5/10 Monkey see Monkey do

One of my fun hands from $5/10 I decided to play like a monkey vs actionDJ (good competent reg). Have a little history, but for the most part we haven't played a big pot in several sessions before this hand. I've been fairly straight forward in previous pots vs him, nothing too monkey or aggro. For the most part this session he's playing a little looser since we have such a soft table, getting into a lot of pots.

Fish limps in UTG, I iso to $50 in UTG+1 with . Super fish whos playing close to 90%vpip w/ $1500 stack flat calls the $50 in MP. actionDJ 3bets to $200 on button. Feel like he can be pretty light / wide here. He has $3200, I cover. UTG limper folds, I call, super fish decides to fold sadly...

Flop comes (Pot: $475)
I check, actionDJ bets $300. I check-raise to $780 (Think he cbetting these spots too much, check-calling w my hand sucks on this texture, folding sucks caz then i lose the pot, check-raising reps all of 2 hands but I has dem backdoor outs roar! Discuss anyways.). actionDJ tanks for a minute then calls.

Turn comes (Pot: $2035)
He has $2300 behind. I check (Discuss???). He checks behind.

River comes (Pot: $2035)
I check (Discuss???). He bets $1400. I...

At first i thought this was a turbo muck, but the more i think about the remaining stacksize after your check raise the more i think its a call.


I think hes bluffing here very very infrequently, and pretty much the only hand i can come up with for him to be bluffing here is AK. since its such a minuscule bluffing range, i think we need to only examine his valuebetting range and see how you do against it.

if he reached the river with the following hands, he would valuebet them for sure: QT,KQ,AQ,KK,AA,KT,T8,QJ,J9,Q9,sets. I am not positive what he does with AJ/KJ here.


with only 1.25psb remaining on the turn, i think he most likely puts the money in with his vulnerable but almost certainly good 100% of the time made hands that cant stand giving a free card. these hands are sets, 2pair and KK+.

the problem is a lot of the other hands dont often reach the river because they either flat preflop (KQ,QT,KT), fold preflop (T8), shove the flop (QT,T8), fold the flop (AQ). so there arent too many combos of those hands.

overall i think the most likely holdings for him to have here are AJ/KJ/KQ/AQ. since you beat or tie all of these holdings i think it becomes a very easy call. i think its possible he shows up with KT for the nuts and maybe occasionally he miscounted stacks or something and decided to check back an overpair and then vbet the river, but for the most part it seems like he usually has a hand like KQ/QT/AJ/KJ and is going for thin value after pot controlling the turn.

its also a slight possibility he has a random other float like 87 on the flop that thought the Q was a bad card for him to bluff on and decided to take a stab on the river. all in all i think you are probably good here a high percentage of the time (60-70%) unless he miscounted how much was left or how much was in the pot

Wonderful post daut, I appreciate the effort in your complete and coherent analysis

i snap this river

i would bet turn after flop cr.

I guess it just comes down to how often he could have QT, AJ, and KQ. Betting worse than that for value is way too thin, and if he has any bluffing range it means your flop checkraise is pretty bad. Is he really raising your UTG+1 iso with medium strength hands? I can't hate a river call but instinctively it just feels like a standard value ownage with KK or AA here.

and yeah you might want to bet turn, not cuz u feel good about your hand, but more cuz check folding and check calling both kinda suck.

On August 06 2011 11:07 NMcNasty wrote: and yeah you might want to bet turn, not cuz u feel good about your hand, but more cuz check folding and check calling both kinda suck.

Bet turn or river and with what sizing

If I played it preflop and on the flop as you did, then I shove this turn. Not that I am too happy about it and I much preffer him to fold than to call, but I think it is still the best option you have.

In you river spot I probably make the crying call just because the hand is better than top of the range what I think he expects you to have (discounting sick slowplays) and thus is expecting a fold more often than he should.

On August 06 2011 11:57 JonnyCosMo wrote: Show nested quote + On August 06 2011 11:07 NMcNasty wrote: and yeah you might want to bet turn, not cuz u feel good about your hand, but more cuz check folding and check calling both kinda suck. Bet turn or river and with what sizing

standard 3/4 or whatever, u want to look like it could be a bluff so weaker hands shove or call instead of checking through.

Cosmo - what two hands are your representing when you check raise flop?

This is well above my stakes so feel free to discount: But when I see someone check raise or 3 bet a flop like that I almost always put them on air, so I think a river call is better than folding.

Daut's analysis is obv sick and makes me realize how much I need to learn.

