Me and villain play together a lot, I probably have 50+ hours with him at the table in the last few weeks.

He seems to be calling my opens way too much, I think on purpose, since everyone realizes I'm the tightest player at the table.
Then folds a lot post-flop.
I think he calls vs me way more than vs anyone else pre, but that might just be confirmation bias.

Haven't caught him doing anything really crazy.

I do know he's considered a bad player by some other regs.
I definitely don't consider him a good player, but I have no real reads on him yet. He's a bit tighter than the average loose fish, but still way too loose passive as far as I've seen.

He's around 40, white man, been in the poker scene for at least 10 years, everyone knows him.
From how others talk about him (and what I've seen) he's a solid loser, but far from a complete idiot fish.


1/1 9-handed
eff stacks 195

BTN straddles to 5
SB calls
Hero (BB) raises to 25 with JJ
Villain (CO) calls
BTN calls
SB folds


Flop: 983 (Pot: 80)

Hero bets 50
Villain calls
BTN folds


Turn: K (Pot: 180)

Hero checks
Villain checks


River: 8 (Pot: 180)

Hero checks
Villain bets 120 all-in
Hero ?


I definitely think villain is capable of a random big bluff here.
I think for like 30 seconds then say to him "I really don't know"
He replies: "Aces?"

SPR is just just over 2 OTF so big picture we are mostly gii with an overpair.

But this flop really smashes Vs range and not ours. We should be checking this flop often and if we c-bet, should be smaller. We want to fold out overcards and get value from worse one pair hands.

AP I may just ship turn. It’s seemingly a bad card for our actual hand but it’s a good card for our range and V doesn’t call flop with many Kx combos and often will semibluff ship spade draws.

River - blocking TJ combos with no spades is a bad bluff catcher.

I think I have the range advantage on this flop.
I can have all over pairs, sets and two pairs.
Villain is unlikely to have a big over pair.

From what I know about GTO we should be betting larger on flops we don't want to bet on often.
Not sure what betting small would accomplish.

I agree we want to check often on this flop, but JJ is not one of the hands I want to be checking here.

The turn card may be good for my range, but it's terrible after villain called, since a huge part of his calling range on the flop would be flush draws.

Fold, hard to find too many bluffs.

Unsure why poster above suggested shipping turn, that seems bad

You are right

Pretty terrible runout. Spades get there, 8x gets there, you super block JT, 9x or pocket pairs have showdown value and people don’t typically turn SDV hands into bluffs in low stakes games.

If you folded river, we’ll played imo.

Also if he voluntarily spoke, and asked you if you had AA (a hand people hate to fold), he’s almost always going to be nutted.

Pretty strong live tell, imo.

Villain's line of call, call, check, shove makes no sense to me, unless he flopped two-pair, or a set and just filled up on the river. That or decided that your river check means that you're bluffing and he can push you off the hand. Either way, his hand is polarized to being the nuts, or air.

I pondered this hand for a while, doing my best to imagine myself as the Hero and finally decided that I could find better spots and would fold.

I fold, but it's a sigh fold.

I'd almost rather shove river myself than check/call -- unless the check was to induce, which I don't think it was.

[PHP][/PHP] ???

I just mean I'm almost never check/calling here. I'm not shoving, either

(I play against a few players who will shove here as a bluff, and I might check/call them, but the check is too induce.)

So here's a question for you:

You say you want to be betting big on this flop, but then you only bet 50. With effective stacks what they are, why not bet bigger? Maybe if you bet something like 75 you can comfortably ship turn for only 95 into 230, where Villain could be compelled to cry-call you with a lot of 9x and other stuff (like if somehow he got here with a single spade), and if his spades did get there you made him pay for it.

As played, if I called here against the described Villain I would not be surprised to be shown 8x. I would be slightly more surprised to be shown a bluff, since I'd have to imagine that if he were going to bluff, he would have pulled the trigger on the turn. Maybe he wanted to make sure you didn't cry-call him with a single spade, though? Hard to say. But I would have bet bigger on the flop--at least 75. I'd probably prefer jamming to betting less than 75 (unless the button was deeper).

