Posting this for a friend who doesn't post here. Apologies for not having a better Villain description or more exact position/suits information. Thoughts on any and all parts of this hand are appreciated.



Hero: nitty middle aged TAG, $300
Villain: nitty generic dude, range usually all pairs & premiums, $1000

Hero opens to $15 in EP with AA
Villain calls in LP, all else fold

Flop: 9s 9d Th ($30)

Hero bets $35
Villain calls

Turn: 4h ($99)

Hero bets $55
Villain calls

River: 2d ($209)

Hero bets $55
Villain shoves

Hero tanks for a while, thinking Villain was more likely floating rather than trapping. Villain shove now has Hero questioning that thought process.


Hero?

fold twice. i think he flopped boat on flop itself

PF: OK.

F: SPR is about 9. Not sure why we are overbetting the pot. When a nitty V calls on this paired and monotone flop we may be trouble. Hope he's got JJ or QQ. He probably 3bets KK PF. Most nits don't call with AT, A9, or T9 against an early position nit pre-flop raise of 7.5x.

T: So we have a choice. Should we target his JJ and QQ range (maybe KK) here, or try to get to showdown and try to use some pot control. We decide to bet half pot. When we bet half pot we've put in a third of our stack and we've got $195 left. I think we need to check here.

R: So now the pot is $213 and we bet $55. WTF? What's the point? I think we were just scared and though we need to bet so we bet small. Betting 1/4 pot here doesn't really do anything for us. Is this just a blocking bet? If it's for value, then we we are trying to target his JJ, QQ, KK range here and know he'll call more. When a nit shoves the river, we are beat. We need to fold here.

I'm not sure why hero thinks Villain is floating. If he is "floating", he's not a nit. I've never seen a nit float to try to steal it on a later street.

Absent other information, I'm pretty sure this is a fold.

I think it all depends on how often villain is 3-betting pre with his JJ-KK. If he can bet thin he may raise the river with those hands. Is villain really floating with 4s on the flop? I don't think so. So it looks like it's a few combos of flopped boats/quads vs his JJ-KK range.

If we were deeper we could bet bigger on the river and fold to aggression. But as played I'm probably shoving the river with his stack and I don't find a fold here if he has any tendency to bet thin.

More information about Villain from my friend's email:


I labeled him nitty based on the second quote, perhaps it wasn't a fair characterization given the first one. The above is all I have to go on for describing Villain.

Need more info on V but tough to fold AA here. If you range V on all PP preflop and figure he's folding low PP OTF (probably 66 and lower?), you beat KK, QQ, JJ, 88, 77 and losing to TT and 99. Again, need more info on V to know which of those hands V might shove on the river. But I don't think I find a fold here. Probably a spew but absent more info, I'm calling.

Nits don't call down two streets then shove the river on a bluff or with top pair. Pre is fine. Flop bet is too big. A nit will fold for $20 if he missed.

I'm concerned by nit's call on the flop. He has now called a nitty player's EP raise preflop and called over a pot sized bet. I'm definitely checking the turn for pot control. I'd be very concerned if nit bets. I'd prepare to call a bet on the turn and fold to a shove on the river. I'd probably call anything less than that.

We beat nits by getting them to fold mediocre hands with bluffs. It's hard to value bet nits because they typically only stay around with the nuts or close to it.

Seems to me like this is a pretty clear call.

Assuming Villain is not floating a PSB with 44 (close to impossible with 22), the only reasonable hands that beat us are 9x and TT. Given that the 9x hands are likely limited to 8c9c, 8h9h, and 9cTc due to the flop being a rainbow, there are really only 4 likely hands that beat us.

Against Villain's range, which we can probably safely assume includes at least JJ+, and suited broadways including Tens, it seems like calling $140 to win a $404 (getting 2.9:1) pot makes sense. We need to have the best hand 26% of the time, and given there are only 4 likely hands in Villain's entire range that beat us, it seems very reasonable we are good here.

Pot flop. Bigger turn. Shove river. AP I'm calling for reasons chopstick said.

Nitty villain is never ever cold calling and then shoving with a pair alone. If he does then the read is completely wrong. No need to pull math here. Ofcouse we have the best hand 30% of the time. the major thing here we need to consider here is the frequency.. how often villain is capable of doing this?. which makes the so called best hand thing wrong.. This is 1/2 nl

If V is so nitty you're only including 4 hands that beat you, there's just no way he's shoving the river as a bluff after getting triple barreled.

But let's go with your thinking. I don't know why V can't have the 1 combo of 99. That makes 5 hands that beat you. You need to be good 26% of the the time. So there needs to be 16 hands you can beat. Go ahead and name those. If you're going to say every possible QJ combo that's just leveling yourself into a call. A "nitty, generic dude" might do this with QJ 1 of 20 times, not 16 of 16.

Villain can definitely have the 99, I just neglected to include it. 5 hands that beat you.

For 16 hands you can beat, I'd start with:

6 KK
6 QQ
6 JJ

that's 18 right there, no need to break out the QJ combos.

