1/2 live.

Hero ($700).

Villain(covers). Villain is a mid 20's white male. Seems like a decent-good reg (for the 1/2 level) and has won a lot of pots without showdown. When it has gone to showdown and he bet big he usually has it and doesn't seem to be bluffing a ton.

Folds to villain in the CO who opens to 7 dollars. Hero raises to 25 in the BB with AhKc. CO calls.

Flop: Ad 5d 6c.

Pot: 45.

Hero bets 30, villain takes a few seconds and raises to 200. Hero??? I've never seen him use this raise size before and I dont have a read on him.

My problem here is aside from AA, he can have a lot of strong hands on this board that I can't or will rarely be perceived as having. I will have A5/A6s sometimes, but he won't think that. I also wouldn't have 56s, 55 or 66 meanwhile he can have all those hands.

It seems weird for him to size his value this way, but even if he has a hand like 98dd I'm flipping.

While it's not a bad spot for him to semi-bluff, am I just leveling myself and this should be a snap muck? Usually when I see huge overbets it's a value hand that's trying to look fishy. Thats not a huge sample though.

I mean it's sort of not relevant what he has, you can't continue vs this raise with a one pair hand this deep. He could have a combo draw, or two pair, or a set.

Gotta fold. He flats a 3-bet. On this board he has to have a set most times. Best case scenario he has 8:7: or you're chopping with AK, though I doubt he raises AK.

Fold and live to fight another day.

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Easy to get caught up thinking this looks like a brilliant bluff, but I think you have to fold. Almost half the time you have a small lead against a big draw, almost half the time you are toast against a set, and there is a very small chance you are facing that brilliant bluff. I would estimate that it blends to about 30% SD equity so you have to fold.

Result: hero was actually the villain in this hand with 89dd. The actual villain had a 3 bet range that included 99 and AJs so I thought this was a decent place to throw in a large bluff given that AA is a small percentage of his range and even if he called with AK we would be flipping with me in position. He ended up saying " I believe you" and folded AQ face up. A smaller sizing folds out his TT type hands that he seemed to always be cbetting with, but a large size I thought could basically fold out everything but top set, which he may check.

I've often wondered about just running this line in this kind of spot as a pure bluff when deep. Gotta know your villain of course, but it's so hard for thinking players to continue on this board with any of their range bar AA.

I think it is pretty + EV if they don't have a super narrow 3 bet range. If they are only 3 betting QQ-AA this raise is lighting money on fire.

It might still be terrible, but I was up big and thought it made some sense so **** it let's let it ride. Worst case scenario I get advertising value.

Reverse hand histories don't really work. From a theory perspective, villain should definitely not be folding AK, and I doubt AQ, nor should you have expected him to because people don't like folding top pair to a single raise. When you write this hand from villain's perspective, however, people give the advice to fold because people don't bluff enough at these stakes, especially for big sizes. Villain can exploitably fold top pair to a single raise.

Even you likely aren't exploiting villain here for folding this hand. You have so much showdown equity, fold equity and implied odds that this hand is a value raise.

Edit: You clearly aren't exploiting villain and villain made a good fold against your range since it's clear you think this play is some sort of ballsy bluff. You are supposed to be raising hands like 9c8c here.

I think it's actually better to take this line with a pure bluff and not sure I'm a fan of this with 89dd this deep. It's a disaster against a set if he shoves, you can't call and you've set fire to both $200 and a shedload of equity. Obviously it helps to have 89dd if he flats AK or something, but if he flats AK then the raise is probably unwise in the first place. Raising 87dd would be ok since you can stack off vs a shove.

All this depends on what range you're assigning villain. After the 3b and flop lead I expect to see an ace or better a lot from typical LLSNLers.

Why shouldn't he be holding AK? Maybe you personally don't think AK should be 3 bet pre or bet on the flop but plenty of competent people disagree with you. More importantly, regardless of if he should or not he absolutely does.

Villain also want a huge station and even people who play too loose would seriously consider folding to a raise of this size and if it im still flipping.

I also don't think "bluffing is ballsy" I think that it's an interesting spot to use a large raise sizing since our opponent won't have a lot of nutted type hands but we can. Bluffing might be standard but the sizing isn't. I definitely don't think I'm a genius or I'd be playing 5/10.

I'd still call it off with 8d7d if he shoves. We'd be calling 475 to win 920, so we need 34% equity. Against sets we have 33%, so if he ever does this with anything but a set we have a +EV call. However I don't think that is much of a reason for or against raising it. Getting shoved on sucks for both hands.

I said "folding" not "holding."

I'm not really criticizing the play. That's a good reason to use the large sizing. I'm criticizing the use of the reverse hand history.

If your opponent is a station, though, you should have called the bet because you have much more value in implied odds than fold equity. It's a miracle he folded or he's not really a station.

That's fair and in general I don't like using reverse HH for the reasons you listed. However, villain wasn't a complete station and I've found people are prejudiced/hostile to doing anything that isn't considered standard.

I'm a lot more prejudiced and hostile against reverse HHs than people describing non-ABC lines of play.

I guesa it isnt that bad but is just huge variance if he decided the shove.
I dont really mind flatting the turn and seeing what happens on the turn

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Pretty trivial fold. I expect a lot of players to make huge overbets live with scared holdings, like flopped 2pair+ that are worried about being outdrawn.

Since this was a reverse HH I think overbetting like this is a bad idea since you WILL get called more often then you'd think vs bad live players, especially when they have draws that they'd kill themselves wondering if they'd hit or not. Trying to attack a tight reg just seems unnecessary really, save it for the fish.

You can make a smaller raise as a semibluff and barrel most turns. Flatting also not terrible.

Against a station you have massive implied odds so not much reason to try to get it in on flop IMO

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The skill of playing AK is to manage to put a serious not a joke 3! preflop. You can limp or put a funny 3! but that will not be good enough. With $700 effective and a $25 pre called by some sucker it's like you have limped. The $25 doesn't have the effect we need to. You got to play AK where you put 3! or 4! pre, else all is waste. You two guys in the hand are just pretending and joking with each other. The first one 2! like 1% of eff and you make a better joke by elevating the nonsense to 3% of eff. ...haha!

Now, how you do that has got to be part of your skill. You either have it or don't. How you like that?

Villain wasn't a station, he might bet to see where he's at if the turn completes an obvious draw but I'm not getting more than one street.


Here is my thought process against a smaller semi-bluff: A smaller semi-bluff won't fold out AK/AQ which is about 1/3 of his range here. If the turn bricks, he might feel compelled to call since he already called flop. Better to just show him right off the bat I'm willing to play for stacks here and let him fold before he feels too invested.

Thought you said he was a station somewhere. I don't hate the overbet but you're deep and if villain is the least bit sticky there might be better lines.

@Outdonked have you not figured out this is a reverse hh yet?

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+1

Raising 89cc/87cc would be much better