1/2 9-handed, a few people up from the table momentarily. This has been a more loose aggressive table than I'm used to. Hero is an early 20's white guy, he sat down with only 130$, this buy in went fairly quickly after playing AK twice and our c-bets not getting through when we missed, one of these hands was against the upcoming villain who called our 6x UTG open, called our c-bet on Qxx, and bet when we checked to him and showed us a Q. We got in the rest of our remaining stack TT vs. AQ and lost. Re-bought in for 200, we chip up a little bit in a relevant hand that goes...

Folds to hero OTB with 89o opens to 7, blinds defend, our villain in the BB starts off buy saying " I should re-raise this" but doesn't and flicks in the red chip. flop is Qxx two spades, checks through, turn is a 9, SB checks BB bets 10, we call SB calls, river is an 8 no flushes on board, SB checks BB bets 15 we call, SB calls, BB shows 97s hearts, we show two pair SB shows JJ?! says he was waiting for villain to re-raise pre, they clearly know each other both 20yo college kids.

and then we lost a big hand.. limper, older wg deep stack opens, we flat in the CO with AJs, B (guy with JJ from previous hand) calls, BB calls, limper calls. AK2 two diamonds, PFR bets small we call, everyone else calls, AK28 still only 1 FD, PFR makes same small bet, we raise and B puts in the rest of his chips, we called off and lost to A8 offsuit.. We made a bad call, and we showed our hand having gotten all in on the turn.

Finally, we get in the rest of our second buy-in ( ~40$) with 77 vs. two AK's. A great spot to triple, of course they chop my money..

We have now bought in for another 200$, and any comments about my image that differ from the way I think I'm perceived, which I'm about to go into, are appreciated.

So, I think I clearly have a losing image after calling off with the AJ and being stuck 330$, in for 530$. I think I am perceived as having a tight pre-flop range having not played too many hands and shown only good cards for the most part. This range has been shown to loosen significantly when folded to on the button however, having showed 89o from that position. My c-bet frequency is high and has met a lot of resistance from hands beating my AK's high, which I folded. So It would appear I can be exploited post-flop

Villain is 20yo white guy, goes to University of Chicago, he likes to talk during hands and is loose-aggressive. He has ~500$, a winning image but has had at least one bluff picked off.
example: heads up action villain vs. LAG to his left. I start paying attention on the turn which goes.. Villain bets into LAG on 887J two spade board and gets raised by LAG, villain says "huh.. something something" shifts around uncomfortably and calls, villain leads ~100 on a blank river and says out loud he thinks his opponent has KK or QQ. LAG calls with QQ and scoops, villain mucked his hand

OTTH:

Folds to Hero (200$) OTB with K3 opens to 7$
SB (covers) calls
Villain (covers) calls

Flop (21$): 283

check check
Hero bets 10$

SB folds, Villain quickly check raises to 25$

I feel like this villain is check-raising too often trying to re-steal. This small raise seems designed to get a frequent c-bet to fold when I have air. I feel that this villain would usually just call with an 8, and could easily have flush draws or 45 56 type hands or even two over cards. I decided to call

Turn(71$): Q283

Villain bets 35$
Hero(168$) calls cuz I thinks he bluffing me

River(141$): 2Q283

Villain jams for hero's remaining 133$

I immediately show visible discomfort and start talking, "God, I think your bluffing me but I've got nothing" then I say "I've just got a pair" and I show 'him my hand.. he doesn't say anything. The guy next to me though says I cannot show my hand and that it's dead, I tell him that it's not and the dealer verifies that I'm ok. Now villain gives the dealer an 'are you sure' sort of look as if I'm getting away with something. The dealer actually says to me twice "you are good", and for a second I think he wants me to call lmao.
Now I ask villain If he wants me to call, he sort of just shrugs his shoulders, turns his palms face up, and tilts his head a little with an "I don't know, up to you" expression. I tell him I really don't think he's check raising me with an 8, but that maybe he took bottom pair and got lucky. He says "Ok, then call me.. or don't.. " "Now he asks for a clock"

I keep thinking on it, clearly frustrated, I apologize to the table and they say no worries take your time big decision etc..

dealer says he'll give me another minute and then call clock.

