1/2 $450 effective stacks

I've been playing with MP for 3 hours. For the first hour he was drunk, loud and splashing around, but for the last hour he has sobered up, quieted down, and played tight/passive.

Preflop: MP open raises to $12. I reraise to $35 with A K, action folds to MP who calls.

Flop: A A Q $67 in pot post-rake

MP checks, I bet $45, MP shakes his head no, expresses total disgust, and calls.

Turn: 6 (A A Q) $157 pot

MP checks, I check.

River: 2 (6 A A Q)

With trembling hands MP bets $90. I call.

Thoughts on all streets appreciated.

NH, WP. I'd be looking to get stacks in without the flop Hollywooding, but as is I play it the same way. I don't love paying him off OTR, but with the effective third nuts, I can't find a fold.

If we had like A7 I would consider the hand shaking more. You only lose to AQ/A6/A2/QQ. It's more likely he has a worse A

I probably raise to 200 and fold to a shove, though I don't mind a call OTR either

MP shakes his head no, expresses total disgust, and calls.

That is a classic tell of a strong hand from Recs. AQ, or QQ since you said he got "tight/passive," & "I ain't gettin' no action on that flop. OMG I just did!"
May not be the case this time, but what else - other than AK, could he have? Does he really think AJ is BOSS here?

while i agree that this tell is pretty universal in bad player, it's predicated on what V thinks is a strong hand. that could be any Ax, it also could be solely QQ.

i've seen guys do this on AAx boards with small Ax hands because in their mind any A was the nuts.

The big thing here is that trips are not as hidden as sets. You would have slow played a FH or quads on the flop. You wouldn't likely 3bet AJ or worse. Therefore, he knows exactly what you have if he is thinking. You're never in a good position if the villain knows what you have. Nor are you in good position against anyone's 3bet calling range.

That's why I would have flatted the raise pf instead of 3bet. AK only does really well against weaker connectors hands pf, which are the ones that you want to be up against on the flop. Other than AA or KK which it does poorly against, it isn't much of an underdog either. Therefore, it is a hand you want play in position and see a flop.

If you haven't seen he give false tells before, I'd fold on the river if I'm playing my A game. I lose a lot of money in these situations by calling.

VNH. You lost the bare minimum and yeah, those reverse tells are very useful. I dont usually look at people during hands because i dont want to give off my own tells but he gave off 2. The trembling hands usually means nuts. Im never folding the river tho for 90 but i can see your point. Might snap fold AJ

johnny, on the spot has a very good point. However, IMHO, when they flop trip aces [with a weak kicker] they are thinking "Shytt! Is my kicka' good enough?!"

Kinda' like a deer getting caught in headlights. You say the guy sobered up.

In regards to bad players, even they seem to be getting better, despite still being good. Of course, this V may appear sober, but be in a depressed drunk state & be nothing more than than a deer frozen in front of the headlights. Gotta' be there at the table & then it's still a guess.

Video please!

He thinks he flopped the world. Probably AQ or QQ. Shaking hands is a strong tell too unless they always shake. His thinking may still be impaired and the hand shaking could be normal or part of him losing his buzz. He may not be acting with the head shaking either and is just over playing JJ. For the price I think this a call expecting to lose.

Trembling hands could be a tell or a fake-tell. It depends what profile you got on villain. You got to have a base-line of behavior before using tells in big pots.

Not only does he think AJ is BOSS here, he likely thinks any ace is BOSS here. I see huge pots all the time on paired boards, full of raises & 3 bets, where they both have trips with mediocre kickers.

That said, I'm still calling here.

It's not the trembling hands, it's: MP checks, I bet $45, MP shakes his head no, expresses total disgust, and calls.

Hero's $90 call OTR is ~27% of the money in the pot, so impossible to fold w/o being sold on your read of V.

Regarding live tells:

-If i can correlate the tell to actual hand strength i find it extremely high value. And to do that it takes many examples over time to put the puzzle together and observe the patterns going on. Having this correlation pinned down on many villains i believe have significant impact on my winrate, because i am able to often do absurdly strong lay downs or absurdly thin valuebets due to information that i have builded up.

-When you play alot of hours with the same villains, as many does when they log alot of hours in a spesific pokerrooms, you can build up incredible accurate reads on live tells for each villain. But it requires you to pay 100 percent attention to the game+ good memory to remember what you have seen over time to end up with "safe" correlations.

-Many villains have so so many obvious tells, both big and more subtle small ones. Everything from body language, from how they bet their chips, to how they go allin, hollywooding if they have the nutz but not when they are bluffing and loads of more.

I play this exactly the same given the flop behavior from V. Also, to Venice's point, I would be way more likely to flat AKs here than AKo. If we aren't 3betting AKo here we just aren't 3betting enough. The sizing was good too; Vs wont fold AJs/AQ to that sizing, and we're in position.

Not sure why you'd 3bet AKo more often than AKs.... I'm 3betting AKs pretty much 100% of the time, but can go either way with AKo. Generally best to just 3bet AKo and AKs IMO, but if villain's preflop raising range is really tight, then it could slow me down.

I'm personally 3betting all AK. But if we're going to construct a flatting range and have some combos of AK in it, way better to use AKs because it plays better multiway and across different runouts. With AKo we really want to be heads-up and isolate the PFR because we're going to whiff the flop just as often as he does.

The hand is played fine. Calling river is good. No point in raising. He might think an A is the nuts, but only a complete fish is calling river raise w/ worse than AK.

Now, if you have seen him do this multiple times and he ALWAYS has THE NUTS, you can fold river.

yeah the fake disgust then continue with the hand or make an aggressive action is probably the most reliable strength tell out there from a rec/inexperienced player.

For sure, and i would trust this tell if my life depended on it.Just a bulletproof signs of somebody that have the nutz,loving life and is putting on a show.

Anyone ever try the "I'm disgusted by this board but I still raise" move as a bluff? I've considered it but I'd probably get called, lol

It can be done but it's really hard. You need to be good enough at acting to make it look good without over acting and think quick enough to get it going immediately in the right situation. Plus you need an opponent good enough to notice your acting and react but not so stationary they call anyways and not so good they can see through your act. And once you do it a couple of times word will get around that you are faking at least some of the time and then you have to start playing double bluff games to try and stay ahead of your opponents.

Exactly this.

+ Its extremely hard to fake the energy/vibe that somebody with the mortal stones is giving off. Players are doing alof of things they dont realize/cant control when they have the nutz and is just loving life. Everything from body language, to have they verbally announces allin- to how they put the chips in the pot with the strongest confidence in the world.

That is something 98 percent of players cant control, even if they try their best. Like the great white shark smells blood in the water. Once it is in the water you cant stop him from smelling it.

Remember, though, some people don't know what the nuts actually are, so they give this tell thinking they have "the nuts" when they actually don't. Might not be the case here, but I've seen it more than once.

Wait, so now I have to GTO my fake tells?!?


Not that it matters much, as generally everyone calls because of the bet size, but can we get results?

I once misread my hand and turned it into a triple barrel bluff that worked.