Hero is young 20's guy taking a shot at 10/10. Only played the game once before about 2 months ago. I bought in for $1000 and I'm guessing I'm sitting at a table full of regulars so they are probably looking at me as the spot or someone to be bullied. Only been at the table for 15-20 minutes but have been mostly card dead and folding.

Villain is a 40's MAWG with a smoking hot trophy wife/girlfriend by his side. Phenomenal tits. Also new to the table and has only raised once before (no showdown).

Effective stacks: $900

Folds around to Villain OTB
V raises to $40
SB folds
Hero calls $40 in BB with AQ

I was trying to play a more conservative game at 10/10 and chose not to 3! here. Maybe if there was some dead money to squeeze I would 3! but it seemed like a chance to play a HU pot with pretty good hole cards vs. a possibly weak BTN steal range.

Flop ($90): 7 6 2

Hero checks
V bets $50
Hero raises to $150
V raises to $450
Hero folds

I figured he would be c-betting his entire range here and two overs plus the BDNFD seemed like a good enough spot to go for the check/raise. Looks like he just had a hand here rather than a rebluff.

Thoughts appreciated, even if this does seem simple/straightforward. Was just trying to hold my own at the 10/10 table.

Which hands do you c/r for value in this spot? (with this rather small betsize?)

Value: mostly overpairs (JJ-88), 76

Semi-bluff: 98, 45, NFD

I realize now the sizing was too small as he is getting ~3:1 on the call. Would you go $180-200 here?

I think my sizing was aimed at targeting his air, rather than considering what would be needed to elicit a fold from an actual hand, like TT or something.

Flop is a really standard x/c. A-high is a made hand BTN vs BB, especially on such a light flop. Other than spiking a pair, this is pretty much the flop you were hoping for.

This is also like one of those classic boards where it's easier to find bluff combos than it is to find value combos, so it's really problematic to needlessly turn hands that are good enough to call into a bluff.

3-bet pre. This is essential hand for your value-range.

And do what on the turn surviva? Are we just gonna station down an unknown on favorable (non-pair) run outs? We are looking at $110 OTT and $220 OTR if he just keeps bluff barreling.

Ranges can be pretty damn wide at 10/10 at least in the games i play in, so in this situation id almost always 3B and try to get it in on the flop regardless of board if checked to with less than 100bb.

Given the action the raise looks pretty weak and the given stack size makes it easy to put you to a decision.

Call some, fold some. Some things to keep in mind:

1) There are 15 turn cards that are pretty good for us. Those 15 cards also happen to overlap brilliantly with the best scare cards for villain to barrel. This makes this a better bluff catching hand than, say, 55 which doesn't beat a whole lot more hands than AQ does anyway. This particular hand is like in the pantheon of nut bluff catchers on this board.

2) It's perfectly fine to have a folding range on the turn. With each bet, your range should narrow more and more, so folding this hand to more action should only be a problem if you have a huge folding range on the turn because you're like x/c'ing flop with JTdd, 33-55, 2x, etc. Which might be the case on a given turn card, which might mean we should call down some, but if I'm worried about folding too much on future streets, again, I'd sooner fold 33-55 OTF than this hand.

Not really considering folding either of those, though, because I feel comfortable making decisions with marginal hands OOP without initiative. That might not apply to everyone. In which case, be more inclined to fold flop with small pairs, be more inclined to 3! AQo pre, etc.

3) This guy probably sucks at poker. If he somehow manages to have like the top 20% of his range AND is one of those very rare MAWGs who is capable of vbetting A7/88-TT for multiple streets once an overcard hits, then yeah, he'll earn some money off of us here. Even when he has QQ+, I expect this type of player to split his bet sizing really stupidly and bet a size that tries to keep you on the line, and then when he has air, he'll bet a size that tries to blow you off a marginal hand.

I think this flop sizing on this type of board with obvious flush and straight draws out there is going to be really heavy on either bull**** or very meh made hands (either protecting their equity against overcards or going for a thin value bet). Since the meh hands are unlikely to continue value betting on overcards, his range is probably gonna get absurdly unbalanced toward air, so based on feel/sizing/etc, we can find some really exploitative calls.

Even if you're not comfortable with trying to own someone with A-high when you're shot taking, though, you're not obligated to call all the way down when the board whiffs us.

Seems like an easy flop c/c. We're so far ahead of his btn open + cb range. It's also possible if he's aggressive that he would bluff Q or A turns, and club turns which we can call (since we have Ac). If he's passive we can potentially take it to SD.

Eh kinda effed it up I suppose. Is the reason for a check call because we already have enough semi-bluffs in our check/raise range that adding AQo to it unbalances our c/r range and doesn't leave enough hands in our check/call range?

Subconsciously I probably didn't want to take this hand past the flop OOP which is why I went for the c/r but I think I can see why a check/call is superior.

pf is fine to call vs the 4x on the button. id 3b very frequently though
flop is a very easy x/c with bd clubs...the x/r is a complete nightmare though

well firstly, to be honest, this stakes are far above my level think 180 $ is a good sizing. however, if i am not the preflop agressor / didn't 3I this I like c/c

Need more in the villain description.

