I've been running cold. I feel like I'm playing 10% or less of my hands, although I haven't changed my opening ranges (it should be like 15-20%). Then when I do play a hand, everyone can't fold fast enough because I must have KK+. Today I tried some stupid hands like A6o & A6s (the best hands I had in 2 hours) because I was so desperate to not look like a nit that will never get paid off, of course I dumped about 75 on those.

Anyway, here I get KK utg+1. V calls OTB. He is like me, been card dead and folding for hours, although he did have a rush of good hands when he first sat down and had chipped up to ~800. I think he's pretty tight and taggish, a solid reg.

H (~250) utg+1 KK raise 15
all fold to Btn (~800) who calls
blinds fold

Flop (~30) Q62
H bets 15
V raises to 40 - the flop is so dry, why?? He has AQ/KQ?
H isn't folding yet, so calls

Turn (~110) 6
H checks (should I bet here? I figured he would bet after raising the flop)
V bets 65
H calls - I considered shoving here, good spot? He can't think I have a 6, right? But no...I decide to string him out.

River (~240) 2
Hero?

Bigger OTF for value, please. AP, call is fine. V's range is likely PPs that think you were just c-betting blindly, sets that want to set up playing for stacks, and occasional Qs that are clicking buttons.

I don't like shoving turn. Would it be for value or a bluff? In either case, what hands would we be targeting?

I won't comment on river, as I saw results and they could bias me. They could also bias others, so I took them out.

Until you're using your image to intentionally exploit opponent mistakes, don't worry about it. Depending on the cards, sometimes you'll look like a nit, sometimes you'll look like a maniac. It's good to be aware of your image, but I wouldn't start playing junk just to avoid looking like a nit. As you found out here, many V's aren't actually aware of your image and you'll still get paid with your big hands (or, as here, lose with junk when people still call you).

Pre looks good.

With 30 in the pot and 235 behind, you're probably not going to be ahead if it all goes in so you don't want that. That means either two or streets or three small ones of value. (Of course, if you think V will put 235 in with AQ or KQ, then that's what you should aim for.)

This flop is really dry so I'd consider checking it. If you bet, V is likely to fold everything except a Q. Giving him a free card is unlikely to cost you the hand and gets you closer to showdown. It might also encourage him to bluff at you or call you down lighter. If he has a Q, he might actually choose to bet it for you, so you might not even lose any bets.

Betting is also fine. You could plan something like 15 on the flop, 30 on the turn and 60 on the river. You could also bet 20 OTF, check the turn, and bet 50 OTR. Although betting three streets looks like more money goes in, you'll get a few more folds than you will betting two streets, so results should be pretty close.

You could bet the flop and turn, planning to check the river but you'll need to know how to react if he bets the river (OOP sucks). You don't want to pot commit yourself and then check to him OTR. He can then extract value with his strong hands and check back his weak ones.

AP, V isn't raising a draw (since there aren't any) and shouldn't have 2P so it's either a good Q, a set, or a bluff. It's a crappy bluff (25 on a pot of 85), so that's probably not it. AQ or KQ might well not raise here. What's the point? If you have QQ+, AQ or KQ is behind. If you have something like AK, there's no need to try to make you fold. Similarly, I wouldn't expect TT or JJ to turn into bluffs by raising using similar reasoning.

All of that said, sometimes V's don't play the way I think and people can get frisky on the flop so it's too early to fold yet. However, before we act on the flop, we need to decide how we're playing the rest of the hand.

If we're not going to stack off here, then V can move us off our hand with sufficient pressure (basically if he puts us all in or appears to be working for that).

We could b/f the turn; we could x/c the turn; we could x/f the turn. Each has advantages and disadvantages. (I'm excluding b/r and x/r the turn, since either of those pot commits us, which we don't want.)

If we b/f, we're pretty obviously beat if he raises. But if he just calls, we're going to be very nearly pot committed. Are we going to shove the river? x/f the river (getting more than 2:1)? x/c the river (most likely losing to an obvious set)?

If we x/f the turn, we're going to sometimes have folded the best hand. If we x/c, we have that pot commitment issue again.

All things considered, I'd prolly plan to x/c the turn and then x/f the river even though we'll be getting a great price. I think it's just too unlikely that an LLSNL V raises the flop, bets the turn, and essentially shoves the river with a hand that we beat. This plan also has the slim chance we hit our K, in which case of course we're happy to gii.

So, having made that plan, we can call the flop, x/c the turn, and then x/f the river.

I don't see what's wrong with betting 1/2 pot on the flop. Could make it $20 but that's just nitpicking.

I would have played the hand the same way tbh but you're in a precarious position. I feel like kk/aa oop is just a death trap for players when they're beat on the flop. You bet and he folds on the flop pretty often, and when you're beat you get stacked.

His hand looks like AA specifically. I don't have a problem with just shoving the river though with your stacksize, because I'd call it off if he shoved getting 3:1, and if he has AQ/KQ you don't want him to check back river.

I think the river is check/call. We would be getting nearly 3-1 if villain puts us in, and between potential bluffs and AQ we have a call. If you think villain would call with JJ-77 but check behind I could see shoving.

My slightly evolving strategy now probably has me playing only 10% of hands (if that) from non-LP at most tables. If you're dumping fairly big money playing A6o and A6s then obviously that ain't worth it if the only purpose is to battle your nit image. If people are folding to your raises, try limp/reraising big hands in EP, and try opening wider in LP. The overwhelming vast majority of your time at the table is probably going to be spent folding, so get used to it.

