Here are the answers and explanations to the Can You Exploit This Hypothetical Table? quiz.
Situation #1
Live $2/$5. 8-Handed. Effective Stacks $800.
Hero is in the Cutoff with Q♣ T♣
Tight Tim (Lojack) limps, Loose Louis (Hijack) limps, Hero…?
Limp – Incorrect
Raise – Correct
Isolation raising is significantly more profitable than limping for several reasons:
- Loose Louis has a lot of weak hands in his range.
- Hero’s hand is strong and plays very well postflop.
- Hero is in position.
- Hero benefits from forcing folds.
- By raising, Hero gets to play heads-up with the initiative often.
Situation #2
Live $2/$5. 8-Handed. Effective Stacks $800.
Hero is in the Cutoff with Q♣ T♣
Tight Tim (Lojack) limps, Loose Louis (Hijack) limps, Hero raises to $25, Tight Tim calls, Loose Louis calls.
Flop ($82): Qâ™ 8♦ 4â™
Tight Tim checks. Loose Louis checks. Hero…?
Check – Incorrect
Bet $40 – Correct
Hero should start building the pot because his hand is strong enough to value-bet. Additionally, the board is very connected, which means there are a lot of draws to charge. Finally, the opponents are passive which means if Hero were to check back, they would likely not start to apply much pressure given that the pot is multiway.
Situation #3
Live $2/$5. 8-Handed. Effective Stacks $800.
Hero is in the Cutoff with Q♣ T♣
Tight Tim (Lojack) limps, Loose Louis (Hijack) limps, Hero raises to $25, Tight Tim calls, Loose Louis calls.
Flop ($82): Qâ™ 8♦ 4â™
Tight Tim checks. Loose Louis checks. Hero bets $40. Only Tight Tim calls.
Turn ($122): 2♥
Tight Tim checks. Hero…?
Check – Incorrect
Bet $80 – Correct
When faced with passive opposition, it’s better to go thin for value than to check back. Checking back becomes less valuable when your opponent is unlikely to start bluffing frequently. Also, passive players will be unlikely to check-raise versus a bet on the turn. This card is especially good to value bet on as Hero’s hand is still way ahead of Tight Tim’s calling range.
Situation #4
Live $2/$5. 8-Handed. Effective Stacks $800.
Hero is in the Cutoff with T♥ 7♥
Solid Sam (Lojack) raises to $15, Loose Louis (Cutoff) calls, Crazy Carl (Button) calls, Wino Wendy (Small Blind) calls, Hero…?
Fold – Incorrect
Call – Correct
3-bet – Incorrect
Hero should absolutely call in this situation for a few reasons:
- There are three recreational players involved in the pot, meaning good implied odds.
- T7s has good playability with solid straight and flush potential.
- The pot odds to call are decent.
If all these players were regulars, this hand would be a lot closer and possibly even a fold, as the pot odds and implied odds with this hand may be insufficient to overcome the large equity gap plus the positional disadvantage.
3-betting is out of the question as this hand doesn’t have the appropriate attributes to do so (doesn’t block the continuing range and has low equity when called).
Situation #5
Live $2/$5. 8-Handed. Effective Stacks $800.
Hero is in the Cutoff with T♥ 7♥
Solid Sam (Lojack) raises to $15, Loose Louis (Cutoff) calls, Crazy Carl (Button) calls, Wino Wendy (Small Blind) calls, Hero calls.
Flop ($75): Aâ™ 7♦ 7â™
Wino Wendy checks, Hero…?
Check – Correct
Bet – Incorrect
Given that Hero is at a range disadvantage (his range has lower equity than at least one other range involved), he should always check here. By checking, Hero is able to collect more information on the holdings of his opponents while disguising his own hand strength.
Leading as an exploit could be a decent play versus certain opponents, but we don’t have enough information to come to that conclusion in this particular spot.
Situation #6
Live $2/$5. 8-Handed. Effective Stacks $800.
Hero is in the Cutoff with T♥ 7♥
Solid Sam (Lojack) raises to $15, Loose Louis (Cutoff) calls, Crazy Carl (Button) calls, Wino Wendy (Small Blind) calls, Hero calls.
Flop ($75): Aâ™ 7♦ 7â™
Wino Wendy checks, Hero checks, Solid Sam bets $45, Loose Louis folds, Crazy Carl calls, Wino Wendy folds, Hero…?
Call – Incorrect
Raise to $150 – Correct
If Hero were to call here, Solid Sam is unlikely to continue value-betting her Ax hands or bluff with her missed hands on the turn. If Hero raises pretty small, like 50% of the pot, it’s much more likely that she will call at least once. This is because there are flush draws possible, and she might think there is a chance Hero does this with a double backdoor draw (like 9♦ 8♦) every once in a while.
