Villian: 50's white male. Only been at table for 45 minutes. Generally loose, especially preflop. Have seen him bluff two times on the river and got away with it once. Seems to have no understanding of position. Was involved in a conversation about 6-3 suited and how he would limp or call a small raise in any position. $170ish.

Hero: 30 y/o white male. Super tight tonight. Completely card dead, been folding for hours. Doubt Villian has noticed any of my tendencies, but who knows. $215ish.

Hero in MP with 10d10c. One limp to Hero who raises to $12. CO (irrelevant in this hand, really) calls. Villian raises to $25. BB calls (also irrelevant). Hero calls. CO calls. Four to the flop.

Flop ($100): 9d 5s 2d

BB checks. Hero?

My thinking in this hand is not as objective as I'd like it to be. I've been folding for hours. I haven't made any relevant hands. Are we committed to this flop against this Villian? FWIW, the BB was an average player who looked disinterested post-flop. The CO was a halfway drunk LAG.

Thanks for the feedback.

To really answer your question, I think the key is what you have seen him raise with and if he has 3b before. A major characteristic of fish is they don't 3b often and so when they do it screams QQ+.

If this guy is 3b all over the place, I'd probably take a c/r line and try to get it in barring action from the other players that I didn't like.

If he hasn't 3b at all or very little, check, hope he's on AK and checks back and you turn a 10. If he fires half pot or larger, I think you lay it down if he isn't 3b pre. The fact that he can bluff a river does matter, but his PFR range is what really determines how you should play this.

You also need to consider the other players and if one of them acts strongly, time to dump.

I'm checking here with the plan to fold to a c-bet. His small 3 bet looks pretty strong in this spot. I think his range still has AK/AQ but big pairs look likely. You had IO to set mine imo. The 10 didn't flop, so you can check and see what happens.

The 2 other players in the pot must have become irrelevant by the end of the hand. At this point the fact that they are in the hand is relevant.

Agree with Star that pre-flop habbits would help a decision.

I think betting 1/2 pot is optimal here, allows us to fold when V shoves over us with his JJ-AA and also allows us to get value from his AK if he decides to float or his random KQdd type hands that got spewy.


Not crazy about check/folding over-pairs, we hate almost every turn card and against a bluffy V hes going to take us off our hand if we let him.

this. Bet sizing are some of the simplest tells you can pick up on, a lot of the time his range will have trash like AJo though.

It is true that fish rarely 3! without big hands but if hes the type to overvalue hands then it is possible that he could be doing this with a big Ace. I like a small donk bet, both for value and surprisingly for pot control. Im folding to a raise and check folding to a bet OTT/and check calling a modest bet OTR. Its really tough to answer without his 3! tendencies.

How often have you seen him raise? How often has he 3-bet?

If the answer is sometimes and rarely/never then there's no reason to put more money in this pot unless your hand improves.

Do not donk bet, and do not, under any circumstances, bet to find out where you are at; don't put more money in this pot unless you're committed to stacking off.

http://www.amazon.com/Professional-N.../dp/188068540X

^^^ Yeah, a donk bet, a call on the flop, or a check-raise all commit you to his stack size.

The problem with this hand is that you're never folding out a bigger overpair, and anything you do other than check commits you.

So, if he's a total maniac and will 3-bet wide, c-bet, and barrel multiple streets with air, then just call him down, but this is a really high variance line. So, I would only do it if he's an actual maniac and not just a loose player.

In general, I would just check/fold and bet the turn if it checks through.

Thanks for all the feedback.

This hand was definitely spew on my part. And I've been frustrated with myself ever since it happened.

It checks around to Villian, who tries to slide in his entire stack, but only $115ish made it's way out there. I thought for about 15-20 seconds and both Villian and I got it all in on the flop. Villian had JJ and took it down.

I wish I could provide some great analysis as to why I did what I did. I think it was the hours of folding which is what started my bad thinking. If I had $500 in front of me, and was up for the session, I probably would not have made the same decision. Earlier in the session, I laid down QQ post flop on a 9-8-3 flop to OMC. Knew I was beat, only called preflop to set-mine. So I've showed the propensity to know my opponent's range and make solid folds. But with the Villian in this hand, I think I misinterpreted his loose calls preflop and bluffs on earlier rivers for general, overall lagginess. Although he's been loose, he hasn't 3-bet preflop yet, so I know darn well what he has. Just had a frustrated "I'm not folding again" "Not against this guy" and "Not with all unders on the flop" type of moment.

Definitely got to work on this. Thanks again.

Good analysis

i assume villain is on button. in a 4-way. check to raiser and fold to bet. If he C-bets, his range is probably somewhat strong betting into 3 players

Depends on his Cbetting freq. some players cbet 100% so i think it's cheaper to donk bet as a blocking/fold rather than flatting a value/cbet. Checking and Folding an over pair vs poss Cbet is too nitty in my opinion.

Definitely can't blame you for the line you took. Been there, done that myself. Given V's line pre, it's easy to think you're ahead of his range and on this safe, dry flop. I probably would've taken the same line. I'm not saying it's the right line. I'm just saying I'd probably do the same thing. Especially when he throws out that large bet OTF, it's fold or shove time. You're not going to smooth call that given the respective stack sizes.