Tournament Series is in town and has brought in a ton of new players. V is a late 20's Euro pro and is playing solid, but a little on the douchey side. Also running pretty hot and is an excellent hand reader. Flopped a set or two and pushed people out of some bigger pots with a polarizing 'jam on any weakness' strategy. He's up about $2k.
Table dynamic has been interesting. New table and started out very nitty, but with active 3 betting from all the 'good' players. The 3-4 fishy/rec players haven't been getting out of line too much either.
Hero is a 2/5 grinder and a winning player. I still have much to learn, and playing with pros really helps shine light on some of my leaks. One of them being how to play a big pot with a 1 pair hand.
OTTH: 2/5 deep stacked.
Hero (~$1200 effective) raises to $20 with K
K
(Standard raise). Folds to V on button who 3bets to $80. Hero thinks and puts in the 4 bet to $220. (Sizing ok?)
V eyeballs my stack and calls. I don't expect him to have a 5bet range here, but hopefully my sizing narrowed things down a little. I've seen him call a 3bet earlier on the button with Q10s.
Flop ($440) Q
9
6
Hero bets $300. On a side note, I hate the concept of down betting. I'm not saying its bad or that I'm right to never use it, but for me I think betting $200 here is silly. I'd love for a better player to convince me why I should use it.
V thinks and eventually puts in the call. I'm ranging him on standard 4 bet calling stuff like QQ+ (or maybe even any pair to set mine?) and all suited 'Ace cracking' hands like J10 or 89 or whatever good players like to show up with when they know their opponents are in a very tight range here.
Turn (1400) A
I check. I know this crushes my range more than his and I don't think a check is terrible, but I definitely checked out of fear which is bad. The strange thing is he snap checks behind me and had a visible reaction to the card. So I couldn't tell if he flopped a set of QQ and thought he just got coolered, or turned a set of Aces and auto checked to hope I caught up. Felt very polarizing to me. In his other bigger hands he pulls his hoodie over his face and thinks on every street so this was different for some reason.
River ($1400) 3h.
I check and he thinks and jams. I go into the tank. I have the K
which removes A
K
and K
Q
combo. He certainly could float me in position with another combo of AK but that seems unlikely. If he has A5
shouldn't he bet on the turn? If I had AK I jam that turn every which way and would never try to check raise.
As I'm thinking through things he says "I put you on kings here." I eventually fold and don't show or confirm anything. For the next 20 minutes I can tell he wants me to talk about it and ask him what he had and whatnot, but I never do. I eventually move tables.
So what do you think and what mistakes did I make?