Hero (~$275) in CO: Mid-20's reg, no history with V. Only played one other hand against V where he limped in MP, I raised to $15 with TT, 3 people called including him. I bet $45 on a J45 rainbow flop, button flatted (button was V from this post - http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...story-1317029/), V flatted. Turn was a 2, checked through, river another J he bet $50 and we both folded.

V ($280) is UTG: Mid-50's/early 60's, seems to be playing pretty tight as far as I can tell but has not shown down many hands. Bet sizing has been relatively small, no major aggression shown.

V raises to $7, I called with 97o in CO, button called. SB/BB folded.

Flop ($24): A-8-9 rainbow, don't remember suits

V checks, I bet $15, button calls, V calls

Turn ($71): 9, completing the rainbow

V checks, I bet $50, button cuts out chips for a call but eventually folds. V cuts out chips for a call and then decides to min-raise to $100. I debate between calling and shoving and just flat so I can see what he does on the river.

River ($271): 6

V checks dark (wtf?). Hero?

options look like they are limited to b/f, b/c, and shoving.

don't think you can b/f against this opponent so that leaves b/c and shoving.

if he's not folding a strangely played A, then i guess shove since there are more combos of tp than of fhs and stronger 9s. and would he really play his strong made hands like this?

edit: possibly bet really small to induce some sort of spazz shove?

Agree that I can't really bet/fold with stack/pot sizes here. The dark check really confused me. In my experience it is extremely rare for any V to check dark with a hand like AA/88 here since they want to get paid off. Didn't think A9/89 would be in his UTG opening range, and he probably would have bet those on the flop or c/r, but he just flatted.

ya it doesn't really add up. this is why a small bet to induce seemed like an interesting choice to me.

can't seem to put him on a hand he plays like this that will pay us off unless you've seen him play AJ+ like this before. the check dark should really eliminate anything that has us beat from his range

This is one of the "fun" things about low stakes, hands that villain has played so bad/weird that normal hand analysis is impossible. If you play a particular villain a lot you will learn what sort of situations end up here, but against unknown villains it becomes pure guess work. AK/AQ seems the most likely hand for villain here, with A8 a small possibility. They decided to play flop passively on a fairly safe board, and got an obviously bad turn card. The min raise is to see where they are. The check on the river is either because they already gave up or because they are trying to get you to check behind.

A very weirdly played A9/AA/88 can't be excluded entirely, but all are very remote. These hands almost always bet river after turn, so they can mostly be eliminated but occasionally I will see fish do this sort of thing. Villain may have also spazzed on turn with KK/QQ hoping to represent a 9 and when you called they are done unless they hit on river.

Stack sizes mean you can't really bet/fold on river. So either check or bet/call is the way to go. Bet/call is preferable except in the case of nitty villains who will never call river unless they have you beat. Given the play of the hand, I go with a pure suck bet on river. $50 seems good, something villain calls with anything but pure air. Anything bigger probably gets folded except in the rare case where your losing. If villain is stationary though, shove and hope AK/AQ level themselves into calling.

River shove is $153 into $271. I don't think you should be leveling yourself with this dark check, I'd be interpreting it as "I want to showdown quickly please, but I am calling your bet so don't try anything". To that end I don't think a small bet will induce anything.

He never plays AA like this, in fact he probably ships river blind. Like you said A9/89 isn't a UTG open from this villain. I can see this being a scared 88 and he's decided he's got enough value for one day, but AK,AQ are much more likely IMO.

Ship.

Results ?

Maybe its just me but i consider a dark check weakness especially otr which is the scariest street.The min-raise with those stacks is either a monster or a top-pair type of hand and i dont think he dark-checks a monster to make you value bet a worse hand,I would hollywood for a while and then shove.
On the other hand if he shoved from up front id muck the hand thinking i am beat but tbh sometimes i fold badly to players that dont understand there are no combos that they can get value from

If he checked Aces full in the dark then he deserves the rest of your chips. Very rarely do I check back rivers to dark checks, and certainly not here.

grunch: check it back.

what's a tight player who just showed some aggression going to call you with that you can beat? feels like he's hoping to induce a spazz. he probably doesn't realize how strong you are... but i'd weight his range to some big hands (better 9, full house... but also some pocket pairs that are now a losing 2 pair). you have show down value. i'd have mubs at this point and check it back.

after reading rest of comments i guess truly do have mubs... so ignore my grunch. lol

No, you could be right. I've seen check darks to induce spazzes just as you say. And his line seems to fit it. Raise pre, check/call flop, check/min raise turn? Very suspicious.

Still, if we take check darks otr to mean what they generally mean most of the time, a hand that has SD value, we need to bet here. And if we are betting we are jamming.

Results:

I'm gonna go ahead and start just by looking up until the river dark check, cuz that **** be cray.

i guess v might c/c c/minr flop and turn with ak/aq type stuff some of the time, but not a lot of the time as i would expect the typical line on the flop to be just a safe and happy bet. no hands weaker than tpgk make sense unless he's a super weird dude in all his hands (you would have noted this, yeah?).

there aren't a ton of better hands either, but they do all make way more sense with the line... aa/88 c/c c/minr a huge percentage of the time. then you have to decide what kind of 9 hands he's opening pre utg (9x hands also make sense for c/c c/minr flop turn). i think 98 (maybe A9 too but less so?) would bet otf cuz dey be scurred of losing, or at least c/r flop, so that leaves maybe t9(only t9s?) and anything higher you think he might have (i wouldn't really expect any if your tight profile of him includes pre ranges tbh).

pretty weird for the 2nd group of hands to dark check after minraising, but i think still less weird over all three streets than ak down to whatever ax. did you call super fast and confidently on the turn or something?

check i guess and be happy when you win.

edit: sigh stop posting results right above my posts. it's making me look super results oriented.

Very curious about the preflop call... Nobody has commented on calling 79o against an UTG raise, but that's a snap fold to me. Especially against a player you perceive as being pretty tight.

AP: Agree with how you played it after the fact just a gross sick raise pre by "playing pretty tight" guy

I would fold pre to a standard $12-14 UTG raise but with an SPR of 10-15 and being in position I think I'm doing pretty well against his range when I hit, and he may just check/fold when he misses most of the time. Maybe he was bored, who knows.