A hero call when you should have folded

2024-08-28

In this post, I picked a hand to analyze where you were faced with a tough all in decision on the turn. In this case, you made a hero call but you should have folded. When I say "you," I mean "you" collectively, as the human users who play against GTO bots on ActionFlop.

Let's get started with the preflop action.

Starting from preflop, this looks pretty standard. The chart below shows that you should mix between calling and 3-betting with QTs, and you decide to 3-bet.

The pot is now 40, and you each have 180 in chips. Let's see a flop.

On this flop, as the 3-bettor you get to do a lot of betting. You check 22% of the time, bet 1/3 pot 67% of the time, and bet 2/3 pot 11% of the time. The chart below basically tells you that your range does a lot of betting. If you're familiar with ActionFlop, you'll recognize that blue means check, light orange means bet small, and darker orange or red means bet big.

Specifically, with your QTs combo, you bet 1/3 pot 79% of the time, but you do use a mixed strategy, so you also get to check some of the time and bet larger some of the time. If you choose to check or bet large, it won't register as a mistake, but ideally you should be betting small most of the time to avoid being exploited by an observant player.

Before proceeding to the turn, let's consider what the ranges look like after the BN calls. Most of your range bets, but your range mostly bets small. If you had taken the more common path of betting small, you wouldn't have really narrowed your range down in any meaningful way from what you 3-bet with preflop. The hands you bet large the most with are AKo and AQo, so theoretically those now dominate your range, but you still have a wide range of hands from your 3-bet range still in the mix.

The BN's range, however, narrowed significantly. The chart below shows the BN's decision between calling (blue) and folding (yellow). Again, if you're familiar with playing on ActionFlop, you will recognize these colors. At a glance, the BN calls with Ax, pocket pairs, and draws. The half of his range that folds is comprised of high cards with no draws, and 80% of his high cards with three-flushes. This is a significant narrowing and strengthening of his range, and this should color your turn decisions.

Let's see a turn.

Into a pot of 100, you decide to fire off a meaningful c-bet of 3/4 pot. Your range here should check 41% of the time, bet small 15% of the time, and bet large 44% of the time. A lot of your large bets are the big Aces, like AKo and AQo that dominated your big bet range on the flop. With your QTs combos, the chart below shows you should be mostly checking (83% of the time). Your decision to bet isn't a mistake, but it is something you should do with lower frequency. It's true you are the aggressor from preflop and the flop, and you happen to have a pair of Queens now, but you should consider your opponent's range. The BN narrowed his range when he called on the flop. He folded a lot of high cards and called with a lot of Aces and draws. The Aces all beat you, and the Heart on the turn gave him a lot of flushes and flush draws. Given all this, it would have been a good idea to proceed cautiously with a check. Of course, you can't just check anything worse than Ax and bet with the rest of your range, so you do have to bet sometimes with worse than Ax, and check sometimes with good hands, but most of the time, with QTs, you should check.

The BN decides to raise from 75 to 150 (all in). Consider all the foreshadowing about the strength of the BN's range, and consider the following breakdown of the strategy for his hand categories. Blue means call, red means all in, and yellow means fold. Notice how top-heavy his all in range is, with flushes, straights, two pairs, mixed in with pairs (Aces) and draws. Compare that to your range, which doesn't even have any made flushes or straights. You can obviously call with two pair (AQ). You can call with some flush draws. You can call with Aces, but you can't call with a bare pair of Queens. Even though you're only putting 75 into a pot of 325, bare Queens are bad enough against the BN's range that you're better off folding. The EV loss from calling with bare Queens instead of folding is about -19.

Let's see how the hand turned out.

As it turned out, you improved to a trip Queens, but the BN had a straight from the flop. I hope you liked this hand analysis. Stay tuned for more!