Railbird Roundtable

During the first-annual Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) on PokerStars recently, I played this hand with David “Bakes” Baker. There isn’t anything really special about the hand per se, except that I royally screw it up, but I’m going to use it to draw out some concepts of things we can do to deal with aggressive players to our left who three-bet us often preflop.

The Situation

SCOOP $300 + $22 MHE (mixed hold’em) event. I had been having a tough time at my table. I was in seat 1, and David Baker was in seat 3. Bakes was the biggest preflop aggressor, having three-bet nearly 80 percent of my open-raises in my short stay at this table.

Preflop

With 150-300 blinds and a 40 ante, playing no-limit hold’em, everyone folds to me, with 15,265 in chips, on the button, and I make it 828 with the A 10. I generally give a little more gas to my open-raises from the button or cutoff, and when playing six-max; here, it’s both. The small blind, with 4,740, folds. If the small blind had shoved his 16 big blinds here, we’d have called. It’s generally profitable to raise/call up to 20 big blinds with A-7+ here.

The small blind didn’t stick it in, and our friend Bakes three-bet us again. Here’s the history: Five times recently, I’ve opened. One time, everybody folded. The other four times, Bakes had reraised and I had folded. Every time, I had absolute garbage. Every time he was in position, he reraised me like 2.6 times my open-raise; every time he was out of position, he reraised it like 3.1 times.

This time, he makes it 2,228, just over 2.6 times my open-raise, out of position. We can fold, but that feels pretty weak-tight, eh? I can call, but I have only 50 big blinds myself, and A-10 offsuit is a hand that is ripe in reverse implied odds. If we flop an ace, the money is going to have to go in, and we’re crushed by lots of hands with which he puts the money in; same problem if we flop a 10 as top pair. Basically, it’s going to be really tough for us to get our money in good post-flop, because oftentimes when we flop the best hand, he’s going to be able to get away from his hand, but when we flop the worst hand, the money is going in.

Or, we can four-bet. Again, we run into the problem of awkward stack sizes. We have 50 big blinds, which means that we’re too shallow to four-bet and fold to a five-bet shove, but we’re too deep to comfortably shove A-10 offsuit here. If we had 40 big blinds or less, I can see sticking in the money, but being this deep, we commit much more of our stack with a hand that is dominated by a large percentage of his calling range. Here are some numbers:

Bakes’ three-bet percentage is highly important here. Something like 2-2+, A-6+ suited, K-10+ suited, Q-10+ suited, J-10 suited, A-9+, or K-10+ is 20 percent of his preflop range. It could be much wider than this with all the air added to his range, or it could be tighter than this, because he’s three-bet me so much recently. It’s a tough number to quantify, but it’s necessary in determining if a preflop shove is profitable. We can deduce his calling range pretty easily, as it should look something like this: 8-8+, A-J+ suited, K-Q suited, A-Q+ — about 6 percent. Let’s consider the possible outcomes for these ranges when we shove:

70 percent of the time, he folds and we profit 3,446, for .70 × 3,446 = 2,412.2 cEV (chip equity).

30 percent of the time, he calls, and wins 68.68 percent of the time. So …
20.6 percent of the time, he calls and wins, and we lose 14,437, for -2,974.0 cEV.

9.4 percent of the time, he calls and loses, and we profit 16,015, for 1,505.4 cEV.

Therefore, if these ranges are accurate, and Bakes is actually three-betting us that much, we profit 943 in chips, on average, by shoving. Surprised? I am, too. A couple of things about the numbers: When he folds, we win what’s in the pot, including our preflop raise. When he calls, we are risking less, because of our preflop raise money already playing for us. Given these ranges, shoving seems pretty optimal. If he isn’t three-betting us that much, we should be folding, and if he’s doing it more, we should be shoving a wider range of hands.
Instead, I called. I didn’t know how positive the cEV for shoving was. I didn’t want to risk 50 big blinds in this spot with A-10. I thought I could outplay him in position. Outplay doesn’t mean just getting him to fold; it also means getting the money in good more often than not. My cards do not matter for getting him to fold post-flop; however, A-10 is just handicapped so much when it comes to getting it in good against an opponent, due to its great reverse implied odds. Oops!

