Capped Range in a 3-bet Pot
The following is hand analysis from 2CardsCollege pro poker training analyzing a capped range in a 3-bet pot.
https://www.weaktight.com/h/5636c125d390432b318b460e
We played 120 hands with the villain and he has 30/27 stats. The villain is known to be a top regular, although his results statistics are hidden at the moment. He open-raises 22/16 with a fold to 3-bet of 57.
To accurately set the villain’s squeeze call range, let’s begin with defining his pre-flop call range. The opponents behind them are tight. This hand was played in the PokerStars Sunday Bigger $162.
I would prefer to exclude AK from the villain’s range because he would 3-bet it for value against an open-raiser. Let’s look at the squeeze call range:
I reduced the total number of AQ and KQo combos to 25% since he would 4-bet push AQ given a lot of dead money in the pot and would make a small 4-bet with KQo and fold it if he gets further action. I removed pocket pairs because I think a good regular would fold the lowest ones and just push 77+ because of the fold equity.
Since I don’t only play my value range this way, he would like to make me fold my equity or would go all-in against my TT+ and AQ+ in other cases. I kept the lowest suited connectors and gap connectors because I’m giving the villain decent odds to realize his equity, and any suited hand is most valuable for him, so he would hardly fold any of them.
The flop is safe enough for me and I have two options here: bet/fold and continue on certain turn cards or the option that I prefer most, check/call.
The fact is that on a flop like that, I would check with all pocket pairs because I would like to make my range look weak for the villain, trying to represent AQ+ so that he would try to make me fold those hands. This is why I would also check TT+ or maybe bet TT-JJ in a half of the cases to protect the hands’ equity because they block the villain’s overcards marginally and he has more equity against me with overcards.
From my experience, when I have KK+, I get value from opponents more often when I check rather than bet, which is why I like the check/calldown line against regulars on similar textures most of all.
I should also note that sometimes I’m going to get a check. It is not a rather new trend of playing to represent a medium hand by checking in order to bet it after a turn check/call and a river check. This is why I assume that the villain would check overcards intending to bet the turn and river much more often, like in three-quarters of the cases.
For the same reason, the villain would check his flush draw with a 50/50 probability, although he would do it more often with an A-high flush draw. Anyway, I included weaker flush draws with a 50/50 probability because if a strong opponent decides to pick the line of representing a medium hand to value bet against AQ+, he would do it with any flush draw as well.
The villain’s range of checking behind:
I also excluded all of the villain’s top pairs because I believe he would have started betting them right from the flop. Now, I expect the villain to bet all hands on the turn that he checked behind on the flop.
The villain’s range of turn bet:
It is very likely that I made a mistake by calling the river because the river card does not fit into his range at all and it increases my bluff-catchers’ equity since a trey does not strengthen any of the villain’s semi-bluffs. So, I’m not sure a solid opponent would continue bluffing into this card, at least not 100% of the time and not with a pot bet.
The villain’s range of river bet:
We need 33% equity for a breakeven call. If the villain bluffs in one-quarter of the cases with all his turn bet range, I have 32.5% equity as seen from the screenshot above.
Conclusion: I think I made a bad call because the villain’s ranges of betting and checking the flop contain the hands he could’ve played differently. First of all, I’m talking about his weak flush draws and straight draws. If they are excluded from the river bet range and if the villain bets Ax hands on the turn less often, I definitely don’t have enough equity for a correct and +EV call.
The only thing that confuses me is that I’ve never seen a regular check behind a hand like 87s on the river because they either never check the flop with it or bluff the river when they have it.
