[cowpig]

I'll just post my thoughts I guess.

I thought both the hands were interesting because they showed some of the more subtle advantages of playing aggressively.


In hand 1, I think that this type of player rarely check/raise bluffs, and then fires the turn with air even less often.

Since I run very loose stats (and my vpip is well over 30 at this point), he probably assumes I'm a complete idiot and will never lay down anything. So he probably has air close to never.

Furthermore, I do not think he fires the turn with QJ very often. His betting puts me in a spot where it's natural for me to shove the hands I want to get all in with.

So basically his range is hands he's playing for value, and I don't think I'm doing well vs that range with AK. I think he has KT, TT, or 33 just about every time here.

What's interesting here is how much of my range I'm going to fold to his c/r, lead. I play 33/28, and I'm on the button, so my range is hugely wide. In order for him to fully take advantage of my ridiculously wide range, he should start by c/r bluffing all day. After it becomes clear to me that he is an aggressive player, he should start to c/r for value with a much wider range.

By playing like a nit, villain not only misses a bajillion pots that he could easily pick up by playing more aggressively, but he actually kills his own action when I do have a big made hand. Try doing some math: I raise something like 50% of hands OTB. Figure out how much of that range feels comfortable on a KT3r flop.


In hand 2, I think analyzing the turn is really interesting. The turn brings a flush, and gives me a super-disguised two pair. What do you do?

I think a check behind for pot control on the turn is a viable option. Villain is an aggressive TAG, and will check/raise when he hit his flush. And he certainly leads out with a flush draw on the flop.

But I think giving him a free river card with a hand that is both vulnerable and far ahead of his range is missing too much value. I don't think the extra hands he calls with on the river, or the times he pushes us off our hand with air when we bet are enough to dissuade me from betting.

He check/raises. He certainly can have complete air. He certainly can have the flush. If that's all that's in his range, we should CALL, and probably fold to a river shove, since he's either drawing dead or we're drawing to 4 outs.

However, villain felt that he could be semibluffing there. But what can he be semibluffing with? AX[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] would surely bet out on the turn. By check/raising a pair of aces, villain would be folding out my worse hands and getting calls from my better ones. And if he has something like TT[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] I think he'll be trying to get to showdown and not turning his hand into a semibluff. The only semibluffs left are hands like K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]Qx, and I believe that these hands are possible but there are not a lot of combinations of them, as he would probably need the K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] or at least the Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] to semibluff.

So I just called, and checked behind on the river (under the assumption he had air/flush). Villain had JTo (no [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]), and said that he check/raised the turn because he thought I had air there so often. I agreed, saying that it's safe to assume I would rep the flush with every weak hand in my range, and probably only bet out the made flush for value.

This train of thought led me to the conclusion that by not betting the turn with non-flush made hands, I become too susceptible to check-raises (counter-intuitive, eh?). Therefore, checking behind the turn for pot control is NOT a viable option, even though it makes the hand easier to play, and seems reasonably +EV.

I definitely believe that conclusion is up for debate, and that it might not be the same for someone with a different overall game plan.

Ya dig?