Game: 1/3 home game with mostly villains I have played dozens of hours with.

Hero: Changed my game significantly since earlier posts. Very tight, probably 9ish VPIP. A little buzz at the game about how tight I am now; taken only one hand to showdown and was good with AKs for a ~100ish pot. Stack - $375

V: Late 30s male, looks to be on some sort of intoxicant. Have no history with this V. Has been overbetting pots and hasn't taken much to showdown either. Seems to be generally very aggressive but hasn't shown any reason he shouldn't be. Has been discussing the federal prison time he's done with another V. I believe him. Stack: $205

Three limpers, including V in EP. Hero picks up QQ in the SB. Hero raises $15 on top ($5 more here?). V waffles, thinks, calls, both other limpers fold.

Flop: J87

Hero thinks, bets $26. V snap min-raises to $55. Hero thinks, calls.

Turn: 2

Hero thinks, checks. V bets $75. ($55 left behind). Hero tank calls.

River: 10

Hero checks. V quickly bets out remaining $55. Hero, recognizing that there are basically no hands he is now beating, folds.

V did show and I will post that later.

Upon review, I feel I should have folded turn vs. unknown tendencies. Agree/disagree? If we call turn, are we committed to ANY river that comes?

A couple of self-critiques. I feel I should have bet $20 on top before the flop instead of $15. Playing QQ out of the SB, our optimum idea is to take down the pot by the turn, making most of our money before and if it folds around, having made $13 off the hand OOP to all our villains isn't the worst result.

Two ways I could have approached the flop. I feel I should have either bet it stronger - to deprice FDs and what I imagine are a host of potential limped combo draws - OR, check OOP for pot control with a hand and board that I feel it'll be difficult to be the best hand by the river. A spade or a 9 or 10 OTT (and perhaps a board pair) would improve our hand where we can press the turn hard and force our opponent to have a real hand to call.

AP, I think my flop call is fine and standard, but I don't think deucing the turn changed anything in our favor and I should have viewed calling the $75 as essentially calling $130 (which I wouldn't have done in this case) and laid it down. But I think suboptimal betting decisions pre and otf put me in that position.

Calling turn and folding river is horrendous.

Also, if villain really looks on drugs, I'm shoving turn.

You have an SPR of less than 5 on a drawy flop vs. a LAGgy villain. I'm already thinking about how to get stacks in the middle on a non-scary turn. Hence, once he bets the turn I'm snap-shoving for his remaining stack.

Sent from my BNTV400 using 2+2 Forums

This, even though that was the nut worst river card for us.

I don't disagree. I think part of it was that I realized I misplayed the hand in other ways that led to that point and that when you've made critical errors it's best not to compound them by putting more money in the pot.

Theoretically it was incorrect to fold river, but with the combination of it being so bad for my holding and being the result of poor play on previous streets, I thought it was the best thing to do.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using 2+2 Forums

In general, when I tank the turn, villains tend to perceive me as weak, so they'll continue betting whether they have it or not... which is why I never tank-call turns (unless I'm hollywood-ing with the nuts).

How can you just flat turn and leave $55 behind? That's pretty bad. Just c/shove turn.

I recognize that conventional wisdom says with these stack sizes that we should never call turn without putting all our chips in the middle, but I really couldn't figure out a single villain holding that wasn't complete air that I was beating on that river card except for 65. In response to the 'tanking' of turn, I get that it will increase villain aggression but I needed the time to think about what hands villain's line made sense with. 87 seemed most logical to me and that's essentially why I just called turn. Regardless, if that's my read I wasn't getting the correct odds to call and I should have folded turn.

I know given spoiler this looks very much like a results-oriented review, but I promise - right or wrong - that was my legitimate thought process.

I'll sum this up by saying that I believe that there ARE sometimes river cards that weaken our holding so much that Harrington-generation thoughts about stack-relative committal is just wasting money. Seriously, when that 10 rolls off... what are we beating, especially when we've been playing very nitty, 9-10VPIP poker all night? When we've been playing in this manner, does V really think that we're just going nuts with AK with our $18 pf bet?

Furthermore, when we call turn, will villain ever bet the river unless he feels he can beat a one-pair (no matter how good the pair) hand? I mean, again... conventional play says that we called $135 OTT. To him, we're never folding.

I think the vast majority of villains that we encounter at any sort of reasonable stake have some degree of level two thinking, and that a lot of times we fool ourselves into thinking they don't.

Just be happy that people are calling your $15 raises with J7o.

LOL at the final comment.

Fair, but there's a huge difference between the tossing of money into a burning wastebin pf and tossing it into a raging house fire later in the hand.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using 2+2 Forums

This hand is extremely easy to play with Villain's stack size. It's just two steps:

Step 1: Raise to ~$20 preflop. This will set up an SPR of around ~4.

Step 2: Stack off postflop on non A/K flops. On drawy boards you'll want to get it in as quickly as possible (pot the flop to shove the turn, or get it in on the flop if he wants to).

These steps make it so (a) mining with a speculative hand is unprofitable for the villain even if we stack off every single time he sucks out because he's paid too much preflop and (b) makes postflop brain dead simple to play (autopilot) the majority of the time (only A/K flops will be difficult).

Gpokeriseasy,makeitsoG