Morning 1/3 in St. Louis, first game of the day. Hero is a late 20s white guy who is familiar to some people at the table, but not villain. Against the people who know me in this game, my image is pretty bad and laggy. Villain has only seen me this morning, and it's a morning game with a bunch of regs, so I've been very ABC. Up very slightly.

Villain is a YWG who can't stop talking strategy, and all of it is bad. Non-ironically bemoaning 94o on a flop that comes A94, talking pretty loudly during hands he's not in. I've seen him bet/fold a few times in dry spots. A couple orbits earlier, he minraised UTG, bet 6 on the flop, 12 on the turn, 12 on the river, and got called down by second pair and showed A9o and was just shocked he didn't get a bluff through. He has right about 300, and I cover.

Four limpers, villain completes the SB, Hero checks his option with Q4hh.

Flop: Th6h3s

Villain leads for 15. Hero raises to 45. Folds around, Villain is cutting out calling chips as the table is folding around and calls and then checks dark.

Turn: 3c

Hero bets 85, Villain looks at his cards a couple times, calls slowly, and checks dark again.

River: 5s

Hero jams 186 effective.

Thoughts?

Turn is pretty bad. Don't think you're getting folds on this turn card.

I check behind. Your flop raise size is small.

Since we have 2 hearts it's less likely he has hearts and has TP or better.

Probably no FE vs this guy Other than pushing out hands we beat on river or some 45 hand and since we have the Q4 less likely any 45.

I think checking behind river is good as we have showdown value.

Preflop looks obvious.

Why did we raise the flop? All we have is a Q high flush draw and we still have 4 players yet to react behind us. A raise seems to be burning money if anyone behind wakes up with a hand or Villain raises (noting his bet is much larger than his bluff bets). I would just call and hope a bunch of players come along to pad my odds.

I don't try to barrel bad unknowns off their hands, especially when the only image I might have is a bad laggy one. I just take my free card on the turn and hope I'm not drawing dead.

Every postflop action was a pretty massive spew, imo.

GcluelessspewingnoobG

Villain of the type you describe tend to call down too light and out of the SB can have anything. I don't mind the flop raise if villain has a fold button. After that I don't like continuing without some more definitive read on villain's range. If villain has a lot of flush draws in his range then turn and river might be good but you have no idea yet and a lot of these guys will show up with T9 that called the whole way.

Re raising the flop: I didn't do it quickly. The players behind were all telegraphing folds. I was 95% sure a raise was getting me heads up.

Re showdown value on the river: Do we really have a lot? Any flush draw that called down is probably bigger than ours, and some smaller may have made a random pair on the end (75, 85, etc.)

+1. Flop raise is awful.

This one is interesting. I don't think your line is terrible really, it's hard for aggression with equity to be bad, but there are a few really bad spots to bluff in live poker and you have 3 of them.

Limped pot
Board pairing turn
When villain bets pot

*Hypothetical* If you were heads up on the flop, in position I'd like your raise. It's kind of a limit poker play, raising with the draw in position. You get fold equity, disguise your hand a bit, and often get the chance to check behind the turn and see a free river.

In this case though you are multiway in a limped pot. Just call and hope to drag along some stragglers.

The problem in a limped pot is you are not repping any big hands. So villain is less likely to fold Tx hands. Especially a YWG that talks strategy. Just because his "strategy" may be flawed in your opinion, it is nonetheless strategy which means he is a thinking player. The turn bet was made because you perceived villain as weak, which is true, but that doesn't mean he is necessarily folding.

After the flop raise and turn bet, river jam is mandatory.

LOL @ Q high showdown value. Get serious.