Note that background/history is important to this hand. I definitely played it non-standard.

UTG ($900): Young, BM, loosish but usually has the goods when he bets large.
UTG+1 Villain ($650): Young AM, been playing with him for about 2 hours. Opens about 10-15% of the time. C-bets flop about 10% of the time (important). Lots of check-folding on flop when it goes multi-way.
HJ Hero ($350): Young AM, tight. Card dead for 2 hours straight. Won 1 tiny pot the entire time. Have not even had a chance to open yet - at best, hands were good enough for a call. No 3-bets made yet either.
BU ($300): Middle-aged WM, playing straightforward.

Preflop:
UTG limps $3
V raises to $15
Hero calls $15 with AA
Button calls
UTG folds
V calls

Flop ($52): KT8
V bets $30
Hero calls $30
V2 folds

Turn ($112): KT86
V checks
Hero bets $65 (I actually meant to bet $75...cut out the chips incorrectly)
V calls

River ($242): KT862
V checks

Hero action?

Thoughts:
1. I know that standard play is to 3! pre obviously, but I have not opened any hands in two hours, and definitely have not 3! a single hand. I felt 3! my hand would make my hand way too face up. I don't think Villain (or anybody) would continue with anything but the strongest hands.
2. BU is straightforward and not a big concern in my mind, even if I let him in behind me. UTG was squeezing out of blinds fairly often in similar thoughts (i.e. lots of money in pot pre). That would've been the ideal scenario (didn't happen).
3. Villain's c-bet of $30 screams strength, given his propensity to check most flops when OOP and multiway action. On the flop, I think his hand is heavily weighted towards AK, KK, TT (yes, it's a tight range, but was fairly confident about of this).

Questions:
1. Is betting $75 on the Turn correct? Or should it be a different amount, or a check back? Given the action and his tendencies, I would never put the Villain on a made flush on the Turn.
2. Is the River a check or bet? Large or small bet? What am I hoping to accomplish?

I'm expecting many to tell me to 3! pre, but reasons for not 3! pre explained above, so please critique hand as played.

Thanks.

He has AK, KK, KQ, or 10 10 or 8 8. Imo. I just feel he would have bet the turn with the sets. And I think he would have sized up the cbet with sets. I don’t think he cbet QQ.

I do not think you are getting value from KQ on the river (and he may have only called turn with Q hearts).

i have to put him most probably on AK even though there are more set combos. Bet river. I’m not good at sizing even with all the necessary info. Sad.

3! Pre.

A) most people don't pay enough attention, you could get cold callers without any thought.
B) if Vs going to check/fold in most flops, you're only getting his pre bet anyway


AP flop, raise

AP turn, probably ok. 75 would have been ok too

AP river, bet. I'd go something like 85-95


At 1/3, don't bother trying to play tricky. Just bet for fat value (like on this river, guaranteed most 1/3 players miss a bet here with AK+ and worse than flushes.)

I won’t comment on pre cuz you have your reasons and I have very occasionally flatted AA/KK when my image was total nit due to being card dead.

I would have raised the flop and looked to GII ASAP.

As played I would shove river. It’s unlikely he has a better hand. Checking any set on the turn would be MUBsy.

Preflop: 3-bet to $40-45.

By just calling, you are looking at a multiway pot and you won't have last position. 3-betting allows you to maybe knock out button (getting last position), perhaps isolate V in position, and allows you to get in money when you *know* you are the favorite. If you really have a good read on V's "10-15% of the time open" you know he probably won't fold whatever's in his range to a simple 3-bet.

As Played:

Be prepared to get outflopped a good amount of times.

Flop: Raise to $100

V, who rarely c-bets, is betting out. Your read kind of determines what your opponent's range is - obviously if you think he wouldn't open with J9hh or KT or T8 here, you can rule those hands out. If you think he won't c-bet a draw, you can rule out J9o, 97o or hh, so it seems to me that his most likely hand is Kx of some sort, maybe KQ, KJ.

