2/3 -- 300 max -- 6-handed

Villain is a bulky mexican guy that keeps taking breaks to play blackjack. He leaves our table and comes back with a rack of 5$ chips. Leaves again and comes back with nothing. He is very aggressive postflop, and loose passive preflop. He will change his bet sizing according to the strength of his hand preflop.

Hero is a young looking asian guy and blurting random supporting comments when people talk about a hand to keep the table fishy and loose. Shown the goods many times. The table was 9-handed earlier and I built a good solid image already. Hero is TAG.

OTTH:

Villain (600) is UTG+1
Hero (1100) is BB w/ QJ

UTG+1 raises 11, CO calls 11, folds to Hero. Hero calls. (Fold pre is obviously an option also)

Flop (36) : J 8 2
Hero?

"Hero is TAG" and "Hero calls EP raise with unsuited easily dominated hand out of position" do not go together.

My reason for calling is that I feel like I classified the player type well enough to show a profit by calling QJo in the BB. Remember it is 6 players too, so technically hes MP.

Preflop is a toss up. You are deep enough I don't think it's a mistake but I would always make this call either. You are really fishing for a good flop and what you got is just sort of being good.

Either lead flop for $20 or check/call flop.

If the flop gets two callers mostly just give up. You will be beat a lot and often less then 50/50 to win even if both are drawing. If you get one caller plan to check/call most turns and check/evaluate most rivers. Mostly you would like to call or make one more bet.

Would be better if Mexican blackjack dude came back with heaps of $500 fun chips but I'm cool with giving mbj dude $8 worth of action essay.

Meh chk to him.

I donk lead 20$. Only Villain calls.

Turn (76) : 5ccc

Hero?

Folding pre is so lol.

QJ with no club is not a hand I'd really want in my leading range here, much rather check and see what happens.

PAHWM typically wait 24 hrs between decisions fwiw

Speed PAHWM

Not sure why we're donking into aggro dude, I'd think there'd be a lot of x/c in our plan for this hand.

My Donking range here is 22 and 88 lol. Prob exploitable.

Now that we donked flop here with meh TP on a 2 flush I'd actually rep the flush vs a decent player who for some reason didn't raise the donk with his op. But against mbj dude it's kind of pointless so chk or button click at this point.

Sorry I'm kind of new to the forums. I will wait 24hours next time before actions!

He is LP pre, so what does ~4x bbs pre-flop raise signify in terms of range? Since you called QJo, I'm guessing a wider range.

Still we are facing an aggressive post-flop opponent oop. So, while we have marginal IO, I'm folding pre and C/F flop as played.

Patience, play in him ip.

Turn is not a pretty card. You can either lead again and try to represent clubs or check and evaluate. I prefer the check and evaluate.

Probably call turn and then check/evaluate on river again. If I think he is aggressive enough to bluff twice a lot I'm mostly giving up turn and looking for situations to trap.

Even though we'll be OOP and only going 3way and our hand is easily dominated (but how much trouble are we going to get into it really?), I can't hate the preflop call too much since it is for a lol ~1% of stacks. Even if we just purely ~nutmined, I'm guessing this has to be profitable enough a call. I'm guessing an argument could also be made for reraising this obvious juicer looking raise, but I'm not super pumped about building a bloated pot OOP. Folding is probably fine too, but I think one of main goals in poker is to see a cheap flop with idiots, and for ~1% of stacks, that's pretty damn cheap.

What do we make of the lol $11 raise in EP, which I'm assuming is way smaller than table average? Is this a juicer type raise? Is he going to check back the flop a lot here 3ways? Or is he always going to cbet? If he often has a weak hand that is going to check the flop, I probably just go into small bet/fold mode over 3 streets (depending on runout). So I'd probably donk $20 and go from there.

ETA: Just reread our read that he is aggro postflop, so yeah, much more on board with check/calling flop since it looks like he lead most times.

Not a great spot on the turn against an aggro who could take it away. Is he capable of barrelling the river UI? I probably check/fold, but I'm weak like that. Overall, it may be a little exploitable, but it still cost me less than 5% of my stack overall, I'm assuming we'll be able to make up for that somewhere down the line (preferably seat changing and getting position on this guy if he's constantly going to make postflop difficult for us).


GcluelessNLnoobG

I like a bet/fold for $45 on the turn for value.

A lot of the random hands that he floated flop with contain a single club. I don't want to get into a guessing game with an aggro opponent, as I suspect he bets his entire range if we check the turn, and his sizing might make things very uncomfortable for us.

if he calls, check/evaluate pretty much all river cards. Guys like this aren't going to be very balanced with river bets, and will likely check back most hands with showdown value and make a big bet with bluffs and flushes, though I expect we hear about a flush on the turn.

Isn't this kind of backwards logic? If we think he frequently bluffs turn/riv once we've shown weakness, wouldn't that be incentive to trap now by x/c turn/riv?

b/f on the 3 flush board into the bad aggro????

x/c, x/c, x/c, x/c, x/c however many streets we playin.

If you don't like that, fold pre.

If Hero's hand was better. There are just too many better hands that villain could be betting in this situation. Even if villain is pretty bad trying to trap with less then TPTK OOP is just setting hero up for trouble.

Okay, initially I actually preferred him calling my raise instead of re-raising OTF. His continuance range is now probably flush draws, weak/strong jacks, gut shot straight draws, two overs, and maybe middle pairs like 98s.

Turn (73) : J 8 2 5

I figure the 5c makes my hand somewhat vulnerable. Maybe 1/3 of the draws in his range got there and the rest have not improved (not sure of the math on this one).

I elect to check. Villain bets $30.

Hero?

Sorry, I always forget to leave out KEY information. Standard raise is 15 at my casino for 2/3. When I say he varies his bet size according to the strength of his hand, I mean it. If he has a strong hand he will open for something like 20-25.

Call

Can you read anything on the small bet sizing? Is it more likely trying to suck you in with a flush? Trying to see where he stands? Or a cheap bluff? Any could be the case in this situation.

Without a specific read I'm calling and evaluating on river.

yeah I'm calling here but the small bet sizing is a little worrisome.

We probably have to check/fold a lot of rivers.

When I call lightly preflop with a speculative hand for lol %, I typically have no problem giving up earlier rather than later if things don't go great. Guy (who is supposedly tighter preflop) raised in EP and called a donk with a person to act behind (he's got to have something), and now the main draw got there. Not a bad spot just to give up, no? Or do I simply give up too easily?

ETA: Also keep in mind that a river Q completes the only other flop draw, so even "improving" ain't great.

GpushoverG

I read his flop call differently. I think a guy like this is just so unlikely to fold to a donk bet after being the preflop raiser. I think he's going to have a pile of garbage in his calling range on the flop, including all the PPs lower than J. I think given the PF sizing tell, he's more likely to have an 8x, a small pp or a weaker J on the flop than a flush draw or a better hand.