1/3 at Encore Boston, $600 deep, CO covers

AdAh in BB

Folds to CO who raises to $15 (standard for table).
I raise to $50 in BB. (I would often size bigger if this were multi-way or if he’d raised from an earlier position, but wanted him to be able to call).
BB calls.

Flop ($101, SPR 5.5): QsTs8h (TYPO — I had previously said Ks instead of Qs)
I bet $50, he calls.

Turn ($201): Jd
I check, he quickly checks back.
(I checked despite the flush draw because (a) I don’t expect to get called by worse made hands for three streets with how connected the board is, and don’t want to set myself up for commitment when there’s only $400 behind, and (b) I have a suspicion that this player pool is very sensitive to “weakness” on the turn and might take a stab with a marginal hand (or call a river bet they wouldn’t otherwise), which are good outcomes for me.

If he bets turn, I’d call a reasonable sized bet then evaluate river.

River ($201): Ac
I bet $100, intending to fold to a raise.

Thoughts?

I like your line. Debating between b/f and c/f river. His bluffs would only be missed spade draws but most have pairs that have some SDV he’d prob check behind. He certainly has a Kx combos in his range. Namely KQs/KJs/KTs. We can discount AK as it doesn’t check back the turn.

Depends on your read of V. If he is a calling station a bet may get called by two pair hands. Given your perceived range has so many K as well this may be optimistic.

I might go a little bigger on the flop considering how draw-heavy it is.

Otherwise, I think it's fine.

Looks fine. Bet/fold this river is good. This board connects with hero's preflop range so strongly that villain should have no bluffs. Even 9X probably won't raise here because no worse hands are calling and hero has a lot of Kx. At the same time, if you check villain may bet a worse value hand (lower sets and two pair) or make a bluff so you can't just check/fold.

Well played imo but I’d go bigger flop and river. Respect for checking turn

I like bigger pf since you are oop and deep. These are both reasons to size up.

I prefer larger size on flop as well.

I think I prefer the river as a check as it's tempting to go after boards like these once someone checks twice to you. I think a worse hand is almost never calling your river bet.

You do have the benefit that you can pretty confidently fold to a raise I guess.

I think villain is going to pay it off with any flopped sets he decided to play this way a decent % of the time, despite AA, AK, and KK getting there.

OP villain description is missing. Could help determine whether betting or checking is better here

Not much in the way of specific reads, since I’d only seen him for about two orbits, but I have a few impressions. There’s a specific type of player I always see in these games, and I’m not sure if there’s a word to describe them, but imagine: ~50 year old rec player, extreme Boston stereotype, knows all the dealers, has been playing for 30 years at Foxwoods and doesn’t want to get pushed around by some know-it-all kid (me). Maybe “old-ish man New England.” I don’t think my “live reads” are reliable enough to really act on, but if anything this would tip the balance in favor of betting, since I could imagine him not wanting to fold his top pair to some kid. But again, I could be reading too much into things.

Anyway, the most valuable read I got on him was when he called the river bet then showed down A8o.

As long as you’re not biasing your reads, I think you should include them. Can’t hurt.

I’m not sure about him calling off with top pair here as I’m not sure what top pairs he arrives here with given that it’s a 3! pot and he called flop but definitely a set. Against this guy I like a bet for sure yeah.

Player type seems typical. Basically how every reg born before 1980 thinks when they play me, from experience. Just overbet and go for thin value consistently. These guys think they always know where they’re at, despite breaking even for 30 years

Edit: Nh OP. Easy game. See Spyu Villain’s calling off with worse hands here! I think you play too high to understand this one lol

I would usually go bigger pre. More on the flop. The rest looks good. I like the river plan here against population.

I would actually just flat preflop. We disguise our hand, prevent him from folding lots of hands we want him to continue with, and create a very nice and playable 20 SPR HU pot, where mostly we can just check some streets and let him bet/bluff worse and win a nice medium sized pot without risking our stack. Unless we've been 3betting a bunch in spots like this, any "normal" 3bet size actually puts us in a stoopid spot: OOP, with a face up hand, in a low SPR pot (we'll have a hard time folding preflop) while offering too good IO of 17:1 IO. To offer poor 8:1 IO (which prevents setminers from being profitable) we'd need to 3bet to about $90, but obviously that ain't going to get a lot of action too often.

This is now the problem with preflop. We've committed ourselves in a small SPR pot and yet gave too good of IO to do so. At this point I think we have to lie in the bed we made, so with this slightly awkward SPR and drawy board I'd overbet to $150 to setup a shove of $400 on a safe turn.

As played, I'm fine with the turn check.

I'm fine with a bet/fold on the river, but I think we have to price it a lot smaller so that some worse hands can actually call. I wouldn't go more than $70.

Overall, preflop/flop are attempting to walk a very difficult tightrope line of being committed versus not being committed, and it's a very difficult line to walk, imo.

ETA: If dude is going to pay of 3/4 streets of betting with lol A8o on this runout, then ok, I'm a little more on board with preflop.

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