220 effective, hero barely covers

Hero-A6cc
Villain- Very aggro in first hour I've been at table. Raising a ton pre

Villain button straddle 6

At this particular casino on a button straddle the action begins under the gun like normal. If there is a raise the straddle must act in turn, otherwise action goes around to blinds, then straddle acts last.

folds to sb-calls, hero in bb raises to 20. a bit on the small side but aside from aggro player, table is very tight. villain calls, sb folds.

flop(46) 554r. hero bet 30. villain calls.
turn(106) 3x. hero checks, villain bets 55. hero calls.
river(216) Qx. hero checks, villain all in 115. hero tank calls?

When you say above average aggro are you saying he is an above average player or that he is more aggressive than the average player?

If he is a good player why would you want to get in spots like this out of position?

At the time all i knew is he had shipped 600 to another player who had recently left. never showed but claimed he got coolered with KK. He was raising at an abnormally high rate. I meant he was more aggressive than normal lag players.

You have any idea how he plays post-flop?

Anyway, what in the hell can you put him on that you beat? 87 or 86 is the only draw you are beating, and those are pretty marginal. You lose to every Ax combo, as well. V can easily be bluffing with the best hand here.

Ive seen him pounce when he smells weakness. but havent seen any showdowns up to this point. Just pretty aggressive in position.

Don't raise this hand preflop versus a player you consider Laggy and/or aggro.

I cannot imagine calling this river with Ace high is +EV under pretty much any circumstance.

Low quality bluff pre. Low quality bluff post. Minimal equity flop/turn. Bottom tier bluff catcher. Blocking his bluffs. Oop. Rio.

Raising pre for value is fine, but I would prefer a limp against someone we expect to frequently raise his straddle.

The flop is meh. Did you have a three-flush?

Overbet shove the turn. This combo doesn’t do great as a check/call and you have lots of equity to use as a semi-bluff.

Fold river. He likely doesn’t have tons of bluffs and could be bluffing with a hand that beats you.

Yeah man I really don't like this hand on any street. Would flat pre. I think we need to fold turn. If you called the river it was probably the least bad decision as V is polarized and A high likely fares same as JJ.

I would probably just fold preflop. Stacks are relatively small (we could set ourselves up for very uncomfortable commitment with TP with a raise) and we'll be OOP to an aggro player. We could limp, but just too good a chance we face a raise. And raising ourselves just leaves us OOP against a guy who is likely never folding preflop and yet we're going to hate most flops. This is a very marginal spot, and we can simply pass on it, imo.

And this is the postflop spot we were going to get ourselves into. If we have an absolute sure steady handle on how to play in this spot OOP against an aggro player on many different boards, then maybe we'll make it profitable. I'm not convinced I can make it profitable, which is why I avoid this spot.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I'll go ahead and post my reasoning behind me play in real time.

Preflop- hindsight i wish i raised more but like i said the standard raise was pretty low and table fairly tight, even by the aggro. I think i don't mind having this hand as a raise in my range into a blind straddle.

Postflop- In real time i know im cbetting almost my whole range into this type of flop, folding to a raise here with non pair hands in my range.

Turn- I pick up some equity and I'm fairly certain this particular player is capable of floating a huge portion of air in his range. Hindsight i prefer to jam here, but one of my live poker leaks is to adjust my play to the pot size, it felt like in this type of game and casino big bets don't happen alot in relation to the pot size. In this case maybe i should continue leading for 55 here and jam rivers? this seems kind of odd.

Anyway after checking and he bets I know his range is not necessarily polarized. He is capable of putting me on big air and betting here to get me off. I decide to call with my equity and knowing he is capable of betting with a lot of his weak range. I planned on checking all rivers to keep his bluffs in.

River- after checking the jam here now is definitely polarized. I think he is now checking alot of his weak pairs, and probably even a Q unless he is next level value betting which doesnt happen alot in 1/3. I didn't think he could bluff with much worse since he is reraising alot of hands except like A9ish type hand.

Anyway there is something to be said for the live flow of the game and this particular players live tells. Overall a GTO play? nope, but there was some exploitative tendencies that I just felt was the right play.

Result:

If you were wrong would you say the same thing?

You are going to have the best hand here a percentage of the time. The question is what percentage and if you run into the top of his range are you still telling yourself "I just felt like it was the right play"

Maybe you do, my overall point is not to be results oriented.