Flop (pot: 4,846): A 9 5

Bakes bets 2,950, and I call. Pretty standard. We can’t fold, and raising turns our hand into a bluff (because he’s not going to call with a worse hand, and we’re letting him stack us easily when we’re beat).

Turn (pot: 10,746): J

Bakes checks, and I shove for 10,047. Why on earth would I do that? Is he ever calling with a worse hand? No. Is he ever folding a better hand? Is he folding A-Q? No. Are there any draws in his range that I’m afraid of giving a free card? No. But, I screwed up, and got caught up in the thinking: “Ha, this guy keeps three-betting me; he can’t bully me around; I have a pair of aces; I’m all in!”

This happens all the time; one player three-bets another player preflop so many times that he finally just snaps. He’s so sick of being reraised and bullied that he knows he needs to put a stop to it, but he always screws up his timing in stopping the habitual three-bettor. I was that donkey in this spot. I should have shoved preflop, but I made a mistake in not doing enough homework to know that shoving in this spot was profitable. I strongly recommend that you play with PokerStove and these numbers so that you have an idea of preflop mathematics.

Then, I made the common mistake that many live players make by flatting [flat-calling]. Playing a post-flop hand that is so speculative with that much money going in preflop makes it very difficult to play post-flop with less than 100 big blinds, due to reverse implied odds.

And lastly, I failed to adjust to the dynamics of my new table. There are so many times that you just can’t get away with things, because there are good players to your left. “If there is a player whose game you respect to your left, sometimes you just have to get out of his way,” says Gavin Smith. If he’s anywhere close to you in skill or better than you at all, and he has position, he is going to have the advantage over you. Stay out of his way, and wait for better spots and easier tables down the road.

Bakes called with the A K and it held up, as the river brought the 3.

Pro Analysis

I’d fold preflop, because A-10 is a really awful hand to call his three-bet with (unless you’re deeper), and I’d check behind on the turn and just get to showdown. What worse hands is he calling a turn shove with? Also, I would four-bet before I would flat [flat-call] a three-bet preflop if we were 100+ big blinds deep. Yeah, I’m pretty much never playing this hand. — Luke “IWEARGOGGLES” Staudenmaier

I was playing a lot of tables at the time and instantly regretted my preflop bet-sizing after I made it. I feel like I’m an online tellbox sometimes.

We both know that a four-bet is at least somewhat likely from your spot, so I think your range is somewhat inaccurate, because it contains many hands that I would call with rather than three-bet, given the dynamic, stacks, and my position. There are some bluffs in my range, but they are mostly trashier hands that I can’t flat [flat-call] with. Also, because this is a big event, where I have a large edge, it is very likely that I would take a lower-variance line with the bottom of my listed four-bet calling range. I was a bit unsure of your four-betting range, which would make me more likely to call pre [preflop], as well. The key is to do it (three-bet people) early, before they figure out what’s going on; then, you have the nuts on the fourth time when they finally look you up. — David “Bakes” Baker

Conclusion

So, you’re being picked on preflop by somebody. Don’t flat in position with hands with bad reverse implied odds. Don’t flat out of position with any hand. With 50 big blinds or less, shoving over a three-bet is more profitable, in general, than you think. Ranges are everything, though, and are completely related to the player and situation. The only reason that shoving on Bakes here is profitable is that we think his three-bet range is wide enough to make it so. Most of all, maintain your composure, don’t lose your cool, and don’t punt a stack just because an opponent’s been three-betting you. Adjust by open-raising less and four-bet shoving more. Lastly, there are times when you just need to defer to a good player on your left and try to find your spots elsewhere.

Bryan “Devo” Devonshire has been a professional since the fall of 2003, after going jobless in Colorado. An expert wilderness guide with a specialization in white-water rafting, he got his start propping a $2-$5 spread-limit game in Cripple Creek, Colorado, while serving on Search and Rescue. He hit the tournament scene in 2006, taking second in his first-ever World Series of Poker event; to date, he has cashed for more than $800,000 live and more than $380,000 online. A Southern California native and Las Vegas resident, he can be reached at [email protected].