Villain has an AFq of 52.

Merge - $0.25 PL Hi (6 max) - Omaha Hi - 5 players


SB: 80.48 BB (VPIP: 75.00, PFR: 40.48, 3Bet Preflop: 12.12, Hands: 86)
Hero (BB): 303.08 BB
UTG: 152.48 BB (VPIP: 50.46, PFR: 14.33, 3Bet Preflop: 6.38, Hands: 336)
CO: 18.48 BB (VPIP: 74.36, PFR: 16.88, 3Bet Preflop: 3.57, Hands: 83)
BTN: 97.92 BB (VPIP: 42.30, PFR: 5.44, 3Bet Preflop: 1.45, Hands: 341)

SB posts SB 0.4 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 2 A K K

fold, CO calls 1 BB, fold, SB raises to 4 BB, Hero raises to 12 BB, fold, SB calls 8 BB

Flop: (25 BB, 2 players) 8 4 8
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (25 BB, 2 players) 3
SB checks, Hero bets 17 BB, SB calls 17 BB

River: (59 BB, 2 players) 9
SB checks, Hero ...

yes, you pretty much have the nuts here, except against the most passive villains.
i'd make a small bet like 1/4pot to get a crying call out oft TT-QQ.

this is probably the world's easiest b/f. when I'm running bad and playing worse I check this back and wonder wtf I'm doing. and I think you can even bet a little bigger than capitano suggests. in this case the larger you bet with your value hands the more hands you can profitably bluff with (theoretically). if we're betting 1/4 pot then we really can't bluff very often in this spot because we would expect villain to call with nearly all of his reasonable SD value. so I'm prob betting 1/2 pot or slightly over

wouldn't shoving look "more bluffy" than betting small?

He only has about 50BBs left...

I actually didn't even consider betting small. It was check or shove in my mind.

I probably should have included that villain and I are easily the two most active / aggressive players at the table.

yeah didn't realize he was so short. I'm just shoving then, because I'm not folding if I bet small so might as well use the sizing that is best for my range. I'm less worried about "looking bluffy" and more worried about constructing a range such that I can actually bluff frequently in this spot. of course I think the more interesting part of this hand could be your range construction when you take this line. IE how often you're bluffing in this spot. I think there is a good chance you could profitably bluff more often than you are based on your range when you get to the river taking this line.

constructing your range against a fish you probably never see again should be the least of your worries imo.
i still think that we fold out pretty much anything we'd want a crying call from by shoving.

21bb

Do we like checking back the flop here? I standardly cbet 1/3 pot with pretty much my whole range, basically against any villain type.

Checking flop kind of turns our hand face-up, but I think villain could perceive our check as pure weakness, ie. we're checking to give up.

I think having an Ace in our hand makes this a check, since there are no overcards that will drastically scare us.

We're never getting 3 streets of value from worse hands (unless we spike a K). So I prefer to check, keep the pot small, and either A.) induce a bluff, or B.) get thin value on the turn/river.

river is check

i mean he never ever calls with worse..... except when he does LOL. But I do like the B/F here just because it's so unlikely your beat. And giving away free information is never good.

He might call with a pair because he thinks your bluffing but I doubt it man. He has to be pretty bad to do that.


But you have to be aware - if he is a really good hand reader he may check raise you here as a bluff. It's pretty unlikely you have an 8 and if he is crazy enough he will check raise and put you in a very tough spot. I would bet/call vs a super aggro and bet/fold vs a reg if that makes sense LOL. Or just check it back if your not trying to put yourself in possible tough spots.

Stick it in, seems like a pretty easy valuetown to me! I like the flop check with this SPR too.

Postflop aggression is pretty relevant here. If he's super passive perhaps you can bet fold but against anyone with a decent aggression factor I would never take that line. I'm guessing since he raises and 3bets a lot hes not likely to be all that passive postflop. If he went for the checkraise on the flop with an 8 he will probably lead the turn or raise when you bet so I like a shove here.

As to folding out QQ-TT, thats certainly a possibility but I don't think a bet of 20bb gets called 3x as much as just betting the 57 in his stack. Also I would find it hard to fold against a spewy looking villain when we only need to be right 23% of the time and he has taken a check, check call line here.

I wouldn't say that a 75% vpip was the mark of a good player. Sure he may have had above average hands but what are the chances that hes playing solid with those stats?

I doubt a lot of villains would check the turn to you with an 8. So you most likely have the best hand. He will probably also put you on a lot of highcards since you checked the flop, so he will be tempted to call with any pp I think.

Seems like an easy value bet to me. I'd bet pretty big.

I don't know, in my experience villains get pretty trappy with trips (case in point below) vs a range of mostly overpairs and big cards. They're usually not too trappy when the SPR is less than 1. But since our value target is so small in OP's hand (we hope to get called by QQ-TT, and even they will fold some of the time), we really need villain to have trips pretty rarely for this to be a good thin vbet. And I'm not sure he has QQ-TT often enough relative to trips.

Example of villain trappiness with trips: (I see this a ton)

1. different line in this hand
2. examples don't prove anything

^^^ I agree, of course. But given how narrow our value target is, I feel this has to be taken into consideration. I didn't do the math, so I don't know how often he'd have to slowplay trips to make a river thin vbet -EV.

You say they get trappy with trips then post a hand where he had boat. OK.

So, OP also got check raised on the turn and I missed it?

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