1/3. Effective stacks $350. Villian (30s WG) is relatively unkown, been at the table about an hour. Limp/called and limp/folded each a few times PF. Haven't seen him showdown a significant hand. On his phone when he doesn't have cards so I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any reads on me.

V (UTG+1) limps, SB completes, H (BB) raises to 20 with JJ. V calls, SB folds.

flop (39) TT4r

H bets 20, V raises to 50. H?

Any comments on action so far and how to approach further streets are appreciated.









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I like the preflop sizing as a limp in EP is pretty strong and will hate folding. Flop is great and given he is unknown and likely tight and passive, maybe check the flop to induce a bet with his pocket pairs, as most live guys almost always put you on AK, AQ in this spot. Given the action, I would call the xr (which is pretty small) and evaluate.

^ it’s not a x/r

These are annoying spots because he can bleed you to a double up with a raise to 50 -> 90/140 turn -> 190/320 river line when he has Tx.

You can probably feel reasonable he has the T if he shoves the river so I’ll call here and x/eval turn.

So we have a player who is passive, possibly tight (given willingness to fold) who is probably on autopilot and only thinking about his own hand (on the phone, not paying attention to other players).

He limp calls, then raises over the PFR's continuation? I would be completely not shocked if he rolled over AA/KK/QQ/TT exclusively in this situation. I doubt he is calling 20 pre with JT/QT/44. MAYBE AT, but even that you're still boned.

Passive autopilot guy is not going to be "playing back at you" trying to push you off a bluffy cbet. He is betting his cards only.

I like the preflop bet size, but I'm not thrilled about the CB. I'd prefer to check the flop and see what develops. Like JohnnyBuz says, if he shoves the river, it is very likely you're beat.

As played I think you have to call but I would rather see you check call the flop. The limp call raise to your cbet makes this tough to approach because its unclear what the line he took is saying other than he's repping a overpair+. He has more combos of a T than you do so as other have said play the later streets cautiously.

I'm also raising preflop. Since stacks are biggish and we can't raise an amount preflop that sets us up for an easy peasy stackoff with an overpair postflop, and since at absolute worse this can only go 3ways (i.e. the field is already thinned), I would probably go smaller with my sizing, probably no more than $15.

HU OOP against an unknown where I'd be unsure of how to react to a flop raise, I'd lean towards checking the flop. My goal in this situation is to get to showdown for relatively cheap; I'm not exactly looking to get in a bunch of bets. And if bets do start going in, I'd much rather they go in with my hand underrepped / his range widened by passively check/calling. If the flop checks thru this is a fine result as it keeps the pot small. The drawback is that we risk some scare cards. The higher my pair (and less vulnerable), the more comfortable I'd be in checking; the smaller my pair (and more vulnerable), the more comfortable I'd be with bet/folding. JJ is kinda in the middle.

Another option is to simply bet/fold. Against ABC players who we have a handle on, this is a good line. But against unknowns, this might be a meh line, as we can see here. Are we just going to call the raise and then pray he doesn't bet the turn and river? Pot is getting huge at this point.

The key is to know how you're going to react to a situation (i.e. getting raised on the flop) before you encounter it. If you can confidently bet/fold, then do that. If you don't feel confident in that, perhaps you shouldn't bet.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Seems results oriented. We have JJ and a dry flop with no overcards. Does a hand with a ten comprise much of this limp-caller's range (especially since we have JJ and block JTs)? We are getting value from lower PPs and getting folds from hands with a naked Q/K/A that can beat us. Pretty sure this is a top 20% flop for JJ and if we are not c-betting this flop, what are we c-betting? Only dry, unpaired flops, with no overcards... or if we hit a set? Seems very passive.

Great flop for the preflop caller and someone being on their phone the whole time and playing fit or fold is a huge read. You can peel one given the price and the fact you have good blockers, but that's about it.

Thanks, this is a good point, and something I need to do much better at. I make the mistake of acting too quickly when I think I have an easier decision, then hurrying myself to act when I should be thinking something through (I guess I'm worried about giving off a timing tell, perhaps I shouldn't care about this with typical 1/3 villians...).

In this case I am concerned that by checking the flop I risk V checking back with overcards that would have folded, losing value against small pairs that will fold to bets on scarecards on turn/river, but I will have to call at least one or two bets from hands that beat me.

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Admittedly, the smaller our pair the more checking brings the downside of an overcard coming.

But if he has two overcards, he only has 6 outs, so only about a 7:1 chance he hits. We're still way ahead, although there will be cards we cringe at.

