Hero - TAG 25 y/o brown guy, $2000

V - MAWG, sat down a couple of orbits ago. Seems TAG, $400

OTTH:
Hero had pre tipped the dealer before the hand started making a joke about wanting good karma.

UTG straddles to 6.

Hero BB: KdQd
V (UTG+1) calls, folds to CO, BTN, SB all complete. Hero raises to 35, UTG folds, V calls, everyone else folds.

Flop ($94)
2s Jc 10h

Hero bets 35, V calls, BTN folds.

Turn ($164)
6d

Hero bets 80, V calls.

River ($324)
10c

Hero bets 150, V folds.

Thoughts on bet sizing, and if this was a good spot to triple barrel? I was repping QQ+, and figured V to have AJ-QJ, 89, maybe KQ, and discounting J10 due to him not raising my flop bet.

I wouldn't straddle.

With 4 people already interested in the hand, I might just see a flop here. I'm a little unsure about how big a raise we're going to need to thin the field and we'll most likely end up OOP. KQs also plays fine multiway in high SPR pots.

I like our small cbet. This will typically be enough to take it down if Villain doesn't have anything, and otherwise we give ourselves good odds to continue.

I'd typically shut it down once called here. Sounds like we don't have a history with Villain; getting unknowns to fold mediocre hands like TP is hard (let alone big hands which he might have, as JJ/TT could easily play this way).

Probably best to not state results in OP (or at least spoiler all of them). I'm not in love with the 3barrel as AK busted (people always put us on AK here) and so I'm not convinced an unknown is going to fold TP. We basically got one of the few hands that could get to the river with air to fold, which I think is luckier than anything.

GcluelessNLnoobG

KQs plays very profitably for half a bet, even OOP. When you raise, you're trading that positive EV for the positive EV of bluffing. But you're better off turning 0 EV (i.e. something you'd otherwise fold) into a bluff and keeping this in your calling range. It's really not strong enough to raise OOP for value unless you have really good control of V's post.

Note that button folds both pre (as part of "everyone else folds") and then on the flop, where it's more explicit. That's a tricky play; I'd make a note on this guy (j/k, pot makes it clear he must have folded.)

If you're going to bluff this flop, bluff it! Make it 75+ to go (I don't think 100 is out of the question).

LLSNL V's tend to call too much for small bets and often fold too much for big ones. Betting 35 turns this mistake into a good play with your exact hand. Furthermore, it's entirely believable that a big pair (QQ+) would bet this flop on the big side.

I'd make it at least 75 and I don't think 100 is out of the question.

Then I'd jam the turn. If V will call of his stack with TP, so be it (and make a note). But you've basically taken out a full page ad saying you have QQ+, the turn didn't help any of V's hands. It's high variance, but I'm confident you're getting folds here more than half the time.

If he does call you off with TP, you've got up to 10 outs to beat him. Even if he's got a set, you've got some equity in the hand.

As an aside, be careful about deciding what you rep. That's actually up to V. For example, if he's not trying to put you on a hand, you're not "repping" anything. If V thinks big pairs would always bet the flop for a decent sized bet, you're not repping QQ+ to him. V doesn't care what you think he should think you have. He only cares what he thinks you have. To be more concrete, if I were V, I would never think you have QQ+ here. Why on earth would you bet so little with what is very likely the best hand?

AP, I think you can go pretty small on the river, but I don't really like checking K-high here. Basically, I'm not trying to get V to fold a pair (or especially trips) at this point; I'm just betting to protect myself from being bluffed (or from losing to same hand), because x/c K-high is way too thin - certainly a losing play. Maybe V has AK or AQ and he'll fold that. I think if we bet like $100, V is never bluff shoving 150 more, and we'll win at least 25% of the time. It seems better than checking.

If our plan is to bluff the turn UI all-in, then I actually don't mind this sizing. After all, the SPR is only ~3 so this big pot is worth winning, and it's not as if we haven't flopped decent equity with overs + OESD. So I'm cool with PSB/shove plan.

But if we're not planning on bluffing later streets UI, then I'm much cooler with a small cbet to see if that takes it down (as I don't believe Villains are calling the flop based on betsizing but instead rather simply on what they hold).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Agreed that small is good if we're not necessarily planning to move V off hand. As you suggest, a big bet on the flop and giving up on the turn would be bad IMO.

Also agreed that V's are most focused on their own hand and making only minimal (and bad) attempts to range others. Indeed, I think your point is entirely true for small bets. I think as bets get larger in an absolute sense, V's are more likely to start thinking about what others might have (and particularly what they might be losing to).

