1/3 $200 max buy in

Hero: 30s white male wearing white hoodie. Sat down at the table less than 30 min ago. Played first hand in which I raised over one limper and took it down. Shouldn't have an image beyond reg-like, not drinking and not "there to gamble." Stack $200

Villain: 30s white male wearing baseball cap and headphones. Have no idea how he acquired his stack but he's shown nothing but aggression since I've sat down. He got in a blind vs blind war with the other big stack at the table in which he 3 barreled a 4279J board and claimed to of done it blind, betting was 15/25/45. Most active at the table and running it over. Definitely a reg, plays a good LAG game. Stack $1k

On to the hand

Villain limps UTG, Hero opens to 23 UTG+2 with KK, folds around to villain who calls. Huge raises were being called hence the sizing.

Flop: 567 (pot ~$45)

Villain checks, hero checks. After hero checks villain blind bets 25

Turn: 5675dd (pot ~$45)

Villain blind bets 25, hero calls.

River: 5675Jddd (pot ~$95)

Villain bets 50, hero calls.

Thoughts on all streets appreciated.

I think I would be c-betting the flop to try and get value from his worse overpairs /A8s/78s type combos (do you think he has these hands in his PF calling range?)

I'm making it 100 after his blind bet.

I'm assuming there's a rainbow flop.

SPR is around 4 so we should be going for stacks here.

Bet flop, raise turn and GII at some point. If he has some weird 75/85/65 hand, meh. Reload and take him to value town.

FWIW this guy is not a 'good LAG'. He's a fish. No good LAG is A) calling $21 more pre OOP while heads-up, and B) playing $1/3.

grunch. Let's not check the flop. Bet to set up a shove on the turn. 45 flop 133 turn

Bet the flop for 35-40 and shove blank turns. I have no idea why we're checking there.

Once you get more then 10% of your stack in preflop and have an SPR around 4 your committed on any non-terrible flop. This isn't a pretty flop against a super loose/super aggro villain but he is more likely drawing to beat you then ahead already. Bet flop and shove turn.

The only advantage of your line is that if he is super aggro bluffy you may get money from him when he has air. I don't like it on this board though because it's so easy for him to have a pair+draw. If the board was 36J rainbow on the flop I could get behind letting him spew off. In case your never folding once you check flop and there is little reason to raise river since there isn't much worse that will call.

I like the preflop sizing adjustment.

Flop, I don't understand this: "Villain checks, hero checks. After hero checks villain blind bets 25"

How does villain and hero check and then villain gets to bet? Also, what is a blind bet? Is a donk or is he not looking at his cards?

Turn, "Turn: 5675dd (pot ~$45)

Villain blind bets 25, hero calls"

Pot size can't still be $45, again not sure about blind bet meaning.

Anyway, I would lead out big OTF or x/r flop and then jam every turn that's not 4 to a straight. AP calling is kind of OK in that you should be way ahead of his range but still I'd rather just get the money in.

Blind bet refers to the fact that after I checked villain bet 25 before the turn card was revealed, essentially betting blindly on the 2nd street without seeing the card yet.

OK, makes sense. So turn action is essentially restating flop action + adding the fact that you called?

Right

grunch

I don't think this is the time to trap/bluffcatch, even against this type of player. You have 67BB to start the hand with KK and you get almost 8 of them in preflop, which is awesome.

Bet 45-50 on the flop and jam the turn and give him a chance to stack off with an overpair.

Thanks for the responses.

I agree with everyone that I should've attempted to get stacks in, or at the very least bet the flop. At the time I worried it smacked his range very well and that I could instead try to get two streets of value on turn and river. This one mistake, checking flop, changed the whole hand because it gave the villain the go to take initiative.

Results:

Not to be harsh but your bet sizing is horrible...

Preflop: fine

Flop: You're in position and you check the flop? He's a LAG which means that he would never check this flop when he hit it. If he was a passive player that would be an acceptable play.

You're going to let him catch up. He's a LAG so make him pay to play. 2/3 psb otf.

