$2/5 game but the table has agreed to a mandatory straddle.

Villain is a middle aged lawyer who is in town on business. He views me as very aggressive and has been 3betting me in position very frequently. In the biggest pot we have played up to this point, he triple barreled with air and I called him down with top pair with the board showing four to a straight.

I have ~1900 to start the hand. Villain is in the straddle and he covers. Folds to me in the small blind with QT. I open to 35. BB folds. Villain calls.

Flop (75): QQ9
I bet 50, villain calls.

Turn (175): 4
I bet 125, villain calls.

River (425): J
I bet 350. Villain TANKS for well over 5 minutes. He doesn't say anything but studies me intensely. At one point he takes three black chips and two greens and plays with them for a while as if he's about to toss them in. Then he puts them back in his stack, tanks for a little longer, and finally announces, "Make it a thousand."

Pshhhhhh

Did you notice him do anything else of note with his body language and timing over the course of the game? Maybe when he 3 barreled you?

I'm guessing not really...

I'm inclined to think the whole tank/raising thing is likely an act being put on by someone who flopped the nuts. But if you're not exaggerating about, "well over 5 minutes," that's an ABSURD amount of time. So absurd it makes me wonder if he genuinely has a hand in which he has no idea whether or not to raise. And I'm not even sure what that could be without more info on other hands he played throughout the night. Maybe he rivered a pair of jacks and is turning that into some weird merge value bluff thing that some rec players like to do?

Snap

Yeah I'm calling cause the pot is huge and he's being weird and our hand is good + blocks lots of value.

fyp

Idk your pot odds are pretty good but the be honest it would take a ****ton of discipline to tank thaT long. Also seems like dude might be spewey. But folding isn't 2 bad either

Pot odds are only thing that makes this sigh worthy but he legit gave off so many incredibly reliable live tells that I assumed this was a troll post but if its not and he took the described actions he has the nuts here 100% of the time.

Also lol @5 mins. Gotta be 2 mins tops. 5 mins is an eternity.

Definitely not a troll post. And trust me, it was a VERY long tank. Nobody called the clock, but other players who weren't in the hand started throwing $1 chips to the dealer out of sympathy for the fact that villain was taking so much time.

I had no other timing tells on villain; this was the first I'd seen him tank.

I'm probably calling then, but not loving it. It's that element of taking way too much time that is weighing on me more than anything else. That's not typical of a bluff or a really strong hand, especially for an amateur who is more likely to genuinely not know what to do for so long. And as someone else mentioned, you have all of the blockers and decent pot odds so it would require a super strong read to lay this down, which imo we don't have.

Something I just thought of that he probably has - AA. People take all sorts of weird lines with this hand. And it makes a lot of sense here - he's trapping the whole way heads up against someone he perceives to be way too aggressive, not wanting to push you off of all of the garbage he thinks you usually have. However he was probably planning on springing a raise on you at some point the whole time but is having second thoughts on the river now that you triple barreled and there aren't a lot of value hands he beats on this run-out. Still eventually decides, "f*** it I have AA make it ONE THOUSAND."

Easy fold imo

Disgusting spot. Just try to soul read. V is repping K10 or 108ss but you hold a 10 in your hand.. If he had a set or a Q I think he would have raised on flop or turn, leaning towards CALL but expect to lose some of the time

Turn your hand into a bluff. Ship it

Results?

Yeah. The whole tanking + pretending to almost-call followed by an oral raise seemed to me, at the time, to be live tells strongly suggestive of the nuts. Does anyone -- in particular amateur players -- really go through that whole charade when they're bluffing?

On the other hand: As others have said, he did seem on the spewy side, his line makes little sense, and importantly, I block the straights but do not block any of the missed flush draws. This last point was what gave me a lot of pause and almost convinced me to sigh-call.

Results:

I thought for a while and then folded. He showed:



So much for live tells, I guess.

We talked a bit about the hand afterward, and based on his comments (which seemed genuine), I think this is actually right:


He told me he thought I was FOS the whole way and was legitimately considering calling with A high. So if you believe him, the tank + almost-call was not an act at all; he truly was contemplating throwing in the call before concluding, I guess, that I could be bluffing with a better hand.

.

RIP

That was a fun one to think through and try to figure out - thanks for sharing

Did he river a straight and was contemplating with a little acting you having a full house?