20/40 @ Bay 101

I've played maybe 20 hours with Villain at 20/40 and 40/80 over the last six months. My read is that he's a strong player. On the tighter side of TAG but really aggressive when he's in a pot. The opposite of MUBSy, he'll keep firing no matter what the board looks like if he sees value. Can't recall seeing him do one thing that looked bad. Nevertheless, if you guys played with him you would inevitably laugh at my description and say he's 'decent' or worse. So take my read with a grain of salt.

Don't know what he thinks of me. Probably LAG PF w/ no fold button post flop.

V raises UTG, folds to hero in the BB w/ A T - I call.

Flop Q T 3

Check, he bets, I call.

Turn A

Check, he bets, I call.

River 2

Check, he bets, I call.

The flop and turn bets were instant, on the river he tanked for 5-10 seconds.

The UTG raise and bet, bet, bet line had me worried. Couldn't find a raise. I lose to AA/QQ/AQ/TT and the only value hands I beat are AK/KK (pretty sure he takes this line with KK).

Edit: Ya, I know, this is the part where you say 'how could he be a strong player if that's his UTG raising range, he sounds like an awful weak tight nit to me'. If it helps you better analyze the hand, go ahead and think of him as an awful weak tight nit if you like.

He can't have AJ or KQ? If śo your line must be right. If he can have those I cr turn

In my experience I think generally we should at least be including AJs and KQs in his range but you were at the table not me. Would villain play JJ the same too?

As dd said if the range is accurate that line is perfect. Would he fold Kk to a turn cr?

I think I would generally default to cring turn

Why would you not consider him a strong player if his UTG range is only the top of his range? And why would you not assume he wouldn't value bet AK on the river when he didn't get raised on the flop or turn? A good player would value bet AK here and maybe thin with AJ if he has some kind of read.

There is no such thing as a strong player.

You must have misread something. I said that he would take this line with KK so clearly he is also taking it with AK.

"How could he be a strong player if that's his UTG raising range, he sounds like an awful weak tight nit to me"
It sounds like to me your saying that because his UTG opening range is only premium hands that he can't be a "strong" player. And I was talking about his river bet, when you say he tanks for 5-10 seconds after firing away on previous streets immediately makes me think he was maybe thinking about checking AK or KK but decided to bet for value and fold to a raise

Even if this is true, you beat 10 combos and lose to 8. You need 4/7 equity to raise, which if you can tell at game speed is greater than 10/18 means you're better at math than me.

Throw in the single combo of AJs and it's a raise.

If he's never 3-bet bluffing and you can raise/fold turn or fold river, it's a raise.

Definitely check raising the turn here myself, I dont hate your line might yield another bet if he folds to a check raise. He might also have a hand that could pay off a raise here

I check raise the turn, but will probably fold to a 3 bet. Is that exploitable? I feel like a 3 bet on the turn here by villain is never a hand we are ahead of.

What was the reasoning behind c/c all streets?

If you feel like you missed value but not sure if he has you beat (maybe this is why you didn't put in a raise on the turn?) I would just c/r the river.

Nothing complex. Just thought he had a strong range and wasn't sure if I was ahead often enough to make a raise profitable. From the replies, it would appear I should have raised the turn.

4/7? why?

10/18 is 5/9, which is 0.5555...; 1/7 is a bit more than 0.14, so 4/7 is something more than 0.56, actually pretty close to 0.57. It looks like we're just short of enough equity to raise, but it's close. (This is without looking at a calculator, doing the quick estimating one should be able to do at game speed.)

Fast math is easy to learn, with a little practice. There are even tricks you can use to quick-figure things like square and cube roots, not that you'd need those at the poker table.

Agreed.

Weak players often exhibit this timing tell with the nuts, no doubt thinking it's incredibly clever. A "strong" player may be more honestly deciding on thin value or, perhaps, mimicking the weak player's tell.

Some good players also do it no matter what they have, so they never give off a timing tell of any kind. I'm trying to train myself to do this for every aggressive action on the turn or river.

Against a pro or any player, unless nittiest man alive that doesn't exist these days, i think a checkraise is in order on turn. I bet your over-estimating his tightness. You're gonna be good more often than not and you want to charge him for his Ak, Aj, kq, KK. I raise the turn check j, king, queen rivers. You can even checkraise flop on occasion. Depending on how he sees you you might get payed all the way by 77-99's if turn blanks. Him hoping you're on a straight draw. Also i want to charge him to draw on AK,Aj, Kjs.

I had a situation recently where I had KKs with an ace on board. I bet all way then thought for about 10 second to decide if I had a thin v bet on the river.I bet and the villain folded his Ace. He said that if I hadn't Hollywooded so much he would have paid me off.