Villain ($450): 60ish WG who sat down about 1.5 hrs ago. Bought in for the max (match biggest stack), but surprisingly is REALLY bad. If limped to plays ~95/10. If there is a raise, he is still calling about 75 - 80% of the time, so he's involved in most of the flops. I'm sitting next to him and if I'm not in the hand he is showing me his cards post-flop. He calls any reasonable bets w/ ANY piece of the flop and if checked to will bet the exact same. Flop can be 4 ways and he is betting bottom pair from any position. Completely positionally unaware. Have not seen any true solid aggression from him (no 3!, no flop raises, all bets all very small).

Hero ($425): 30ish WG, true TAG image as I'm playing less hands than everyone but raising more pre and better bigger both pre and post than everyone else's lol tiny bet sizing.

OTTH... Hero raises to $8 UTG w/ 22, V calls UTG+1, CO calls, button calls. CO and Button are loose-passive players, not super relevant in hand. I know this can be a limp pre, but I'm in the "never open limp" camp.

Flop ($30): QJ2 SB checks, Hero leads out $35. V calls, CO and button fold.

Turn ($100): QJ2 J Hero bets $50. V raises to $100. Hero??

You should be ahead here most of the time. Lots of draws in V’s range. I click it back to $200 and feel decent about it. Also betting any non-Q or J river.

Unless V is very passive when he has a hand (i.e. does not raise two pair on the flop) which it sounds like he's not, then I think we can be feeling pretty good here. I guess he has Jx in his range a lot.

This gives him roughly 16% to make his hand (sum(3 of his kicker, 3 queens, 1 jack)/(52-8)). If you make it 100 on top that means he needs 20% odds to call. I don't think you are punishing him enough with that bet size. I think the question is how much negative equity do you think you can get him to give away in this spot.

You can always be behind, but I would accept stacking off here if that's the case as I think he plays hands faster on the flop that are now ahead. If you think that read is off though, please say so.

Isn't villain most often raising this flop with Q-J, Q-2 or J-2?

Looks like you are good. Calling, then checking flop works for me. Let him burn more cash off on the turn. Then if he checks you can bet the river.

Sorry - call, then likely bet river if it is a blank.

yeah this is a def call then bet river imo.

What is he repping here? I can't see QJ unless he's really passive and just calls a flop bet w/a flush draw/straight draw on the flop, then raising w/a boat on the turn? Feels like a Jx hand, raising w/trips on the turn. AJ/KJ/J10 seems the top of the range, maybe a bd flush draw too

I like the utg raise too, especially with you knowing the action behind you seems unwilling to 3bet unless premium hands. With over 200bb i can see where some prefer limping to set mine though.

To be clear, I am (obviously) never folding here, so I'm curious on what people see as the advantages/disadvantages of re-raising/jamming the turn versus flatting.

Thoughts?

We're way ahead of his range here, but since a lot of his range is a naked Jx, there are a lot of cards that will fall to kill our river action. Any club, any diamond for sure, and T, K, A will give him some pause. Plus of course we sure as hell don't want to see a Q/J hit, and it's hard to tell what other cards will fill him up.

Therefore, we raise now. I like $230, jam all non-Q/J rivers.

His range is mostly Jx and draws (some if which wont put any more money in on the river if he misses - you said you haven't seen genuine aggression so we can't expect him to bluff missed draws).

A small part of his range is QJ which flatted the flop - its such a small part of his range its not worth worrying about.

The Jx hands aren't folding to a raise and even the draws are probably still happy to put more money in on the turn.

4bet turn to 225, if he calls there will be 550 in the pot and 160 remaining in stacks.

Call then hope he gets there on the flush rivers.

No risk of missing out on money if he misses as he wouldnt call any bets. Players like this will usually bet big trips like AJ or Jx+.

Disagree with raising now as it accomplishes damn near nothing.

Turn I’d bet more like 65-75. As played I think a min raise is basically saying his player is never folding. I think a raise to 200 and shove basically all rivers. I don’t like flatting at all out of position. I really like raising any amount over checking. If we do check we are check jamming on safe cards

By raising, we're getting villain to put more money in with his draws and possibly even inducing him to jam.

He is going to miss any flush draws around 80% of the time.

I'm with this. I like raising here because we get V to commit his stack with his entire non-bluff range. If we flat then we allow his draws to see the river and possibly put no more money into the pot when he misses. If he has Jx he's most likely not folding even on bad rivers, but there's always a chance certain rivers will allow him to not stack off. I think the turn is a great spot to get both his value hands and draws to commit.

Because this player was very loose and mostly passive (no 3! pre, no flop raises before this, very smallish bet sizing), I really discounted strong draws (as I think he smooth calls those) and thought Jx was very likely his holding.

If we remove most draws from his range, does that change the thought at all? With 2 flush draws out there on the turn, is there merit to shoving so that V doesn't get away from Jx if a flush completes on the river?

Yes.

Yes but only if you are certain he will call. I think this one is pretty close. I like the click it back to $200/shove all no draw completing rivers option as it looks bluffier and he is more likely to call with Jx. If we shove now, that might give him pause to stack off, but you seem to know the guy pretty wellk so read dependent.

I can go either way. Totally V-dependent. If he'll fold to a raise, call; if not, raise.

If I was unsure, I'd take the raise route now and make it $200. River depends on the card.

Thanks for the good insights. Do you all think a shove looks that much stronger than a 3-bet to $200 - $225? I actually might make the case that the 3-bet looks stronger as I think draws tend to shove, and few people are going to put in over half their stack only to fold.

You want him to get his flush and straight draws though. We turned the boat so we have that crushed. By just calling, we allow flushes and straights to bet rivers or make crying calls.
If it is jx, it will bet on non straight and flush boards.
If it is a boat, then we live with the results

Honestly, if he has a J, he's probably never folding, so just shoving is good. It's the thought if his not having a J, because I think he'll fold w/o one, unless he has us beat, of course.

Maybe flatting gets us the most, because if he has a J, he's not folding river, and if he's on a draw, he's only putting more money in if he hits.

Its a fair point. Not sure what the difference in EV is really (pretty small I would think) so it comes down your read about what % of the time V continues with each bet size.

Just shove, imo. He isn't folding a jack and that's what he has a **** ton of the time.

Thanks everyone.

I'm not advocating raising to "protect" against his draws, I'm advocating a raise to extract value from his draws before he bricks out. His draws are only going to hit about 1/5th-1/6th of the time, so the vast majority of the time his draws will miss and he puts no more money in OTR.

A lot of this just depends on the V though. If he has a draw let's just assume we get his stack ~20% of the time when he hits, and we get nothing else the other ~80% of the time when he bricks out. I guess if we think he folds draws more often than that to a turn raise then we can flat and hope he hits, but after V has already shown turn aggression I think we can get more value from his entire range by raising turn then we do allowing him to see the river and put no more money in the pot with his draws when they miss a lot more often than they hit.

You're trying to plan around something that rarely happens.

If he has an OESD he'll hit his straight 17.4% of the time.

If he has a flush draw, he'll hit 19.6% of the time.

If he has a flush draw and gutshot, he'll hit 26.1% of the time.

If he has an OESD + flush draw (only 4 possible combos), he'll hit 36.4% of the time.

With all those hands, he'll have a hard time folding the turn even though he's close to drawing dead. But if we just call and let him miss (as he will 70~80% of the time then we lose our chance of putting more money in the pot).