I'm saying any line that starts with bet instead of check is poor vs the described player. c/r > bet here.

I do watch out for this type situation where the kid may be tempted to show off in front of his buddy trying to outplay you.

If he does not continuation bet 100% then he needs something to bet here. Overpair, top pair, Ax, Kx or made flush. Note that a high is slightly more likely because three players folded to his bet. Against the majority of his range you are a solid favorite on the flop. If he happens to have the flush you are 34%. If you are worried about JJ you should start smoking weed or something.

You have to move on this flop. There is no more value to be made, just get a fold now or get ready to embrace gambling. A friend of mine says "we don't build these streets folding sets."

You don't think this is something to take into consideration when we are sitting 533 bbs deep? Ditto for QQ when the turn comes?

I mean, I do understand that I could probably get away from this hand if some crazy raising happens, although against a guy who is on winners tilt and possibly overvalueing hands (plus maybe playing to impress his buddy as you state), this might actually be difficult. I also don't think we should get ourselves on the road to committing 250 - 500 bbs cuz "omg, i has middle set on a monotone board", no?

That said, I don't think I've ever taken a check/call, check, check/call line with a set before, so that certainly didn't seem right either.

GsucksatdeepstackG

My weed comment was just me being a bit goofy. No offense of course. But I do think your hand is a monte against his range. He is also the type to be aggressive on a mo notone flop. playing right now so more later perhaps.

oof, playing out of position sucks indeed.

I don't have much experience playing against 500bb big stacks but I've seen them fall. One of the main ways they go broke is trying bluffs against calling stations, so sometimes you have to be that station and I'm ok with your plan to call down reasonable bets.
You could put in a flop c/r or donkbet the turn (which is the old man equivalent of flop c/r). The downside we seem to recognize is that the stacks are in the range where a bare A can make your life difficult. But realize he can still do this even if you plan to check/call - a couple Dwan-like overbets and suddenly your stack is at risk.

The river is fine, since you don't have to be right that often and any remotely sentient player can think "hey I can represent the flush [draw]" with any hand that was c-bet. Plus it looks like you don't have much of a hand.

This, exept for the c/r flop.
Villain seems to be advanced enough to have some sense for player images and from your description you def dont have the image of c/r flop with worse than your actual holding (maybe bottom set or AsJx) but that's about it. Therefore you cannot really raise here for value - if anything, it's to protect your hand from a spade on the turn.
Also you said you don't feel like playing middle set on this board for stacks 500bbs deep. I kind of agree if that - at least on the flop.
Once you c/r because you are afraid to get outdrawn by a spade however you will play for stacks. The pot will be almost 400, you have 1300 left and 2 streets to go.

On these type of boards you have to show aggression and fold to even more aggression. In these situations I like to fake tell a little shaking hands or something against a thinking villain that can pick up on it. That'll slow them down.

c/r flop, donk turn...
On the river you aren't good. He has at least a small spade like 90% of the time. If you're really getting live reads you can check raise him 2.5x on the river, and he'll fold out 9 and less. Rough spot though.

Tough spot. I find myself hitting sets in spots like this often (oop same suit flop).

I like to b/c flop lead turn
Or c/r flop lead turn

B/c turn
B/f river

I think you want to play it as if you have a flush bc then if you get faced with a huge raise on the turn or river you can fold but id call pretty big turn raises if he leaves enough behind for you to call for a boat.
B/f river bc he has to have flush to raise you now. If its a bluff idk how he's still playing 1/2 with a sick read/ play like that.

As played I like the idea of c/r river or b/f river... c/c seems like the worst option to me but he did happen to give you excellent odds. Bad part is you are beat 90% of the time here I think. So that's why I like c/r river bc now I think he can only call with K or A of s , you have a solid image which makes it even a tough call for a Ks... if you get caught, remember this line you took for when you have a monster and use it.

I guess I am a scumbag cheater then.

I ratholed one time last week. It was at the end of the night. There were two tables left, my table broke, and I went to the bathroom with my chips in my pocket. When I came back I put about $120 of the $170 I had on the table.

Three things though:

The max buyin was $300, is it okay to rathole for less than the max buyin?

I just blinded away, and would have regardless with the hands I was dealt, so it didn't affect the game at all.

From what I am reading elsewhere on the internet, it seems standard that a table break means you can rathole?

Where I play, if your table breaks, you can bring anything from the minimum up to anything you had at the broken table (even if this is above the normal max buyin....)

pre is fine, i will usually lead this flop but you can c/r if you really want to.
turn is a must-bet, you are absolutely pooping on his range and are just miles and miles ahead of him. furthermore, it sounds like this kid might get a big one and try to make a move on you. a kid is really likely to (semi-) bluff scary boards IP into older players, which is really what you want. don't be afraid to bloat the pot.

IMO, on the turn go $130, when he raises to $350 fake hollywood a bit and call.
i don't think we're going to get value from his AsAx type hands on a brick river so I think our best bet is to check/call all non-spade rivers.

A bit of an old, bumped thread, but I think I can add some fresh insight:

Seat change? You should be asking for a table change, or go play 1/2 for an hour, or go to lunch/dinner. You state in Op you're "perhaps nitbox protecting his stack" and several times "I suck at deepstack" (to the point it becomes a meme, which is quite amusing). So pick up and lock it in. Come back in an hour and put $3-400 on so you can play non-scared poker. Imo, there's no shame in this, as you're not ratholing. It sucks because it's a juicy table, but if you're out of your comfort zone playing very scared, and it won't take this table long to realize this and start abusing you.