How were the tits phenomenal? Fake, but nice? Clearly made by the hand of God? Round? Bulbous? Are we talking two grapefruits nestled close to each other, or two basketballs spread apart?

Did she know what she had? Was she shy / covering them? Or leaning over occasionally for the whole world to see?

Also flop is bad to x/r but no one gave a reason why. I'll explain once I've heard more about the tits.

Hard to say without getting a crack at those sweater puppies, but I'd say 70/30 real/fake. If they were fake, they were very well done.

I'd compare it to two large oranges being compressed down so that the diamater/surface area expands for full chest coverage. Not too big, not too small.

She definitely knew what she had. Low cut V top, full body natural olive tan. Occasionally stealing glances with hero. My priorities were not in the hand which is why I check/raised the flop (obviously, what else could it be?)

How much equity did you assign to the possibility of bulling villain all night with hyper-aggro play leading to sweater muffins dumping her sugar daddy on the spot for you?

c/c flop.

3bet pre. As played, check/call flop because you hand is good enough to check/call. I would prefer CR bluffing flop with other weaker hands.

couldn't have said it better myself. you have the best hand a lot of times here.

Great post. I threw a pretty general "Well what then?" at you and you knocked it outta the park.

I think you brought up a good point about comfort level playing OOP without initiative with a hand like AQo. It's not a situation I would normally find myself in at 1/2 or 2/5 and I think the inexperience showed through.

Yes good posts on why AQ is a pretty decent value hand here (and thus should not be x/r as a bluff)

I wanted to chime in on why a x/r bluff on this particular board is not good...bc an air x/r is a very valuable tool to have in live poker where people's cbet frequencies are near 100%.

Boards that have two connecting cards, notably 6-Q, (so 67x, 89x, 9Tx or QJx), these just smash ranges. Because of this you don't elicit folds that often. (Try and think of hands that cbet QJx and then fold to a x/r). You gotta remember, villains are huge stations.

Also, everyone puts you on a flush draw (rightfully so)

So we want dry boards that do not connect. Think of good cbetting boards. T52r, 923r, K28, etc. I especially prefer the low boards bc you have more scare cards ott.

It's also preferred (but not totally necessary), to have some backdoor potential. Finally, going back to your AQ example, we want to x/r bluff with hands with no showdown value. So like JT would have been a better x/r here than AQ imo (though neither are great on that board)

This is because when you polarize x/r a hand (and have the air portion of your range) you can shut down on turns if you want to and lol when villain bets and "folds you off" of your J high. See folding AQ here kinda sucks bc its a pretty strong hand in this situation. Remember, a polarized x/r in itself (say with 89 on a J23 flop) is profitable vs. a 100% cbetting villain, so you can shut down on turns and still make money long term.

As an example, A3 would be a nut x/r'ing hand for me on T52

Why you raising flop?

Looks like a fun player obviously, but you should never be raising or folding Ac here

Pre seems like an easy 3bet for value against a presumable weaker player. Against a stronger player you can just flat occasionally so your BB defending range isn't always capped to weak hands.

On the flop check/calling is way better than the other options.

Avarita, I'm also in OP's spot of constructing flop x/r ranges on different boards and think I have them way off, such as x/r hands like OP rather than x/c since it's 'easier' to play.

In the case of a drawy connected board (e.g. 762cc), should a x/r range only include occasional strong draws (Axcc, 98cc, 85cc, etc) and made hands (88+ if we didn't 3b pre, 2pr+), and have a x/c range that includes AQo+, 7x, FDs, SDs, and the occasional slowplayed overpair+?

My problem is that I'm uncomfortable x/c here with AQo since I don't think i x/c with strong made hands often (and haven't done it enough to learn how to play poker on the turn OOP without initiative).

There's nothing wrong with having a strong x/c range. One of the still existing prevalent leaks of live players is bet/bet/betting without a clue. (At least bet/bet/checking). The way to combat this is to check / station to your hearts content.

I would never have 88+ here bc I would 3b pre. There's actually very few hands I would flat in this situation being we're so shallow.

But, to answer your question, if I did have 88, Id x/c it at least 2 streets. There is nothing wrong with x/c x/c x/f because villains range is weighted more towards value with each street that money goes in.

That said, as I said originally, even the most standard of players can go nuts when you x/c. So it goes back to player tendencies, how the board texture changed from flop to river, lol live reads, etc.

x/r 88 is close to turning your hand into a bluff in that 99-AA are never folding. So you are getting value from draws and exactly 7x. No need to turn such a strong hand into a bluff when you can just x/c and get value from his entire range.

I think x/r and x/c with AQ here are real close and somewhat villan dependent.....vs villans who bet the flop at a high freq and give up on turn and river, x/c is better but against villans who are more barrel happy I'd rather x/r.......the problem with x/c in this spot is we get to the turn with the near bottom of our range and there's many turn cards he can barrel on that we're forced to fold to......also maybe he turns bottom pair/small pairs into a bluff and we're in a real ****ty spot x/c.......against a super aggro table that will barrel away x/c cannot be right but against more straightforward players I like it.