This was very early in the morning when I just moved from a broken table to another one and within 10mins I was dealt AA on the sb. I do not have much information on villian other than the fact that he seems to run extremely good. Advice given by a gentlemen to the right of me. Effective stack at our table was just 120bb or 600.

Stack:
Hero $2.5k
Villian $4k+

utg+2 raises to 30, utg+3 calls, highjack calls, I'm on the sb and I re-raise to 165. It went fold, fold, and highjack calls 165.

flop: 449 rainbow

I lead 200, villian min-raise 400 and I called.

turn K

I lead 550, villian calls quickly.

river 10 or 10 no flush possible.

I check, villian jams 2k very quickly and put me all-in.

I want some thoughts about this hand. I will post my decision after a considerate amount of replies are reached.

we cannot answer this without more reads on Villain.

As a default answer:

preflop:

Your sizing is ok, but I am ok with making it bigger as well.

He called twice in position.
->
1) he has a hand that can flop big (TT or smaller pocket pair) or AK, AQ (but we mostly rule those out because of the flop min-raise) ..

or
2) he sucks and could have a wide range that includes fours as well and he is the kind of villain that just doesn`t fold preflop

Flop:
- great flop for us -

Leading 200 is good - his min raise is weird. As a default this is a value raise with 4x(unlikely because of preflop), 44, 99, or a "feeler raise" with 9x (maybe he calls with those) and TT or JJ like always. He has to have some kind of made hand, because of the texture of the flop (no draws)..

Call is good

Turn:
weird lead by you. I c/f this turn and lead most river if he checks behind. If you lead, I lead/f small twice. -> 305$ OTT and 405$OTR

River:

Fold. If he bluffed you he did it well .. a 400bb bluff shove into a <400bb Pot OTR is highly unlikely and you are like never good here, if villain is any good himself.

Villain is clearly not good, so does that mean hero is good here often? I don't like your turn lead. What do you feel like you're getting value from here? Like, what do you think your hand looks like to JJ-TT and 9x (especially on that particular turn card)?

How can you possibly know that villain is not good? Is he bad enough to shove with a worse hand for value? I don`t know about that .. Being bad and being bad enough to shove with worse here is different.

We could lead/fold to target his JJ, TT and 9x range while preventing him from betting bigger with any hand that beats us. Maybe we could even lead smaller to reduce variance and get the same outcome .. bet 240$/f seems good as well, because he isn`t value raising here with any hand that beats us.

But as I said I like a c/f OTT, because he shouldn`t be betting with his made hands that don`t beat us on this turn ..

Can you clearly articulate why you called the flop raise and then led the turn?

My guess is no.

The turn lead is troublesome. AK just got there, so if he did have a decent pocket pair like JJ, he could get away from it. I would've much rather you led turn on a low card that put a flush draw on board. With this turn card, I think c/call is the best way.

River: You only have a bluff catcher. He is not betting AK like this. He either has a boat, a 4, or air. Soul read is in order, but without any other reads, this seems like a fold.

WTF are you doing on the turn?

I think 3-betting the flop is probably better than calling to lead turns. Calling to check turns is the default play, though. You need to just shove the river. He seems unlikely to have hands worth bluffing when you check, and very likely to have bluff catchers that might call an all in.

Also, I bet flop smaller or occasionally check. On these blanky boards with a big range advantage, it's generally a good idea to bet like 125 with 80% of your range.

+1000

I have to agree that my lead on the turn was pretty bad & unnecessary as I can get a cheaper showdown/pot control in the case he really had me beat at the point. I wasn't really thinking too well at that point as fatigue kicked in.

That being said, my thinking was that on the flop he may put me on a hand like AK AQs and perhaps he had a hand like A9, K9, Q9, J9 suited in which he min-raised 400 as a semi-bluff to take it down. The turn was a good card in the sense that if he really put me on AK, he now have 2 pairs which is why I made the lead. But when he insta-called that turn, it worried me.

Fatigue and deep stacks in the early AM, I would rather make it $200 pre and either x or bet close to a PSB on this particular flop. AP pre, I am RR otf, not messing around in a live game this deep, OOP with what is very likely the best hand.

OTT never leading, xc or xr.

River is a call imo because the min raise otf doesn't make sense on this board if he has you crushed unless like you said he has 9x and feels like it's somehow good.

No idea what's going on to be honest.

My best guess - I don't think you're up against 99/44/4x. 4x should be folding pre always and min raising the flop is pretty unorthodox with 99/44. Then he calls, "quickly," on the turn. I feel like this sounds kind of silly - but I wouldn't expect 99/44 to call, "quickly," on the turn very often. Players will not necessarily Hollywood but they will take some time more often than not to save face when they have gin.

Since this is lol live poker, I wouldn't be shocked to see some kind of Kx hand that decided to take a stab on the flop when he missed which then binked the turn and value shoved the river. So KT and AK would make some sense if this is true (quite a few players play AK passively pre then don't know what to do when they miss).

I guess he could also have TT which just didn't want to give up on the turn, although his line would be a really terribad way to play TT. Like, so terribad that I highly discount it.

