V is old man button-clicky. Seemed to be tighter than most pre, but then showed down some ridic hands, especially when he limp/called. Mostly passive post, but sometimes randomly stabby (see example OTT in history hand). ($250)

H is MAWG with friendly rec image. Tightest at table if folks are paying attention. Maybe seen as over aggro by V due to history hand. (covers)

History hand V ($140) limps in EP, one more limp, Hero (covers) raises to $15 from BTN with AhTh, both call. Checks to Hero, who c-bets $25 on a two-heart all-unders flop, and only V calls. Turn blank and V donks $25. Hero shoves for V's remaining $75 effective. V tanks hard and eventually calls, shows Qh9h for a bare FD. He does not hit his 6 outer and rebuys for $200.

OTTH: One limp to V who overlimps in HJ (he has changed seats since history hand). Hero raises to $15 from BTN with AsKc, only V calls.

Pot $34
Flop: Ad9h4s
V donks for $25
Hero just calls to keep week aces in. This is what I was going to bet anyway. V's range is probably A2s-ATs, A7o-AJo (maybe with a bit more weighting toward the A9 and A4s combos) and the sets.

Pot $82
Turn: Ad9h4s 4d
V same-bet donks for $25
Hero raises to $75 as the paired board might keep some of his weak aces in, and hero basically always raises same-bets OTT, so this gives me some balance for it.
V calls relatively quickly.

Pot $232
River: Ad9h4s4d 9d
V checks (about $135 behind)
Too thin to bet here, or do we get enough calls from weaker aces to make up for when we are value owning ourselves?

I can't think of a hand with two diamonds that donks flop and turn now that 9d came in on the river. Seems unlikely that he donked flop with 4x, or that he donked flop and turn and called a raise with 9x. I think he has Ax 90+% of the time, sometimes random boat or quads or whatever. You never know with donk bettors though especially live.

Even fish will probably fold worse Ax to a shove, barring specifically AQ sometimes. I don't hate a nitty checkback for that reason but if I am betting it would be small like $50.

I'd just put him in. If more agg, I might go like $35 to induce.

I try to raise a little more preflop to make it more comfortable to play for stacks postflop with TP (which we'll likely be forced to do thanks to SPR and possible aggro image). I go at least $20 and even $25 if I think I can get called. I think we setup a slightly too large of SPR to comfortably stack off too, but I'm fairly conservative in this regards.

SPR is 7 and we're in position and stacks can go in fairly easily over 3 streets (if we want) and board ain't drawy. So I'm cool with flatting the flop.

If we're cool with playing for stacks, then I'm cool with the turn raise to setup a play for stacks on the river. His weak betting / overall fish mentality suggests we should probably be ok with this, so I'm fine with the raise. With a more nitty image against a person with half a clue, I think I'm more in calldown mode with this SPR.

If we're raising the turn we're doing so assuming he's mostly got weaker Ax, so let's jam it in if that's our thinking. Besides, most people just jam their boats here for fear of it checking thru (happy enough with winning the pot, and knowing they're freerolling a call).

For me, most of this hand comes down to preflop and setting up a comfortable stack off situation versus one that isn't nearly as comfortable. But I'm super conservative like that.

GcluelessNLnoobG

No one calls $20+ raises in this game after limping except a few mega fish, which he is not.

This is really player dependent, but we can fire another bet for $75 much of the time. V should have hard time folding to that with much of his A-x, and as mdelore persuasively points out, that is usually what he has. Problem is that hero stands to lose almost twice as much as he gains from a thin value bet. If V has shown any propensity to play dead with big hands or resist overwhelming pot odds, then just check behind...

If he's not a mega fish, then I'm not so sure we should be going for 4 streets for stacks having only gotten in 6% preflop? So I might lean to going into calldown mode from the flop (betting small if checked to) if that's the case.

GcluelessmegafishnoobG

Raising flop, jaming turn.

He is a fish, he isn't going to fold an ace anyway, no reason to slowplay. Now we're at the river wondering if were missing value or potentially getting value owned when he would of folded all 9s OTT anyway.

