Villain is a competent player who I really havent been involved with except for one hand in previous orbit where we were in same positions (me UTG, villain button) when I had JJ, king high on flop goes check/check, king on turn he leads out I call, checked on river I take down the pot. He shakes his head in an up and down motion and he definitely made a mental note on how I played the hand. I get the impression he pegs me as a tight/conservative player, which on this day at this table, I am. One thing I did notice about him is he makes it a point to always look at his opponents intensely to try to get a read.
As far as him getting a visual read off me, per usual when in hands, I just stare at the board and casually shuffle my two cards, making sure to always do it at a slow pace, sometimes stopping/restarting but always making sure to never do it quickly. What can I say I think it relaxes me when I'm in a hand. Dont think anyone can get a tell off this since I'm constantly doing it.
We both start this hand w/around $500 and the villain has straddled to $5 on the button per usual.. Two players before me fold. I raise UTG to $15. Another dude in cut-off that plays in 90% of hands calls and villain on button calls. Pot is $48.
Flop comes 2h 4s 9s. I lead out for $30 with my 10 10 (I do not have a spade), cut-off folds, and button raises to $75. What do I do?
I'm probably peeling this raise. I'm not showdown bound just because the board runs out clean, though: it seems pretty obvious that we have an overpair, FD + overcards or a set to continue here given our PF position. TT will probably be one of our worse continues against a turn bet. For now, though, the price is pretty good and he has to fire multiple shells to get me off tens.
JJ+ likely 3b pre, no? Nutty part of his range would be As2s/22/44/99. There are many over card and FD combos that make me want to peel another, so call. We also block T9s.
I'd bet at least pot on flop with many bad turn cards looming oop.
After debating whether to fold/call/raise, I chose to call. The turn brought another under card that wasnt a spade (sorry this is now a few days ago and I dont remember the exact card). Anyway it didnt change much of anything.
I checked the turn. He shoves all in approximately $400. Obviously I can't call.
I'm actually surprised people suggested to call the raise. On hindsight, I think it was better to either fold to the raise or re-raise the villain. I think in a sense he was testing me to see how I would react to him raising me on the flop. I also think the previous hand I referenced when I had JJ may have come into play as he saw I was sticky even when a 2nd King came out on the board with him betting and me calling his bet. I dont know.
The more I think about it the more confused I get and I'm still not certain what the correct play was. Maybe he thought I was drawing to a flush and he had something like A9, which seems very reasonable in this spot. I guess over all the possible scenarios this seems most likely, but I'll never know.
$20 pre. people who straddle don't fold for an extra $10 and we want at least some fold range esp on BTN
i probably just nit up and fold. it's probaly a +EV call but you're going to have to play perfect post and that's not easy
I would have to disagree with comment regarding the straddle, at least in the games I play. Player dependent of course, but I have several times gotten straddling buttons to fold with only a 3x raise.
