I was playing a 1/2 NL at a local casino when this happened. After playing for 8 hours straight I found myself on the table full of pros with huge raises and re-raises happening every hand.

Action opened UTG (150$) with 12$, middle position(600$) called, me on the SB(300$) called with AJo, BB(350$) called too. Total pot, 48$.

Flop is A J 3 rainbow.

I check it to let someone else bet because that is what I would do when I don't flop top 2. Action checks around.

Turn is 6 off suit. No flush draw.

I check again for pot control and also because this looks like a totally irrelevant card so I can call off any bets that I am about to face.

To my surprise, the BB leads out with a bet of 95$. I have been playing with this guy at the same table for 10 hours for the last 2 nights. He seems to be a very aggressive solid Pro. He occasionally steals pots here and there but I have not seen him bomb the turn/river without actually having it.

The most logical explanation I have came up with is he turned set of 6s or flopped a set of 3s. Also if I call off his 95$ bet on the turn I probably will be facing a shove on the river which would put me in a very difficult position if I don't improve to a boat. I think he would do this with A3 and A6 too but probably he would be thinking about value betting two pair rather than going full blown beast mode.

So, as guessed, the UTG and the MP folds and I show my cards and muck to which the whole table thinks I made a bad fold. The villain tells I had him but I do not know at all whether there was any truth in that.

I wanted to know your opinion on whether I made a correct fold or was it a bit too over cautious? Should I have called​ the turn and waited for the river to see what it brings?

Thank you in advance for reading this and sharing your thoughts on this.

You say he could have A3 or A6 as well and that he only bombs the turn/river if he has it. At the same time, you also say that he would bet smaller with 2p here. Why? Given the action, he has to think he's super good with 2p, so what makes you so confident he would only bomb the turn with a set?

Don't fold. Definitely don't call turn and then fold river. Also, I would bet something like $40 on the turn. Finally, don't show your hand.

In my opinion you have to call down here, top two pair is just too strong on a board this dry, especially in a live game.

way too strong to fold !
just not enough hand combinations you're losing to.

Forget about this specific hand. You need to tighten up your reads and pay more attention to what people do in specific situations. What you described doesn't sound like a 'pro' or good player. Why? Because the flop checks imply weakness and the turn likely didn't improve anyone. If he's value betting, what does he think will call? If he's bluffing why doesn't he think a smaller amount will get the job done? It's possible that there is context I'm missing here (image, etc) but the bet sounds a bit fishy.

If he's a tight-aggressive nit, this large bet could represent a good-but-non-nut hand that's worried about being drawn out on. Depending on the nit it could also be the nuts. You mentioned you've clocked 20 hours with this player - you should have a good sense of how he plays TPTK by now. When you're not in a hand, watch for these patterns!

If he's just aggressive (and not a pro) then his bet could just be plain bad in which case you should call and plan to call a river shove.

Thank you for your thoughts. I absolutely agree with you in leading out the turn with 40$. That would give me a fair idea of where i stand. And you are also right when you say he should be feeling super confident with his smaller 2 pair with the action checking around. The only thing that threw me off was his he betting 2X the pot with 2 super-aggressive/maniac players behind him. That to my mind was an indication of a super-strong hand. Either ways, we would never know or can rely upon a single hand and can only hope to play well logically and mathematically.

Lastly, the most valuable take away would be to never show a hand on the table. I plan to follow it 100% of the times henceforth.

Thank you for your thoughts. I actually did some thinking related to the number of hands he can do this with. So the most probable hands he could do with is AK, AQ, AJ, AA, 33, 66, JJ, A3, A6, J6 or total random bluffs.Out of these we could rule out AK, AQ, AA, JJ because he would definitely not prefer going to the flop four handed with these premium holdings and with him being the BB he had all the chance in the world to raise it up.

Therefore, the hands that remain are AJ, 33, 66, A3, A6, J6. A bit difficult to have AJ with me holding one pair in the hand while the other pair on the table. Also he would probably not call a 12$ raise from the BB with J6. That leaves 33, 66, A3, A6. He is way ahead on 2 of those and way behind on the other 2 and with effective stack size as 300$ i need to call 300 to win 350 more. Seems like a flip.

This probably is totally incorrect and i am missing something big here but i would really like to get your opinion on the above analysis.

Thank you for your thoughts. As you said, he can have anything here from a good-none-nutted hand to the nuts and I had seen him play some nutted hands with huge raise/re-raises on the turn but a 2X bet on the turn without any action was the 1st in 20 hours of play. I too am unsure of what to make of that raise and hence to my 1st question of the forum.

Regarding my game, I made 3 big folds in my last 3 sessions when i had a strong hand (2 pair once, straight on the other occasion) and folded due to intense action. I feel that this is my most glaring shortcoming related to poker right now and needs to be fixed ASAP as this deprives me of the opportunity to double up when I have a chance. Any post, videos, blogs that you can suggest related to this would be a big help. Thanks again for taking out time and responding to this post.

Yeah it's kind of a gross spot. "Playing the Player" by Ed Miller is a good introductory book on utilizing betting patterns and ranges to navigate these situations. It's available for free in PDF form online but I would encourage you to support Ed and just buy it. It's worth it :-)

Too many mistakes to comment

1) What were you doing at a table full with "pros?" Leave!

2) Raise PF.

3) Bet the flop.

Gonna stop here.