How to Get a NIT to Fold His Showdown Value Range
In the hand below, the hand folded around to hero in the button. Hero raised 3BB. The small blind (SB) called and the big blind (BB) folded.
Hero is In Position/With the Lead/Dry Board
The flop came up K♠8♦2♥. The NIT checked to the pre-flop raiser.
How should hero play the hand? How should he think through the hand?
What is the NIT’s range?
The typical NIT range is AK/AQ and AA-22. He is unlikely to have AA and KK in this situation. He would have 3-bet with these hands. It’s unlikely that the NIT would have got tricky and just called with AA and KK pre-flop. This is because the BB was still to act. The NIT wouldn’t want to play AA or KK in a 3-way pot, where he is out of position to 2 players.
So, I put the NIT on the range below.
You might think that the NIT would 3-bet with AK, QQ and JJ. However, many tight players have just AA and AK in their 3-betting range.
How Should Hero Think?
Hero should be trying to figure out how he can get the showdown values hands, QQ-TT, to fold. He could do that with one big bet on the flop. It would have to be a bet close to the size of the pot. The NIT may call one bet with QQ and JJ.
Hero doesn’t want to pay the 12 combos of AK or sets too much money.
However, is there a more profitable way?
Flop: Villain Checks
There are 3 primary reasons why hero should bet when a NIT checks and you have a weak hand.
Firstly, hero may get immediate folds. While worse hands can’t call, hero might get villain to fold hands that might benefit from a free card.
Secondly, weak hands are difficult to play and as such, hero just wants to win the pot without further complications.
Thirdly, if villain just calls, he is giving you information about the top of his range. Hero’s bet should be small to get this information.
The Maths
On this flop, 5 pocket pairs between an 8 and a 2 will fold (30 combos). In addition, if your opponent has AQ-AJ in his range, he will fold these as well. The hands that will potentially call or raise are sets (6 combos), AK (12 combos) and QQ-99 (19 combos). This adds up to 37 combos.
This means that 30 combos will fold and 37 will call or raise. Therefore, villain should fold 44.6% of his hands.
Importantly, villain’s folding range consists of pocket pairs below middle pair. These will fold to a small bet. Even a small bet will not give villain the odds to draw to 2 outs to complete his set. If villain did try to draw to his set, he wouldn’t get enough in the way of implied odds from hero. This is because a change in villain’s betting action from from passive to aggressive will alert hero that his opponent has hit a very strong hand. As such, hero will know that he has to fold.
If hero wanted to get villain to fold QQ on the flop, he would have to bet a bet size close to the size of the pot. With 44.6% folds, a ¾ pot bet would barely be profitable. A ¾ pot bet breaks even at around 43% of folds. This size bet would probably get JJ-TT to fold, which would increase the percentage of folds from 44.6% to 51.2% folds.
However, hero can do better than that.
What hero doesn’t want to do, is pay the hands that are winning a lot of money. Let’s look at betting small on the flop.
The ¼ Pot Flop Bet
Let’s say that on the flop, hero just bet ¼ of the pot. What does this accomplish?
Villain will raise with his sets. Therefore, if villain doesn’t raise, hero can take sets out of villain’s range on the turn. Villain might even raise with AK. If villain raises, with these combos, this will benefit hero because he didn’t pay the better hands much money.
Villain will call with QQ-99. That’s fine. Hero is planning on getting these hands to fold on the turn.
Villain should fold AQ and his pocket pairs below middle pair. If villain doesn’t fold his low pocket pairs, hero gets more value. Even if he hits his set, he will not be getting value.
Let’s say that villain calls with low pocket pairs and hits his set on the turn. Now, let’s say that villain decides to check-raise his set. Even if hero bet the pot, when checked to, villain would not be getting anywhere close to the pot odds required to call the ¼ pot flop bet in the first place.
So, we will assume that villain folds his small pairs on the flop. If villain calls the flop bet, his range would look as below.
We have removed sets from villain’s range because we would expect a NIT to raise with these on the flop.
This is the best case scenario for villain because AK might have raised on the flop. If this was the case, AK would not be in villain’s range. That would just leave the QQ-99 range.
The Turn Card
A low turn card will not have a significant effect on villain’s equity. In this case, hero can bet the pot and expect 72.7% folds. For a pot-sized bet to break even, hero only needs 50% folds. There is almost no chance that villain will call a pot-sized bet.
The best turn card is an ace. This is because it will reduce the number of AK combos, that villain can have to around 32%. An ace will mean that there are 2 overcards to QQ-99. This will mean that hero can bet around ½ the pot to get QQ-99 to fold.
The worst turn cards are a queen, a jack or a 9. These cards will give some of villain’s combos a set.
Of these, the worst turn card is a 9. This is because it will not increase the fear for villain if he holds QQ-TT.
If the turn card is a 9, hero really wants to bet the pot to make sure that QQ, JJ and TT will fold. However, he should let the pot go. He could try and bluff a smaller amount. However, there is nothing worse, than a bluff failing because you bet too small.
If the turn card is a jack, hero should still give up. The problem is that there will not be enough of villain’s combos folding that hero is not beating anyway. For example, if the turn card is a jack, QQ is the only combo, that is beating hero, that will fold. There is also TT which ties and will fold.
Therefore, 7 combos will fold, while AK (12 combos) and a set of jacks (3 combos) has hero solidly beaten. With those odds, the problem is that you can’t bet a big enough amount to ensure that QQ ill fold.
However, if the turn card is a queen, hero can bet ¼ of the pot. With 2 overcards, JJ and TT may fold to a ¼ pot bet. You only need to win 20% of the time with a ¼ pot bet. If we exclude 99 (which hero is beating anyway), JJ and TT, make up 31.8% of villain’s range.
What if Villain’s Starting Range is Wider?
If villain’s starting range is wider, you will get more folds on the flop. For example, if villain had KQ and AJ in his starting range, you would win more often on the flop.
However, on the turn, villain’s range would be stronger because he would have started with more Kx combos.
This means, that even against a slightly wider range (which includes AJ and KQ combos), a big flop bet is the best strategy. The wider the range, the more profitable it is to bet big on the flop and give up on the turn. However, it’s not as simple as that because players, who play extremely wide ranges, tend to be reluctant to fold on the flop. That will be the subject for another article.