I believe the opposite is true. He is implying he put you on aces and still bet, ie he is implying his hand is strong, which is a sign of weakness

It isn't a matter if he could be bluffing. It is a matter of whether he can be bluffing with air 30% of the time. I'd don't believe that there are GTO wizards running around in a 1/1 game, so I doubt he is bluffing that much. Fold.

Well damn. Idk it's close. If hes capable of bluffing here then I think we have to call since this is probably the best scare card he could hope for but folding isn't terrible.

Flop we need to bet bigger. Our hand is super vulnerable and is likely the best hand right now. Honestly I think shoving flop might be the best play. Im not an expert at 40bb poker tho. Pretty far from it actually

Yeah shoving might be good. In a different thread it was mentioned that solver shoves up to 4x pot on these flush draw semi-connected boards with some over pairs. As you mentioned we are quite short due to straddle

i like shoving. once we decide to bet the flop we are basically pot stuck anyway, so we might as well get all the money in on the flop. In "Wisdom of a Poker Champion" Doyle Brunson writes that any time you are going to put in half your stack you might as well put the whole thing in.

Shoving flop almost forces villain to play correctly.
Folding out all 9x, 8x and if villain is any good most draws, except for the very best ones.

I've put in 75 total and have 125 eff left after the flop.

Shoving 170 into a 80 pot basically turns my hand face up.

Sometimes you can just shove and let them surprise you.

There are 2 reasons a shove is good here. First, it's about twice pot, but that's OK; you're laying odds that you haven't already been outdrawn, and you usually haven't (for the price you're laying).

The stacks are too short for you to be overly concerned about turning your hand face up. If your hand was face up then they were supposed to fold preflop, right?

Second, if someone called you with a hand that can now call 50 on the flop, they made a big mistake preflop. So the fact that they could do that means that you can sometimes let them make an even bigger mistake on the flop.

Basically, I think you are wrong about how much you're folding out when you jam flop vs. betting 50. You might fold out some stuff that would have called, but not as much as you think.

As I said upthread, in this spot I prefer to bet 75 or so, but I do think shoving flop is superior to your sizing.

That was my first thought. The general rule is, if they name a hand, it's a hand they hope you have. Enough to swing this to a clear fold.

If Villain were quiet I'd probably call the last bet here.

Yeah except almost no one does this. Generally a bluff means they'll go silent like they're in a foxhole avoiding detection by the enemy. Any talking at all swings the likelihood to a good hand.

The story he's telling is, "I called out the contents of your hand and now I'm going to get you to fold it with my big bluff," I suppose. Then you're supposed to fight back: "He thinks he can bluff me off aces! I'll show him a thing or two."

You can consider this a weak-means-strong tell. However you classify it, it's pretty reliable. Please do call three or four of these and then report back so I can update priors if I'm wrong.

"find better spots" is so tilting. If a move is +EV but you decline it because another hand would be greater EV, your decision making process and theoretical foundation is completely broken.

You probably meant a call is -EV here, though. With Villain's table talk, I agree.

Yeah, I don't think shoving is very good unless Villain has seen you overbet bluff recently or some other metagame consideration.

To me the impulse to overbet JJ is probably a sign of playing to avoid tough decisions or looking stupid calling off rather than playing to maximize value.

Grunge:

On flop you have $170 and pot is $80 with JJ on 983 board? Easy allin. What rare turn cards are good for you? Don't overthink this.....

Dumb thing about this hand is I don't remember if that 3 on the flop is actually a 3.
I'm actually pretty sure it wasn't, could've been a 2, 4 or 5

I do remember villain showing me 33 after I folded and showed my JJ.
I also remember looking at the board and thinking, damn he bluffed me.
But then later I couldn't remember if there was a 3 or not

But there is no way to know if it's truly+ev. "Wait for a better sopt" means find a spot where we're more confident in knowig Vs range. We are very much guessing and could be very wrong. That's all it means.