Turn: I'm ok with this

River: This is a standard raise for value from AJ or some weird J that's in his hand. If he has a straight he would have bet the flop.

The hand you described makes it sound like you're playing money scared poker, which is something we all have struggled with.

You'll never get the maximum value from each hand as long as you're scared to get the money in with the best hand.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I disagree with your belief that villain would never check a straight there or another strong hand. He's just as likely to go for a check raise or just lead turn, which he did.

Do you really think the river J completing a flush is a good river to raise for value? I'm only getting called by AJ and perhaps KJ when I'm good, the rest of the time I think I'm getting called by straights and raised AI against flushes and boats. He folds all his bluffs. I think with the runout of the board my best play was to call down.

I did play it too cautiously, but don't worry too much. I doubled up through him couple hands later with KK with 3bet/bet/shove.

I don't think a LAG would ever check the flop if he hit it, but that's just my personal belief based upon the description of your villain. However if you've seen him check/raise the flop bet with the nuts before that's another story.

Regarding the raise on the river. I do believe that this is an advanced play that will only work on LAGS. If he was a TAG or passive player I would never raise the river for value. However if you believe that you're beat on the river why would you ever call his bet?

If he reraises your 3bet on the river it's an easy fold.

Glad you doubled up on him a couple hands later. What made you play the next few hands differently for stacks opposed to this hand?

On another note, after reading the other comments, you aren't deep enough to raise the river if you had bet the flop. 23 of your 200 preflop, 45-50 otf, and it's all in on the turn.

I'd say I just didn't like the flop and didn't think about getting stacks in, not used to only being able to buy in for 66BB, so I didn't see the harm in checking and could potentially get action. As it turned out I did, but I definitely think in the long run I should be bet/getting it in. At the time I immediately thought "if I get it in on this flop I could very well be crushed" and put on the brakes. Which was a mistake.

The KK hand I did stack him had UTG open to 11, villain called, folds to me and I make it 57, folds around and he calls. 863r he checks I bet 55 he calls. Turn 8634hh he checks I go all in for 185 he grumbles about getting flush draw on turn and calls.

I think the difference between the two hands was flop texture and the fact that the first hand was maybe 15 min of time with him, which didn't give me much confidence. The second KK hand happened 20 min after the first one and I saw him be super aggro and make some tilt plays in that time.

I understand your point of view on the first hand. With 66BB getting KK against a LAG is a dream haha.

On the second hand why didn't you bet more on the flop? 3bet to 57 with 22 in the pot seems a bit high for me, but against this villain it's acceptable and a nice play. KK against 1-2 villains is great. Then on the flop you can bet 2/3 if the texture is dry/not in their range. Betting 20BB preflop, 20BB otf, and 60bb on the turn doesn't make too much sense to me, however I'm glad your villain is a maniac and will chase his draws with horrible odds. Seems like a dream villain.

Next time try 3betting to 15bb preflop, 2/3 psb otf (60-80 with one villain or 80-100 with two villains), 1/2-2/3 ott, and all in on the river with a board like this.

Love the big 10% raise preflop especially when we expect action at the table, nice.

Thanks to our good job preflop, we've now setup an easy postflop situation on this non Ace high board where we can simply commit our remaining stack in this SPR 4 pot. Even though this guy is laggy, I'd probably prefer not to give a free card (16 of which we could end up talking ourselves out of this pot). I'd probably just PSB it and hope he has something to call with / makes a move.

Looks like we're taking the bluffcatcher route instead, which ain't bad, but it's typically not the route I would take on a board with this many scare cards when we feel committed. So as I played I'm ok with the check/call/call, although I'm not totally convinced it's nearly as good as just bet/shoving in this case.

ETA: I think your big mistake in this hand is thinking that you should only be going for 2 streets of value / this range smacks him pretty good / etc. when you should really feel 100% committed in this SPR 4 HU pot. I can actually get behind the bluffcatching route you took a little more than others, but it is definitely not because of the reasoning you gave (rather, it's more so that we can catch this guy for some bets when he's often drawing dead like he is here, although I would have preferred this route on a less drawy board).

GcluelessNLnoobG