1/3, public holiday PM, 9-handed
There is one good opponent on an otherwise generally loose passive table. A lot of limped pots.

Hero is in the HJ with Ah Qh. There is one limper from early position and it is folded to Hero ($300) who raises to $15.

Only the Villain in the CO (30yo black male, previously unknown, played for about 3 hours, $550 stack, not super fishy but still loose passive, about 30/10 stats) calls.

Flop ($37): As 7h 2d

Hero bets $20, villain calls

Turn ($77): Qc

Hero bets $40, villain minraises to $80. There is $197 in the pot, and I have $225 behind.

What do you do? What do you plan to do on the river?

I'm gonna call and then x/gii otr. There's plenty of worse two pair in his range and if he has a set then it's just a cooler with this board/stack sizes imo.

If you are stacking off to a set anyway, and you are check raising the river all in to target a smaller 2 pair anyway....then why not call the turn raise and lead the river? That prevents him from checking behind with something like AK/AJ and gives the same result as your line if he has 2 pair/set.

Preflop we managed to narrow the field to HU (nice), although we do end up OOP and with an awkward SPR of 7.7 (where stacks can be gotten in fairly easy over 3 postflop streets with just ~3/4 PSBs, not great).

We have to ask ourselves if we want to stack off here. Having gotten in only 5% of our stack preflop, my answer is no. It's going to be trivial to stack off with three 3/4 PSBs, which is something he can easily make us do having position on us. So I check the flop, especially on this bone dry board where there are no draws to charge. If 3 streets of betting go in, we'll be *much* better off having check/called than bet ourselves since his range for calling down the preflop raiser on this board is *way* stronger than if we let him bet (where he can now have air or weak Ax that he feels is good thanks to our weak postflop play). I'd *love* a street to check thru to help bring stacks out of the equation.

Our hand looks to have improved on the turn, but it really hasn't. We've moved ahead of AK, but unless this guy is super fishy, that's basically the only hand we moved ahead of (unless we think he's playing A7/A2/72 preflop). You know who calls the flop with TPTK and then raises the turn? Hardly anyone these days, especially when most people are MUBSy enough to see AA/AQ/QQ here. So, even as played (having bet the flop), I would have actually checked the turn. Again, if bets start going in for stacks, we're much better off check/calling than we are betting, and again having a street check thru is pretty awesome.

I feel I typically let go of my hand to early to raises sometimes, which is why I actually don't like setting myself up to face them unless I have a very good read on a player (ETA: Lately, I think the concept of getting to showdown to see if I win the pot at hand is often a lot better than risking someone blowing me off my pot thanks to a "value" bet on my part). Some people do a where-am-I-am-free-showdown raise, so calling a bet here and then check/folding the river probably ain't horrible. But I would fold here a lot unless Villain is just clueless.

GcluelessNLnoobG

It is not a cooler stacking off postflop to a set when we only got in 5% of our stack preflop; it's horrible play. Especially on this board where there are zero draws that Villain could be chasing / pushing and unlikely two pair combos (unless he is very loose).

I'll admit that I don't come from an on-line background like a lotta players here, so I don't really understand what 30/10 means reads-wise, but Villain really has to be a clueless loose idiot for us to be ahead all that often here, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

30/10 definitely means that he's calling wide enough to have A2s and A7s in his range and arguably even Q7s. If we're going by a "tournament player" calling range that 30/10 would include A2o and A7o. Our analysis is going to vary widely depending on whether or not we give him those hands.

Anyways, against a worst case scenario of 22, 77, A2s, and A7s we're a 2:1 dog by the turn... I think my standard is to call and evaluate on the river against a loose passive player.

I definitely think that it's way too early to throw in the towel unless we have some super read that the raiser is Gandhi or something. The fact is that he can totally be value betting worse hands makes me want to call and evaluate river.

If he bets like $60-$80 on the river I think it's a pretty clear call. If he shoves or really goes to value I wouldn't fault a fold... it's a really tough spot.

