Interesting hand from a home game i played recently. Critiques welcome on all streets


3 handed .10/.25
V1 BB ~$45
Hero BTN covers

V1 : Have tons of history with V and meta game plays a huge factor. He sees me as a LAG who will float once and sometimes twice to raise OTR will also triple barrel as bluffs and with strong hands. He also views me a kind of station OTR. He is very active and a good aggressive player, other then me V1 is really the only other player who thinks of the game on a higher level and thinks of calling/raising ranges etc. He also plays the 2nd most hands on the table (behind me) Overall a very strong player who is capable of huge bluffs and very thin value bets


With the game winding down I look down at KJ and make it .60 on the BTN (I raise my buttons smaller because i open so many of them I want a good price on by bluffs) SB folds V1 3 bets to $1.80. He has been 3 betting a good amount so this doesn't have to mean very much. I call since we are pretty deep and he can/will 3 bet with hands that i have beat 109s J10s etc.

Flop ($3.70) K7J

V1 leads for $2.50 and i consider raising here because he sees me raise OTF kind of frequently and he is very sticky in the pot when he puts some money in. I end up just calling hoping he either keeps bluffing or bets an inferior hand for value and i can call him down.

Turn ($8.70) 10

V1 now checks, which freezes me at first thinking he plays 1010 and AQ this way knowing that i like to pounce on "weakness" like this. I figured my hand was too strong/vulnerable to check back here so i bet $5.50 and he calls.

River ($19.70) 8

V1 tanks then shoves for $35. We have a little history of overbets OTR but nothing really concrete enough to talk about, just that they are more common between us than other people. The hands i put him on here are mainly 1010, AQ, K10 with a small chance he has A9, 77. He will do this with missed draws as well. This is my main point of confusion, thoughts anyone??

Will post results when i get some feedback

There are enough hands in his range that you've expressed that I lay down my hand here. If he had 10/9, 10/10, A/Q, or 7/7, you're beat. As you stated in the title, your hand is nothing more than a bluff catcher here. The only way I call here is if I have a solid read that he's doing this so he won't get pushed off a marginal hand that you know you have beaten on the river.

This is partly why I shut down my game if we got 4-handed before official quitting time. Shorthanded is a bankroll buster.

I probably fold here. Not enough invested.

Why do you stop playing when it gets short? Just because of the more marginal spots? Or do you just prefer more full games?

Anyway, do you think he would ever turn a hand with SD value into a bluff? Like AJ,KQ,78 etc

And aren't there a lot of missed draws here as well? FDs missed, Q10 missed. I know I probably don't beat and hands he's betting for value here but IMO there are a lot of hands I still beat here considering he bluffs a a lot and takes non-standard lines

You know him better than I do. Shorthanded is a long term game. It's not about cards so much as its about the rhythm over many hands. I'm a better host than player.

The reason I cut the game is for longevity. I'd rather have four people leave with moderate wins and enough time to feel rested at work the next day... instead of one person with a huge win and three people filled with regret, and all of them useless at work the next day. I want people to leave feeling good and eager to return. Always leave 'em wanting more.

Hosting a sustainable game is ALSO about the long term.

That's an interesting thought about trying to sustain games longer term. Luckily my game is all 20-21 year olds and we're all friends so im not sure how they feel about games running late, but i will definitely take that into consideration Thanks!

Biggest mistake in the hand IMO is the flop. You have a LAG image, he has a LAG image, flop is wet, pop it. He will rarely give you credit for a big hand based on what you described and is likely to call with tons of worse hands. Scare cards on the turn could end up costing you value (how likely is he to continue in the hand and pay you off with something like 88 or 66 if another heart or broadway hits on the turn?).

As played I think this is a fold. If he thought you were floating on the turn he would check, this looks more like a bet to get value from the stronger part of your range fearing a check behind. Unless he has a history of overbet bluffs which you say he doesn't.

As stated, I like raising the flop and/or betting the turn bigger. I would add some hands where the heart draw missed but even backed into a straight K9, T9, or A9.

I must have forgotten to say that his overbets are kind of balanced between bluffs and value hands. I cant say for sure because i think i fold to them most of the time, but when i do call i have seen both bluffs and strong hands

So you think a call is the right play. Did you call and scoop a big pot?

Three-handed among regulars isn't really good for online analysis. This is a game of the players getting inside each others' heads. We also can't give good advice for rochambo, for the same reason.

I think hand is fine. Flop call is OK if you are planning on raising most turns. Turn bet is fine, I wouldn't mind a little bigger either though. River IDK, gross spot but I think math says you have the best hand enough to call. In constructing a range for him I'd heavily discount the sets, AQ and Q9. I feel like he's leading or raising the turn with any of those except 88/AhQh. So the only hands that beat you are 99 and 9hxh and a slowplayed AhQh, versus all missed draws and other bluffs. Barring a livetell/soulread I call and then berate him if he turns over 99 haha.

I did end up calling and he QQ and said he thought he could get me off AA, AK, KQ, KJ

I am in agreement that you should raise the living **** out of the flop, especially if you have a history with this player.

You will get the money in ahead most of the time and almost never be forced to make a decision like this. These spots are the reason you foster a LAG image.

for me the biggest reason to raise flop is that the board is wet enough that the turn will very often produce a card that freezes action. your line makes him think your drawing, but why would you do that when odds are a card will come that looks like you have made the draw. you want to raise wet flop so he thinks your semibluffing the draws.
FWIW, I would have folded river.

Guy seems like a spazz. He shoved a hand that beats your draws and some of your value hands that you play in this way to get you off overpairs and top 2... Now you got something else to throw into his 'balanced' overshove range.

Air, hands with good SD value, nuts. Lets throw in everything in between.
So basically he is missing a lot of value with his middling hands and now you never need to call his overshoves with medium strength hands (like tp or bottom 2).