In spots like this against new players, I tend to think... it's really hard to make full houses. Did this guy really make a full house on me in the very first big hand that we played together? Or is he just some random spewtard?

In my experience it is far easier to run into a random spewtard than it is to run into a player who binked a full house despite what the player next to you said about this guy. And you'd never check a worse hand on the river - this is the best hand you're going to have in this spot. So I'm calling.

As for your line....

Pre looks good, flop looks good, turn I'd check/call as others have stated. River I'm leading if turn was checked and likely check/calling if turn was bet.

As played I would bet smallish on the river, like 680, big bets are going to fold out worse too often. I feel like if you're going to bet the turn, you have bet the river.

Thanks guys for all the thoughts.

I tanked-called until the last 5s of the clock countdown. Villian clapped his hands happily and turned over 99.

rule of tumb, always listen to a gentleman.

Min raises are terrifying. You can check fold turn if makes a large bet

It is extremely unlikely that reraising the flop is a good idea. Villain is most likely to have you beat or be bluffing, not to have some value hand like QQ that can stand a reraise. The board is ultra dry and you are in a classic WAWB scenario where reraising is counter productive.

Little more pre. Quite a bit less otf. Don't lead turn. You beat nothing on the river but some absurd kamikaze bluff which isnt happening nearly often enough.

@OF4, okay, so maybe I have a leak. We all do from time to time.

How do we lose the minimum here, X/c twice and fold to a big river bet?

I would have put the villain on 1010-QQ with his flop and turn actions, and discounted the 99 he actually had, so take my advice with a grain of salt!

To lose the min, I think your best line was to call flop, check/call turn, and check/fold river.

As played, instantly fold river. Unless he's just a total idiot, there are no bluffs at all in his shoving range. He's very happy to check behind with JJ and QQ, two hands which would make perfect sense given his action on previous streets. He might bet AK for value, but he's unlikely to shove it, and I have no idea what he'd be doing with that on the flop. 99 boats up, 1010 boats up, and KK boats up. What else is there that calls preflop, min raises that flop, and calls a significant bet on the turn? Another option would have been to put out another $550 on the river, and safely fold to a shove. This is one of the few situations where I think a blocking bet would be effective. As played, throw it away and move on.

Or you can just be like Johnny Chan when he snap mucked Aces up on a JJ632 board when it checks 3 streets.

Pre is fine /std just make sure u have other hands
Flop you can x or bet smaller
After the min raise I'd be folding a bunch ott
You could also exploit him by folding otf since he never has a hand besides trips or better

The last part.
The minraise quietly opened up your entire stack by river (e.g. 550 on turn and ~pot size shove on river).

Just hope he won't level 2 minraise pure-bluff you in the future. In thousands of hours I used it about 2-3 times (only when shorthanded, with one specific player at the table who was an online pro that made sickly accurate adjustments to my playstyle in like 30 min of play and nothing head to head). lolposting2016 sounds like the kindof frighteningly good player that the minraise bluff was made for

#ImTheWorstPlayerInThread

This is way too results oriented. In my experience, a min raise here can mean MANY hands that aren't trips or better.... everything from 66-KK-109s as a feeler trying to figure out if you really connected with such a dry board. The most likely hands IMO are 1010-QQ. Most flopped monsters are very content to smooth call here in position. The last thing they want to do is fold out AK AQ or JJ+ on this board. In fact, I think this was poorly played by the villain because unpaired Aces will fold here a lot.

I do agree that if we check the K on turn (which we should have) and the villain makes a significant bet, we may be to get away.

What's the logic of minraise TT/JJ? How does the hand (similar flops) continue after that bet in a congruent way given the range of possible turns?

It does three things:

1. Charges high Aces to hit a 6 outer (some will end up calling the min-raise here)

2. Often lets you cheaply get away from KK and AA, many of whom will re-raise here to find out where they're at, or just because they can't fathom not getting it in with those hands on that flop.

3. Lets you pot control on the turn by checking back, and calling a small bet on river. Again, it avoids playing for stacks against KK or AA, against opponents who choose to just call the flop min raise.


By smooth calling the flop with those hands instead, a lot of opponents will bet turn for something like $450, forcing you close to the commitment threshold with no idea if you're up against AK AQ 1010, a semi-bluff (if draw comes on turn) or AA/KK.

Edit: I also want to address possible turns. If you have JJ and the turn is a blank (any card other than AKQ) I would bet the turn for about $400. That will fold out any high Ace, which is fine at this point considering how large the pot is. Any re-raise and you're absolutely beat. Your range is uncapped, so a re-raise here without at least KK (and very likely a boat) is suicide. You can also fold to any river bet. Again, if your opponent is betting out on any river, you have nothing he can beat. Almost always the opponent will check river no matter what hits, and you can check back.

If an AKQ comes out on the turn, that's bad luck. However, your opponent will almost always check (not withstanding what hero actually did in this hand) and you can check back. Even if they hit, a lot of opponents will check river as well if it's anything remotely scary, and you can check back as well. If they bet out on river, that's the hardest situation you could face in this scenario. You're likely behind, but read/opponent dependent.