The frequency point is well taken. How often is Villain going to come over the top with one of the hands outside the likely 5 that beat Hero?

It seems like Hero's super weak river bet invites the Villain to shove more than he might otherwise do. Inaccurate thinking?

The type of player that doesn't fold to any c-bet, not even a pot-sized c-bet, sounds like a passive player, no? So tight-passive... but because of his huge stack, he may be inclined to play hands like A9s in position even though he's tight.

I would go with that 1st read, which I think is more accurate than an observation that he only shows down premiums, because by the time he's accumulated $1k at 1-2NL he might be in a completely different state of mind.

That all said, I think river is definitely a fold. I cannot see a tight-passive player having the confidence to shove with QJ/JJ/QQ on this board especially after sustained bets and what looks like a value bet by your friend. Maybe KK.
I think it's far more likely that he's confident because of trips/FH.

Also I think "inducing shoves" is a bit of a level against an average passive-ish 1-2 player, and especially the winning types of players. The vast majority of the shoves I've seen against weak bets tend to have it and are trying to value bet the weak bettor.

Fold all day vs villain as described, there is absolutely no way he takes call/call/jam with any part of his range that we beat.

Think about this, if you are an aggro player would you bluff raise shove when the hero showed strength by betting all four street and hero has a almost a pot size bet remaining to call?. More over this is $1/2 live. I bet you would just call here with a set even. Anyone who raises his river bet without a boat is burning money. here the villain is a nitty player.

Sounds like standard OMC. Tight, Passive, stationy, and probably trappy.

Pretty much hate your bet sizings on all streets. If he is super sticky. Then I am going for 3 streets of value. Jamming all/most rivers.

We are targeting straight draws (get 2 streets value), 10's, pocket pairs. My guess is he doesn't have a 3 bet range. So KK, QQ should be in his range. Along with QJ. Also 77-10.

Reason he rarely folds on flops is because of his range. He generally has a pair or 2 overs. Which he is gonna call most flop bets with.

If he is truly super tight. He has very few 9's in his range.

River sizing is realley bad IMO.

But with that said. When he raises river, your in trouble. With Reads given. You have to fold.

Guy has been there for 5 hours. Has $1000 in front of him. Assuming it's $300 buy-in. He has had to shown down some hands. Allowing us to see his lines, aggresion, calling range, betting patterns.

This hand was played very poorly given the fact, that we should have some good reads on V at this point.

As stated, flop bet is too big.

If read is correct, this is a fold. If there is ANY chance he does this with JJ, QQ or KK, it's a call, but based on nitty OMC, it's a fold and he has 99 or TT (maybe 9Ts).

(River bet is terrible sizing.)

The flat/flat/raise for value with 1 pair line is so thin and sophisticated and relies so much on good hand-reading it just won't happen from the V as described. After 3 months of my own HHs I realized I could have gotten more river value a few times using it.

JJ-KK will raise, it just won't be [only] otr. If it happened to be the case this one time I'm glad it worked out for you, but it isn't a winning long run proposition.

id be shocked if this guy is shipping it in otr with jacks. qq id just be really surprised.

Grunch:

Would TT wait until the river to shove? Same with A9? I mean, the flop is already coordinated. We know our nitty villains would rather "take the pot down" rather than get run down. The turn puts a flush draw out there as well and yet he doesn't raise? I fold the river, this is never a bluff. This is TT or A9 with a significant leaning towards TT.

It's been a while since anyone's responded to this posting so...

If I remember correctly villain had a 1K stack when I arrived at Aria. I had played very few hands and after five hours and was approximately even with a $300 stack.

Villain had been nodding off intermittently.

My long list of dumb things I've done grew when I called the shove. The only reason I called was that I couldn't believe the shove was a value bet. Had he min-raised (only $30 less than the shove) I would have been more inclined to believe I was beat but would have called anyway.

Recap:

Hero opens to $15 ep with AA
Villain calls in LP, all else fold

Flop: 9s 9d Th ($34)

Hero bets $35
Villain calls

Turn: 4h ($104)

Hero bets $55
Villain calls

River: 2d ($214)

Hero bets $55
Villain shoves

Villain showed KTo.

Chopstick explained to me that my "Please go away" c-bet was logical call for villain. The 1/2 pot turn bet, I'm guessing, in light of the c-bet was also an easy call. Chopstick also explained that my small river bet induced the shove. My guess is that the shove was to fold a slightly better but fearful hand such as AT or JJ+.

Thanks for posting chopstick.

If villain had TT why wouldn't he wait? What am I missing?

"We know our nitty villains would rather "take the pot down" rather than get run down."
I don't understand this either. But there's a lot I don't understand.

I'm going back to my initial post and he's repping a full house and I hate my initial thought process. He's a bit cagier than we thought as he's turned his hand into a bluff. Then again, the weak river bet induced him to ship IMO.

Very interesting that he recognized what should of been, a blocking bet.

Noway he does this readless, he has to have a sizing tell of some sort on hero imo.