V, CO, 300: Rec player who's been losing but seems very aggressive. Raises $12-$15 every hand preflop, loves to hero-call with any piece of the board, not afraid to bluff, not afraid to cbet, but he seems like a losing player overall just trying to be aggressive.

Hero, SB, 300: Card-dead for 2 hours, before which Hero doubled up through V so it seems like V is out there to get V. Earlier hand: Hero raised to 15 pre with KK, V called otb, Flop (34): Q 9 4 Hero bet 25, V called, Turn was 5 Hero bet 60, V called, River was 4 Hero checked, V bet 100, Hero called and won against V's whiffed draw.


V raises to 13, BTN (SS fish) calls, Hero raises to 60, V calls, BTN folds

Flop (136): 9 7 4
Hero bets 80, V calls

Turn (296): Q
Hero ? (160 behind)

Is it incorrect to 3bet preflop against sticky V's like this who will put us in a tough spot OOP when we whiff and make the standard cbet?

I think this is the first time I have ever said this, but bet less preflop. Don't try to push a stationary villain out of the pot by betting big. A raise to $30 preflop is going to isolate just as well and the flop c-bet should be closer to half the pot. With this sort of villain you want to cut your c-bet percentage down to around half the time.

Flatting preflop is also viable but I would rather do that when I have position on the villain and think it's going heads up to the flop.

As played your now stuck between check/fold and shove. Check/fold is vastly better.

I think a 60 cbet gets just as much done as an $80 c-bet.

It is correct to 3bet pre, you just have to hit/him miss

I'd C/F since V image appears to be sticky. AK still has equity so I'd see if I could get to the river for free. If he bets draws like T8/65, nice play.

Pre - I'd go smaller to say ~$45.
Flop - I'm ok to cbet given board texture.

If V never folds to a 3bet or cbet, then you should call pre and hope to hit. You'll get paid huge when you do. Play straightforward against these villains by value betting with top pair+ and check folding with missed hands. I'd probably check-call with middle pair.

Against sticky, overly-aggressive players...I prefer to keep the pot smaller when OOP. You're sizing pre was much too large given stack sizes...like around $40. As played, just check/fold...these type of villains will always put you on AK and not give credit for big pocket pairs.

Is villain going to be just as loose against $160 shove (after we 3-bet pf and bet the flop) as he would against smaller bets? Villain likes to bluff so we really leave ourselves open to being bluffed out of a big pot if we check here. We do have some equity here. That Q is a pretty decent card to barrel with. Villain won't have a narrow range.

In the description villain seems out to get us and made a $100 bluff before when we checked and showed weakness. Against the typical villain I wouldn't worry much about getting bluffed, but it looks like it could easily be a major problem against this villain. Checking the turn when the queen shows up looks really weak and is almost asking to be bluffed.

$160 shove here is only a little more than half the size of the pot so we don't have to win that often to at least break even, and even if villain has a pair we do have some equity. We have a tight image.

I'm not really seeing why shoving is so bad.

If V never folds to c-bets then your A hi is usually good to c/c this turn.

Why go so small pre? We're OOP and he's definitely calling the $45, maybe not $60.

Again, I don't get small 3bet sizing OOP vs stations. I'd consider that if we had KK/AA but with AK, it's inviting trouble.

Yeah I think V like this will bet their draws and air after you check, but will often check behind with their flopped pairs. So basically, check-ship a lot of the time, but if he checks behind then hope to river an ace/king.

I would probably make it a lot larger preflop. My goal is to leave us with about a ~PSB so I can simply shove any flop that I whiff (thus having FE against underpairs), noting that I'd probably slowplay TP for a couple of streets and hope he bluffs. The $60 raise leaves us in a weirdo spot when we whiff, especially OOP, in that if our flop cbet gets called it really leaves us dangling on the turn with lots of money in the pot. I'd probably go close to $100 preflop.

ETA: Some of the other options aren't unreasonable either (such as simply flatting). A smaller 3bet might also get tricky cuz that could also invite the other guy along. However, with 14bbs of dead money in the pot against a guy who raises every single hand, I'm sorta cool with going after that right now; if everyone folds to our OOP A high, I'm ok with that.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Don't we want to be called when we have a premium hand?

I would 3! smaller pre. If the stacks are deeper this is usually a pretty good turn card to barrel 90% of your range with but a 2 barrel here basically has to be a shove. I'm just shutting down and trying to get to showdown at this point.

Reason being is you've just committed 20% of your stack with A high....if you whiff (which you will @66% of the time on flop), you're comfortable barreling off against a station???

Don't be scared to play poker....you're goal in cash games should be to get value for your hands though, not simply take down a pot. Same goes for if you have AA or KK....

Sometimes we will hit our hand on the turn or river though, and calling stations will miss the flop a lot because they are coming in with too many weak hands. So I don't think the situation is that bad when villain calls pf.

I think the biggest problem here is villain is tricky and has position. A calling station doesn't concern me when I'm OOP nearly as much as a very loose player who is capable of pulling off big bluffs and tricky moves, and who often likes to do those things.