On August 06 2011 11:03 NMcNasty wrote: I guess it just comes down to how often he could have QT, AJ, and KQ. Betting worse than that for value is way too thin, and if he has any bluffing range it means your flop checkraise is pretty bad. Is he really raising your UTG+1 iso with medium strength hands? I can't hate a river call but instinctively it just feels like a standard value ownage with KK or AA here.

i think if we were 6k effective he would show up with KK+ a ton and it would be very close. but given that the pot is over 2k and theres 2500 left after the flop, i think he would just shove a ton of hands on either street. this comes across as very much AJ/KQ/QT that pot controlled turn now is trying to get thin value rather than a stronger hand that is much more sure it is good and wants to protect. he would have to be very very concerned about balance on both the turn and river to show up with KT,KK,AA, 2pair or sets with this exact line/betsizing. i think we see those hands less often than hands we tie or beat

i dont get why its percieved hes going to be valuebetting so thin. first he litterally only reps like 89 as a bluff and the thinnest hand he can really be doing this with is like KQ cuz even QT doesnt really even have hands it can get called by unless cosmo did this with 98 or some shit that magically wants to call river if he bets. so the only hand he can even think of VBing is KQ. we can talk about him turning hands into bluffs such as 89 but then hes trying to get like QT to fold which is prob good bluff. and also i think we should include almost all strong hands in his range and treat it as somewhat uncapped meaning straights and to some extent 2pairs +. as u would think cosmo would be shoving most draws besides like KQ or QT which honestly i would think QT should be betting turn its actually really legit for balance and ur not gonna show it down anyway if betting continued in the hand. although i think cosmo would check it. fwiw i think if im not shoving the turn with AQ is because he really has a really strong range on the turn and consequently i would be giving up on the hand all together or if i thought he has super tight calling range on turn and is folding everything i guess which is cosmos thinking here. Now im not gonna make this WWDD and list all the ways i'd play certain hands especially to balance. but actiondj's betting range on turn should be close to nonexistent except for sets and maybe some bluffs if he has any however i tihnk checking those would also be better fwiw. we have to realize how ridiculously polarized cosmo is here and also how unlikely actiondj would be valuebetting light here on river coupled with the fact that he has virtually no bluffs to speak. makes it really hard to call here. now if cosmo thinks he getting pealed on the flop real light well hes an idiot for checkraising lol<3. cosmo is thinking of folding AQ here which isnt really a hand that makes up a ton of his range. i tihnk in actiondj's spot he would checkback all worse hands like almost always.

the biggest emphasis of this hand has to be on the board texture of the flop and ranges after cosmo checkraises it. I mean im almost never checkraising this board even tbh and i think its bad except as a bluff against certain people.

although i listed some thought process above. clearly he is valuebetting here sometimes with worse even though it might not be the best. im gonna lean towards fold though. and im also never gonna play the hand like this anyway o.0.

just a quick note. I have paused repeatedly while righting this because im playing call of duty and thus i might of left some things out

im open to counter points in the hand however since i seem to be in the minority.

On August 06 2011 13:17 Joe wrote: If I played it preflop and on the flop as you did, then I shove this turn. Not that I am too happy about it and I much preffer him to fold than to call, but I think it is still the best option you have. In you river spot I probably make the crying call just because the hand is better than top of the range what I think he expects you to have (discounting sick slowplays) and thus is expecting a fold more often than he should.

i like this post a good bit however it really comes down to some variables.

river spot (as its the main concern): does he turn hands into bluffs? some people might literally even turn a J into a bluff on the river here if he has a solid read u'd fold a Q here.

turn spot: how often does he have something on the turn that is able to bluff catch and willing to.

this into consideration it actually makes me much closer to calling river but it would be a situation where reads are really important.

as for betting turn im still feeling awkward about it.

jesus man atleast if ur gonna spaz have reliable equity when ur gonna do it ffs T_T COSMOOOOOO!

I went a lil monkey here i know :-P, get off me. I'm allowed some monkey-ness from time to time

Interesting why so many of you think he's value betting KQ here when my hand looks so polarized from the flop on. Like I wouldn't value bet KQ in his spot, and I dont really think many of you would either or am I wrong about this?

On August 07 2011 22:32 JonnyCosMo wrote: Interesting why so many of you think he's value betting KQ here when my hand looks so polarized from the flop on. Like I wouldn't value bet KQ in his spot, and I dont really think many of you would either or am I wrong about this?

your hand doesnt look polarized at all by the river. your range looks to be somewhere between bluff and marginal with almost no monsters. KQ has to be in really good shape against you on the river so if hes almost never losing he should probably bet on the end

but if hes not vbetting KQ this is an easy fold

i do agree with the above daut but the only tweener in my eyes for him to be VBing is KQ and i just think he has way too many strong hands for such a thin valuebet to be good since its just so hard for us to call with worse like ever

another dissapointing thread by u jonny, how do you even win ???

did u plan to ch/r and give up if called ? even if u hit best card in the deck on turn ?
as played i never fold river, we look weak in villain eyes. but usually i just shove turn and am quite happy about it.