Villain (EP): MAWG, stationy fish hasn't shown too much aggression ($350)
Hero (MP): mid 20s Asian, TAG image ($525)

One limper to villain who makes it $14. Hero looks down at AQ, considers a 3 bet but flats because it was an EP raise and villain doesn't raise much. BTN calls BB calls.

Flop: 864 ($51)

Checked all the way around.

Turn: A ($51)

Checked to villain who bets $40. Hero calls other two fold.

River: 3 ($131)

Villain bets $110. He's basically repping sets and maybe AK. I don't think he ever has A8s or 75s raising from EP since he limps a lot. When he bombs turn into three opponents and bombs river it's hard to put him on a bluff. I just started reading The Course by Ed Miller and he says when 1/2 players bet big on turns and rivers, they generally aren't bluffing. Let it go?

Looks like a fold

If villain isn't aggressive this should default to fold.

He can be betting turn fairly wide when there is no action on flop. It's a good situation for him to represent an ace and on a moderately dangerous board anybody that did hit this hard is betting something on flop. When he continues on a brick river you should give him credit for a good ace or better unless you have some reason to think otherwise.

Def don't 3b pre, I'm just calling.

This is actually a pretty gross spot imo. I would make a nitty fold. I just don't think he's bombing this river with AJ I feel like his sizing would be much smaller.

Fold vs this villain.

i pay it off. i mean i know its wrong, but im just too dumb to fold in spots like this. also i would just avoid this spot entirely by folding pre a lot of the time. i dont like AQ.

Folding pre might be correct honestly but not because you don't like AQ. It would be because he's not raising worse if that's the case. I'm still not folding AQ for 14 when it's suited, and that also might be wrong.

Given villain description his most likely hand is ak and you should fold the turn.. he might also have aq but even so, a lot of the time we call turn we get scary action or raises behind us

If you're folding AQs pre to a single raise, then you might want to reconsider why you're playing poker for real money. AQ is a top ten hand pre, and the fact that his hand is suited and he has position on villain makes this a call at a minimum.

Hero, I think you played it ok. As played, I would fold river. Like you said, if villain fires turn AND river, you are chopping at absolute best. Most likely you're beat.

However, seeing that you're in MP, I might consider 3-betting to isolate. Assuming no one calls behind, you can fire a strong c-bet where villain likely chk/folds.

Couldn't agree more. AQs is a top 5% hand. I even call 3 bets with it sometimes even though it's 1/2 unless we're < 150bb deep or if it's too big.

I was considering it but fairly big EP raise from someone who doesn't raise much...it's just way too thin IMO. If it was an MP raise and someone more aggressive I would probably do it.

ive played a lot of live poker and im a significant winner so i know what im talking about when i say that calling 7x opens from EP raisers who havent shown much aggression with AQ suited or not from MP is just not a great play. calling in general is bad play. its a big leak in most peoples games, and thinking "its a top ten hand" therefore call, is a bad approach. against a single opponent if its good enough for a call it should be good enough to 3bet. if we whiff this flop and our opponent c-bets we have to give it up or float and most likely cost ourself more money. also we are in MP and could face a 3bet from another opponent putting us in a worse position pre.

you dont have to be a nit either to play this way. you can be raising and 3betting pre with a lot of hands, just dont be calling unless there are multiple people preflop we have position and a suited connector or pocket pair.

get better.

preflop: fold>3bet>call. if you can't let AQs go for a 7x raise preflop against this villain from EP then you should be playing bingo.

This is a fold against most players and becomes an easy fold given your reads. Looks most like AA or AK or sometimes 88. Hard to find candidates for multiple street OOP bluffs from a passive villain (maybe KQs?), and the only possible worse hand I see him betting for value would be AJs. Not enough combos to make this call worthwhile.

Rich your trolling needs work. Good enough to call is good enough to raise? Wtf kind of bs is that? Also we are in MP and could face a 3 bet from another opponent? It's 1/2 with no internet kids at the table other than myself. Who's gonna be 3 betting anything less than JJ+ AK?

And just so you know, people who are actually significant winners don't tell other people to "get better" or say things like "I know what I'm talking about".

ummm im not trolling. i really try not to call raises preflop unless the player is totally spewy. just fold AQs here, its not that great of a hand to be calling an EP raise from MP.

i should rephrase instead of good enough to call good enough to 3bet make that if you want to play this or any hand take the lead in the pot. especially against one opponent. if you had a pocket pair or suited connector in late position with multiple other preflop callers then its correct to call. if the raiser was in MP and you were in LP i could see calling with AQs but still you should probably be 3betting too. but EP raise to 7x i would just let AQs go here. from my experience everything you described in your OP this seems like a losing call preflop.

and i don't expect to get 3bet by worse than AQ here but you are in MP so there are more players left behind who can 3bet when they do have AK, QQ+ so it should be a consideration. if theres 5 people left to act the chance that someone has one of those hands is around 10% i think so definitely not negligible.

and for the record i am a significant winner, i know what im doing and you should get better

"significant winner" is all relative and subjective.

Rich, I will say though, you bring up a fair point about said villain raising 7x pre when he hasn't shown much aggression.

I just respectfully disagree with your approach to AQs overall.

Villain is a tight station fish. I'd range him JJ+, AJ+, KQ preflop. The flop
is excellent for the pairs in his range and he didn't bet the flop so I think we can eliminate them. He bets the ace I'm going to assume he has one. (eliminating KQ) That gives him 8 combos that beat us, 4 we tie, and 8 we beat. We have 50% equity and are getting about 2-1 on calling. We should call. If we eliminate AJ from villains range we only have 20% equity and should fold unless we think villain would bluff around 3 times in 20 we should fold . Since OP described this player as a passive station that makes this a fold.

If villain is so tight that they wouldn't open AJ or KQ from this position we should fold pre-flop.

You really think people choose to open KQ/AJ before TT? ^

You can include it in villains opening range if you want. AQs is flipping with it so I don't think it adds enough value to play AQs against this villain. AQs dominates AJ and KQ so adding those hands add more value to AQs. There are more combinations of each too, even though we hold a card in each combo. I think a "normal" player opens all three hands. This villain is a passive fish showing aggression. I would range them pretty tight.

In this specific case I think villain bets TT (same with 99 for that matter) on the flop and rule it out there.

im a 12bb/100 winner live and 3bb/100 winner online, though i would consider a lot less to still be significant.

AQs is a good hand im just saying against an opponent who hasnt shown much aggression opening 7x from EP i think its better to be folding this hand in MP. i would want to play it in most other situations we get it dealt to us.

That's 3bb/hour which is nothing to brag about. Even if you're playing 5/10 it's not good especially with all that variance you're probably way better off playing 2/5 if that's what you're doing.

Also most live 1/2 raises are 5x+ with no limper. So 7x with a limper isn't absurdly large.

I seem to ask this a lot in this forum but does this mean we are folding 100% of our range of the river to this guy? I assume we bet some of our sets on the flop or at least raise them on the turn. We would 3bet AK so AQ is the best hand we have that takes this line.

This hand, whether we fold on the river or not depends on how many aces you think villain is playing. How much of our range can beat an ace? Why would we raise the turn with a set vs. this villain on this board? This villain is a calling station, the best line almost has to be call and bet or raise the river.

If he is a calling station then he is going to call the turn raise. Also there are some river cards than can kill our action like hearts 5s and 7s.

I don't think there's anything wrong with folding 100% or close to it of our range vs 1/2 villains on specific runouts where they don't have any or enough bluffs. It's more of a problem if we're doing that on flops.

Then if we play with this villain often enough we can find a way to mix up our play between the two lines for balance.