Ok preflop result in that we got it HU. The poor part is that we got it HU OOP against a good opponent, plus we've setup an SPR ~8, which means he can make us play for stacks with 3 postflop bets.

Are we comfortable facing 3 postflop bets for stacks if we show strength with what might be an obvious hand? Looks like we're not comfortable folding to a raise? With all these things in mind, I'd probably check the flop here. It doesn't turn our hand face up on the table for what it is, underreps it, perhaps induces bluffs, the board is the boniest of bone dry boards where there are no draws to protect against and we're perfectly fine with a street checking thru, and if 3 bets for stacks go in postflop we'd much rather do that passively check/calling than betting and being called.

The flop raise is kinda weird on a board so dry. Still, I'm not exactly loving bet/calling either.

By the river, our hand should be fairly face up for exactly what it is. My guess is that we can check/fold here against an opponent who knows what we have and isn't expecting us to fold it. But at the same time, we've only left ourselves with a 1/2 PSB left; can we really check/fold given these odds?

ETA: One thing to keep in mind the way you've played this hand: anyone who has ever played more than 5 hours of live casino poker knows exactly what you have and you might as well just flip your cards over on the table and play your hand that way. That doesn't matter if you can get in enough of your stack preflop to setup a trivial stackoff postflop, but it matters a lot if you have too big of stacks behind to comfortably do that (such as in this case here).

GcluelessNLnoobG

So, this ended up going chk/chk on the river and he showed KQ and I was furious with myself. I thought this was a big missed value by playing it so passively. The flop raise was weird on such a dry flop, but I immediately thought QJ/KQ/AQ. That feeling only was increased by the turn 6 and 2 river, eliminating those as probable holdings. I feel like I should have just shoved the river looking like I just had 2 pair with an A kicker or a pair of Q's also, both things very callable by the V.

I think we both overplayed our hand. But in the end, even though we are furious with ourselves, we also have to look at it thru the point of view of what would happened had we switched positions and put ourselves in his shoes and his in ours, where I'm fairly certain we would have lost *far* less than he did, so a "win" in that respect.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Don't be so mad at yourself. The biggest hinderance in this hand was being OOP, and there was zero you could do about that.

If you 3! flop or c/r turn, you lose him almost 100%, so you get no value there. Otr, it's only in hindsight that a check looks bad. A river lead would look super strong. His line looked strong enough that you can expect him to bet most hands that would call a bet, it's really only KQ that we are targeting. AQ prob bets again, and QJ/QT would likely fold to a lead.

FWIW depending on V I wouldn't ever fold river. Just too much dumb stuff at 1/3.

I think the hand was played fine. I too would have checked river, but it would have been to call off. Just don't think we're getting called by much worse on OTR, so checking at least allows V a chance to bluff (though he should have close to 0 bluffs here) or value own himself with Qx. I definitely wouldn't have been folding river under any circumstances with this runout. Given description of V, I would have only been worried about 66/22 with the way he played this hand. Now that the board runs out 6/2, there's only one combo of each and it's now so unlikely that he has 66/22. Like I said, there's really no bluffs that he can have here unless he spazzed out with 2 random cards, but there's not many value hands that he can have here either.

If you play for max value, you're going to often find that you've value owned yourself against stronger hands. This time he had KQ and checked it back. Next time he might have a set and you might be furious for having stacked off with SPR 8.

Playing hands is a balance between extracting as much value as you can without letting V's extract max value when they're ahead. That implies you will necessarily sometimes get less value than you would have had you known their exact hand.

Part of what separates skill levels is the ability to evaluate board texture, action, and V tendencies to get better at knowing when to press and when to back off.

This hand is also a great example of why being OOP costs EV. If you'd been in position you might well have been able to extract that last bet. Being OOP, extracting it carried to much risk of value owning yourself.

You might also want to change your read on this guy, as he doesn't really seem like that much of a solid reg to me. He called an EP raise with an easily dominated hand (trivial fold preflop, imo, unless he plans on stealing the pot a lot postflop), then raised the flop when basically only better call and worse fold, and then continued along that same lines on the turn when it's clear he's either beat or at the very least highly unlikely to get two more bets out of a worse hand. He'll pat himself on the back for saving himself some river money, but he should have lost *a lot* less.

GcluelessNLnoobG

With respect to x/c river: If you're going to call the river, I think you should b/c (or shove).

x/c allows 2P and sets to extract all their value, while allowing Q's to check it back.

Most LLSNL V's tend to make calling errors rather than betting errors. I think they'll often check a Q here, fearing a bigger Q or an overpair. If we had a read that V was bluffy OTR, then I like a x/c.

I think x/f and b/c are close in EV. I think x/c is bad.

Check the river and if he shoves, tuck those into the muck.

I think this could be argued as a c/f river. You can call with QQ and AA and fold this.

Getting more than three streets of value against top pair with an overpair is rarely correct. Don't beat yourself up over it.

You now know that your opponent is playing poorly and raising in spots where it doesn't make sense, adjust accordingly.

WP

he's definitely not a solid reg lol. We should only be shoving turn here with KK vs donks. A good reg is only going to show up with random air, hand that beat us like 22 or very rarely a good queen which he will fold. You won an 80bb pot OOP with one pair there is nothing to be upset about.