Saturday night at Excalibur. Table is seven handed. Action has been pretty good as four players have VPIPs above 45.
Villain 1 is a mid 40s caucasian male. His VPIP/PFR has been 45/2 over 50 hands. In the last few orbits I have observed him limp/call with QQ in early position twice. In one of those hands he flopped top set and took a line of check/call, check, bet 1/2 psb against the preflop raiser in the heads up pot. He starts the hand with roughly $400.
Villain 2 is a late 20s caucasian male. His VPIP/PFR has been 49/26 over 50 hands. He has tended to c-bet very often and generally play aggressive post flop. In one hand in which he was heads up for a dry sidepot he bet with ace high OTR to fold out chops and small pairs after his OOP opponent checked three times (neither hero nor V1 involved in this pot). He starts the hand with roughly $250.
Hero is a late twenties caucasian male. My VPIP/PFR has been 13/10 over 130 hands. I've played one hand against V1 about three orbits ago in which I raised to $12 pre UTG, V1 called OTB, flop came J 7 3 r, I c-bet $17, he raised to $40 and I folded. Against V2 I played a hand an orbit ago in which I raised to $12 over his limp, I c-bet $15 on a two tone flop and he called, I bet $35 on a blank turn and he folded. I start the hand with $330.
On to the hand: V1 limps in EP, folds to V2 who raises to $12. Folds to hero in CO who calls with 8
8
. BTN folds, blinds fold and V1 calls. Flop comes A
K
8
. V1 checks, V2 bets $22, hero raises to $55, V1 raises to $110, V2 folds, hero ???
After seeing V1 open limp/call from EP with QQ, I can see him possibly taking this line with KK. I tend to discount AA since he had a chance to l/rr pre, but it's still possible. If I say he can do this 33% of the time with AA then I define his winning hands as 1 combo of AA, 3 combos of KK for 4 total combos. There are 9 combos of AK he may have as well as 3 combos of A8. Not sure if I can include K8 for this line; if I only include the suited combos then K8hh and K8dd can be thrown in as well. I don't know if this kind of villain ever does this with strong draws or combo draws, but if he can then I can include hands like Q
J
in his range as well as 8
7
.
If he does have two pair, I feel concerned that he can see strong draws in my own range so that any club freezes action on future streets. If I were to flat his raise I would have $208 left. Does anyone like to flat here to prevent V1 from realizing the strength of our hand, or is it always better to 4bet to prevent scare cards from killing our action? If we do 4bet, is a shove preferable or do we like to raise some intermediate amount (again, to possibly string him along and not give away our hand strength)?