Oaks 6-12

Villian in this hand a laggy African American man in his 50s. He raises all kinds of silly hands preflop, post flop he is more of a calling station but still has some AG to him.


Bad laggy lady short on chips raises UTG, folds to me in the CO where I 3-bet AJ offsuit, Villian in BB calls, UTG caps and is now all in. We both call, heads up to flop.

FLOP: K87

Villian bets, I call. (I have no club)

TURN: J

Villian bets, I call

River: 3

Villian bets, I call


When should I have dumped this hand? Against most villains id just fold the flop. This villain I thought could be betting any K, flush or straight draw and possibly some 7s or 8s. Villian likely sees me as tight and possibly passive fwiw.

If seven players were dealt in, I'd fold preflop.

If six players were dealt in, I'd play it the same and I'd call the river.

I 'd play it the same no matter how many players were dealt in. This is based on a laggy player who is trying to give away her last chips.

Ok yea so Oaks is 10 handed and this was a full game, there may have been a player or two sitting out I cant remember. Normally im folding to an UTG raise here, but as Mong says this lady seemed like she was just trying to get all her chips in.

As played, against a more passive villain, would you fold this on the flop or turn?

Wouldn't worry about lady..but Villian cold called two raises, with the action still open and most likely to be capped. Your hand sux against his range here...but its a capped pot and you did say the Vil can get outta line...marginal spots suck! I'd call down.

1. It's helpful to note positions relative to the button rather than relative to the blinds. You're probably playing mostly 8-9 handed (10 seats but almost always someone is lobbying lol), but in shorthanded games UTG and CO could be sitting next to each other.

2. Don't imply results by saying things like, "when should I have folded?" (implying you lost the hand) You will get better responses.

3. Preflop needs some in depth analysis. What do you estimate UTG's range to be? Is it consistent with her play since she lost whatever hand to bring her to a short stack? For example, if she lost 4 BB in the blinds last round on TPTK vs TPWK, and folded until she was UTG, I would argue her range is essentially whatever is normal for her. On yhe other hand if she just got set-over-setted UTG+1, she may be rage quitting with ATC.

4. As played, you need to range the BB's donk. The three most likely scenarios are Kx, clubs, or T9 ... all of which crush you on the turn. Some people donk hands like TT-99 as well, but even including those probably won't gove you odds to call the turn. Even rarer are the people who donk AQ or AT, but I guess those exist too.

5. You should decide what rivers to call before you call the turn.

Some good questions Callip. The tough part about posting hands on here is that I have a hard time remembering exactly what the action was, where everyone was positioned etc. I posted this hand because I was very certain of all that. Villian and Laggy lady were sitting right next to each other so I know they were BB and UTG respectively, and I was a few seats over. And yes, there was likely a lobbier or two but im not positive.

What I cant remember is exactly how UTG got so short on chips other than playing generally awful poker. Id estimate she was playing 70% of her hands and maybe raising 25% of those? Even if she was not short on chips, I think a 3-bet was still the play. I think theres a good chance she had no positional awareness and would raise the same range from anywhere, other than the blinds maybe.

Your #4 point is why I thought I should have let this go on the turn. 56, 69, 7x and 8x were still possible but not as likely. Isn't there some kind of range calculator app for your phone or something? That would help.

To your last point I was planning on calling river bricks and As and Js (maybe raising?)

I think if you call the flop you and turn you are river bound.
question is the turn. the turn is what entices you in so is your read that a turn raise gets the villain off the hand because a turn raise then a fold to a three bet costs you exactly the same as the full fare river ride.
if BB merely calls my prediction is he checks thru the river.
as the wise man said previously these marginal spots are brutal and your are heads up versus an unpredictable blind .
in the games I see with this player profile the flop lead means flush draw hes telling you he can weather a raise,

I think the flop peel is standard given the size of the pot. The BB "shouldn't" be getting too out of line with an all in player and two players whom have shown aggression, especially on this board. If you call this turn you should be calling a lot of rivers. I think if BB has half a brain you can fold the turn.

What are we giving our self as outs? Some tainted Aces, poor backdoor straight draws like broadway and 9T? Maybe a Jack is good if BB has a lone 7/8 and is trying to get headsup.

I mean, we're getting 14-1 on the flop call so we don't need much but it seems hard to know what to do without some history on BB. You said he's a little bit a calling station and a little aggressive, so I'm not sure what that means.

Yea I think I needed a better read to really figure out what to do with this hand. What I had seen from him in our limited time (had played maybe an hour together), was that he was a loose action player who played a lot of hands and raised quite a bit pre. My memories of him post flop were calling down a lot of hands in multiway pots. I cant recall what he was doing in heads up post-flop situations, he just struck me as the kind of player who might keep betting something marginal against a player capable of folding. (He ended up having K10 os btw)

Im not going to be the guy who takes notes at the table, but just need to focus more on focusing! Once I fold a hand I habitually pick up my phone and dick around on there until the next hand. I also pay more attention to the "good" players, since A.) im more worried if they end up in a hand with me and B.) I might learn something from them. But really its probably more important to learn the tendencies of the "bad" players since im going to end up in more hands with them.

At the time you 3-bet, did you estimate the probability that your 3-bet would get you heads up with UTG? If not, in retrospect, how often would you expect that 3-bet to get you heads up?

Yea I figured this would get us heads up more often than not, which would have been a fine result. I cant recall who was on the button or in the SB, but I certainly didnt mind the villain calling 2 cold, I should be in good shape vs most of his hands right?. Should I be giving more consideration to who is in the blinds when I make this play? If the blinds like to defend a lot should we just fold AJ?

Speaking of villain I played with him again tonight. Guy sitting next to me was also on our table and said that after I left the guy went on a crazy run, put the whole table on tilt and left was almost 6 racks! And yes I paid more attention to what he was doing tonight. He was doing a good amount of betting and raising post flop, and got caught bluffing on the river on at least one hand where he didn't even show his cards. So knowing this now, I think I probably did well to call him down. And no, he didn't run as well tonight.