1/3 $400 max buy-in. Typical passive 1/3 table.

Hero (400) mid 30s WG wearing business casual work clothes. Being social and a nice guy. Should be seen as a relatively straightforward TAG player. Not limping like the rest of the table. Two times in the last hour I have raised to 25 from the button or SB after a series of limps and taken it down Preflop.

V (350) 40s AG. Seems pretty gambly, with a lot of limp calling but also suspect some bluffs on later streets with some bet/folds. Seemed annoyed the first two times that I raised to 25 pre after his limps.

Preflop - 5 limps including V in MP. H raise to 25 with QsQd in SB. Folds to V (including an annoyed UTG who says "I knew he was going to do that again"), who considers for a bit then calls, rest fold.

Flop (60) 8h6h2s - H bets 40, V quickly calls.

Turn (140) 8h6h2sKd - H?

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I'm betting again for value as I don't think he's folding any of his draws or pairs.

bet 110

$100. Shouldn't have too many Ks in his range.

Agree with the above. Bet ~$100 to keep his draws in at not a great price.

After 5 limps I'm typically going much bigger at my loose table (in my last two sessions I've gone 7ways twice to a $25 raise after 2 limps, lol). Heck, I'd be fine with $35 here and still expect action, but that's my table (yours looks different considering you got things HU). Also, with betting $35 we're targetting the most likely stack we'll be playing against and can more comfortably commit postflop having gotten in 10% of stacks.

The SPR is a little over 5, we have a bit of an aggro (and perhaps FOS) preflop image, and this guy is gambooly and the board is drawy. Even though I wish we raised a little more preflop to be more comfortable committing postflop, I still feel committed at this point. So I'm looking to get things over with by the turn, which will require a slight overbet on the flop (no big deal as he's never folding a draw on the flop, right?) to setup a turn shove. So I'd bet $85 to setup a turn shove of into $240 into $230.

As played with our much smaller bet and this somewhat potentially scary card against a guy who might be able to bluff, I think I'd be cool with checking back to bluffcatch.

Basically, I think we have to plan out our hand just a little better; I'm not exactly sure we had a plan?

GcluelessNLnoobG

yuppers

Hero bets 100, V thinks for about 15 seconds then pushes for $285. Hero?

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Even though you describe V as possibly gambly, I think we need to fold now. While I think the bet was proper given not many Kings in his range, this move looks like KQhh or KJhh.

I dunno, he likes his hand, hard to imagine the K improves him. There are so few combos that make perfect sense here like Kx. I'd probably look him over and rely on live reads at this point.

I bet 100 and then fold despite your description of him as gambly.

This. It seems like there should be lots more hand that he would limp/spite-call us with and float flop.

Does he really have a lot of bluff/semi shoves here? It's not a great bluff card and shouldn't help him, and theoretically should help us more than him, since we always (LOL) have AK here.

It's a gross spot, and really read dependent on how many spaz bluffs he's got in his arsenal.

I'm calling, don't think it's at all close given the odds. He clearly thinks we're full of **** and if he actually had a strong hand, he could flat and allow us to keep bluffing. I'm aware not all villains think like that, but it's a starting point.

What strong hands could he have? If he had Kxhh I'd expect him to raise us on the flop. I don't believe he has a set because of his level of annoyance preflop. If he'd had a pocket pair the call would have been easy for him. He had something which he didn't really want to call a raise with.

There are an enormous number of hands he could want to raise us off our hand with here. Any two, any six, any draw, just straight up air maybe. If you discount K high flush draws and sets for the reasons in last paragraph, then him having us beat involves him having flopped top two, or having floated with Kx and turned a king AND then jammed with it.

We only need him to be bluffing 21% of the time. A straight up pot odds calculation gives 26%, however QQ has outs against everything here (except KK, but that's ludicrous). Once you factor that in, it's 21%. I'd be shocked if he had a better hand here more than 50% of the time. There are just not many plausible hands that have us beat and an absolute pile of hands he could want to bluff with, so that even if his bluffing frequency is fairly low, there are still going to be a lot of them in his range.

Edit: Just realised that he wasn't the one who said "I knew he was going to do that again". I still think he probably doesn't have a set given that he had to consider the call, as a pocket pair would be a snap call for this kind of guy. In any case, there are just way too many potential bluff hands to fold given the odds, even if you think he can have sets.

Agree, very strange line by Villain. King on turn smashes our range much more than his and literally completes nothing, not even BD diamonds. No two pairs with the King, so the Q really becomes why would V use this card as a bluff? I don't think he is...I think he ran into top pair with his FD and despite the great pot odds, I think I find a reluctant fold here. Very interested to see results.

Interesting thoughts here. Just not sure c/c flop, CRAI turn on a card that he legit should expect us to have in our range has enough bluffs in it to get to 21%. But you make a compelling argument.

Does V understand barrelling ranges? As in, does he know the K is a great card for us to barrell regardless of our holding? If the answer is yes, then maybe I can get there. If not, I can't talk myself into what looks like a Hero call now, even at 2.5-1+.

It's not x/c x/r. Villain is in position, he floated flop.

Regarding the psychology, I think there's often confirmation bias at play (edit: probably not exactly the right term, but you'll see what I mean). If villain thinks we're tight and solid, he'll go down the "Well, I guess he has AK" track here. But given he's just had it suggested to him by another player that we're full of ****, once that seed is planted, it's not hard for him to tell himself a story about how we're just stabbing at a scare card. I wouldn't be surprised to see him show up with something like T9 here, a hand good enough to float the flop but not to raise, and then on the turn he just gets stubborn and is like "**** you, not folding".

Unfortunately I feel like OP probably folded here and we're not getting results. Such is life.

Your suggestion is just straight up directly worse than the actual line taken. Either you are still getting stacked by all the same hands we are (ie Kxhh, sets, top two), or your giant flop bet is dissuading the guy from floating with some random Kx hand, which is undesirable as the float is -EV even if he stacks us when he spikes the K. Meanwhile, if I'm correct and the guy is bluffing a decent percentage in this turn spot, then your giant bet sizing ruined his opportunity to make the bluff.

The aim of poker is not to manipulate the hand such that you don't have any difficult decisions. That's just a fundamentally wrong assumption at the heart of your entire philosophy on the game.

OK sorry missed that we were OOP. Interesting psychology thought above and I agree V's line makes no sense. With odds at 2.8-1, we need 26% equity to call so I think maybe you are right on this one. Weird lines always mess me up and invariably I have seen V's show down some random crap (like K8o here or some ****) that sucks.

That might actually be the most quintessentially GG post ever. Because you "feel committed", in the name of "getting things over with by the turn", you want to completely obliterate any chance the opponent has of screwing up. As I've posted before, in your quest to eliminate tough decisions and thus eliminate any chance that you will make a serious mistake, you also eliminate the capacity of the opponents to make a serious mistake. Your first two paragraphs make absolutely no mention of what the opponent might have or what they will do with it, they're just musings on how to structure the hand like poker is a complicated form of solitaire. As long as you get to sink into the warm glow of "being committed", where you're beyond the reach of nasty things like playing poker, you feel like it's job done.

K8 definitely possible, maybe even the most likely hand if we're losing.

Back when I used to play poker with friends like 15-20 years ago, K8o had a mythological status, like some people have with 72o or whatever. If you got to the end of the hand and flipped over K8o as a winner (either via bluff or showdown), it was the source of much praise.

Pretty much this, accurately described.

I thought about posting on it, but he yelled at me last time so I figured I would let someone else do it this time.

Haha awesome. Loved games like that.

I do not expect v here is understanding barreling ranges but I do think they are at least considering what I may have.



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