1/3, Saturday night, 9-handed.

Hero had a loose image at start of session but three hours in has been card dead for the past two hours.

Hero ($550) opens on button to $15 with KQdd.
Villain ($250) calls in small blind
BB (generic fish) calls.

Villain is a reg, and generally a big loser.
He is about 55 years of age. He calls 100% Hero's raises in position. A few hands earlier he called a raise with 7-2o.
He rarely raises pre-flop, but is erratically aggressive postflop. He will bluff, multiple streets, bluff-raise, and raise with middling showdown hands. He loves bluffing with one pair or other hands with some showdown value.
Villain is an arrogant, boorish middle-aged man who basically thinks he can outplay Hero with any two cards (there is history), however he is down about three buyins in an hour. He has little understanding about the technical fundamentals of the game, but his conversation suggests that he is above-average IQ (though not genius).

Flop ($45): K-8-3r

Hero bets $30, Villain raises to $101.

What do you do?

If you call, will he barrel most of the time?

yes

Then I'd likely call to keep his range wide and let him value-own himself with the parts we beat. Against this kind of V, TPGK is worth getting in and living with the variance.

It’s obviously call/shove. With position we can ensure the money goes in on the turn. He can have a lot of low equity hands that a raise may fold out so I’m happy to call and let him hang himself. The only “bad” turns are A/8/3, although I’m still calling it off on those.

I completely understand the logic of calling to keep bluffs in his range. In fact, this is the line I prefer here most of the time. In this case however, lets look at the facts. Villain is stuck 3 buyins in 3 hours. Have you guys ever seen this type of villain stuck 3 buyins, with less than 100bb, CR the flop to 30bb and find a fold? I do my best to look weak while not over acting, and go all in. If he was on his first buy in and you have these reads then calling is superior. I would never consider folding.

Call, GII on pretty much any turn if he bets. If he checks turn, strongly consider trapping with a ck back.

I call, then call/jam any turn.

It's a dry board, so Hero is either way ahead or way behind. And Hero is way ahead most of the time. If V is behind, he has only 5 outs at the most.

I would call the raise, and call if V goes all in. If V somehow checks the turn, put him all-in. If V has us beat, oh well.

I feel calling is much more profitable than shoving. I don't think this player, on tilt, down 3 buy-ins, will ever check the turn. Hero shoving over the top could give V pause and potentially fold.

That said, GII is acceptable here.

With these stacks, I'd probably go either way bigger or way smaller preflop. If we go $25, we can simply commit with TP postflop easily. If we go like $8 we can create a bigger SPR of like 10+ where we're happy with playing postflop poker with a multiway hand. $15 creates a semi-awkward spot, where the SPR is now 5 (where we'll have to commit with TP and yet gave ~nothorrendous odds to our opponents).

And here's our semi-awkward spot on the flop. If we raised to $25 preflop to give him horrendous 10:1 odds to ~setmine, just happily GII (by calling it off). If we raised to $8 preflop, we could just check it back and call off two streets bluffcatching while not playing remotely for stacks. But here we have to play for stacks while giving ~nonhorrendous IO preflop. Against most we should probably just fold, but against this guy we likely have to sigh call it off (I would just call to induce him to bluff off the rest).

GcluelessNLnoobG

$15 on BTN with no limpers is fine and good. Call his raise and gii on the turn.