The fact that the loose aggressive recreational is also in the pot further incentivizes Hero to raise right away with the goal of extracting value from his relatively wide range.
Situation #7
Live $2/$5. 8-Handed. Effective Stacks $800.
Hero is in the Cutoff with T♥ 7♥
Solid Sam (Lojack) raises to $15, Loose Louis (Cutoff) calls, Crazy Carl (Button) calls, Wino Wendy (Small Blind) calls, Hero calls.
Flop ($75): Aâ™ 7♦ 7â™
Wino Wendy checks, Hero checks, Solid Sam bets $45, Loose Louis folds, Crazy Carl calls, Wino Wendy folds, Hero raises to $150, Solid Sam calls, Crazy Carl calls.
Turn ($525): 5â™
Hero…?
Check – Correct
Bet $175 – Incorrect
Bet $350 – Incorrect
This is one of the worst turns in the deck because both opponents have a bunch of flushes and better 7x in their ranges (especially Crazy Carl since he has a much wider range preflop).
A bet here would mostly garner a call from better hands, with the exception of hands like Ax Kâ™ , Ax Qâ™ , etc (which still have pretty decent equity to take the lead on the river).
Situation #8
Live $2/$5. 8-Handed. Effective Stacks $800.
Hero is in the Cutoff with T♥ 7♥
Solid Sam (Lojack) raises to $15, Loose Louis (Cutoff) calls, Crazy Carl (Button) calls, Wino Wendy (Small Blind) calls, Hero calls.
Flop ($75): Aâ™ 7♦ 7â™
Wino Wendy checks, Hero checks, Solid Sam bets $45, Loose Louis folds, Crazy Carl calls, Wino Wendy folds, Hero raises to $150, Solid Sam calls, Crazy Carl calls.
Turn ($525): 5â™
Hero check, Solid Sam bets $260, Crazy Carl calls, Hero…?
Fold – Correct
Call – Incorrect
Raise – Incorrect
Solid Sam is a tight aggressive player who has a decent understanding of the game, so she is very unlikely to bet too thin for value here and is also very short on bluffs in her range (0% basically). This fact alone is enough to make folding better than any other option. The fact that another player has already called — albeit a fish — makes this hand an easy fold.
Raising here also doesn’t make much sense since both these players have extremely strong ranges and will not fold any better hands against a raise.
Situation #9
Live $2/$5. 8-Handed. Effective Stacks $800.
Hero is on the Button with Aâ™ Qâ™
Solid Sam (Lojack) raises to $15, Loose Louis (Hijack) 3-bets to $55, Hero…?
Fold – Correct
Call – Incorrect
4-bet – Incorrect
Loose Louis is extremely passive (remember the read that you’ve seen him over-limp with AK). His 3-bet signifies an extremely strong hand such as QQ+ and maybe once in a while AK, but it’s much more weighted towards AA and KK. In this spot it’s best to make the tough fold. This type of opponent is also likely to show his hand afterwards and you will see that it is in fact a fold preflop.
You can comfortably fold hands as strong as JJ or AK in situations like this versus very tight and passive players. Being able to make such a tight fold so confidently is an extremely valuable weapon in poker!
Situation #10
Live $2/$5. 8-Handed. Effective Stacks $800.
Hero is in the Cutoff with A♠J♣
Crazy Carl (Hijack) limps, Hero raises to $20, Loose Louis (Button) calls, Solid Sam (Big Blind) calls, Crazy Carl calls.
Flop ($82): J♦ 8♦ 4♣
Solid Sam checks, Crazy Carl bets $40, Hero…?
Fold – Incorrect
Call – Correct
Raise – Incorrect
In situations where there are still players left to act, namely Solid Sam and Loose Louis, who have uncapped ranges, it’s best to play a more defensive strategy.
In this spot, it’s best to play defensively with your whole range with the exception of super strong hands such as sets and top two pairs, which are far more likely to remain the best hand compared to one pair hands.
This approach will give you a lot of flexibility on the turn and river. It will also relieve some stress about becoming exploitable at certain points since you will always have strong hands in your call range. You will also be able to cheaply get away (from what is likely not the best hand) if one of the players left to act raises on the flop.
If this was a heads up pot, raising versus Crazy Carl’s lead would be a very reasonable play to extract value. Even if it was three-way, raising would be pretty reasonable, especially if the player behind has a wide preflop range like Loose Louis, because such a range will often have missed the flop.
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