Now villain tells me he has 9's and asks If I want to see one as he peels his top card slightly, and tells me to pick one.

Immediately I say yes, I say show me the bottom one. He hesitates and then turns over the top card and it's the 9 of diamonds..

"and its a diamond!" I say

some uncomfortable seeming laughter and he says something about mind games

obviously we like seeing a diamond, and I really think this player would 3-bet 99 from the BB but I can't be sure, In fact I do not think he would play 99 this way at all, who knows.

I think on it a little more considering that he's showing me a diamond to get me to call and I pick up my cards holding them as if they are about to be helicoptered into the muck, but I hesitate and don't muck them still thinking I'm good.

Now he says "O' cmon now your angling me"
"No I'm not.."
" That is an angle.." with a genuine tone expressing disapproval

I was not trying to get a read off him by 'fake' mucking my hand, but I did feel a little guilty about the entire situation and over the top table talk. However, I suddenly felt a lot better about my hand so I put my cards back down and grabbed some chips.

dealer tells him "If you know its an angle, then its not an angle.."

I say Ok and I call...

I will post the results later..

Thoughts on this spot AP, call or fold?
does the talk and 9 of diamonds affect this decision?

and also what are your thoughts on this level of digging for information?
Do you guys consider this bad poker etiquette? I personally enjoy any sort of mind games or leveling and consider them part of the game.

Call and definitely call after all that happened think he looks pretty weak

too many words in this post

raise bigger preflop

as played....fold flop

FWIW, I always say "go ahead, take your time" when someone apologizes for taking too much time, even when I think the player is needlessly wasting time. The reason is that when people are critized about wasting time, they always take even more time. There's no diamond FD on the board, so people thought you were being a smart ass, which is understandable after you played 20 questions, can I see one card and pretended to fold. Everyone is uncomfortable at this point, which is why the laugh was uncomfortable.

Of course the villain thinks he's weak, he's got second pair. Not much to go on for putting your stack in.

Is he bluffing 30% of the time with air? If yes, then you call. If not, then you fold. It doesn't take much time to decide. Don't take this much time again on this type of decision.

FYP.

You have a losing image....don't raise Krag with that image. You will be torching $$.

Errrr.... yes there is, ever since the flop

Also fold flop. The bottom of V's check/raising flop range is 45 or two diamonds, both of which are equity favorites against you.

Bad wording on my part. I got mislead because the OP put the cards from right to left instead of the conventional left to right. Still, it being a diamond has no meaning on the river. The FD never got there.

You've asked not to get feedback on prior decisions so I'll just address your questions. IMO the fake fold is over the top and bad etiquette. I'm all for using talk if others are willing to engage but if it takes longer than a minute or two people are going to start to get annoyed. I may have called clock too.

Hard to say if I call or fold without seeing it live but I would consider all of the conversation and exposed card. The part that stands out most to me is if he has you beat I cant imagine a level where he wants to make extra sure your hand isn't dead after the dealer says it's still live.

Sure it does, it means that a significant portion of V's range is diamond draws that missed.

If he had turned over the 9s instead, we should be turbomucking.

You must be imagining something different that what I am thinking of.

I've found this to be an extremely reliable live tell. Imagine you're considering a call or fold against a villain who is sitting completely still, silent, and stoic.

You take off the chip protecting your cards, place it back on the top of your stack. Take one last look at your hand and pick your cards up like you're just about to toss them in the muck.

If your opponent doesn't flinch, you might want to reconsider a fold. Usually when players remain still, it means they like what's happening, and don't want to do anything to influence the action you appear to be taking.

It works the other way too. Ask the dealer the amount of the bet, and count out chips in front of you. If V flinches, it's because he's not happy about what's happening, and you can comfortably call. If he freezes, then he's trying not to interfere with what you're about to do, and you should reconsider calling.

Now a "flinch" can be literally anything. That's why this is a somewhat reliable tell. When people like what's happening, they freeze. Statue-mode. Any movement at all counts as a flinch. Scratch his nose, wiggle in his chair, take a sip of a drink....anything except statue-mode means he doesn't like what you're doing.

Your examples are not the same Owl. This guy is literally helicopter folding and then pump fakes. To me that's over the top, while your more subtle actions in the flow of the game accomplish the same thing without being blatantly obvious.

