Greg vs Craig HU hand (Long)

[Isura]

This an old hand from the Greg vs Craig HU video on UB. I've been working on my HU game lately, and I'd like to flesh out some of my ideas and get some input on how to analyze the hand. It was the last hand of the video. So far the session had been fairly standard for HU. You may want to watch the video before analyzing this hand, but I'll try to summarize the dynamic up to this point.

OOP Craig has been either 3-betting or folding. He is 3-betting a lot OOP, something like 25% of the time if I had to guess a number. Greg is adjusting by seeing a lot of flops. He has 4-bet a couple of times, but mostly he is calling and playing flops. Craig is c-betting 2/3 pot with his whole range. IIRC he didn't once check after 3-betting. The 3-bet pots have been pretty standard so far. Greg is mixing up calling/folding/raising and there haven't been any crazy 3-bet pots yet. I won't say anything more since I think that it won't add much more to the analysis of this hand. This seems like the type of spot where past history won't matter TOO much since its such an odd spot and it really comes more down to frequencies, levels, and hand reading.

Anyways, onto the hand. Game is 2/4 and stacks are roughly 200bb. Greg pots, Craig repots and Greg calls. Flop is KJ2 rainbow and Craig makes standard bet 48 into 72. I'll analyze this from Greg's perspective. Greg has K9o and calls flop. Craig bets his whole range here, and a lot of it totally misses this flop. They are deep and so an argument can be made for raising a big hand. But I think that raising is not good for several reasons. For one, that flop is so dry that most of the time Craig is going to fold most worst hands and we don't beat the Kings that he is most likely to continue with. If he 3-bets we will be crushed or against a pure bluff. But we've been pretty controlled with raising flops so he won't play back too often. The only real value in raising is to protect against 2-4 out hands or get Craig to 3-bet bluff. Both seem like bad reasons and it would feel gross to have to play a 200bb pot here. Now given this current history it would be a decent spot to bluff raise. But I think polarizing our flop raising range in this spot is best. We have position and deep stacks, so we can float and have more options with hands that have more equity and some hidden elements (like backdoor draws). So with a majority of our range we should be calling (or folding), and just raise monsters (KJ+?) and pure bluffs. So flop call seems standard.

Turn brings the 3s for the board of K J 2s 3s. Greg bets 91 into 165. Again I think this bet is standard and not that interesting. He calls down with some worse K's, Jx, TT-44 sometimes and maybe AQ/AT (although he's more likely to bet those). Stacks make a c/r with a good (8+ out) draw pretty ackward since Craig can't put in the last bet without overbet shoving turn. He might c/r a weak gutshot (Q9/JT/A4o etc) but we'll consider that pure air. He also knows we're floating this flop often so a turn bet definitely has value.

Anyways, Craig now c/r the bet of 91 to 267, leaving himself roughly 500 behind. I think we have ~90% against his bluffs and 10% equity against his monsters. A 50/50 weighting then gives us 50% equity and enough pot odds to call. But of course there is 1 more street to play. This seems like a really tough spot. We can just fold (easy!). The other 3 options all feel ugly.

I'll finish by posing questions that we need to consider.

1) What's his ratio of air:nuts in this spot?
2) I assume he'll shove his whole nuts portion on any river. What portion of his air does he continue with? If we are going call/call then the math is that we're risking ~700 to win 1000 (treat turn + river as 1 street). I know that many good players will never check river in this spot (they choose their bluff ratio on the turn and fire again). Others give up on some rivers. This is kinda MDMA theory where he says that our turn call will reduce his bluffing frequency on the river.
3) Can we call some rivers and fold others? This will complicate EV calculations obviously. Or do we call all rivers?
4) If we don't know the answers to 1,2, or 3, is there a way we can play somewhat game theoretically optimally? How do we minimize bleeding huge amount of EV in these spots?

[craigthedeac]

I think I will be shoving the river a huge % of the time. With "nuts," always will shove. With bluffs, there are tons of river cards to bluff (lots of straight cards, backdoor flush draw, etc) so I continue on those (and even blank rivers sometimes) as well.

Given this and the fact that his hand has little chance to improve, I think he needs to make his decision on the turn. Either call and get it in on the river or fold. Call turn/fold river doesn't seem correct unless I stop bluffing a lot.

In this situation (where I am going to assume Greg is floating a lot) a bet has to be for value or to induce a cr bluff (which I will do fairly often in spots where I think I am getting floated, Greg knows this). You have to think a cr is fairly likely and have to be willing to get it in if you are gonna induce one. If you're not comfortable, check back for control/deception or bet hoping I call down while folding to a cr. I don't think Greg's line is optimal here.

That being said, the spot is really sick because of the aggro dynamic and the board texture/situation/deepness. There probably is a ton of poker math to be done here as you have indicated, but I'm not even sure where to start in such a complicated spot mathematically.

Craig

[aejones]

I would never bet the turn as Greg (without a hand I didn't want to stack off with, 3-bet semi-bluff with, or insta fold with), and I would never CR the turn as Craig (with... .. ... anything, ever).

Sorry I can't add anything more interesting, but that's all I really think.

[MYNAMEIZGREG]

I think mathematically it's a very tricky spot and you're spot on. However, with no discredit to Craig, he never expects me to fold the river once I call the turn (since I should always b/3b backdoor draws or check them), and therefore he will never bluff the river. Of course, now that this hand took place, the dynamic changes; but, when Craig and I have played HU throughout our careers, I never make big folds on the river. So, he isn't gonna bluff me on the river in this specific hand no matter what he says .

Also Aaron this is why I bet the turn. Because I know exactly how to play against all actions on both the turn and river (and I think the value I get from betting the turn to either induce c/r or weaker calls is large). I'll check back the river if he checks it though.

[aejones]

Originally Posted by MYNAMEIZGREG

Also Aaron this is why I bet the turn. Because I know exactly how to play against all actions on both the turn and river (and I think the value I get from betting the turn to either induce c/r or weaker calls is large). I'll check back the river if he checks it though.

This sort of shows a lack of understanding (if he CCs turn we're going to check river) of value spots and WA.WB spots.

[MYNAMEIZGREG]

Against a player who you specifically know very well across all three streets (and things like calling frequency on turn vs river, and checking to induce bluffs) I'm pretty confused how you can say that. Don't think that everyone always bets the river when the turn is checked through, or that everyone always c/c lighter on the river in this spot (and don't forget that we want light calldowns, so we actually want to look as strong as possible because our opponent knows that we will never be as strong as we look enough of the time).

If, despite all of these specific dynamics, you still disagree, I'd love to hear why.