1/2 NL Cincinnati Jack Casino

Hero = MAWG. I have been at the table for 2 hours thus far and have been fairly card dead. The table is very call happy so I have been playing fairly tight and I took down 1 med sized pot. Stack = $250.

Villain 3 = 25 year old White guy. Baseball cap. Drinking a Budweiser. Just sat down within 5 min. Might be his first hand as he is in the BB. $200 stack.

OTTH

UTG limps $2.
Hero (UTG +1) raises to $14 with KK
Villain 1 (MP)calls
Villain 2 (Button) calls.
SB folds.
V3 in BB calls.
UTG calls.

Flop ($71) T T 2

BB leads for $35
UTG folds.
Hero calls.
All others fold.

Turn ($141) 7
BB bets $50
Hero calls.

River ($251) 4
BB goes all in for $101

Would Villain really have Tx and donk the flop?

Is this the strangest line for a value hand ever?

Hero is thoroughly confused.

I can see Villain having deuces full here but little else. Nothing else really makes sense.

Thoughts??

flop goes 5 ways, name some bluffs he has leading into the field. or worse hands going for 2-3 streets of value.

Why would deuces full make sense and not Tx?

I'm calling here $101 to win $251; I don't think he's bluffing often or at all but for sure could play some 88-QQ like this. Too little info to give villain credit for just the Tx and boats and I can't see folding on the flop or turn as played. I will say that I'm not loving it though.

What is so strange? The pots already 70 he has 185 behind, which he can easily break into smallish bets and be allin by the river.

On the surface, It seems ******ed for him to donk lead with Tx here, but it actually makes sense. If he has a T, he doesn't think you do, so he probably doesn't expect you to c-bet with JJ+ AK.

So instead of checking, he gives you a good price to call because who can fold an overpair at 1-2? Lol.

I would only call this down against a total beginner spaz player. Definitely would fold by the turn against anyone remotely competent.

If villain got a T or 22 on the flop, a lead is actually a very very good play because you don't put him on either hand. It looks to you a thinking player like yourself, that a T with trips or a set of 22 will check like all other monkeys. They check the big hands (LOL). So, he's betting creating confusion in your head . Is he got it? - Or not? -- haha ..., And because of that confusion most players will call with your hand and lose the entire stacks ..., Or fold

Unbelievable but true how good this play works against the big over-pairs. Call and lose or fold the potentially best hand. You never know for sure how to play. Never against a pro because the pro looks at the board and figure what plays he's gonna make while villains play their cards. They don't see the plays because they don't know for what to look for. Everyone knows how to play TP an OP, a draw or how many outs he's got but the big secret where the money are hidden is unknown to most. That's the big secret of the trade. Not to be able to read the board like the books tells you but to play the board. To know what to look for.

As played, I think you can fold the river against an unknown. Flats on flop & turn seem good to me.

Bluff seems really unlikely by the river. He could think he's value betting JJ or QQ but more likely he just has Tx and is playing it in a very straightforward way. He flopped a good hand, so he bet. I guess some underpair is possibly but I'd discount those pretty heavily b/c he ought to put you on some halfway decent PP at some point.

He spread his bets out nicely across 3 streets which really feels like he's looking for value and suggests he has a basic understanding of betting in relation to pot size though a lot of 1/2 players understand that much. So I'd give him some benefit of the doubt as far as not being terrible.

None that make sense but it is 1/2. Who knows what people are doing?

Typical player pool tendency here would be to either check/raise or check/call when hitting trips.

Do competent players really play this way? I suppose the most straightforward player in the room might but I think the general player pool tendency is to check/call or check/raise (They don't want to see any overs and get their dreams crushed) the flop.

All right lets add a wrinkle.

Hero is considering the All In and Villain sits up and stares directly at Hero. Hero looks at him, the board, the pot, and back at Villain and Villain continues to stare directly at Hero..... His breathing is labored a bit but this tell can go either way.

Considering this blatant stare down, does this impact your answer?

Wow, okay. IME, the blatant stare down is more often a bluff than value, but as you said it can mean vastly different things from one player to the next. The guy just sits down, calls your raise, then donks into you 3 times and jams river on one the driest boards known to man. Posting on the boards it's easy for me to say you should fold, but I've definitely been in spots like this where I either level myself into calling or call purely out of aggravation. I think folding is correct, but I'd want to vomit if I folded and he told you "I had it" as he shows you JJ.

It would be, but most 1/2 live games are so passive that it's almost impossible to get 3 streets from 10x on a board like this. Most PF raisers without a 10 will either bet flop then x/back turn when called, or c/flop and go for value with a delayed c/bet OTT when it's checked to them again. And if the player with 10x puts in a c/r on such a dry board, very rarely is he getting called unless he has a FOS image. So in this sense, sometimes taking the most non-standard line that turns your hand face up can actually be the best way to get the most value .

Thanks for all of the comments.

Results.

After, the river shove, I was convinced that he had deuces full and was a competent player. I was contemplating a fold even with the crazy good odds that I had to call. Then he started with the stare. After a good minute of a solid stare down, I decided that this alone was enough to tip the scales. I called and Villain showed.....

K4 off. The kid had heart to triple barrel donk lead but gave it all away with the stare.

Nice read! I guess we gave this guy too much credit although I imagine a lot of the advice to fold would have been different if you'd put the stare down info in the OP. (It moved me from pretty clear fold to 50/50 fwiw).

I still think someone with Tx can play the hand the way this guy did. What is really weird is that he didn't just push on the turn when pot was 141 and he had about 150 left. I get that he takes a half pot stab on the flop and gets it HU. But why barrel < half pot twice instead of just shoving turn? That was the main reason I thought he thought he was value betting altho sometimes he's wrong when it's JJ or such.

Nice call. I'm shocked that he sat down and punted off his stack, but it's also nice to see another instance of the blatant stare down of strength representing a bluff.

Live reads can definitely lean you towards a certain action outside of your normal range. This may or may not be a good example. Like I said earlier though, I think we just shrug call here even without your live read. nh I play it the same way