Regardless of your read, unless he's got a set or top two pair, your aces are probably still ahead but vulnerable. You really shouldn't give any draws free cards - and you WILL get called by worse (AK/KQ, hh, Jh9h, 9h7h). Now if you raise and he re-raises you, I think you can find a fold, based on your description of villian, but I honestly don't think that's likely.

Raising here also makes it more likely to knock out V2 and play the rest of the hand in position.

As played:

Turn: Check back the turn.

If your opponent was on hearts or 97 on that board, he just made it. Long story short, it's now more likely your aces aren't good than that they are. You still have enough equity to maybe call a small river bet, but use your new position on the turn in order to keep the pot small with your now relatively weak overpair.

River: Check back the river

You should only make a bet that can win you money. In other words: check back. Betting here gets neither better to fold nor worse to call. Hopefully you'll be up against AK/KQ/etc and have the best hand. If not, oh well.

---

On thoughts:

1. Sometimes playing your hand face-up isn't a bad thing. A lot of players just don't pay attention to what people are playing. A three bet doesn't mean aces, by the way, it *narrows* your range, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, because it *also* narrows your opponents calling range. A 3-bet would fold out a lot of hands that beat you on that flop, like K8, that your villian, if he's loose, might have raised with.

2. I don't think UTG was planning to squeeze by limping. If anything, he might raise pre and 4-bet light. In fact, I'm not sure what UTG was thinking limping $3 when he folds to a (rather standard) open that just gets called multiway.

3. Yeah, Villian thinks he's strong. Your aces, though, are underrepped, and there are a lot of kings (and that IS a strong hand) that Villian could have flopped with. The fact that he *didn't* continue on the turn indicates to me that he didn't have a monster.

If V is only raising 10%-15% of hands, then how do you arrive at gii ASAP considering he folds KQ probably always and there are more set combos in his range given action thus far?

I guess I just realized I may consider a different 10%-15% range than others here. I would have assumed that meant all pairs, ak, aq, KQ, and suited aces.

Playing a 10-15% range is not the same thing as playing 10-15% of hands over a two hour sample size.

That! Thanks! I was just studying this topic a few weeks ago too...completely flew over my head.

Yea, my answer is absolute garbage. Raise that flop! And definitely 3 bet pre!

Thanks man.

Also given two diamonds and two hearts on the board...or was the turn really a diamond?

If the given suits are correct, wouldn't a set be raising our turn bet, or betting the turn in the first place? Unless the turn was a third diamond and V thinks he needs to catch up with a fourth...but then he has 88x, and who thinks they'll be good with a one-card flush holding the 8?

All you know after 2 hours is that he doesn't just blindly c-bet every flop. I'm not reading too much into this. It's not that hard to get a lot of AJs+ hands in 2 hours and whiff every flop.

I don't like the flat. Your image probably isn't as bad as you might think, and a major leak of LLSNL players is they call vs. 3-bets far too frequently. I would 3-bet this.

As played, you've got $190 left and the pot is $240. Shoving is almost turning your hand into a bluff, as we block the main hand we want to get value from (AK). Your hand can easily look like a flush here, but too often they just stubbornly call 2-pair+. My gut says he has enough 1-pair combos that will hero call an $80 bet, so that's what I'd go for. IMO bet small > check > shove.

There's no way to gauge Villain's opening frequency from a 2 hour sample size. Your ranging of Villain is way too tight. He has AK,KQ,and KJs here. Size your river bet so that he won't fold any King -- I think 75-85 sounds right. Well played hand.

Seems sort of close but I like a smallish bet. We lose to 11 combos of KTs and flopped sets. We can maybe get value from 18 combos of AK/KQ. I would expect some percentage of sets and two pair to continue on turn but I also don’t expect full combos of AK/KQ to call river. If he just calls AK we are down to 6 combos. I would also expect TT/88 to size up a bit on flop, but betting $30 hardly takes them out of his range.

His opening frequency is probably somewhat relevant but cbet frequency is meaningless. if he’s opening 13% of hands and you play 30 hands an hour you have seen him raise 8 hands. We can conclude he’s not mindlessly cbetting but that’s a tiny sample.

