1/1 £120 effective stacks 8 handed, two hours into session.

Hero is MAWG perceived as TAG with propensity to overfold unless tilted at which point minor spew is possible. I've been playing tight and been somewhat card dead - everything I've had has been at the bottom of my preflop open/iso ranges so far. Villain has 3bet me 3 times: once HU IP, once as an IP squeeze and once as an OOP squeeze Vs my CO open. I've folded all three and look weak-tight but Villain has seen me being much more aggressive and sticky in a previous session.

Villain is younger guy and a dangerous competent player but playing a bit too loose (IMO). I've got about 8 hours time in game with him and have seen he's capable of everything you'd expect a good LAG/TAG to be capable of. Generally he takes aggressive lines but he's quite happy taking passive lines when appropriate.


UTG Hero £120 KQ opens £6

BTN Villain (covers) calls my open

SB and BB somewhat sticky recs (covers? Dealer is between us so difficult for me to see BB stack at start of hand). Both call.


Flop (£24): A39

SB and BB - check

UTG Hero - checks because I've decided to take balanced lines against villain especially OOP. I have only got K-high and backdoor gutshots so this is a X/F for me here. I'll have many better hands to B/F, B/C, X/R and X/C here IMO.

BTN Villain - checks


Turn (£24): Q

SB and BB - check

UTG Hero - I've unexpectedly made 2nd pair/2nd kicker on 3-flush turn and it's still 4-way. Therefore I elect to take a X/evaluate route.

BTN Villain - bets £16

SB and BB - both fold

UTG Hero - calls.


River £56 pot, £100 effective stacks: 2

UTG Hero - checks

BTN V - bets £37

Hero?

I think he is repping a flush here or nothing , you don't block any spades, do you think he would bet his flush draws on the flop? I think the only thing you beat is a busted spade draw or spade + straight draw which is possible if he was semi bluffing the turn; I am leaning towards a fold because price is not that good.

I'm really not sure how many of his FDs V bets flop with. I've seen him put pressure on people HU and 3-way with semibluffs (and complete airballs) but here it's 4-way and other villains are a little sticky. The blinds players are likely checking all their AX for top kicker to me on the flop so BTN villain can't tell they don't have AX till they check the turn. This makes me think V certainly doesn't bet all his FDs on the flop.

I guess if he's betting some and checking some he's checking the KXss QXss JXss (which he doesn't want to get X/R off of on the flop) and betting the baby-FDs with small SC that he's happier bet/folding. However, some of them potentially have gutshots around the A and 3 on the flop so maybe they just check back too or maybe that makes him more inclined to bet them since he can bet/call the more equity he has.

Trouble is stacks aren't deep now it's gone 4-way so any fop X/R is likely to be rather committing and this may put him off betting any FDs.

What I thought was that this villain deffo bets most of his AX on this flop knowing he can both get value from and need to protect against FDs.

I feel like this might be a call you are kind of near the top of your range here no? Also might he value bet QJ here or do you think he would just check that back? If he's a good lag who uses his image for thin value that's possible.

I agree that I don't think he has a lot of aces here especially with the sticky regs he just has to bet those on the flop. He can have JT pocket pairs with spades, maybe even unsuited connectors w/spade if he calls that loose preflop.

I think against a competent lag I'm calling this is too tight to fold. Especially given your image I think he's likely to be overbluffing and sometimes show up with air just trying to take the pot away when its checked to him twice, you clearly don't have a strong hand. Furthermore you can conceivably beat some value bets ( QJ, QT)

I agree he probly doesn't have Ax combos which is a plus

Seems like a good hand to call with on the river. We don't block any spade draws and villain probably bets flop with two spades most of the time. Odds are decent.

Thanks guys.

I had to think about it on the river but glad to say I managed to think of most of your points in-game (good stuff for me - usually a little slow!).

So my decision process came down to:

- looks like a flush but how many does he actually have given two high flush cards on board and no flop bet? Maybe not many...

- he's potentially loose enough and confident enough to flat me with offsuit connectors and offsuit Broadway so he can have a bunch straight draws with a high spade which bet turn and miss river: KsJx KxJs KsTx KxTs JsTx JxTs

- there are only 4 combos of low straight draws that made it on the river.

- AX deffo bets flop a lot of the time so not many top pairs in this line.

- I'm looking like I'm super happy folding in this session and I can't have anything but QX/JJ/TT with this line.

- I don't block any of the remaining high spades (I could hear ImAllinNow saying pretty much exactly what you've said above lol).

So I call and villain says "you're good, just trying to see if I can make you fold a Q" he doesn't show and I don't want to be rude and force him to do so. I suspect he could have been completely airballing me here.

You’re just so high up in your range this should be a call anyway when you add in your image and the player description this is easy call

I thought that too at the time but having given it further thought...

I'm not sure this is true given I'd decided to take balanced lines OOP Vs this opponent. It's also 4-way to the flop so I'm checking a lot of hands even if I take unbalanced lines.

My open range is something like 99+ AQ+ BWs for a total of 100 combos.

I'll probably check the flop with AJs- and NFDs: KJss KTss.

I'll bet flop with AA 99 AK AQ TTsx JJsx JTss and KQhh KJhh KThh QJhh QThh JThh (30 value combos and 13 bluff combos so I'll be betting no more than half pot on this flop). I'm having to use some pairs as bluffs because I simply don't have enough draws to distribute between my check and bet ranges to balance my large quantity of AX. I suppose I could check some AQ on the flop but that seems silly 4-way vs loose players on a two-tone board

My check flop range (with hindsight after Qs turn) contains KJss KTss QQ AJs ATs KK KQs JJ/TT-no-spade QJ/QT/KJ/KT/JT-in-diamonds&clubs. So I have 17 combos stronger than KQs, 2 combos OESD and KKsx has NFD) and 14 combos weaker than KQs.

So really I'm kind of right in the middle of my range.

I agree I have an absolutely strong hand by comparison to Villain's betting range on the flop but that's more due to my initially very tight EP open range combined with V's very loose range AND him not betting flop. It's not really because of where I happen to be in my range.

What confused me and nearly caused me to fold river was KQcc/dd were in my flop X/F line so I almost thought "they're not a real part of my turn defence range because they're not in my flop X/C range". Thus I initially felt like I didn't need to bother defending river.

I guess this must be erroneous thinking. Just because I wanted to lose those hands on the flop to an expected position bet once they get through to turn they become part of balanced turn defence/give-up ranges. I think?

Is this right?

Because there's a danger when multiway and flop gets checked through that we end up with too wide and weak a range on turns such that if we take balanced lines we might value-own ourselves? This is particularly true in spots where we're one of the last players to check flop and we're the PFR because we really don't have any information about how strong the OOP players are since they'll routinely check their entire range to us on the flop.

Is this a legit concern or just my usual overthink?

This is mostly a version of sunk cost fallacy. The "I'm giving up on this hand" on the flop thought should not carry through to the turn thoughts. i.e. your decision to check/give up the flop does not have any bearing on your decision once the turn comes other than how that flop check defines what your range is.

For your opponent to exploit this, they would A. Have to check the flop with a strong hand and B. make the turn be a Q but make you have KQ instead of QQ or a slowplayed AA or KJ that you decided to add to your flop check/call range.

Got it. Thanks ImAllinNow.