I know this is not traditionally medium-high stakes but I felt the deep stacks would fit more appropriately here, moderators please move if you feel it's inappropriate.

Game: 2-5 nl uncapped.

A little background, this is a game with mostly soft regs who all know each other by name. I bought in for 1k and the following 2 hands happened before the big hand.

I go down to about 700 folding to 3 bets pre and missing flops, no big deal, but I'm seen as pretty weak probably because I don't think I've called any 3 bets pre and folded to bets on flop after i raised pre. Anyways first hand I'm really in Villain who is UTG +1 has been open raising every hand he is in pre-flop and calling everyone who 3bets him. He has about 2k and bought in for just about that much. He open raises to 40 utg+1 and 3 people call and I have AA on the button. I think about it and know even if I 3bet to like 200, Villain will call and so will everyone else so I decided to just ship 700 trying to look bluffy. Before it even folds to the Villain, Utg+2 folds out of position causing everyone behind him to fold. I think this is good for me because it'll make it easier for him to call. Anyways UTG+1 makes a speech about how I wouldn't do it with AA or KK and he calls with AKo and I win a 1500ish pot.

Few orbits later I get into a hand and I have about 1450 behind, I flop broadway vs top set, hand played itself, All in on flop and my hand held up.



Effective stacks 3100 (620bbs). I've been playing tight for 2-3 hours since the AK hand.

Villain from 1st hand who open raises a lot pre has me covered, he is stuck and rebought for like 3k and got his stack up to about 4k.

Villain (UTG+1) opens to 40
UTG+2 calls
MP calls
Hero 3100 (button) raises to 150 with 88
Only Villain calls we are heads up.

Flop: K,Q,8

Villain bets 125
Hero raises to 425
Villain calls

Turn: 3

Villain bets 650
Hero curses silently and calls

River: K

Villain goes all in has hero covered
Hero 1950 to call.
hero _____ ???????


I don't think Villain is capable of big bluffs and I am definitely not too happy about my underfull. Thoughts on every street?

It seems to me most players would not donk the turn with two pair when the flush arrives. It seems like he is heavily weighted towards made flushes and the occasional semi-bluff with a straight draw. I'm pretty nervous doing so, but I think a call is justified. There seem to be few better value hands out there, and it would be weird for him to play them this way. I can definitely see a mediocre player shoving river with solid/nut flushes to try to get value from AK, AA, and underflushes.

snap call

I think top 2/set would've 3bet me on the flop with all those draws out there, but his betting patterns really don't make sense. Calls otf with draws on there, bets into a completed draw ott, and shoves when flush can't be best hand when called. The way I played it preflop, on the flop and turn, doesn't it look like I HAVE KQ? hmm

Call river, you beat bluffs and some of his value bets (and wouldn't really make sense betting again with 2 pairs/set when the flush hits but yeah he might protect against a 4th diamond and value you if you had AdK or AAd, so yeah you can't be sure at all he wouldn't bet with sets/KQ)

Also have to say that these KQ, sets are more likely to be c/raised instead of donkbetted (and donkbetted small as he did it) so yeah it's also discounts overfulls from his range

The fact that 1) it's pretty weird to play hands like that this way on the flop + 2) bet them when the flush comes combined to the fact you beat nut flushes and he might make a crazy bluff with a hand like JT ( with the process thinking "i haz a draw, i donkzbetz, he raises, i call, boom the flush hits let's rep it, **** he calls, i have to continue river to win the hand, even it reps nothing, but i don't know it im a donk ") makes river an easy call IMO

Not enough info on villain to go with. Your range looks like 88 QQ KK and AdAx or AdKx. Before you ask yourself if villain thinks a flush is the nuts here. If he's a aggro tard or has a penchant for way over valuing hands then call. But it seems like everytIme I call here he has it, (KQ or k3) or he 'thinks he has it' with the nut flush

Good point, The issue here is I really believe he thinks he has the best hand here, and to determine whether or not it beats me. I tanked for 5 minutes and ran through the following possibilities in my mind.

QQ/KK would have 4bet pre, but lets say Villain didn't.
A 1/2 pot bet into pre flop raiser with a set (QQ/KK) makes plenty of sense, he's looking for a raise to come over the top of. Which is why I re-raised, to charge for draws and to see if he can 3bet me on the flop.