I'd click it back to $120 on the turn and ship river. He can't fold his 2p hands or AK for $40 and if he has a set you're getting stacked anyway, or mostly stacked even if you just call turn. C/c river seems terrible and b/f river is awful with these stack sizes. There's always the small chance that V just has nothing and spaz ships turn too hoping that you fold something like AK. If he's pretty fishy I'd probably just shove turn, people aren't folding 2p on this board hardly ever but a good player might find a fold with A2 or Q7 vs a big 3b.

I like call turn, shove river. I think he calls with all his worse two pairs and obviously the sets we lose to. Might even get stupid with AK or something.

Seems like the best way to play the hand with these stack sizes.

I don't think he is bluffing here. Non-bluffing hands would be AQ, A7, A2, 77, 22. I think QQ and AA both three bet pre-flop. 72 and Q7 don't call pre-flop. Villain has 6 hands we trail, 12 hands we lead and 4 hands we tie. Over all that makes us a 14-8 favorite. Definitely calling the min-raise. Against passive opponent I lean toward calling the turn and check calling all rivers that are not 7's or 2's. (might still call up to $50 anyway.) Against a player I think would bet big on the river I like re-raise shoving on the turn.

I agree that Villains is no way bluffing here, he has a minimum two pair and probably a set.
I think that on balance pre-flop, he would call my raise with A2o 40% of the time, with A7o 65% of the time, a suited ace 95% of the time, and any pair 100% of the time. Factoring in overall equity and number of combinations I believe a call on the turn is correct.
I call. There is $237 in the pot.

The river is a 9c. Hero checks, Villain bets $75 - a little under a third of the pot.

What do you do?

If he will only call a shove with a set or 2 pair, but not a random suited ace, then call. If he will call a shove with a suited ace or AK/AJ then shove.

I don't think that this particular player was capable of minraising me on the turn with a bare pair of aces, even with top kicker.

I call and Villain shows 77. He spends the next 15 minutes bragging on about how the hand went "perfectly" for him and how the turn card was an absolute miracle. OK. You won a hand. Shhh now.

OK, then you played it perfectly. A turn min raise is almost always a monster hand but you cant fold top 2.

Let's range the villain and actually run numbers, I think you'll see that my line of calling turn shoving river might be best.

On the turn I've ranged villain 3 times for you to see, from loosest to tightest.

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

1,672 trials (Exhaustive)

board: A72Q

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AhQh	77.51%	1,208	176
AK-AJ,AQ,A7,A2,77,22	22.49%	288	176

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

1,320 trials (Exhaustive)

board: A72Q

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AhQh	71.52%	856	176
AK,AQ,A7,A2,77,22	28.48%	288	176

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

968 trials (Exhaustive)

board: A72Q

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AhQh	63.64%	528	176
AQ,A7,A2,77,22	36.36%	264	176

As you can see we're far ahead of Villain for even the tightest range of 2-pair+ on the turn. Now let's assume that if we take the call turn shove river line we are only getting called by 2-pair+

On the river:

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

22 trials (Exhaustive)

board: A72Q9

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AhQh	63.64%	12	4
AQ,A7,A2,77,22	36.36%	6	4

We shove river and print money. I think this line is superior to ck/calling because he might check back his weaker 2-pairs.

I doubt villain is checking back A7 or A2 on the river when only the only realistic hand that beats him is AQ.

You're assuming villain is calling insanely wide with hands like A2o and A7o. That's super fishy in my book.

From a 30/10 I'd expect to see A2s and A7s but you're getting into mega-fish territory when you're calling opens with A2o and A7o.

I agree Superglue, and I often find that people's estimations of opponents VPIP can be very off. A top 30% range includes A7o however. I probably should change the estimations to only include A2ss.

Given that range:

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

748 trials (Exhaustive)

board: A72Q

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AhQh	54.28%	318	176
AQ, A7, Ax2x, 77,22	45.72%	254	176

Much closer, but still marginally ahead.

If we only give him A2s and A7s then we have to assume that the 30/10 stat is well off, and Villain is playing something much closer to 20% of hands rather than 30%. Obviously this is possible, but I'm just working off the numbers we've been given.