Hi all,

Fairly standard 1/3 table lots of limping.
Main V is pretty good and has direct position on me. Has been winning most pots against me due to his position. Pretty solid overall.

We are 400 effective roughly

3 people limp for $6 and we raise to 35 with AJdd. V Cold calls In the cutoff and EVERYONE ELSE folds

($98) Flop is As 10d 4d

He has been betting every time when checked to so we check and he bets 50. We call

Turn is a Kc we check. And he bets 60?? We check raise all in ?

Thoughts on this?

I just don’t know what to do if we brick the river I know we have top pair with the nut flush/straight draw but idk how often top pair is good here and I think we have some fold equity here as well

I don't mind it, but I probably would have led, led and led.

Fold equity? Of what, AQ?

Having embarked on this check-calling plan I'm going to continue with it, check calling turn and checking river. Check-shove seems liable to just be called by better hands and our hand is so robust it doesn't need protection. Might make specifically AQ fold, but I'd rather just let him keep betting. Check call will look pretty weak on such a wet board. He might think we have something like QQ, that looks plausible.

Not sure how I feel about the flop check. I think cbetting might be better but it depends on the player. Checking is the best way to get him to put one bet in but cbetting might be a better way to get big money in.

Just check/raise the flop (gii if the chance arises). After calling flop, check/raise turn is good. We so often have (and should have) the best hand and have outs if for some weird reason we don't.

I like a lead flop, c/r turn if called line here

Hand is played well.

We don't necessarily need a checking range this deep on this board, but a strategy that involves checking TPMK+NFD is going to do a lot better than most standard approaches.

You have the board locked down so I don’t mind a flop x but I would be x all 3 streets. It’s just really hard for villain to continue given your exact hand. Plus you really don’t beat many Ax hands so you’d specifically be targeting weaker flush draws that have little equity to fall back on.

If you want to target his weaker flush draws I would bet half pot on flop and turn and x river regardless of the card and let him bluff or bet his flush and then you x/r.

Check/call turn.

And with 255 left in stacks and 218 in the pot, check/call a bet of up to 90 on most rivers (check/raise if we hit our flush).

If he bets 140 or more we can be reasonably confident he has AQ or better.

You said villain bets every time when checked to. That suggests when he bets the turn his range is still potentially quite wide. Just call, keep in all his bluffs and hope to be good.

On the flop and turn we've been representing QQ/JJ so if villain does have a worse hand, he wont feel he needs to bet too large on the river to get us off it. He should also have a lot of Ace-rag/KQ/KJ type hands which may be quite happy to check back the river.

Although I understand why you checked flop, and its not a bad check, I would have bet the flop, because I think it conceales my FD. C/C looks a heck of a lot like a FD. Good news is, his turn bet could be with a bare ace. Im just calling the turn and see no reason to blow him off hands that we already beat. If you call, I dont think youre getting great value if you hit your flush.

Disagree that c/c looks like a FD. Typically both FD with the ace and FD without the ace would bet this flop. c/c looks like JJ-KK to me, or sometimes a bare ace, AJ-AK.

at 2/5 thats true. at 1/3, most Vs put you on a made hand when you bet, because they tend to check/call with their draws (and sometimes overplay their made hands) themselves.

OP says V has betting OTF [in LP] EVERY TIME it's checked to him, so I like the c/c, but I wouldn't if this was time he chose to check behind.
I don't like the all-in OTT, because you could very well be beat by a bigger ace, 2 pair or a set of tens.
To get him to fold OTT, he would have to have AQ [8 combos]. Surely he didn't call $35 pre with A9?! Does he continue to bet the turn with QQ? If he has AK, he is going to have to be some kind of player to be able to put you on TT & fold. Harder still: KK+

If he has KQ he's got 3 outs & you've got him! Let him fire the river.

In other words, I like ChrisV's, johnnyBuzz's & Nogyong's comments.

I agree with this.

Also fwiw, I quite like taking hero's check/call line with TPMK here against this player and with 400 to start the hand.

If we had started the hand with around 290; or if we had AdKd/AdQd; or if we had a history of battling this player with marginal holdings I would be much keener to set things up so that we can get stacks in on the flop or on the turn (either by bet/calling a jam on the flop, betting flop and jamming turn or by c/r jamming the flop). Under those conditions we're more likely to get him to put the chips in with worse.

Under the specific scenario in question, if we had check/raised the flop, stack sizes are a little awkward. There is 98 in the pot, he bets 50 and we have 370 behind. Other than a shove, I'm not sure what raise size we could use without creating some potentially awkward turn situations if decided to flat call. In this scenario, when we shove the flop or make a pot-committing raise we're folding out a lot of hands we crush including the weaker flush draws, ace-rag, small pairs and air.

If we check/call turn, don't we have to be prepared to check/call almost every river (obviously check/raise a diamond)? Would be really sick to hit our flush on the river and have it go check/check (or be ahead and have it go check/check).

Would be nice to know if he actually will bluff the river if checked to. A lot of players will bet the flop/turn but then check behind on river or bomb it.

Me too.

Admittedly, taking a check/call line is a little bit like fastening your seatbelt and hoping for the best.

But I don't think its that sick if he checks behind the river with worse hands.

Even if we had taken the traditional bet flop, bet turn line, I don't see us getting 3 streets of value from a worse hand.

And if the flush comes in on the river, it would be hard for us to get much more value by leading the river. Villain sounds like a bit of a baller so even if the flush comes in I prefer to check and hope he bluffs, value bets light or buddabing buddaboom goes for value with his smaller flush.

The good news is that because we've been under-representing our hand, villain's river bet size shouldn't be too large. If he's value-betting with top pair he should be targetting a hand like KQ. And if he's bluffing, he probably doesn't feel he needs to bet too large to get us to fold.

Thats why I say call the turn, buckle up and with 255 left in stacks, check/call a bet of up to 90 into 218 on most rivers.

Yeah sign me up for this as well. If he's using his position well c bet shouldn't get many folds from him. By his turn bet we have a pot worth scooping and time to deny him whatever equity he has. Check/call turn looks pretty strong, so not sure a good player is going to fire a river bluff.... But don't hate the line as played. Probably my 2nd favorite option.

I like a c/r flop, as if he checks back thats not horrible as there aren't that many bad turn cards. Unless he checks back a pocket pair and drills a set nothing else bad can really happen. You have so much equity on the flop that you really need to get some value here. As played I think jamming turn is fine, if you happen to run into AQ gg.

What does his bet of $60 into $200 mean? This sizing is very small, but it would require history to give us information.

I do like the c/c line though here, as our hand looks a lot weaker than it is and the guy is betting for us. We might value own ourselves occasionally, but I think we have to call 3 streets unless river is a jam. If we are not calling 3 streets, then we should have been leading out.