Foxwoods 20-40 on a sunny Saturday afternoon about a month ago. I am relatively new to the game (been there about 2 hours at this point). I have not gotten out of line to this point and am running decently well (up a rack I think). The game is currently 9 or 10 handed.

Villains:

Button: Tight passive older gentleman

SB: Relative unknown (this is the first time I've played with him). However, in the 2 hours we've played together, he's lost ~3 racks (and I've heard he's stuck a total of 6 at this point). He seems loosish-passive pre flop but very fit-or-fold on the flop. He also doesn't really seem to understand board texture (like he'd fold Kx on a A-rag-rag board for one bet on the flop in a HU steal situation). If he calls the flop, though, he is very likely to showdown but is unlikely to make thin value bets/raises without the total goods.

BB: 2p2er with whom I have a good deal of history, both full ring and shorthanded (feel free to chime in here! ). He generally plays a strong LAG style. I'm not totally sure how he perceives my game; however, I'm sure he views me as loose aggressive and will both call me down lighter than most but also attack me with thin raises and value bets on small and big streets.


The hand: I am dealt the 75 in the CO.

Folds to me and I raise. Button folds, SB cold-calls 1.5, BB now 3-bets* and we both call.

Flop (4.5BB): A62

SB checks, BB bets, I raise, SB folds, BB calls

Turn (6.5BB) 8

BB checks, I bet, BB raises, I 3-bet, BB calls

River (12.5BB) 5

BB checks, I bet (as a bluff)...



* I hadn't seen BB 3-bet in these spots all that frequently, but my read on his range here was something like {99+, ATs+, AJo+}. In addition, I thought he'd throw in suited broadways and even smaller suited connectors sometimes for balance. I really did not think his range contained middle pocket pairs, however.

Fold pre-. And it's not close. Serious leak.

Fold flop.

X-call turn.

I don't know what the heck to do on the river after all those mistakes.

EDIT: More generally, this is the sort of mistake a lot of live players make usually because they didn't play online and don't appreciate how much of a long term game poker really is.

You are trying too hard to outplay opponents in a single hand, instead of waiting for a good situation.

Yeah very easy fold preflop. I'd fold flop too and if I raise it'd be so player specific that it wouldn't be worth posting.

preflop isn't a gigantic deal but i certainly prefer a fold.

i'm most concerned about the button when i'm deciding whether or not to open lightly in the cutoff, but the fact that the big blind is tough and has history with you means he's unlikely to fold too often pre or post. so it's not an ideal spot to open the cutoff lightly. anyway, all that aside:

i much prefer a flop fold to any other line. however, given that you did decide to go for it (which kind of gets into super specific metagame/reads/you-had-to-be-there stuff/etc), i think the turn is fine: you're very low in your range but actually have decent equity, and perhaps a bit of fold equity (which i imagine you assumed you had when you took this line to begin with). it's also consistent with how you'd play a strong value hand.

the river is an awkward card: his spade semibluffs got there, and you now actually have showdown value vs all his nonpair hands (though there aren't all that many that he should play this way). if you think he really can fold a made hand for one bet in this large pot vs someone he views as very frisky, then go ahead and bet, but i think that's a tough parlay. for example, i can't imagine him playing something like QQ or KK this way, so it seems like most of his hands either have an ace in them (or stronger, and shouldn't fold) or don't have anything (which means we win). or he can have spades.

lawdude, your post bums me out. magicmcq is a strong lag/lagtag player who played/plays and beat several stakes higher than you did online. i'd imagine he has several hundred thousand more hands lifetime than you, if not millions. saying preflop is a "serious leak" is hyperbole. something like 98s is a standard open there (even for you, i'm assuming, and i believe you're on the tight side) so obviously 75s is only a bit weaker hand. i agree with you that it's not a standard open and that this game dynamic isn't exactly right to make thin cutoff opens. i think holding all of these rigid assumptions probably isn't useful for anyone. i do think that discipline, patience, and hand selection are definitely useful in beating live 20 and being able to be patient and have the good mental game to help get to the long run. however, overapplying these things can lead to inflexibility and to a cap on your development as a player.

