I'm curious if anyone else things this hand is fairly standard, considering typical hand ranges, player information, and fundamental strategy. I used physical reads to make my decisions in this hand, but I'm curious if it might also be considered pretty good strategy just from a fundamental perspective.

It's a 9-handed $5-10 NL game. Me and villain both have about $2,400. Villain is a wealthy guy who's also a regular. He's pretty good, and probably a slightly winning player, but very spewy and prone to being too aggressive against everyone, even good players, even in spots when you'd think he'd know to be less crazy. He does typically get paid on his hands when he makes them.

Villain raises UTG to $40, which is a typical amount for him. I'm in the hijack with Ts Td and raise to $120. Villain calls.

Flop is 8h 9d Jh. Villain checks to me and I bet $180. He calls.

Turn makes it:

8h 9d Jh 5s

Villain bets $400 into the $600 pot. I call.

River makes:

8h 9d Jh 5s Ks

Villain bets $900.

I call...

Like I said, I played this based on a read but also can see that there are many logical reasons to call the river bet, as well. Is it standard, though?

a crazy kinda good guy should know that he's gonna get paid often enough if he raises his big hands on this flop..in fact, almost any player would raise his strong hands on this flop..so his range is pretty weak on the flop..the turn changes nothing and he leads into you..he reps exactly only a draw at this point..the river is pretty much a blank, since QT flopped the straight..you only lose to a very weirdly played KJ..nice call....

this is live poker... people do this stuff with Aces
They don't raise strong hands on the flop, they slowplay em!
I am surprised by the turn bet tho whenever I see this on the interwebz it's either a weakish toppair that tries to protect or a draw trying to take over initiative.

TT is actually a pretty poor hand against this range, we are beat to any J, we block a lot of Tx hands and are vulnerable to any overcards. K9 would be a better bluff catcher imo.

there is a flushdraw tho, and it brix -> we call

call pre, 3-betting TT vs an EP raise is pretty awful

I think river is a fold, unless you have reason to believe that he's tilting and turning his whole range into a bluff

The only street I would consider as being standard is the turn. Everything else just looks pretty bad imo.

Thanks for the comments. I guess mod edited out the results. I called and was good, but like I said I did it based on a read I had and felt pretty certain I was good. I wouldn't three-bet many players pre-flop in this spot but he's one of the few I would.

I'm just trying to figure out if many people would play this way post-flop against a somewhat-decent but too-aggressive regular. I do not consider myself very well-versed in fundamental strategy.

this, i actually hate every street but turn and maybe river depending on a read but regardless river is always gonna be marginal even w/ a read, turn will always be std and the rest always sucks given ur description.

What hands r you guys afraid of on the river? Only ones I can think of are JK or a weirdly played flopped set or AA or KK. I just don't see many other options. I guess I should say that he's not good enough to make that river bet with a lone K, unless it was AK, and he def wouldn't be value betting a J. I guess I could have included that first as basic background. Considering the flush and straight draw possibilities it doesn't seem like the K river changes much.

I must be the only one that doesn't hate this hand. I think 3 betting tens is fine here against the described opponent. You both are real deep, you have position, and what is likely the best hand. I don't mind a call either, but whatever. When I do 3 bet, I probably 3 bet bigger.

The flop bet is fine. I might check it back for pot control, and call two streets on the turn/river and bet if checked to. That being said, I don't hate the flop bet, because often times you are gonna get called by worse, and you are very likely going to get a free card on the turn when you dont hit the straight.

The turn call is standard.

The river is read dependent obviously, and it's weird that he bet on such a bad river card, so I think calling is fine there as well.

What do people hate about this hand?

Everything is fine up until the river. The river is usually a fold. You had a read which made it a call. Hand isn't unstandard in any way.

Does anybody ever raise the turn after villain bets out after calling the flop b/c of the straight draw pocket 10's or repping an overpair here

For value or to hope AJ folds? I don't like it.

Usually I'd call this deep with TT, but 3b seems ok with Villain description. What are you going to do if he 4bs, though? A fold would be kind of bad against this Villain, but do you really want to 5b or flat a 4b with TT?

River bet is worrisome because Villain sounds good enough to know that, with his line, you are likely to look him up. As a result, I would have expected a bigger river bet from him to try to get the fold. But, you've got a read, call seems fine to me. Without a read I'd fold, unless you think Villain isn't thinking about what he's just repped--pretty much nothing.

I guess we have vastly different standards.

Description of villain is contradictory for me. So for the sake of discussing the standard I will assume a good standard opponent.

So preflop your standard vs UTG open is to 3-bet TT, meaning if he 4-bets you have to fold.

Ok so you just make it 3x so you MIGHT get like one street of value against some speculative hands. This is probably negated by the fact that you might as well find spots to valuetown yourself if he calls with JJ+.

Sounds to me like TT is the top of your bluffing range (or your value raises are way too thin if you hope to get 4-bet) which means your frequencies are way out of line since bluffing up to TT would mean your 3-bet range against UTG opens would be close to 100% of hands (IDK what you do with JJ/QQ). Standard players 3-bet UTG opens very rarely or never, so this is only standard in your world.

