I understand your reasoning, lesslurk. I was thinking that hands like KJ, KQ, K9, Q9 might fold or thay he was just raising pf to isolate and then steal post flop when low cards hit the flop, which ive seen him do before. If I xcall then I have no way of knowing if thats his reason to bet so I figured since high cards hit I can take that option away fromhim.

AHG

A semi bluff vs what? KK/QQ exactly? You'd have to pry those out of my hands without a specific read, or a board coming particularly bad.

If you're up against a "hyper lag", there's a good chance you're actually winning against his range. So why give him a chance to fold worse, or collect an extra small bet when ahead?

And don't think of it as "sacrificing one small bet for information". Small bets are valuable. Many live pros will make a living off a small bet an hour win rate. And by denying him a chance to barrel, your mistake could cost you over a full small bet in expected pot value.

OP, your perception of this player is likely a bigger problem for your game than the strategy on any one hand. Someone that sees 25% of flops in a FR game is maybe very slightly too loose. Something like 22-24% would be more standard for 7-10 handed. The only way a player like this can be very bad pf is if they have no situation awareness and play 25% of hands all the time.

Duly noted.

OP~

Betting has to serve a direct purpose. On this forum, everyone's of the opinion that betting is either as a 1) bluff, or 2) value. I personally don't think it's that black or white ALL the time (yes, you can bet for information; yes, you can bet where you are essentially neutral EV if called), but this is a very standard "check/call unless you improve" spot.

If you bet the flop
1) to bluff - there's multiple problems. First off, it's not a very ideal situation given your image and villain's tendencies. Second, it's the wrong part of your range to do it with; I prefer either hands with much better equity when called, or hands towards the bottom of my range. You have too much SD value with JJ. Third, "donking" is very imbalanced here. The only reason I'd donk is if I thought villain was raising 100% of his range on the flop, but only calling a very high % if I c/raise. Then, donking becomes an exploitative move. It's not applicable for your hand in this spot, because your hand doesn't warrant a b/3b given the board and preflop action.

2) for value - you'll likely do just as well to c/c, if not better. Betting folds out all of his bluffs (e.g. 98s). There are some villains who do check-behind whiffs (hands like KQ/KJ/QJ), but bet all their made hands. In that case, donking is better than c/cing in some instances.

3) for information - pretty useless here. This is because you are HU, so villain has the freedom to do anything to tell his "story". Contrast this with if you are 4-5 ways, villain should be playing a lot more honestly given the field he has to worry about.

4) to induce - also pretty situation dependent. There are some villains who will 2barrel / check river with their garbage hands, others who will raise when donked into a high % of the time. This works much better on boards where it is hard for either player to have much. e.g. BTN raises, you defend BB, board comes out 7 2 2. Here, ATx boards in a 3bet pot preflop hits a large portion of both players' range.

5) for image - your image is plenty LAG already. Use it to your benefit by value-betting more and bluffing less.

To fold out bluffs properly, they have to have a lot of drawing value and then fold. What hands that have a ton of equity would fold? I can't think of any.

It is like his stated reason for bluffing or semibluffing. What better hands fold?

In this aggressive game (having played it and with many of the villains for years), people get lost. They think the bad guy is too aggressive. They "play back" and then get confused in hands. I have no idea why, when letting a bad LAG barrel off is so profitable. Once we spew at them with marginal stuff, we reward them. Could we find a poster child hand for "won't fold better"? As Leader points out, the given stats might be closer to good LAG.

Sometimes you just have to not try to come back over the top and enjoy the fact that he's a little too aggressive. Bluff catching in LHE is cheap and fun. Then we spike a set on the turn and can get the money in way ahead while representing one of the many new draws that arrived. Then he shows you AK or KJ or JT and says "I never put you on that" when you show red J's.

As already discussed your bet on the flop seems pretty poor.

I think that betting the river would be very standard... I think checkraising here is very poor play, and I think that you need to strongly consider a hand like AKss or AQss in his range where he threebets the river if you checkraise putting you in a world of hurt, and KQ a possibility too although he just calls a checkraise on the river with KQ. I think I prefer check call to checkraise to be honest, although I much prefer betting.

Shawn "Lightning" Keller

I left out that you really need to consider he might check a hand as big as AJ when you check the river after the third spade comes thinking that you are AFRAID of the flush and getting raised and are check calling a hand as strong as a set on the river for fear of a flush. If he does donk out on the river with a hand like AK , or even A10... and you raise he might well fold because your checkraise on the river looks so strong after all the previous action.

You really need to consider ALL of this before making a river checkraise with middle set when a lot of action has gone into the pot I hope I am sheding some light on why this is such a terrible play to make.

Shawn "Lightning" Keller

NL player here checking out a few limit threads as I will be in Blackhawk this week and plan to play the 30/60 game since I can't stand the $100 betting capped NL games.

Just want to say the rhetoric from some of the posters to OP seemed a bit harsh. Thought I was in NVG for a second.

To the local Blackhawk players I've read a few things in the past about possible player collusion in the 30/60 game. Anything I should be concerned or watch out for? Thanks

Yeah, the posts tend to be rather blunt around here, ya can't take it personally.

The 30/60 game can be awesome, although I almost never play during the week. There are certainly a few strong players but lots of chasers as well. Just depends a lot on who's there.

Regarding collusion, most of it falls into the "raise and check it down category" when I see it. It's not too common but also not unheard of. Two players were recently given 30 days off for this behavior: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=1680

There is certainly some of the other "have a peek at my cards" collusion, here's a link to my post in the Colorado thread where I saw it: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=1604
Haven't seen anything that bad since.

Anyway, just pay attention to the game, you'll figure out the players pretty quickly. Good luck!

Wow, I'm amazed. I've watched tourists complain to the dealer and floor about getting whipsawed and no reaction. On occasion, I've seen flashed cards, though more in the 5-5 days. You'd sometimes see people in the end seats open hands enough for their neighbors to see. More subtle than your description. The fact they got 30 days surprised me.

I think the game is better than it used to be, but it has been a while since I played. BulltexasATM, I'd just pay attention to spots where you might be getting jammed out of pots. Also, you understand the NL is uncapped buyin, right? The max bet is 100, per raise. It isn't cap NL like where you put in 100 and then the hand is over. You can find tables that are deep.

Thanks Q and Doug. Looking forward to playing there tomorrow.