV, you need call EV, which means that you need to have a decent %win vs. the opponent. KJ may out-flop some hands but it’s also dominated by other hands (
— Jam 16 bb — This is the 2nd best option. Getting called when your all-in with KJ in a tournament sucks. Our opponent should be calling a larger raise with a tighter range (maybe 20% of hands or less)
@SteveFredlund
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8 Replies
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Great stuff; excited to hear all the feedback. Frankly I believe his BB defend range is super wide. He was using his stack to enter a ton of pots and the apply post-flop pressure; he was doing a lot of BB defending and a lot of preflop floating, then with any sign of weakness would apply some pressure. My thinking is that my check on the flop would result in him betting nearly/all his entire range and that my shove would look super strong; like JJ/QQ/KK/AA. I felt I would get all of his unpaired hands to fold and if he had a made hand, I would usually have 6 outs (not great) to hit on the river. From an ICM perspective we were well into the money but a long way from reasonable pay jumps; I really was looking to build a stack and then felt like a great spot to induce the bet and then get him to fold a lot of his range. He didn’t even snap call; he went in the tank and sort of shrug called.
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With 16 bb,
I’m trying to avoid the players who:
— are unpredictable
— apply post-flop pressure
— defend the blinds a lot
— float the flop a lot
— are not afraid to get involved
It’s easier to hunt the injured antelope than a healthy one.
I would say that your line looks pretty strong.
When he faces your shove, you could probably have these hands:
— top of range –> (AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AT, KT, QT, JT)
— drawing hands –> (AKdd, 98dd, A3dd)
The opponents JT plays very poorly against this range of hand combos that you’re representing. I’m not surprised that he thought about it. In his mind, you should be folding to his 40k bet on the turn A LOT of the time. Instead, you shoved and surprised him. The board looks pretty dry so I think most players sigh call w/ top pair hands like JT or T9 but I bet that he thought he was behind when calling off ~10% of his stack.
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One question and some thoughts. What was the turn?
So first, I like the open. Floptimal and Simple Preflop agree. At this stack depth it is a pure open. This is kinda trivial, but once we get short like this, we can adjust down to a min open. It preserves some of our dwindling stack when we need to fold and there is still the threat of our stack behind. V’s should recognize that this kind of open is really rather tight. We want to open shove some of our worse pairs (<88), low suited aces (A2-A5), high offsuit aces (AK-A10), and middling suited broadways (J10s, Q10s). We want to open our premiums, high suited aces, and middling offsuit broadways (like KJo). From the HJ, we’re opening about 22% of hands, and shoving 7-8% of that while opening the rest.
From my perspective, our decision on the flop comes down to which offsuit KJ we have. When we have a diamond (K or J), we can check back. When we don’t, we should cbet small. If our cbet gets called, we’re done with the hand except when we turn significant equity (K, Q, J, and occasionally some As and 9s). If we check back with the diamond, we have those same equity turns plus diamonds to continue with.
If the turn was a complete blank once we’ve checked back and V leads, even when we suspect they’re wide, there just isn’t much we can do. We’re so short that we don’t have much fold equity. V should be calling our shove with any pair in this spot and even some ace highs. That makes up a lot of their range. I would fold here once we reach this spot assuming the turn was a blank.
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Two questions:
1) No consideration for a smaller open pre, like a minraise or 2.2x? A 2.5x open is pretty large off a 16bb stack.
2) What hands would you play this way for value? If the answer is none, you shouldn’t be playing your bluffs this way either.
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Good questions and I’m not pretending to be right; but I will give my thinking and definitely open to being corrected.
1) I decided on 2.5 because the small blind was defending small raises quite wide and I really wanted to isolate the big blind here, or at least be able to identify ranges a bit better if the SB defended.
2) I would play a lot of my value hands the same way here. AA, KK, TT and 66 for sure I would check back flop looking to induce turn action. QQ, JJ I would likely continue because of the number of bad turn cards that could ensue. But to your point, I likely wouldn’t shove the the TT/66 on the turn but I would the AA/KK
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Why shove the turn with AA/KK? When villain leads there his range is mostly bluffs/weak stuff (which will fold to your shove) or nutty stuff (which will snap-call). Not sure I see much value in shoving. I’d prefer to flat, disguise my hand, and see if he’ll fire again on the river.
I think when you shove turn you make it very easy for villain to play perfectly (to use a Jonathan Little-ism).
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good point. I guess my thinking is that there is 9.5 in the middle and I have 14 behind. I’m OK denying any equity he might have with something like a pocket pair or a T. Great point, should likely be looking for a full double, but moving from 16 to 23.5 bigs at that stage would be big. I also like setting a table image late in tournaments that I can be a bit tricky as I do believe that gives me more tools as we get really deep. Appreciate the insights.
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