Everytime i've seen a donk at 1/2 it's always just a medium overvalued ****** hand like AJ or A10 on this board. I never see people donking top two or sets, they love to get trappy with them on dry boards, or check raise on wet boards.


In 1/2 I had a donking range of sets and two pairs only on wet boards just for value. I never once observed anyone else donking real value hands the entire time I played 1/2.

In 2/5 I balance my donks with value and semibluffs on boards that favor blind defending range (579 rainbow for example vs an utg raiser). And I only donk from the blinds.

Grunching...

Given villain tanked so hard on previous hand with his flush draw I feel he's unlikely to have many turned flush draws here so the river diamond doesn't scare me too much. It might scare villain's AX though - particularly as he's reloaded after stacking off to your previous FD that took exactly this line. But then if he's potentially a bit tilted he's surely going to struggle to fold any top pair here?

I'm not very concerned V has 9X because surely he folds that on the turn. So really I'm most afraid of running into his A4. It's only 4 combos though.

Nevertheless, it's a surprisingly tricky decision if he can fold any AX here.

He's obviously capable of folding or he wouldn't have tanked on the history hand. If you bet river he must be able to see that you have either got AX, a boat or a flush and no bluffs so he's got to be tempted to fold his weakest AX.

I think if this V always limps preflop then I'm more tempted to thin value the river because he can have more AT-AQ to pay us off with. If he has an preflop open raising range and isolating range then I'm more tempted to check behind because he's not going to have many strong enough AX to call given our history and the run-out.

Yeah, I wasn't worried about the flush, and only 9 I'm concerned about is A9. I'm more worried that the flush coming in and the second 9 coming in makes him fold more of his Ax combos, thus making a bet less likely to get called by worse, while value-cutting ourself against better.

V does not always limp PF. Pretty sure he has no AQ and no suited AJ combos. He might have AJo in his limp/call range.

I think his view of me as aggro may make him more likely to just call turn and check river with his boats+. He may think I'll do the betting for him. It's not many combos, but they're weighted more than they would be due to the history hand, imo. Maybe that's overthinking it, though?

These seem like classic seewhereiam bets. H played fine, but for 83bb, I'm raising his flop bet as I expect him to call you down with Ax.

As played, bet the river.

BTW... I would expect this type of villain to display "I have monster" tell otr with quads... Shaking hands, exaggerated movements, etc.

I don't think you're overthinking it (though I'm king of overthink lol).

If he's not got AQ or much AJ AND he sees you as aggro AND he can fold AT- AND he's motivated to get you back AND you played a big draw like this recently then it's surely reasonable to check behind on river?

If V is going to trap boats sometimes then this looks like exactly the kind of spot he'd consider doing it.

I don't think it's an overthink, if he never calls with worse Ax then it's a bad bet. Thin vbs work better when it's possible for you to have air, which I think you can't represent very well.

Results, for those interested:

I know we don't see eye to eye on this, but does the fact that he limp/called this hand HU OOP at all change your thoughts on your preflop sizing? I find it very hard to believe we don't see a flop at $20+ all that much less... and meanwhile it adjusts the SPR to a trivial postflop stack off rather than an awkward I'm-not-sure-if-I-should-be-playing-for-stacks spot.

ETA: If you had the time / inclination, it would be a super interesting experiment to compare action you get on your "normal" raises (whatever that is) versus your normal + $7.

GbutIguesswe'llagreetodisagree?G

Think river is a x, probably hard to get value from much once the bdfd comes in

Hand seems wp

If river didnt complete flush id most likely jam.

There was a guy at the table trying this. He raised to $20+ 5 times and got no callers. Then a whale came down from losing a couple grand at PLO. He was the only caller the next two times the big raiser opened.

I know they love to call big raises pre in your game, but that is just not normal at all here. I did manage to up my raises over limpers to "$15 more" instead of a straight $15, but even that is noteworthy in this game.

Also, I don't like to vary my raise sizing much by holding, and opening to $25 would require me to tighten up too much or play bloated pots with meh hands, neither of which I'm interested in doing. I can usually sneak an extra BB or so in with premiums, since I change my sizing based on number of limpers and position, but more than that and it stands out too much.