1/2, 9 handed, $500 effective.

Hero should have a TAG image, but villain isn't much of a thinking player.

Villain is a very aggressive fish that takes unorthodox lines regularly; for example, villain semi frequently calls flop bets with hands like bottom pair or a gut shot, then leads big on the turn and river whether or not he hits. Villain also over values hands...I don't have explicit examples off of the top of my head, but I remember villain betting the pot on a scary board with TPTK, and I tank called with an OP and he was shocked his hand wasn't good and that I called.

OTTH

Two loose passives limp to hero in LJ who raises Q J $15 and only villain in BB calls.

Flop ($35): T 9 4. Villain checks. Hero?

My standard play would be $25 or so here, but against this guy I don’t personally mind mixing in a check at a low frequency.

Bet sometimes and check sometimes. Normally I would almost always go $20/$25 in this situation but against a very aggro villain I'm taking the free card more often. Probably around 50/50 bets and checks.

Standard cbet but I don't mind checking against this guy. You face likely turn aggression though if you don't turn more equity, so you need a plan for this scenario.

Bet $25.

250bb eff and a bd FD. If we were 100bb then I'd probably check.

Given deep stack sizes, this feels like a good spot to build a pot. I like betting.

I don't understand the feedback to check sometimes here for balance. Villain isn't paying attention, no need to balance.

$20 … start building a pot ip with strong equity and blockers.

It has nothing to do with balance. I never mentioned balance and neither did QuadJ.

Interesting to hear an argument for checking. I honestly didn't think of that, but I do understand the argument. Anyways, hero bets $25 and villain calls.

Turn ($85): T. Villain checks. Hero?

Can you explain why checking occasionally is optimal then? Thx.

Dream card on turn. You say villain lines to lead turn, but he checked. I bet $60. Unlikely he has a 10, if he does and is trapping there is a good chance he will just call (trappers love to trap till the river).

Does villian have a fold button at all? If so, and he x/r turn, i may 3bet jam depending on sizing.

I said semi frequently, not every time...Also, his leads usually tend to be either weaker or a hidden hit on turn/river (gutshoy, bottom trips, turned bottom two, etc.)

And no, villain doesn't have much of a fold button

Fkop bet was good, sizing is fine. Rarely checking against this opponent unless I already have or an trying to set up a dynamic for future play.

Turn is a good car for us. Removes many 2p combos, brings our backdoor closer, and gives us quite a bit more equity against the rare bottom 2p.

I like another bet here. Either large ($65) to discourage him raising ($65) or super small (lol same bet, $25) with the plan to 3bet shove the turn if he makes a raise on the turn baring some soul read that hes strong.

Bet $60

Mostly because of what iraisetoomuch said above ^.
I could write a fair bit on why, but here’s the short answer...


I might try to explain my thoughts more later.
Too tired atm.
Awesome gif image btw Tbird.

Bet flop with dd, turn is obv a check. Not a good card to bluff or for your range

huh? Turn is an easy check. That Ten is one of the worst cards in the deck for our range.

Bet flop, check turn, decide river.

If we improve, obviously call a donk.

But probably b/f whether we improve or not if checked to.

Haha thanks.

So you and iraisetoomuch are suggesting to incorporate a check in order to influence future play against this opponent. This only makes sense if you assume villain is capable of noticing it and acting on it, which he most definitely isn't. I oversimplified by calling it "balancing", but it's the same broad point.

^ @ Tbird

Okay, so yes, that’s part of why.
But what I was thinking is more that this sounds like the type of V who will do some funky stuff like x/r a 9x type hand or a 7-8o type hand, which might not seem so bad, but actually is a pretty unfortunate result for us on times when the turn bricks hard and then V fires a sizeable turn bet again, first to act.
I know it’s not great to do things based on worst case scenarios, but there’s also another benefit of checking back the flop the odd time.
V will feel more incentivized to lead on the turn and now we have a good spot to raise as a semi-bluff on various turns or for pure value when we bink.
We’re also effectively able to see the whole board runout this way and decide which times are optimal for double barrelling the turn/river as bluffs, and which times we’re better off just giving up and surrendering the hand relatively cheap.
So it’s not really solely for balance purposes, but this hand just plays extremely well OTF as a bet and a check imo. If we’re talking pure EV, I would imagine betting is usually better, which is why I said that I would bet most of the time, but don’t hate a check the odd time.

I honestly thought the turn would be the least interesting street to analyze...I really thought the concencus would be standard check.

Even though we pick up an OESFD, we are up against a fish with not much of a fold button. On top of that, he has more Tx in his range, and he's definitely not folding 2p now. I think this is actually a bad card.

Anyways, hero checks back.


River ($85): 8. Villain bets $60. Hero?

Villain is super aggro fish, it will be very annoying if hero bets and villain raises with a weak hand, lower draw or total air. Stack sizes would mostly force hero to fold with just an OESD because villain can have better hands also.

Good card for hero because villain was likely to bet or raise with a ten at some point and it should give hero more outs. With the pot at $85 I like $45/$50. Make it look a bit like you have TX and are trying to string as much money as you can out of him. Give your description if he calls that bet and hero doesn't improve I would give up river a lot.

If you think villain's flop call means he has something and won't give up then a check behind on the turn is also fine. Hero has a lot of outs but against that sort hero probably needs to catch something to win.

Sort of sucks to have villain wake up now and bet. Not because I think he has a better hand, I'm never folding this against a super aggro type. Rather I don't see many worse hands that call a raise. Against a villain that can be over valuing something I still like a thin raise but it's situational. If villain can find a fold unless he backed into some straight or better himself I could see checking behind. I like a smallish raise to $150 to temp him into calling weak, might go $200.

@QuadJ, Extrascratch: You are giving reasons why checking is better than betting. That might be true, but that's a big diff from bet 90% check 10%.

It seems to me like you're equating "I'm like 90% sure betting is better than checking, so I'm going to bet 90% and check 10%". But this isn't true. Against this villain, if you're 90% sure betting is better than checking, than you bet 100% of the time. You never check.


As played, this is the dream river. You have an opportunity to get max value from a super aggro fish. Get max value. $300.

If you aren't raising this river - you don't have a river raising range since you would always bet your trips/boats OTT (disregard if you do slowplay at some frequency)

If you don't have a raising range OTR then you never have a bluffing range.

Can we see how this is not a good way to construct our ranges?

I'm not checking back Q high with this much equity ott. His flop calling range is much wider than Tx, and some % of the time he will have x/r flop or led turn with a T

If your read is correct then he's never folding 9x; that's fine we have a meager... 21 outs? lol. We'll also have much better FE on the river against this portion of his range having bet the turn

We have good equity and great implied odds against Tx which again based on V's description he'll call off a huge bet with even when draws come in

AP raising river without hesitation