AA wouldn't have necessarily 4 bet pre, I've seen plenty of amateur's try to get tricky with AA, get them cracked and never lay them down.
AA would have probe bet 1/2 pot pre and maybe call my small ish raise. Maybe he has an Ad with it. Turn definitely makes sense with the Ad in hand but river doesn't.

FD/OESFD/etc: Pre and flop and turn makes sense, river doesn't.

The only hands that beat me here is KK,QQ,KQ,K8,K3... and I don't see him shoving 2k with the nuts or close to it. I see a value bet, maybe I'm wrong.

My friend who I discussed this hand with ran the hands through some software and said that mathematically speaking I should call because so few hands have me beat, but in this situation specifically with the betting pattern i am almost always behind right?

I hate adding a hypo but before the river came I was thinking that if the board paired and he checked I was going to value bet, which would have probably been around 1000 dollars, and if he shipped then I would most likely be beat but I would call for sure. Let's say he checked, what is our plans for the river?

Call. You've been "playing tight for 2-3 hours"; how many full houses are in your range given pre? Also, AdK "improved" on the river, zoink.

if he's stuck, and you're as nitty as it seems by the info you've given, i'd imagine he 3b's the flop with KQ+. Thus, we're really only behind the 2 combos of K3s, if he's even opening them UTG+1.

I'm not thrilled about the 3b pre, as it doesn't seem you're going to be fighting for the pot enough to make it profitable.

Also, your ship with AA seems terrible. It's nice someone woke up w/ a premium and called, but if you squeeze to $200ish, you're not gonna go 5 ways to the flop, and it's really not the worst thing in the world if you do.

He certainly could have KQ though it's a weird play for him to donk the turn when the flush gets there. K3s would be loose a defend pre but same thing applies about the turn donk. I definitely think he's value betting worse often enough to call here getting better than 2:1.

My AA ship was to isolate because I was sure he was going to call with AJ+, 88+, and at times KQ suited etc because he's done it before... I made the play knowing the type of person he is (likes to call off light against short stacks)

My 3b pre was pretty bad but we were all 3 betting to the 100-150 range and I wanted to get in on it too (:

If he had K3, do you really see him calling my 3b pre? Villain would call my raise OTF with top pair but even if he hits 2 pair on the turn I see him checking for showdown value because most hands that call will beat Villain

If he did have KQ, I can understand novices making a turn bet to see "where I'm at" or prevent "a 4th diamond from falling".. but then that wouldn't explain the flop flat of my raise with top 2. I didn't think he was tricky enough to play KQ like that, and most of the time the game was so fast that if he had top 2 most of the time he would let me know that with a big 3b (especially with all the draws out there)

the 2:1 is in my favor, but to me I'm calling off 400bb's on the river when the Villain showed strength, but then again I already put 220bb's in there lol

Do you think fishes in general would ship the river with the near nuts or value bet? KK/KQ/QQ?

To be honest, the way the hand played out his river ship does not match up with most hands he could have.



Also I would like to point out at no point in the hand did he ask me how much I had behind (I had some cash behind too) and when the river came, he paused for 3 seconds and said "I'm all in" without looking at my chip stack. Does this change anything?

I don't think he will necessarly bet something like 60% pot if he is nutsed river, he could simply ship since there is only a PSB left, but yeah since he didn't look your stack (maybe he knew it after betting the turn) he didn't know how much it was, so yeah if he is the "betting 2k$, 1600€, 14000SEK whatever currency is scary,it's lots of moniez" type of donk he might think "my opponent might be scared if i bet that much if i want to get paid i need to bet less" it could a desperate attempt of bluffing, but in the same time he could maybe not have the balls to put 2000$ (do you realize man 2000 ***** USD ?!) without having the goods, so i would say that globally it doesn't change much

I think these thin "tells" can make you level yourself a lot, they mean everything and their contrary (it's like the pulsation of the carotid "does that mean he has the nuts, does that mean he is scared cause he is bluffing, or simply because he is playing the biggest pot of his life" )

i'd only be afraid of K3, QQ, and nothing else.. because if i were V, I would be like **** when that turn peels with KQ or K8, and love the turn w K3. OFC alot of table dynamics come into play, and if he wants to see where hes at... if you aren't that aggressive with draws, it would def justify his lead bet.
it's just a crazy line cause with your raise on flop, and flat on turn, you could very well have KQ and he shoves anyway.. so i put him on QQ, or a flush that just has to shove because he got no more money after a bet anyway