Background context: 2 hours in, card-dead and have played virtually no hands so I likely have a very tight image. There's a few players in the game that know I'm fairly aggro (and saw me up $1,300 when we last played), but the villain is not one of them.

Villain: 40ish Asian man. Well-dressed, glasses, intelligent looking. Not the "gambly" type dressed in designer brands, which is one Asian poker stereotype, looks more like a nice and semi-reserved businessman. He seems to play relatively tight--haven't seen him do anything too splashy or loose, but I get the vibe that he's capable of making a few moves (for whatever that's worth).

1/2 NLH Full Ring...New Hampshire Cardroom on a weekday evening

Effective stacks: $300

Hero (UTG) raises to $10 with KJ

3 callers, including Villain in CO.

Flop [$41]: 32J

BB checks, Hero bets $30, folds to Villain

Villain, thinks for a moment, raises to $120

folds to hero....Hero?

Spoiler:

P.S.
Hope that's not too much context or doesn't read as stereotyped, just wanted to paint as clear a picture as possible.

Folding is fine and it isn't uncommon for me to be the only guy in a thread berating someone for folding/being too tight

I didn't read spoiler.

I fold here. The only sensible bluffing hand V has is 54. If you call here you basically have to stack off, and I don't want to stack off against a virtual unknown with TP2K with an SPR of 7 in a 4-way pot. V may not raise any Jx here anyway, but if he does it's probably TPTK.

That said, 54 is a very sexy hand to bluff with here for V, especially with the BDFD. He wins the pot a lot on the flop. You're completely committed if you call, so if you call and he hits, he'll stack you. If he misses turn, you're almost certainly checking to him and he can check behind (maybe barrel if he turns a pair or a FD). Then, he can gii on river if he improves or fold if he whiffs.

Right. When I saw the raise, I basically consider it to be playing for stacks.

I'm working on the range analysis part of my game, but it basically seems to be sets, possibly AJ played too fast, some small frequency of suited two pairs that felt justified in calling $10 preflop over other callers, 45, and a few random bluffs (in which he thought I was c-betting on a dry board that I likely missed.)

When I run that range (adding a few combos of 32s, two bluffing hands, and what I mentioned above) I'm roughly 35-40%

The puzzle for me is his bluffing frequency...the sizing just didn't sit right with me given the board texture.


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This range seems right, though I'd add that every so often he has KJ or a worse Jx that is overplaying his hand.

I would say just fold pre. KJo UTG is not a desirable holding. You will be dominated a bunch and will flop top pairs on boards like this a lot and exactly like this, will not know where you are. As played, I like a check on this board. Cbetting is not great because yeah you get called by worse jacks but that's about it and getting raised sucks. Having top pair weak kicker is great to have in your flop check range when you're the PFR because it protects the times you have pocket pairs better than second pair worse than top pair which is a hand I would usually check OOP as the PFR. You can easily check call with top pair and look to play turns and if the turn checks through heads up you can decide to bluff catch or get thin value depending on v and the runout. Hope this helps.

I knew to expect this. Fair, I don't always play KJo UTG, but thought i had a decent skill advantage and was frankly bored. Simply put, I don't fold KJo UTG 100% of the time, though fold it often.

I tend to disagree with a few things here. I don't think KJ is top-pair weak kicker, given that low-stakes players often play many combos of J-hands (QJo/s, JTo/s, J9s, J8s). I also think there are enough weak players in the game who would call at least one street with pocket pairs 77-TTs. That said, I do agree that checking could have merit for pot control considerations.

I fold KJ pre utg even when I'm card dead. As played I fold vs this guy and call vs loose fish and maniacs.