Originally Posted by Scansion
Hand occured at 10/25 NL 9k effective, one of the most interesting hands I've played live for sure. A number of cool things going on here.
Villain is in a number of ways the best player who plays this game IMO. Buys in 15-20k, capable of a lot and despite not opening tons, will definitely get into 3/4/5betting wars. Has 4bet/folded and 5bet me, but this session so far things are a little more passive preflop. Apparently there used to be a bigger game here and from what I've heard he was the biggest winner. Views me as superlag, has seen/heard about me 6/7/8bet air, bluff off 400bb+ stacks, etc.
He sits/moves to my left whenever possible, and when we're 400bb+ deep he likes to 3bet small (8x my 3x opens) as something of an isolation raise. For example, a few sessions ago I opened UTG1 $75 and he made it $200 in the HJ, SB flats and I 4bet AKo to 675; both flat, I bet three streets on 884r and barrel off 6o 2o runout into both players, get called by him with 75cc and SB folds. During this session, after flatting a good reg's MP open in the CO, I raise/called a 963hh flop then bet the turn Kh and shipped river Jo and was called by 63dd (I mucked worse when shown).
Anyways, I open K8cc in the hijack playing a little over 9k and he covers. Blinds and button are passive and BB is nitty. He flats the CO and we see a Qd9x8x rainbow flop. I cbet 150 into 185 and he calls.
Turn (485) is the 8d and I bet 375. He calls.
River (1235) is the Kd, completing the backdoor flush. I tank for more than 30 seconds then bet 800. He thinks for a while then makes it 2500. With a little over 7k behind, I make it 4700 after thinking for 1.5-2 minutes. He tanks for over a minute then announces all in.
So there are a number of things to go over here, and I think it's a much more complex hand if we are 15k-20k deep. I'll just start with my thought process chronologically and try to be pretty thorough.
Preflop, I open which is pretty standard with a nitty BB. He flats, which he can do with any number of things. I cbet the flop with bottom pair, which is also standard. He's folding 22-77, maybe some lower suited connectors that he decided to flat with the plan of raising a good % of flops, Q98 not being one of them. Axss stuff probably just folds flop too. He's flatting with Qx, as well as 9x and 8x since most have gutter draws too. AT AJ KJ KT all don't fold, perhaps he thinks about raising them. JT might raise. If he opted to flat 99 or 88 preflop I think he's flop raising, given stack sizes. He's shown a tendency to raise flops and with such a gameplan, him both not 3betting QQ/99/88 and my having a blocker to bottom set makes him having a set unlikely. Q9/98/Q8 are possible flats though.
On the turn, I bet of course and he flats. He's probably folding some more speculative hands here, KJ stuff and maybe as much as A9 or T9. Qx calls, 8x calls, slowplayed JT, etc. 98 might raise now I guess.
River is obviously the interesting part of the hand. I bet on the small side for a number of reasons, and after ruling out open checking (as I thought a CR wasn't likely enough to induce a 3bet bluff or thin b/c's) I considered this sizing optimal mainly to widen his value raising range. When he raises, I'm wondering if ATdd stuff plays this way, whether 98/Q8 ever folds to any size, and whether he shows up with 99 or even somehow something bigger. Additionally, if I click it back, will I be able to play well to a 4bet? How does my decision change if I have 15k behind rather than 7k?
I'm leaving out a few things as this is a public forum but I'll post more thoughts later. Any comments/criticism on my own play are appreciated.