V seems to be grinding out 2/3 with a solid TAG approach. Wouldn't be surprised if he's reading this. This is my home casino and I can't remember the last time I haven't seen this guy in the house. I usually play weekends b/c work, but this is a Monday night game. I've seen him playing limit before also, maybe 1/2 or 2/4. Ranges people accurately. Adapts to player styles. Has played with me before & recognizes I'm adept. Recently sat down at this table. His 3bet range against me would be mostly JJ+/AK. Perhaps a rare AQs or TT. It's possible that he'd try to balance, but I've never seen him 3b light.

$293 effective.

Line check,

Hero opens to $15 in late MP w. QQ, folds to V on BTN who makes it $45, all fold to hero who calls.

Flop $89 J94

Hero checks, V bets $45, hero calls.

Turn $179 blank

check, check

River $178 after rake, J

check, V bets $75. Anyone find a fold here or anywhere before river? I tried to provide as much info as I could. I'd be happy to answer any other questions, but of all the times I see V, we're rarely at the same table. There's usually 4-10 2/3 games happening at once.

Villain's line makes no sense. Snap call.

As played, sigh call.

As you describe V, you could range him strictly to AA and KK only, therefore, you are calling pre for set value only. So if you were to get away from this hand, you are folding on the flop.

But by the time you get to the river, you could possibly find a fold considering that the bet is sooooooooo valuey. And, V is sure that you don't have trips+. But for that price, very hard to fold.

I like V's check on turn if he has AA.

I think it's a pretty standard call.

This is an easy call.

However ... I don't like the pre flop play. Calling a premium hand out of position is a no no. I would have re raised to better define his hand.

It's ok to play as you did, but why put yourself in a tough spot out of position?

Hand is fine call now

Call. You have well masked the strength of your hand. It was a btn raise which as nitty as his 3bet range is, you specified you don't personally have a huge hand history with him. AA, KK usually bet the turn, while TT, A9, 9T + some bluffs and draws may decide to check the turn and bet the river.

My guess is that we don't want to be involved in too many pots with this guy OOP, so depending on exactly how many seats we are to his right we might want to move a little further away.

I find preflop really difficult. The later we are opening, the more he might be 3betting a little light (probably assuming we're opening the majority of our range here when folded to). But are we cool with playing for $300 stacks preflop with QQ? It's possible we might be. Should we reraise/fold? Not sure I'm in love with flatting OOP as we're getting very poor setmining odds, he'll steal on lottsa bad flops, and I just don't think we're going to be profitable against this guy in this spot. We could just quietly fold and not tell anyone, perhaps even laughing saying "nice steal" and see if he shows his hand for info. It's a gross spot, imo.

Flop is pretty drawy and he should feel committed with this SPR, so his weak looking bet looks fairly weak cbetty. I think there are too many scare cards, I'd probably check/shove at this point and hope he puts me on a draw and manages a hero call.

When he checks back the turn on this drawy board with only a ~PSB left, I'm fairly confident we have the nuts.

I'm pretty sure I snap call the river as he's only repping Jx and even that hand might decide to commit on the turn.

The bottom line for me: playing HU OOP to a solid player is highly unlikely to be profitable, which is why I often just give up for cheap early on. ETA: Having said that, I guess I don't hate how we disguised the strength of our hand and let him barrel once or twice with a wide range; but jeez we hate so many flops (we're not even thrilled with this one as JJ/99 got there).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Why does it make no sense? Villain's line is perfectly aligned with him having KK or AA. That's exactly how I would play KK or AA in this situation.

I'm reluctantly calling the river bet but it sure feels like KK or AA to me...

Meh, I think the board is too drawy (both to kill our hand and our action) to slowplay AA/KK on the turn with just a ~PSB left.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Try not to be so humble about it. Give yourself more credit

Call. Nicely played hand.

For ~3.5:1, villain only needs to bluff with 1/4 of his AK/AQ combos. You don't need to be right very often to make calling correct.

I see a lot of turn pot control with overpairs from low stakes TAG regs. I would not check back the turn on that board. It's certainly not uncommon though.

Sizing looks like a nit finding two streets of value. I'm not giving him $75.

QQ isn't premium against a tight 3bet range. Get an equity calc and mess around. QQ is a slight dog to AK/JJ+.