i do think that OP likes to lag it up some, both for fun and to test himself, and also because the money isn't a big deal for him here.

also lawdude, we're in position, so it's checked to us on the turn. as played i would certainly bet here as opposed to doing some sort of free card line.

and in fairness, i might run this kind of bluff 1 or 2 times out of 100 against someone i had a lot of history with (and probably never try it against a random 20 player, or if i did i would be raising the turn since that is Scarier for them than a flop 3bet), so this thread in general is mostly about hypotheticals, and those are the most fun to argue about

also, magicmcq is a fair bit laggier than i am.

also what are you doing at woods on a sunny saturday afternoon? at least go on a cloudy sunday!

I'm not really sure that the money not being a big deal is really apropros of anything. I mean, the plays are either right or wrong, and if he just wants to LAG it up for fun, why post the hand on 2+2?

And I'm willing to accept that it's OK to bet the turn here (although I still prefer a check).

But as for the rest, I think discipline is everything, and I think the danger of "having your growth as a player" stunted is far, far, far lower than the danger of "playing a crappy hand because you want to LAG it up for fun and getting into a terrible situation because you were too impatient and lacked the self-control to wait for a better situation".

I think this hand reads like a player who got himself into a really bad situation because he was too impatient, too enamored with getting his gamble on, to wait for a better situation.

And in that regard, the BB does matter. I highly doubt that more than, say, 15 percent of the games I have ever played in featured any situation where I would intuit that raising 75 suited from the cut-off was anything other than unprofitable. But this definitely is not such a game.

So why not just wait? And having raised and gotten burned, why not just unload on a flop you completely missed? I don't get this hand as poker strategy. Maybe it's because my "growth as a poker player was stunted" or I am too disciplined to understand high level strategy. That's possible. Seriously, I am a lousy poker strategist. That's well known.

But that's not what I'm seeing. I'm seeing a player who needs to get back within the confines of discipline, and accept that there are going to be better situations to get involved in, and stay involved in, a hand. This hand looks to me like an abortion.

i think that folks who are not super well rolled, or are a bit more risk-averse than others, tend to be a bit tighter and avoid these kind of high-variance spots to begin with, so that's why i mentioned the money/comfort zone thing.

i do agree with you that this spot basically goes into 'soul reading/mixing it up vs another reg' territory and as such might not be all that useful for other folks to comment on.

a danger of checking back this turn in general is it means that we've done the free card play (which is a poor line in general) or something else that isn't balanced - basically betting when strong and checking when weak, or something of that nature. while vs fish it isn't a huge deal, it's the kind of unbalanced habit that can end up being a leak in a lot of tag players, and is something that strong regs can take advantage of as you move up in stakes. in this specific spot we are stone bluffing so i think any line that checks is giving up our only chance to win the pot, so that's why i'd prefer a bet. we're also telling a story of strength obviously so a bet would continue with saying that we have a strong hand.

magicmcq can definitely be described as impatient and gambly

i don't think you're a lousy poker strategist at all. you have a clear and logical thought process and your reasoning is almost always backed up by ranges, pokerstove stuff, etc, which puts you way ahead of almost everybody here (and in the games that you commonly play in). and i mentioned the 'development stunted' thing as a warning. it's easy to get a certain set of ranges and strategies and plays down, especially if they enable you to beat a certain game/stake, but if you aren't able to tinker with and adjust them then it will be harder to keep improving and moving up in stakes.

i can understand opening 75s in the co when the bb is a total fish, but in this case it's really bad. flop is a pretty easy fold. the worst villain can have is still an over pair to the 6 aside from maybe kqs? betting the turn is a must, but once raised, it should be apparent that you've run into the top of dude's range and you should only be focused on getting there imo.

I actually disagree with this comment strongly.

I fold it preflop. I dont totally hate the flop bluff raise, but you gotta shut it down and just draw when the turn gets c/r'ed imo.