If you bet the Flop against a competent opponent there are zero worse hands he will flat call with, so the reason for your bet must be that you hope for a raise or that you hope he will fold now or later. If you hope he folds, then again you are bluffing with way too many hands. If you hope he raises and you can get it in for value you are value betting way to thin. Definately not standard.

I read these two paragraphs 47 times and now I have a headache (and I still didn't understand them).

I do get that you were answering his question, but who really thinks like this?

Hell, maybe it's just me and I'm old, but I'm with OP. He had a read, made a call. Nice hand. Move on.

I have another question; what if I knew the two players behind me (cutoff and button) were folding? Would this make you more likely to three bet? Or less likely?

Less likely. You're already gonna have position in that case so don't get the benefit of raising making it more likely to have position.

Less likely- I thought that's why you 3-bet in the first place...

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CBI- TT doesn't play well against a bunch of people. Also, buying the button/getting things hu in position is very valuable (worth 3-betting a hand that doesn't do well against a 4-bet) in deepstack play. We also don't have to fire more than one value barrel on low flops if we don't want. Sometimes we will hit a set or make a straight and stack our opponent for 240 bbs, and sometimes we will use our pf3b to bluff out JJ and QQ. Lastly, re-read the description of the utg opener- I think his range could be a lot wider than you are imagining.

And after that, everything is just pretty yawn standard (if op had a read) imo.

Dgaf - you had said without a read the river would be a fold. That is what I actually felt instinctively, but I can't figure out the logical reason why that would be so. It seems like there's very few legitimate valuebetting hands villain could have there, so I'm wondering why you think it'd be a fold.

well just based on the vast majority of players at 5/10 there are very very few ppl that are taking this line here as a bluff...thus needing a read to make the call. while there arent too many legit VB hands ppl can have ur avg 5/10 player almost always has them when they c/c and then donk fire turn and river into u for pretty decent sized bets.

For value or just to take the pot without seeing a river card. I don't think AJ is folding maybe 30% of the time, so if you have pocket queens I think it would be a better raise than the OP's pocket 10's but if your a tight player you could get away with this even with pocket 10's depending on your image. My image is really tight so I could rep pocket queens or better in this spot and get a fold from AJ probably around 75% of the time. I think knowing your opponents is sometimes underrated in NL hold em and I think many players have a problem with this.

First let me say, from my experience:

This villain certainly doesn't sound like the type of player who folds to 3-bets enough. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this guy's fold-to-3-bet% was something ridiculous/horrible (like 10%). This seems to be the predominant player-pool-logic I see at live $5/10 anyway -- very low fold-to-3bet%'s in or out of position.

This is important because one of the reasons to 3-bet {TT, 99, ect} PF is to exploit the exact opposite type of player – the one's who fold too often to 3-bets PF.

Anyway, villain doesn't sound like the type of player who folds too much (almost certainly his fold to 3-bet-% is way too low) and I expect villain to almost always 4-bet or call.

Now:

1. If we have a read that villain 4-bets way too often, then the 3-bet is great, since with can play for stacks PF against {99, AT, bluffs, ect}. However, this wasn't the read given in OP, so I assume this is not the case -- that hero was 3-betting PF, but folding to a large 4-bet (not planning to play for stacks PF).
2. If we have a post-flop read, I like the 3-bet more. But we don't have any type of read like this (do we?).
3. If we have seen villain open wide PF from UTG – {A6, ect} – then I like the 3-bet more (as a value play), expecting villain to call way too often with a range we crush. That is, if we have a villain who opens 20% from UTG, and who calls 3-bets OOP ~90% --> then the 3-bet is great value.
4. If we don't have an UTG opening read, or a post-flop read, we should probably assume villain opens/calls ~8% of hands from UTG. Against this, {TT} only has ~50% equity. And in this case, I would just call, and play in position with a hand that has decent equity against villain's range. This also keeps hero's perceived range wide, allowing hero to represent, ect. This also keeps hero's SPR much higher, giving hero more leeway to play poker PF before meeting the CT.

As played, I would expect villain to show up with KX often OTR.

i actually think once you get to the river its a call, his value range is just minuscule when he bombs turn and river on this board. if i had 3bet pre i would have played it the same

I am flattered that you found my post so interesting that you had the urge to read it 47 times. Feel free to ask any question about the points you did not understand.

The OP was asking if the way he played it would be good as a standard (=play it like that very often) way to play it. For me my standard way of doing things and the framework for my play is my balance. What I stated was that playing the hand in this way would not fit into any kind of reasonable balance.

Yea I get isolating someone in position. What I was saying was that this should not be your standard play. What you would need for it to be good is basically a bad opponent (ok this might be standard in live play :P).

As for the description of villain: very spewy and prone to being too aggressive against everyone, even good players, even in spots when you'd think he'd know to be less crazy. Sounds to me like there is a good chance he will 4-bet bluff us off or spazz out on a board that we like. This would make me more likely to flat.

And yea I guess you can use "he had a read" as a justification for everything. But then it would not be a good standard, because doing something because you had a read usually means you are doing something special which is specifically designed to exploit whatever you read (therefore not applicable to most situations) , no?

Yeah I meant standard against a loose aggressive, kind of bad player, independent of a read. Thank you all for your comments.