Here is the problem I have with this statement.

The problem is that Hero has done nothing but convey ALOT OF WEAKNESS on every single freaking street. Thus, Villain doesn't need to have a set here to find his balls. Villain could very well have QT or Q9 or hell even KJ and actually think he is ahead.

Lets go back to OP's Villain description To me, this villain isn't necessarily some super passive player that is ONLY raising with the stone cold nuts.

So what am I saying?

Basically, we can't just discount our mistakes (i.e. betting and portraying weakness) will have on the current situation.

Whenever we make mistakes it will ALWAYS add uncertainty to our situation.

Let me put it another way. If we bet $5 on turn and V raised us $10 does that indicate we should fold? Serious question no snark? If villain is this super passive player then why not bet $5 on turn and be confident in folding if V raises us???

So obviously, there is a "point" where weak is just too weak and the uncertainty that weakness creates becomes problematic to our reads.

I submit that us betting 1/3 pot on the turn after betting weak on the flop adds too much to that uncertainty for us to definitely feel we are behind.

If we had bet $45 - $50 on turn and THEN villain raises us then we can be extremely confident in our decision to fold. But imo with a weak ass $26 bet we simply can't be.

Then go back to OP's read, he said that V raised BIG when he was strong and that is not the case here.

So basically, we've screwed this hand up and have no idea where we are at and there is MORE than enough uncertainty here for our KQ to still be good.

We shouldn't be so quick to discount/ignore how our mistakes can impact a hand. We can't absolve ourselves of our mistakes by saying "Oh, well villain is so passive that its okay."

Even the fishiest player can hit a home run with a correct "play" if we tee the ball up for him enough times.

I believe he does need QJ or a set. If he does not need strong hand strength to attack weakness when he sees it, I'd expect to see him attacking limps preflop, considering that's the very first sign of weakness in a hand and it's also the cheapest - $wise - to attack. He does not do this. He just plays nice and tries to flop the nuts.

People playing 1/2, and playing it badly, generally don't think of bets in relation to pot size. They think of bets in relation to how much it means to them in their real world lives. $52 is a lot of money to casual 1/2 players.

good convo so far guys.

dgiharris explains it very nicely (as usual).

This hand is much easier to play if we bet the 'proper' amount on each street. Why can't villain v-bet Qx here? Maybe he picked up a nice combo draw on the turn. Even something like AK is completely feasible, considering our tiny c-bet.

Villain may very well think that a minraise will fold out all of our air hands and Jx hands that are meekly 'barrelling'.

Just because Villain hasn't shown down a bluff doesn't mean he isn't capable of bluffing in a super good spot (like this one), where we've literally waved the white flag twice.

That is 1 hand on your side, which we have no details about. Villain could have had a set on a board with multiple straight and flush draws out there - of course he may have raised more in such a situation. This situation, however, is quite different. OP has been screaming I have a made hand from the beginning. That means, he may feel this is his chance to get paid but doesn't want to risk pushing OP out by 3xing it, since he's comfortable given the action that OP is not drawing.

That may be what you think OP did, but I would bet that's not what Villain thinks OP did.

I'm reluctantly in the fold camp. 26 is so damn small, but we have a read that he's passive (and bets much bigger with big hands) so I don't want to be the one that pays to refine that read.

$26 on the river might be worth it, just to confirm or adjust the read. But in this case we're paying just to get to the river, where we most likely face another bet.

your attention to $-amount thresholds at which bets become significant to people in live play is excellent. it's super super important, especially when playing deep. when coming from an online background, good players will often make such colossal mistakes by not understanding this concept. for example, despite being less than half the pot (a relatively "small" bet) a $250 river bet into a $600 pot is a HUGE bet in a live $1/2 game. so adjust how you react to these bets and your own bet sizing accordingly. SO many of my river bets in big pots are some paltry fraction of the pot, but you value cut yourself horrifically by not doing this.

anyway. i assume you're from an online background *split* (correct me if i'm wrong) but it seems you already grasp this concept, which is great.