Stephen Miller in one of his books, makes the excellent point, that we usually know by Turn if most villains have a monster or not, so we can check the unlikely to be a monster. So the second question is can villain lay down something like AJ, and here I think is where we just don't have enough information with someone new.

Bigger flop, bigger turn, shove river.

Don't 1/3 this flop. This is not the type of board where you should be betting anywhere near 100% of your range and using a small sizing.

You're going to spew money in the long run triple barreling OOP

Pot flop, jam turn would have more fold equity than this line. I also think check/raising big would work really well in this spot. With your line you probably get looked up by any jack and it's not impossible for him to have a ten either with your weak bets on the flop and turn. You're also blocking a lot of his straight draw hands that he'd fold on the river.

How many hands stronger than KQ do we think he's getting to the river with and then folding to a 3rd barrel on this runout? The weird sizing is the only reason to think this is a real possibility.

(fwiw, I don't think a $35 cbet on this flop and ~half PSB on turn & river reps QQ+ when we easily could've bet reasonable amounts and gotten stacks in.)

isn't a high variance line a really bad idea especially without a strong read that villain is capable of folding? 300 may not mean a lot to villain and to some people shoving may be seen as a bluff. it helps to have a bdfd or fd+oesd

It might be, but I don't think so.

We don't have much to go on, but my experience suggests that a MAWG who seems tight has probably learned not to stack off with TP. I'm implicitly filtering the reads we have through the lens of the player pool I've seen at LLSNL. I doubt he's really aggressive (since very few LLSNL players are actually aggressive) and I doubt he's actually that tight (since tight V's are very rare and usually stick out like sore thumbs). I think this guy is less loose than the standard V (but still too loose) and that he's perhaps more aggressive than the standard V (but he's still leaving a lot of money on the table through lack of aggression).

Turning that around, a typical LLSNL player in our position that's shoveling money into the pot almost always has a big hand. LLSNL players very rarely bluff enough and very close to never bluff for big money. That means the regs generally learn not to stack off 133 BB with just TP.

If we bet 100 into the pot on the flop, he has to fold just over 50% of the time for us to break even if we never suck out.

If we give him a limp/calling range of: 22 - TT, A2s - AJs, A8o - AJo, 54s - QJs, 75s - KJs, 96s - KTs, K9o - KJo, QTo, T9o - JTo, he's hit MP+ 43% of the time. That makes the cbet profitable. (There's room to argue about the size of the bet, a smaller bet might be more profitable than a PSB, but even the 100 bet is very profitable even if we never draw out on V). [You'll get somewhat different answers depending on the range you give him.]

The 6d turn is a complete brick, helping none of the hands in his flop calling range. If we bet 100 on the turn and he called, the pot would be 294 and we'd be shoving for 265. V needs to fold just under half the time for this to be profitable.

Now this is where it can get a little tricky. If V is very tight on the flop, say calling only with TP+ or an OESD, then his turn range is much stronger. In that case, 70% of his turn range might be TP. If he'll stack off with any TP (including things like J9s), then, yeah, bluffing is bad and we're counting on making our draw.

But if he's tight on the flop, he's probably giving up at least some of his weak TP on the turn. Or if he's loose on the flop, he has quite a few weak hands on the turn. In either of those cases, the turn bluff is likely profitable.

It's a risk. V could have 2P or a set. V could be sticky and call all the way down with MP. But it's likely that aggression will get him off nearly his entire range on the turn. And that's profitable. Our strong draw (compared to his having TP) provides backup and some extra ways to win if the bluff doesn't work.

It is higher variance, but I strongly believe it's higher EV too. I believe this is exactly what we're talking about when we talk about aggressive play winning the money.

IMO.

I think it is a bad board run out to bluff and with a half pot bet you are pretty much never folding out better hands. With your bluffs here you should target hands la TPWK and stabborn 88, 99 type hands which have a pretty good board run out for a call down. However I'd bomb the river to really put the weaker part of his range to the test.

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isn't the Tc a really bad river card since AT, KT, QT are never folding now?

LLSNL plays pretty straightforward. You want your opponent to fold, you have good equity when called and there are obvious hands you rep. Bet 80-90 and then shove the turn, this reps an overpair just as well and puts the opponent under maximum pressure. Going for the three street installment plan is more what I'd do if I didn't want them to fold.

Something else in favor of this is that most of my outs are going to look scary to my opponent if they hit, so my prospects of getting paid once I make my hand are not great.