I think that betting the turn is correct with the information given, but with the new information that the guy likes to bet call the flop and check raise the turn, I like the free card play if a similar spot comes up in the future because players who bet call the flop planning to check raise the turn are the exact players against whom we should use the free card play. Unless he has exactly 88 or A8s, then he probably has a hand that was already big on the flop, which should 3 bet imo, or big spades.

I'm not saying never to bluff the turn against this guy after raising the flop, but I'd rather have spades for that.

I think the problems with 75s in this position with a loose player and a good player in the blind, are that the action you want, you're not getting, while the action you're getting, you don't want. This problem can be compensated for by checking hopeless flops both 2 and 3 ways, but not just with this hand. A good flop checking strategy is crucial with this hand against the blinds, especially if they don't 3 bet heads up. So without a good postflop plan with this hand other than "bet the flop and hope to take it down ldo." I think it's a fold preflop.

what exactly to you strongly disagree with?

Hi lawdude:

I too would fold the seven-five suited preflop, but I do play the seven-six suited. So in my opinion, being first in with a raise from the cutoff with this hand would only be a small mistake.

Best wishes,
Mason

Bolded part, as for one, a solid villain is likely to have b3b and b/c to x/r value hands on a board like this.

But for the sake of argument sake, let's say villain b3b's the null set on a board like this, preferring to delay aggression on the dry board.

Given our hero's LAG image, any hand AQ+ would have enough equity to raise this turn, even against a range of Ax, AA, 66, 22. And at game speed, many value-oriented players will level themselves into a raise w/ AJ as well.

So if we want to break down villain's value range on this turn into:

AA (3)
88 (3)
AK (12)
AQ (12)
AJ (discount, so 3)

You have 33 combos. And this is making the stretch that villain three bets 8's pre, an assumption our hero said is unlikely, meaning approximately ninety percent of villain's range is Ax based. Against a three bet, that means much of that range is thin to dead against much of hero's perceived range.

Keep in mind that villain's 3-bet pre changes everything. With a LAG opening CO and a fish cold calling the SB, BB's raise should be weighted towards strength to exploit. However, that leaves fewer hands that were both strong enough to three bet pre, and raise this turn for value. And not many of said hands are that good.

I agree that folding pf is likely best, but ill also be honest and say I'd open it in most live 20 games (its fun).

i think OP understands that this is usually a fold pre, which is why he included his read on the BTN. why else would he give a read for a player that is impertinent to the hand in question? by including the read that the BTN is a "tight, passive older gentleman," OP is basically saying, "the BTN is going to fold a very large percentage of the time when i open here, so i'm basically the BTN." i would open this from the BTN.

magicmq -- do you have a preflop capping range in this spot or do you call everything after BB 3bets?

thanks for your thoughts.

What %s are people opening from BTN and CO? Good lags tend to raise BTN 50%+ and CO 45%: 57s is within a 45% open range. Given that the actual BTN in this case is a tighty-whitey, 57s is an easy raise.

Flop: all three options are close, though I think folding is the worst. It's a bloated pot, we have position and a bunch of IO with our backdoors. The flop is dry enough that we can be floating with bigger hands. Any weak ace, like AT-, I would call-down, and only bet if checked to. With AJ+, I'd usually want to flat and raise on turn. Hence, I don't mind floating with 57s here.

River: Give up. Put him on a range after he calls your turn 3b. It's going to be almost entirely aces+ that call down, or FD/79s semi-bluffs that made it. You lose. Next hand.

I would have played every street differently including both turn decisions

As played, agree with this. Villain is not calling with worse than your holding.

so you're saying we're up against the top of villain's range

Top of villain's range isn't particularly strong, given what hero is repping on a turn b3b. And if villain is auto-showing down Ax, I think that's a pretty big mistake.

So yeah, it's the top of vil's range, but I'm hard pressed to define AQ as a "monster" given hero's perceived range.

I would have played every street the same. At least some of the time. I think the hand is fine but not really a good hand for posting / analysis.

you're basically saying that anytime an opponent's range includes non-nut hands we should run a big bluff because our hand will look really strong and it would be unprofitable for our opponent to call down