Hi,

1/3 table with 2-3 big whales, 2-3 solid players and the rest of the table being fairly typical rec players playing loose-passively.

Main V is a 50's middle eastern guy sitting there for like 1hr. Never played with him before but I've seen him showing up with unnecessary bluffs in this session (busted draws or turning 2nd/3rd pairs into bluff OTR as well).

I would say he plays at least 70-75% of his hands. He raises 90%+ of the time when there is no PFR before and continues with at least with one big cbet even in 4-5-way pots. He is stuck already like $6-700.

OTTH:

UTG straddle is on for $5.
We are UTG+1 and make it $20 with JJ

Loose passive MP calls, folds to V OTB who calls. Blinds and UTG folds.

FLOP [~$60]

943

We bet $40, MP folds, V calls

TURN [~$140]

4

We bet $70, V calls.

Thoughts on sizing here?

RIVER [~$280]

A

We check, V shoves for his remaining $301 after a short 5-8 sec tank. We are covering cim.

I was planning to bet/shove almost all 2-J rivers. Do you think a c/c can be a good play given the price and the described villain?

He can have all sort of busted draws but literally any 4's in his range as well. He might push the A-high FD as well which now became TP.

Thanks.

Prefer bigger turn bet.

I think it’s better to b/f this river than to check and have to guess. You’re still uncapped on river. But let’s see what the better players itf have to say.

So looks like starting stacks are $430?

I would limp preflop. First off, if it limps to this guy on the Button, he's going to raise; there might be a call or two and now we have a good limp/raise situation with decent dead money in the pot, plus we get to shorten up the SPR (and would have a trivial postflop stackoff on flops like this). And if it limps thru, whatever, that's not a bad result either as it keeps the pot small OOP against this guy on the Button who can make our life difficult. Be very wary of who the Button is when you're raising preflop, and ask yourself if you really want to setup a play for non-short stacks (which an SPR < 7 in this case easily will OOP) just cuz "I haz JJ".

Same sorta deal for the flop. At this point with this SPR the Villain can easily make us play for stacks postflop with 3 reasonable bets. Board is drawy. If it checks to him, he'll often bet his whole range, no? If so, checking (to either raise or call) is much better than betting as we'll be in much better shape much more of the time in the former case. You could probably even setup a check/raise amount where we could shove the rest on the turn.

Turn and river seem to be some attempt at pot controlling, but with this SPR that's going to be pretty much impossible against this guy (which goes back to preflop). If you're going to put yourself in these situations, then you're going to face commitment decisions ASAP. We got about as good as flop / turn as we're going to get; we should have all the chips in the pot by now by using a different line, imo.

As played, we probably have to sigh call the river since he can bet his busted draws as well as wonky hands that have showdown value that he should probably be checking behind. We'll still lose a lot, but overall I'm guessing it'll be slightly better than a breakeven call. But I question whether we can do better than this.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I like a bet/fold on the river. As played, it's a soul-read. I probably just give up, though.

The A looks like a scare card, but it's not really.

Hero should bet about $150 and fold if V shoves. Let's see why he should do this.

What hands could V have that the A helps? Only Ax of spades and A9. It's not likely V has a 4 in his hand since he called a raise from UTG+1, unless it's 44 and he has quads. If he actually has AQ of spades and made a pair of aces....why shove? Hero could easily have a set of aces or nines. V should want to get some value from TT-KK or TP, so if V had something like AQ of spades, I would expect him to bet $100-140, and fold if Hero shoves.

So his line is polarizing. He either has a full house, quad 4s, A9, a busted flush draw and/or a busted straight draw, or he's turning his pair into a bluff (which Hero described V as capable of doing). Hero is getting close to 2-1 pot odds.

I think Hero has to swallow hard and call against this V.....otherwise V will continue to exploit Hero when "scare" cards come.

That said, I think you do need to bet more on the turn. $100-125 seems correct.