+1

Villain often taps the table and says "nice call" and then is surprised when his bluffing AT/22/etc. is best.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I can't imagine that calling the shove with A high is a long term +EV decision. It will however get you a first class ticket to value town, as any thinking villain will start value betting much thinner against you in future.

^^ Which will happen like < 5% of the time. I think the least bad decision here is calling the river (probably actually a good decision) because at these stakes people don't thin value bet enough. Calling with A-high versus JJ will win about the same amount of time here.

yea this is definitely not a standard play in my game. Funny enough after this hand we both tightened up against each other. I also don't mind making people feel I am capable of calling light, because my normal game is fairly tight. I knew after this hand he was way less likely to be bluffing me light.

These reasoning's for making the call were my real time thoughts. Like I said it probably isn't a +EV play long term. But there are certain times in live games when the flow of the game can dictate on exploitative play that may be profitable. I'm not saying by any means that my play was correct because of the result. Hence the reason I posted this hand in the thread to get your guys input.

I feel like live there is a lot of psychological situations that come up, along with live tells that makes live poker so interesting. I knew the guy was playing like he could outplay the world and everyone was inferior. sometimes you have to bring them back down to earth. I called him based on my reasonings/read, if he has a better hand, I will gladly say nice hand and move on to the next.

You don't really give us much to work with here on the V. Aggro PF is about it ..

Not sure why you would 'donk' into an aggro PF straddler here. I would be more inclined to 3! (after he does what he does, raise PF) and try to take it down PF. By opening you have taken his fun away from him and allowed him to flat with all 52 cards in the deck in position .. while somewhat defining your hand-which you should be at the lower end of your range with here.

30-35 on Flop is good IMO. You have an Ace and he might have folded some of those cards PF.

I would probably continue on the Turn. You have increased 'hidden' equity and if you had an over-pair you probably continue as well. Definitely c/c the Turn as played. He has position and you have opened the door to steal the pot.

Now the fun begins. I'm big on live tells and game flow, so I'm not saying that I wouldn't have an itch to call here as you did. I really think it's Qx/5x or nothing depending on how he called the Flop bet. I don't see too many other Ax hands for V because I think he would check back 'a lot' of A/K-high type hands that may win a showdown.

Without providing any post-Flop information it's hard to make a determination. I know a few (present company included) that are aggro PF but settle into a pretty standard post-Flop game. Lots of aggro guys really know what they're doing and the aggro part is all a set up for the 'big kill' on 'any' Board.

Glad you won, but I think there are a few better approaches to this V and your play with this hand in the BB. Don't get too much fancy play syndrome into your game when a player like this is doing your work for you. GL

Pot, meet kettle.

GimoG

thanks, glad to have atleast one player not perceive this as me being a complete spew-tard. But the other part of the game is adjusting to how people perceive you, and I'm sure after this hand this guy thought wtf...idiot.

You might want to re-read my post .. there's a few zingers in there to consider.

1) On this site I've found that posters will somewhat ignore an OP's question and instead focus on 'staying out of jail'. The opinion being that it's not wise to teach people how to escape jail when it's better to not be there in the first place.

2) I will try to consider most posts from the 'as played' perspective first while maybe tossing in a few ideas about the whole hand in general. I don't really subscribe to the 'you're an idiot' and then build them back up routine of learning that often although you may get that impression if you re-read my first paragraph.

3) I think very few players put a lot of thinking into live tells and game flow other than the obvious ones. I can truly say that for as bad as I play I pick up plenty of extra chips by playing the player more than my cards at times.

4) I've been told by other regs to stop 'teaching' at the table, especially with PLO newbies who think top/bottom pair OTF is 'pot' worthy, since it gives away our 'advantage' over a player. My opinion has always been that the only way I can get better is if the player pool gets better (otherwise they don't come back). I fully understand from a profit standpoint you should keep your mouth shut and let players flap away in the breeze. I guess I don't want the 'idiot' label, so I explain myself too much ... which may in fact, add to the idiot title!!

Very good GG....VERY good.

Jeez, if you're so concerned about post-flop then limp/shove pre, but don't open-fold. If the SB was trapping then you'll find out for $3. Actually, I think this is my preferred line over open-raising.

You do not understand how strong this hand is at a short stack-depth. It is so strong that if we happen to know SB never calls a jam pre-flop, our EV is guaranteed to be at least ~$5 by open shoving! It is possible SB is trapping an agro villain, which is why I'd prefer a limp/shove, however. A single villain only gets dealt a hand better than A6s 13% of the time!