Also, don't ever raise to get info, not pre, nor post. The price simply isn't worth it. What sort of raise can you make 98bb deep, with 30bb already in the pot? Considering how often we run into better, turning our hand into a bluff obliterates any equity it has to begin with.

It's actually a very good check if you have AA, slightly worse with KK.

Given the J on the river, anyone like a bluff? I hadn't considered it during the hand, but it seems like the only card that gives us some wiggle room. How would V react to an AI donk here? Does it look credible that we flatted w/AJ or maybe spiked a set that now feels comfortable with JJ being discounted from V's range?

It looks like a bluff because you probably don't check to him on river.

You should be checking more made hands to him on this river when teh action has gone as it has, if you want to start bluffing here.

It wouldn't take too long to work out the EV of a shove vs a ck-c vs a ck-f.
You seem to have a decent handle on his range and likely can estimate his frequencies if he's relatively tight. I'd like to see what you come up with and see where the discussion goes.

You should have JTs+ in your flop ck-c range along with a handful of gutters and FDs that were weak-strong enough to ck-c and shove riv.

Maybe people play AA/KK like this I guess, pretty weird. Turn check is very bad

3b OOP call range is not going to be too wide when <100bb.

It's a fine check on turn with AA. Could actually argue KK is a better check as we start to block a lot of combos.

Heros range is starting to get capped. PPs under 8 have enough combos to float 1 street and TT. Add in 3 combos of JJ and 6 combos of QQ.

A lot of hero's range on flop is going to be PP and not a ton of draws.

Vs fish, it would be a bad check.

Meh, in general setting up a 2.8 SPR and then not playing for stacks by the river (and risking a huge amount of river action/hand killers) is pretty poor against the majority of our opponents, imo. Against Hero, perhaps not as much.

If Villain has AA/KK I kinda hate his flop sizing and turn check. With the notable exception that his line would probably eek some extra money out of me if I was the Hero. Course, maybe that's the point (i.e. play your opponent). ETA: And I think that's what you're getting (i.e. vs a fish it's a bad check).

GwishywashyG

Not really, V has a +EV shove with his entire range against a decent player, less so against a fish where he'd need to split it and shove JJ+ only.

I don't think V would put me on any J lower than AJ. Not sure if he'd think I'd continue OTF with less than a set or TT+. I'd likely c/r flop with a FD+overs, or even a low FD, though V wouldn't even put me on s/d or AXss lower than AQ.

So, going to the river, if we shove, V would have to either assume a value bet w/ AJ/AJs or a set. Not sure if he thinks we'd even continue to the flop w/ AJ. I'd leave 4 combos of AJo and 2 combos of AJs. There could be 3 PP that give us FH, but I'm not sure how often he sees us calling pf with less that TT, then floating flop to catch the low card OTT. Of the 9 combos there, let me assume 4.5 can be in my range. Anyways, that's 10.5 combos total that V would be worried about. We can add 2 combos of AK/AQ that I might be trying to bluff with, but if he has an A or K that would drop. Add in 4 combos of TT that might be bluffing, & I'm not sure how to account for QQ+ as he's likely to have blockers to those. Maybe 15 combos if he's got AK and 13 if he's got a premium pair. Anyways, that's 10.5 combos he loses to, 2 that would be absolute bluffs, and ~14 combos of overs. (Maybe throw JJ in our range that's also worried about him clicking back OTR..?) I've flatted his 3b with KK before so I think he might assume I'd flat w/ KK/AA to trap him.

Assuming V calculates all this, I'd say he's got 6 combos he'd call with. 4 of AA and maybe KK he calls half the time. Actually, maybe we can make it 7 combos to account for JJ quads if V has them. So, of the 37 combos he could have had OTR, AK/JJ+, we fold out 30, for an 81% fold rate where we take a $178 pot & a 19% call rate where we lose $293. So we make ~$89 with this play? (.81*178-.19*293) ($17 profit? since we're gaining V's $90 when we win, .81*90, not .81*178)

Is my thinking right? I feel like I should have paid more attention in STATS.

Fair enough if his hand truly is JJ+/AK. But he's responding to a MP raise. There's a high likelihood his range is wider. But I reread the post and the original poster states JJ+/AK so let's go with that.

I'm still a believer in pre of raise or fold.