If he has an underpair or undercards, he's got 2 outs or almost drawing dead, and he'll often fold some of these if we bet the flop. We're perfectly fine checking and getting him to bluff / think his hand is good and bet, or perhaps having the flop check thru and him getting curious with his pair (which he might make on the turn) and pay off a bet or two with a weak hand and later streets. Although, yeah, we do risk some scare cards that may scare him off (such as an Ace where it looks like we've now hit our AK).

If he has a T or boat or slowplayed bigger overpair, we're drawing very slim. Don't want any bets going in on the flop.

If we bet the flop and he calls or raises, we're almost in the same spot, in that we probably aren't too fond of more bets going in (and are kinda hoping the turn goes check/check).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Not exactly, when heads up OOP I think that checking your entire range is the correct play. If it gets checked back and an overcard hits it will obviously be annoying but I think the benefits outweigh the cons there. It allows you to always disguise your entire range so when you check the flop you still have good hands in your range. It also eliminates the possibility of being raised on the flop and gives us the option of check raising our good hands on the flop instead of the cbet. When the flop is checked back and an overcard hits our goal is to get to showdown cheaply but when it does not, which is far more likely then we can bet for value against the range that you mentioned the lower PPs and the odd A4s 54s.

Thanks for all the input. Sounds like agreement is once I got here, calling flop raise is right. I see good reasoning for checking flop as well.


V (UTG+1) limps, SB completes, H (BB) raises to 20 with JJ. V calls, SB folds.

flop (39) TT4r

H bets 20, V raises to 50. H calls 30.

Turn (138) Ar

H checks, V checks

River (138) 9

H?

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Check. 0% chance you get called by worse.

Ok fair enough, just making sure.


V (UTG+1) limps, SB completes, H (BB) raises to 20 with JJ. V calls, SB folds.

flop (39) TT4r

H bets 20, V raises to 50. H calls 30.

Turn (138) Ar

H checks, V checks

River (138) 9

H checks, V casually tosses one black chip over the betting line. H?



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I'm folding. But I already said I likely wouldn't have called the flop raise, so I'm not sure that is additionally helpful. Nothing has changed my initial read of the situation. Either he is legitimately concerned about the A (like he has KK/QQ) or he has a monster (boat, quads, trips) and only things he is getting three streets of value/wanted to give you a chance to hang yourself.

None of those options are good for the hero.

Again: this guy isn't paying attention to other players. Why would he have any reason to think you're bluffing? At these stakes, the vast majority of the time a bet on the river is for value.

Tough hand. When he x back the turn I think he’s either got air or Tx hoping you value bet the ace on the river. Hard to see him bluffing the river here once you call the flop and an ace rolls off. I think if you x/f it was well played. River sizing and nonchalant nature would lead me to believe it’s value. Your range is obviously super capped but it takes a more in-tune player than this guy appears to be to take advantage of that.

Guys that aren't paying attention to the table are great to play against. They're mainly playing their cards. You want to take advantage of it by figuring out what they think is a good hand. In many cases, TP is the borderline. If they have TP, they're going to play. If they have worse, they're going to fold. In this case, there's no TP. You have the worst hand above TP. Therefore when raised the flop, that's the time to get out of the hand. Sure, some % of the time they are bluffing. If they are, you aren't going to win any more money if you call, but can lose a lot of money if they aren't. That's a bad place to be.

For example, like you are on the river. As played, fold. He's now putting in serious money on the river. You don't even have TP.

On the flop, I like representing AK and folding to the minraise. When people at this level start minraising with air more often, I'll start adjusting my play. In this spot, until I know more, I'll assume he has Tx and doesn't think I'm capable of laying down an overpair.

As played... to be honest the way the hand played out I think I just pay him off on the river and pray to see KQ/QJ/88/99/55/66. I didn't call on the flop to set mine and I wouldn't have called on the flop unless I was planning on calling at least one more street.

Fwiw, JT,AT and T9 now seem less likely given the A and 9 on the board and the two of the jacks in our hand. I don't see him having much Ax in his UTG+1 limp/calling range.
44 seems more credible but there are only 4 combos of those.

I'm by no means that confident about my river call here but if I called on the flop, I must have had some read that he might be raising the flop as a bluff.

Thanks for all the feedback. I think in hindsight bet/fold the flop may have been the best plan against this villain.

H nearly folds but levels himself into a call thinking V has nuts or effectively air. V rolls over AT for a boat, H takes a long walk around the casino.

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