Just jam river and hope he levels himself into calling with AK/KQ/KJ. You're way underrepped.

Good spot for a flop raise, as played 115 on the river.

Betting large on the river accomplishes nothing unless we our accidentally bluffing (which would kind of be interesting since we have the nut flush blocker).

This is either a check back or $50 milk bet. If you think V would check-raise bluff your tiny bet (1% chance imo) AND you would fold to the C/R, then just check it back.


You made close to the max on this hand, so putting anything much more in this pot is starting to value cut yourself.

Always tricky preflop being the first one after a raise with a nit image and AA. If table is loose and not 3betty, I think we're unfortunately forced to 3bet and live with results (and yes, we're sigh taking this down a lot); if table is very tight (less chance of this going very multiway) or 3betty (someone squeezing behind) then more reason to flat.

I'm cool with the flop call. Can't go nuts here in a multiway pot and have to be somewhat concerned that this guy is cbetting a multiway flop. Let's call and see what happens. When I get tricky with AA and see a multiway flop I always play very cautiously postflop (and almost turn my hand into an underrepped bluffcatcher).

I would actually check back the turn. If we're ahead we're way ahead and fear hardly any cards thanks to our flush draw dirtying any "outs" he has. There's also very few worse hands (a handful of AK combos, maybe KQ?) we're likely to get value from and could even knock out hands we can eke one more bet out of on the river (but will fold now for fearing that river bet). If we're behind (and there is a chance of this) obviously we don't want money going into the pot, plus we'd despise facing a check/raise (where we'll have to fold our nut draw).

River, as played, is very similar to my turn thinking in that I think I just check it back cuz mostly we're targetting a very thin range (more-or-less 6 combos of AK), I'm not convinced that thin range always gets here against us on the turn, and I'm not convinced nitty image us actually gets paid off by worse a lot (and yet most better hands are probably sigh calling). I think a river bet is mostly a bluff but our hand is likely too strong for that.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Doesn't almost *everybody* check their set here? I'm not making a judgement of whether that's good or bad, and you can call it whatever you want, but it's simply what 99% of the poker population does in this spot, no?

Gsetsare*easily*inplayG

I think people are betting more sets here now than ever actually. With the backdoorer’s, floaters, strong callers more present if you will...not to mention people seem to like “I can boat up on the river!”.

People with sets here check 99% of the time. They see the flush get there in a 4way pot where the first guy called a bet, they don't want to bet and be raised for large $$$ (which at this point could easily be for ~stacks), they just want to get to the river cheaply and see if they boat up.

Gpeoplearelevellingthemselvesiftheythinkotherwise, imoG

GwedisagreeinafewthreadsG

First let me say that I believe the value in forum strat work is quite limited and prolly helps more with consistent execution of easy spots. So, i’m Not looking to get too aggressive concerning what is perfect, right, or otherwise.

We may be playing in different games G. I can remember some places, years ago, in which your dead on right concerning the player pool.

I’m pretty confident you’d be agreeable with me had we been in the same seats over the years. You’re a sharp dude. I appreciate your posts.

And i’m Very aware that my thinking is a bit screwy because i’ve Really mixed it up in terms of stakes, especially this past year. So, i’ve Had to include some thinking for 5-10 or bigger pro play that sat in 2-5’s or that I played against in 5-10...all the way down to insane 1-2 play. So, yea, I have to get a grip sometimes. And remember what’s more likely to be going on.

Yikes...I was seeing T.

Our exact holding is disguised on the river but we aren’t underreped. We are really repping sets and flushes.

I think saying sets are checking turn 99% is an exaggeration. I would put the number for closer to 50% check for 88/TT in my experience but I’m admittedly not super confident in that number. KK might check at a higher frequency if they are thinking at all about combos and blockers.

If in Villain shoes:

1. Is there a difference between KhKx and KsKc when it comes to Turn action? Check or bet with one vs. the other?
2. Is AxKh ever a bet on the Turn?