Hero ($150) - TAG

V1 ($400) - Tilted ukranian guy. Lost a lot of hands, likes to see a lot of flops and showdowns. Bluffs a lot with air. Straddles a lot and OR is quite high. He has basically been straddling all the BTNs and UTGs spots for about 80% of the time.


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OTTH

V1 on UTG straddles to $6, UTG+1 calls, Hero on BTN raises to $18 with 88, both players call.

Flop: Q32 ($58)

Both players check, Hero Cbets $27, V1 calls, other guy folds.

Turn: A ($112)

V1 checks, hero Checks

River: Q ($112)

V1 checks, Hero ???

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Thoughts?

Seems fine as long as you checked

Check? The question posed hints at an ambitious value bet to say the least.

Hand is played fine. Just check river with your showdown value. Not sure what a bet accomplishes?

Do you think hand is played correctly?

It's played OK It's just one of those situations that come up sometimes where everything seems sort of awkward. You don't want to c-bet this flop very often (say 1 in 4 or so) but you should c-bet sometimes. You could also have gone with a flat preflop but you have to just give up post when you miss when you take that route.

With your stack I think the flat preflop is probably slightly better then raising to try and get heads up but only slightly. After that everything just gets worse for you. Having it go 3 way is probably the worst situation for you when you miss. Heads up you can c-bet more and sometimes barrel, with 4 or more you just give up. The run out just continues to make it worse, the Ace on the turn forces you to shut down and then the Q on the river makes any sort of bluff impossible.

I do yes, you made a value/protection bet on flop (SDV is vulnerable), and made it through to showdown without getting blown off or voluntarily pumping money in when behind.

I just overlimp preflop. We'd hate to get 3bet and have to fold and forfeit all our equity (unless we're comfortable getting it in versus a 3bet, which against the straddler we might be). 88 is mostly going to see a whole wack of flops it hates, which ain't good if we're up against a guy who is willing to go after pots (what, are we gonna start calling down in position with 2nd pair which turns into 3rd pair by the river?). Yeah, thanks to the straddle we're only 25bbs effective, but there's very little dead money in the pot worth going after. I just see a cheap pot in position here and play some postflop poker. And if this guy raises his straddle a lot, then we're fairly cool with limping in, having him raise, get a call, and then jamming it down their throats with a shove.

I probably cbet slightly smaller on this bone dry flop.

I'm fine with the turn check back.

Be thankful the guy didn't bet the river (or donk the turn, or check/raise the flop) as all of those moves would have put us in the awkward spot I was wanting to avoid preflop.

River is interesting, imo. We only have a PSB left. We've shown an extreme amount of weakness on the turn. Would he check a Q here again to tarp? How comfortable would we be getting in the remaining stacks here against this guy, especially when there's no busted draws? How often is he going to call with a worse hand? How often will he spazz bluff to small sizing? I think all plays are viable, from a simple checkback, to a small weak sized bet intended to induce a shove, to a shove ourselves. I'm really not sure. Although I'll admit I'm on the conservative side and would probably mostly checkback.

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