If only poker were this easy lmao. Nobody would ever make a mistake closing the action on the river, and we would never have to wait for people "thinking about their decision".

I clearly have not learned your skill of knowing the percentage of hands my opponent is bluffing with. Instead, I search for meaningless information like one of my opponents cards that increases his chances of having a bluff, since the FD never got there..

Also, I did not pump fake my hand. It was more like what Owl described. I just picked up my hand as I was considering mucking it, and basically loaded my wrist a little so I could toss it in the muck. Then I just hesitated and sat like that for a while, genuinely frustrated over the decision and he said I was angling him.

Ok, I'm curious about why this is the case.

Do you agree that a suited K rag in position is +EV against two random hands?

If so, how does having a losing image drastically make this -EV?

If not, then how tight is your opening range when Its folded to you OTB against two looser players?

He showed you the 9d and you're still thinking?????


What is he supposed to have for value here with the 9d?? Q9?


Obv we werent there but dude seems ridiculously uncomfortable and messed up by showing a card?

I dunno maybe he has 99 and is going for crazy thin value, but this seems like a stupid lol live poker spot where he probably has exactly what it looks like when he shows you the 9d

With a winning image where people respect your bets and you can barrel tons of boards and get folds, maybe it is +EV. With a losing image and a hand where your most likely made hand is top pair/lousy kicker, and where people will call you down light because you have that losing image, not a chance it is +EV.

Reign it in when you are losing/running bad until you win and show down some premiums. Then you can bring these types of hands back into your preflop mix.

Don't play winning poker until you're already winning....

wut????????????

Also, FYI - Top pair is a fine hand, regardless of kicker, in a BTN v Blind situation.

PS - If I read the OP right, we're down like 50BB's....how bad could our image be?

The post is kind of TLDR and I don't participate or do well at these mind games, so I don't know what to say about the river, except that if you called flop/turn to exploit someone who's overbluffing, you should probably call a brick river, too.

Who cares about our image? K3s is not close to the bottom of my BU opening range, so that's not a hand I'm looking to dump if we feel we need to tighten up. Despite being a steal, I think we should feel comfortable with it in position when we get called.

I agree with this, and also having bottom pair on this board will be ahead of a lot of our steals. Facing this small raise from an aggressive opponent trying to re-steal, I'm happy with calling on the flop

I am jealous.

I don't know anyone in my games who would raise K3s pre, call a check/raise on the flop, VPIP 18bb's in on the turn, and then think bottom pair is a winner on the river.

Guess neither my Villains nor myself are sufficiently enlightened players.

Except that his stealing range crushes your hand

I guess I think he tries to steal more often than you think he does. Lets think of the value hands he might play this way and then bet the turn with.. Not many that make sense, I think he is heavily weighted towards draws and air. Yes, a lot of draws are actually slight favorites against our hand. But we have position, and by calling we force him to either give up on his bluffs or make some big mistakes against the rest of our range that can call the flop. We can comfortably fold any diamond, but on this run out, the range of value hands that makes sense is condensed drastically when he keeps betting like this IMO. If we never tried showing down these weaker 1 pair hands, our opponents could comfortably give up on turns and rivers that don't improve their hands. I like including this hand in the bottom of a range that continues on the flop, or else I feel I'm just c-bet folding too often to a small raise like this.

A bluff-raise on the flop is not typically called a re-steal. This will lead to confusion.

This hand is not a very good hand to call down with. His bluffs have significant equity and our hand doesn't improve very often. On the flop I'd prefer to call almost any draw, or even good backdoor draws which can also improve to top pair, like Tc9c.

Personally I find it painful to be at the table while these artless information-fishing expeditions are taking place, but I guess you have the right to do so, just like anyone else has the right to silently replay the hand in the tank.

As for what you did, it seems like you're hoping something useful will leak out but I don't see where you are proceeding according to a system. I'd be glad to learn more about how to induce information leaks reliably.

Maybe re-read. We are on our 3rd buyin as far as I can tell.

Winning poker is not played in a vacuum or by rote. Gameflow and recent hand history play a role in how people perceive you and correspondingly how light they may call you on future hands. If you ignore these types of factors, you will negatively impact your earn.