I have no idea why people want to bet the river against this guy (who sounds like he'll bluff all his busted draws and even stuff like showdownable hands which he should be checking behind).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Bigger on the turn. It sounds like this V is sticky and you can get value from flush draws, lots of 9s, and some smaller PP. As played against described V I think it’s still a call.

I love your line. Seems like a call on the river to me.

b/f doesn't make any sense. What's calling us? His range is definitely weighted towards draws, and he's going to bet his missed draws on the river, so this seems like a standard spot to check/induce.

He doesn't actually have that many Ax combos, unless it's specifically the NFD. I'm calling and feeling good about it.

Also, given description, villain could be spazzing with 9x. Could have something like T9, and knows he's behind, so he shoves.

What size would you bet on the river?

Pot is $280 and V has about $300 left. We bet $70 on the turn.

If we bet $70 or less on the R then it stinks of weakness and we have no idea if the V's shove is just because we showed weakness or not.

If we bet more than $70 then we might be getting the right odds to call a V shove based on the OP's description that he bluffs too much. For example, if we bet $100 on the river, and he shoves for $300, it is $200 to call to win $880 (22.7%). It seems like this V is bluffing at least 20% of the time in this spot.

Tough spot given V's stack size

V seems like a manic, you have no spade in your hand and showed weakness OTR, it sucks but you will just have to call here, not many hands make sense for him to have OTR for value unless he plays 64o and junk like that. only 45dd 45cc 34cc, 46dd 46cc. From what you have told i would have expected him to raise the nutflush draw earlier in the hand.
It sucks but i think you just have to call and hope ur good

I bet $100. This is a serious scare card for V unless he has an A or a 4, so I don't think he'd bluff/raise. The bet is to prevent exactly this from happening. If you don't bet/fold, I think you need to call, but that should have been the plan all along.

B/f is sooo bad lol.

We're making it easier for V to play his hand. He's going to fold all his missed draws.

Thanks for your replies guys.
I know it's kinda generic, but: How would you play the river against a solid player? We can become easily exploitable if we just c/f or bet 1/3/f any scary river (spade, Q+).

In this particular hand I finally ended up calling mostly because of his maniac image and won against his 65o for a busted OESD.

This would be a rough spot against a good villain, but I would expect him to just check a lot with all his showdown hands like any 9 or a medium pocket pair. The ace isnt as scary as it seems only a nutflush draw beats you now which would likely raise during the hand, so just c/calling with all the missed draws seems fine. Just to add if you expect a villain to overbluff check your good hands on the river aswell like Ax which now paired up.

I don't like to play trappy, but the way you describe villain seems like:
1. JJ is the effective nuts on the turn
2. the exploitative strategy is to bluff-catch and check-raise this guy mercilessly
3. he's more likely to bet when checked to than to call down with marginal SDV

turn is the key decision point in the hand. I actually like a CRAI here for a few reasons:
a. Stack size is awkward. your 1/2 pot bet left a little more than a PSB on the river; if you had bet something more like $100 then you would have like 2/3 PSB on the river. As a result, there's not a great sizing combination for a bet/bet line.
b. the risk of giving a free card is low. V likes to bet when checked to and will be incentivized to bet his draws to pick up the perceived dead money without showdown. he also is the sort that can believe he is betting a hand like T9 for value since it's top pair. he can also have floats that will fold to continued bets, but will bet when checked to.
c. When you EP raise, cbet, then check turn on a 9hi board your distribution is heavily weighted toward high card hands that missed. checking turn protects your range some and is also likely to deceive and overly aggressive, spewy lag.
d. V has more nutted hands in his range, but he's so wide still on the turn that JJ should be crushing.
e. he has plenty of bet/calls that you are happy to get in against JJ (straight draws, flush draws, combo draws, 9x, TT).
f. the proper exploitative strategy against this Vill-type is to give him rope, so give him rope.

as played, call river. the A isn't a great card for you as it's V's most likely overcard, completes a wheel, and based on your line is a card you rarely have. most of V's range here is still missed draws and random pairs so I would expect him to be bluffing plenty to make this a profitable call.