Villain is MAWG, on the older end, TAG. Have not seen him get out of line, no showdowns of significance. He had his stack built up when Hero sat maybe an hour earlier.

Hero is early 30s WG, seen as LAG. Table saw Hero win a big pot early when he straddled button to $6, 4 callers, Hero raised to $45 with black KK, two callers from table short stacks. Hero shoved for under PSB on a flop like 986, got one caller, and KK held. Hero then stacked a player for 100bb flopping bottom set on an AT3 flop and c/c Villain's flop bet and turn jam on an offsuit 5. Villain then saw Hero GII on a low flop with JJ, get called by TT, and lose to runner-runner straight.

Villain is the effective stack with around 900. Hero covers.

Villain opens from MP to $15. Hero looks at KQ in the CO and flats. BTN and blinds fold.

Flop ($30) A T 5

Villain bets $21. Hero contemplates a raise, and perhaps I should have. I need some semibluffs in my range if I'm going to raise flop with A5/AT/sets, and it seems like a decent hand to use for that. In the moment, Hero decided that the IO of the added gutshot against what should be a strong value range from Villain were more important than possibly getting 3! big from V on this flop. Hero flats.

Turn ($72) J

Jackpot. Villain bets $35 in rhythm. I range him on sets, QQ-KK, AT-AK, as I don't expect him to barrel this turn without at least TP, although he could be getting a little jiggy turning QQ-KK into a bluff with some gutter equity. I block basically any draws he could have except pair + gutter. I have no real info on how V will react to turn raises in this kind of spot.

Hero raises to.....?

I think a raise to 100-135 is appropriate here. You don't want raise him out of the hand. You have the current nuts with redraws and hopefully Villain has 2P or better, only a set will likely call anything more.

Since we're so deep and in position, and a flat could possibly bring in another player or two (which I think we're cool with), I'm cool with preflop so long as we can dump TP pretty easy postflop.

I think we could either semi-bluff raise the flop or float the flop and bet the turn if he checks. I'm cool with either. Yeah, if we're worried about balancing against our flopped sets, this would be a good one to semi-bluff with. Although pot is relatively small to stacks behind and facing a reraise would actually suck due to that.

Overall he should have a really strong range here with like AK/AQ likely being the weakest hands he has. The only thing that might point a little to him having the smaller end of his range is that he's sizing both streets kinda on the small side; usually people with the ~nuts on drawy boards tend to size bigger to prevent suckouts. Still, I'd lean towards nuttish hands here, and therefore go big. $175 maybe? Sounds like you have a good image, you might even be able to get away with more. On this board against a competent player I think we'll lose AK/AQ quite a lot to any raise, and obviously lose KK/QQ, so I'm not too worried about those hands; two pair is going to have a hard time folding, and a set is pretty much never going to fold. Could argue for even a massive overbet, although I'm not sure.

GcluelessNLnoobG

You don't need to find flop raises IP facing a bet from PFR on AT5s.

Turn sizing with your raising range should be valuey, 115 max, with the intention of choosing from a couple river sizing options depending on the card. Overbetting is beyond terrible.

You can also consider a turn flat sometimes considering how many brick rivers there are (when you have KQhh and the Ah is on board) that he might bet-puke call a bunch of hands and check call a ton as well if the hearts miss.

Why? Doesn't a "normal" raise lose a lotta the weaker end anyways? Why not target the upper end (which he should have a decent amount of the time) and go for the gold?

GcluelessNLnoobG

I make it $150 to go.

Potting a bway board means you have bway, so let's not be ******ed about that. You're gonna feel like a chump if he folds, and we also want to have a few more value hands we can raise here by sizing down a touch. We just need to do everything possible to bring all his pair+gutters, pair+fd hands to the river in addition to sets, 2p, etc that we can extract from with another round of betting otr. Besides, some of those sets (and his KQ) might rip the turn anyway at least sometimes.

Think of how much money we'd have made if we 3bet pre.

Man.

we'd be sitting on a beach somewhere in mexico earning 10%

The Best flats here always, no?

GIsurehopeIgetChapter3forChristmas!G

150 and pre-tip the dealer all in one motion.

$900 effective I’m sizing up here. $150 to go.

If he folds that easily then we can be semi-bluffing stuff like KJ and QJ.

As played make it 135-180 ott
Big otr too on bricks

Results:

Hero went for a little too much gusto, with an eye toward an overbet shove on safe rivers, thinking that V had sets/2P so frequently here.

Hero raised to $200 with a stack of greens. V thought about 30 seconds and folded.

I'm cool with it; as I say, my guess is he probably happened to have the weakest part of his range here and likely would have folded a decent percentage of the time to a smaller sizing anyways.

GimoG

Everyone is making a huge mistake here. You cannot allow some middle aged dude just playing his hand in a 1.3 game to fold turn when we have this combo/this board.

He probably wasn't putting much more money in the pot with his A9 or whatever he had, even if the flush bricked out.

This board/action is a great one for him to have something huge (i.e. > one pair) that he's going to have difficulty letting go. If we hadda made a small middling straight to his obvious overpair, then sure, size it smaller so he can call it.

GimoG

Maybe. It's an interesting spot imo. Is 115 better than 150? idk. Probably depends on the middle aged dude.

I think so, though yes, it depends. $100 can be a magic number.

We really want AK/AQ to call.

We should get a nice read as well and the be able to judge what to bet on the river.

If he has AA, there's some chance he spazzes out anyway. But I think the bet sizes indicate a weaker hand than that and a desire to not lose too much on this hand.

If you have AK/AQ from his POV, a lot of stuff beats you so maybe you are just hoping to get called by weak aces and a few other hands that might fold to big bets.

Not sure I agree if he is competent. Most decent players will likely fold AK/AQ to any decent raise (even to $100) on that turn out of position figuring one pair is absolutely crushed by H's range. So what we are really trying to do is raise an amount that we can maybe win his whole stack if he has a big hand.

It only starts to depend when playing against some whale that might actually hand you 900, but even that guy is often sophisticated enough to give pause facing a $200 raise, look at the board, then look up and say “KQ eh?” at which point you may/may not get paid. For everyone else actually not providing a 1k a hand atm service at the old 1/3, you raise to something that will keep the hand going and then you choose an exploitable size otr based on player. Smashing tf out of bricks and suck betting hearts.

Admittedly getting $900 out of a competent player at 1/3 NL is going to be *extremely* tough.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Preflop: 3bet pre. Flatting was a mistake.
Flop: Flatting is perfectly fine. We don't want to raise AT5 boards because this crushes the PFR's range more than ours (I would flat even if I had 55 or AT here).
Turn: Raise to $110. Your sizing is insanely huge and will get him to fold the exact hands that you want to be called by (AK and AQ).

Why are we 3betting KQs IP against a TAG opener? I'd be more inclined to 3! KQo IP, or 3! KQs if we were OOP. I don't mind the blinds coming along because our hand plays well multiway and we'll have the best absolute position most of the time.