Everyone folds to Hero in cutoff with 8s7s and I raise to 12.
Button is guy in his late fortys with texas A and M shirt and visor on.. showed down one hand where he called small raise with KK and checked called all the way down. don't have much of a read on villan because he just sat like five hands ago. He calls my 12 but seems kinda squirmy in his seat. Has 350 behind.
Big bling calls.. nerdy kid early 20s.. very weak player.. $80 behind

Flop. Ks8h7d.. BB checks. I bet 25 and button raises to 50.. BB folds.. I call the 25 more..
Turn. 6c.. I lead out 100.. button tanks then shoves.. I call and show my two pair.. he says good hand..
River. Ac.. villain wins pot with AhKh..
My question is.. is it ever profitable to just flat the raise after the flop or should I have re popped it to $150?.

I'd say a reraise on that flop is almost always going to only fold out worse and get called/shoved on by better. Only exception I can think of is if villain is an absolute level 0 station that believes TP is the nuts. No way to know that after just five hands.

So you are saying a reraise there is -ev.. giving I have no history with villain?

As played even if you raised flop he's not going anywhere with ak. You got it in good and he hit an ace. Reload

A $12 is usually seeing very multiway action at my 1/3 table, even if opened from the CO. I'd typically go $15+ here (which also enables us to win more when we cbet the flop HU and take it down). Anyhoo, I'm cool with the raise.

I'm assuming we cover the $350 of the button.

I'm probably planning on going broke on this flop. It doesn't really have any other two pair written over it, sets are unlikely cuz we hold blockers plus guy would have had to just call preflop for the second time in a row with KK. So my plan would probably be to pot/pot/shove in order to play for stacks.

I think we can go either one of two ways on the flop. The board isn't particularly drawy, so we could just call and then donk the turn. Or we could just reraise now. I'm cool with your play. (next time, don't post results as they will skew answers)

I think the more drawy the board, the more we have to repop it on the flop due to scare cards possibly shutting down action. The less drawy the flop, the more we can slowplay. This is also assuming that stacks are such that we can afford to slowplay the flop and yet still get them in later (which we easily can in this case).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Villain dependent on how to get this in, but really no question that you want to get it in...

the little information you gave me on this guy leads me to believe he will almost always have a very strong K here, maybe AA, but mostly AK. As such, he is going to call whatever you bet, no matter the manner in which you bet it as long as you never overbet the pot by too much. For one, he is going to never be able to let AK go because he will think there is a good chance you have AK too... and really, because he hit a K with AK and he is not thinking about your hand too in depth.

So, 3 betting flop is fine... as is call, lead turn, lead river.

Since he is on the hook permanently, and you are not (you can fold to an A/K or runner-runner pair)... you have more +EV pacing it in. As you can escape on his outs and he won't escape period.

If he at all has a wider range than premium cards, then you need to absolutely be 3-betting the flop as bottom two is 5-out OTF / 8-out OTT vulnerable.

I'm not as advanced as most in this forum but this feedback surprises me. I rarely see the typical passive LLSNL villains raising without two pair or better. Do most of you see opponents raising with hands like TP?

A few thoughts:

1. What 2 pair combo can they have when they call a raise pre and raise flop? And what set can they have? Our 87 hand blocks a lot of combos of hands that beat us

2. Lots of villains overvalue AK or AA

3. When we bet the turn, since we already have 1/2 our stack in, we only need to be good 1/4 of the time on that board. We call knowing we are behind some % of the time to KK

+1

KK (3) 88 (1) 77(1)... = 5 combos that beat us

AA (6), AK (12)... = 18 combos we beat.

We are way ahead of his range. If villain has a set, good for him, but can't be scared when you beat 18/23 of straightforward range... nevermind if villain could have bluffs or a wider pre-flop range and some semi-bluffs in there (T9 suited)

Also, a note about pacing it here with the idea of folding to heavy action on further [A/K/running pair]...

ONLY do this when your bottom two is accompanying a K or A on the flop and thus there really aren't any scare cards for villain. If you had 56 and the flop was J56... then you cannot count on being able to milk AJ or QQ, etc. There are two many cards that will make villain shy. An AK hit hand is a whole different story because there are no overcards.

Reraise flop to 165 and shove any turn that isn't a K or A

When playing 1-2 or 1-3, Everyone is a drooler/Level 0 thinker, until proven otherwise. You got your money in when you had the best hand and got unlucky.

Good insight guys. I've been focused on bet/folding lately too. Couple that w nittiness and I've probably left some value on the table.

Thanks everyone for the input.. much appreciated..

GG, guys.

unto the next thread.