I won't comment on street-by-street play, because you add so many insightful posts in other strat threads, you know you were generally weak/passive from the flop on. You don't need me to tell you "lead or c/r flop, bomb turn, etc", you know all this.

All I'll say is you're hand still has showdown value otr, and your passive play could have induced a steal, so call off the $50 and rack up regardless of the outcome.

Edit: I suck at deepstack too, which is why I'm generally remembering it's time to feed my (imaginary) cat when I get over 250bb's

B/f flop, $65. Its 5 handed, and we have to take initiative. I think any raise here is a small made flush or JJ. Pretty much the only thing to worry about is if Villain just flats. However, if one of the smaller stacks shoves, I'm calling if we're closing the action.

Turn... As played, B/f $100. Again, made flushes raise, JJ raises, pretty much everything else should just call.

River... As played, c/f to a proper bet, but the $50 bet you have to call, all the time. You're unlikely to be good, but w/e, its $50 to win $225. C/r on river is just spew.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ratholing... what a weird thing to get folks riled up. Given everything else that goes on in poker rooms, I cant believe this is the thing that people are upset about.

Obviously its poor form to try to take money off the table and stay at the table. But if you're going to a new table, especially if you're moving not of your own free will, I don't see the problem.

I have a story about this... It was my 1st time ever playing at Commerce in LA, at the 3/5 200NL table. I proceed to run my stack up to $2200 in about 7 hours, from about 8pm until 3am.

At about 4:30, we are now 6 handed and lose another player, the floor breaks the table and as I'm looking around for a few racks, a chip runner comes over and says, "Sir, let me cash that out for you... put $2k in your pocket", and hands me 5 racks. I look over at the floor, and he just looks back at me an nods.

Now, I'm pondering taking money off the table, and a little nervous about handing $2k to the chip runner since I'm not used to having chip runners, but after a few moments hesitation I decide I'm cashing out $2k even if I have to stop playing, and I finally realize that the chip runner is in uniform and I can watch him the whole way, I say, "sure, thanks", and he proceeds to rack up my chips for me, hands me a rack of $200 and says, "I'll see you at the new table."

I'm sitting at the new table and he walk over with the cash, counts it out, and I tip him. As this is happening, I wonder if anyone at the table will say anything. I don't remember exactly, but I think two other players from the other table came with me to this table. The one thing I do remember with certainty is that no one at the new table had more then $200 in front of them.

No one said a word. Not a sideways glance. Nothing.

I played on until this table broke at 7am, cashed out another $1k and went to sit in the hot tub at the DoubleTree.

It's really really bad to bet/fold this flop barring a really disgusting read. No street can be this simple, I can tell you I'm betting flop and turn and I am very rarely folding to a raise on either street. There should be a ton of combos of KsKx AsKx hands etc that decide to raise here that we're printing money off of. It's hard to flop a flush and a lot of people 3bet JJ pre.

sweet barg, do u coach?

Just because someone might semi-bluff with AsX or KsX, doesn't mean we should be stacking off with middle set here.

I think more people flat JJ to the Villain's open raise, then 3B. I'm not saying its right, I'm just saying I think most fish, and bad regs, will flat with JJ with UTG open-raise. I'm not saying its the best move, but I probably flat JJ from MP and the blinds.

The mere fact that the flop is 5 handed is all the proof we need that drawing hands will have to play conservative. Its pretty bad to bet or 2B your AsX flush draw into 5 players, even fish know that.

And finally, middle set is RIO in this situation unless you improve. Another J would be the best possible card. Much of everything else either kills Hero's action or brings in draws.

At LLSNL, play exploitable until you have confirmation that you are being exploited.

No, I don't coach, but I do give advice... definitely take advantage of the celebrity hot tub parties at the Double Tree in Commerce.

I have watched a player get all of his chips in the middle multiway in a casino in a 2/5 game in a 3bet pot with JJ no heart on 964hhh. I opened ThTx pre to $25, a weaktight kid clicks it back from the SB, our fish flats the $50 from the BB. We flat the 3bet and see a flop of 964hhh. Both SB and BB have ~$250 behind. SB leads out his same $50, BB calls, we pop it to $125 to iso SB who obviously has AA/KK/AK, SB ships it in for $250 which we're planning to call, BB re-ships for ~$250, we find a fold, SB has AAnoheart, BB has JJnoheart. Fish love overpairs. Obviously that story is not directly comparable to the HH in question but it pretty well-illustrates the point that fish will just get in heaps with overpairs on monotone boards.


I agree that there aren't a lot of turn cards that we like, but we shouldn't use that as a reason to fold what is likely currently the best hand.

So if we assume the players are fishy enough to not be 3betting JJ pre, lets also assume they're fishy enough to be getting postflop with 75 and J5 (little Michael) in this hand. I think we can agree that most players will be raising two pair on this flop. With this in mind, there are now several more combos of hands that raise our flop lead that we beat.

grunch.. i personally like to c/r the flop. the fact he raised utg, i'm pretty sure AJ and AQ are both in his raising range. i'm sure he cbets with both of those if he has the As. so, i'd probably c/r the flop, lead the turn, and probably fold on either street if i get played back at