about this hand, i'm sure others have mentioned it, but your bet sizing is too small on both streets. people will peel for fairly large bets chasing various draws in a 1/2 game, especially when they're deep. if they're calling a 1/2 pot bet, they're usually calling a 2/3 pot or 3/4 pot bet. if there's any wetness to the board, i'm betting pretty big. on bone dry boards my bet sizing hovers closer to 1/2 pot, or even less.

so i would have bet $25 or more on this flop. and i'm not sure why you bet so small OTT but i would bet probably about 1/2 pot for value. there is plenty in villain's range to get value from.

now that we bet that size and get minraised i'm likely to muck. it's rare (not SUPER rare but rare) that players will do this without a hand they perceive as very strong. and live players love to be cagey, so villain flatting top two pair or a set of 4s on the flop is not uncommon. after doing that, people will often raise the turn, especially when you bet that small.

PS: an exception is a minraise when the pot is small on the flop. this is often indicative of TPWK from a bad player who isn't sure what to do and raises basically for information. so like if you had been minraised on this flop for $36 i would be inclined to flat.

Split is a mod of the micro FR forum, has a online cash game coaching thread on 2+2 and is an author of several ebooks on NLHE.

This is too much of an absolutest argument, basically you're saying that someone who attacks weakness ALWAYS attacks weakness and that isn't true.

Look, i'm not saying V is Ivey sensing weakness and making a sick play.

What I am saying is that there is only so many times we can give villain the IDEAL scenario to bluff before he either A) takes advantage of it or B) actually thinks his Qx or Jx is good and he's raising in direct response to Hero's weakness and trying to protect his hand or C) perhaps picked up a backdoor draw and is semibluffing.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the rec fish isn't even going through any elaborate thought process but mererly just "reacting" to the weakness in the way that a dog would react to the scent of raw steak in your pocket...

okay, that analogy sucks but I hope you see what i'm getting at.

My point is simple. By Hero projecting NOTHING BUT WEAKNESS on every street, that weakness is going to introduce ambiguity and uncertainty in our reads on V and interpretting V's response to said weakness.

Actually, kinda yes kinda no. 1/2 players don't think so much in terms of pot size, but rather in terms of how the bet relates to their chip stack and previous bets and the "physical size of the pot". You can often fake out the fish by using different colored chips or playing the numbers game, betting $90 instead of $100 because $100 sounds ominous...

In that same vain, we can incentivize a raise here by the fact that our turn bet is almost the same as our flop bet and even the fishiest of fish can interpret that as weakness.

Again, i'm not saying you are wrong per se, V very well "could" have two pair or better. However, what I am saying is that by conveying as much weakness as we have, we've added an element of uncertainty here and imo that combined with the weak nature of our bets means we can't be sure V is ahead and that a fold is correct or incorrect

OK. And my point is that what seems weak to you may not be the case to V. You are quite different from V, yes?

OP, I have something for you



Fair enough.

And actually this is the problem I have. There are too many "maybes" here and those maybes are a result of how we played the hand.

But I will say this.

If our read on V as being "passive" is 100% rock solid, then I can fully concede your point and line and we could comfortably fold here.

But based on OP's read/profile on V. I'm not so sure based on how V raised from $18 to $60. That is a 3 x raise when V was strong yes? So it seems suspect that in this case, he is minraising on such a wet board don't you think?

ya i thought i had seen him around.

of course, i didn't mean any disrespect. i don't know if OP is looking for or needs online to live transition advice or not. my post about $ amounts was mostly for other people's benefit though. the rest, hopefully was helpful.

by any chance can you remember additional details about the hand quoted above such as the board or if it was a check raise?

I don't find it suspicious. It looks like OP has KQ. OP does have KQ. V wants to keep his man in the hand. Sometimes OP can have a draw here. But it seems like V has correctly put him on a 1 pair hand. No reason for him to be particularly afraid of diamonds, the only draw that really makes sense to this point for OP is K10 or 910 (or maybe stuff like A10, AK). V just isn't worried about those specific hands which make up a small % of OP's range, he looks more concerned with getting value from 1 pair hands, which he probably is right to be.