2/3 9 handed 300 max game on a Wednesday night

The table: Playing fairly loose passive. Many open raises to $15 are going 4-6 way, however 3betting and major bluffs have been extremely rare.

Hero (Covers): Young 20's Tag, but playing fairly aggressive post flop. Have shown down a good mix of made hands and bluffs, and a few players seem to be waiting for monsters to trap (including villain).

Villain (800eff): Older, somewhat competent Tag (not so much aggressive though) who has probably read a few books but plays way too straightforward and exploitable. Almost never bluffs, besides one small river bluff that I've seen in 4+ hours. Relevant prior hands:
1) Raised AQ on B against a limper, got heads up, and checked a Q5cQ flop to slow play/trap.
2) I opened to 15 in EP, one call in MP, he 3bet to 45 on SB, I call, limp folds. He then check/folded an Axx board with ease.

The hand.....
Pre: Straddled pot for 6. Utg limps. Hero is utg+2 w/ AK and makes it 25, folds to Villain who reraises to 80 from SB. Folds to hero who calls.
(My Preflop call here might bet what set me up for trouble. I range him on AK,QQ+ and possibly JJ at the widest. Not the best spot for me.)
Flop (170): KJ9 Villain checks, hero bets 100. Call. (Mostly betting for value against QQ here, and I doubt he checks AA/AK on this board)
Turn (370): A Villain leads out 100. Hero calls. (This bet confused me quite a bit at the time... To me it also makes QQ extremely unlikely)
River (570): 9 Villain bets 250 (leaving himself about 250 more behind). Hero?

Aaargh! Hating myself for this hand! Seems much more straightforward to me after writing this up. Please criticize everything! It's the only way I learn my lesson

lol grunch with your read on him we have to think we are behind on the river and can get out of the hand. I don't think his 3bet range is lower than kings and I don't think it includes AK (he 3bet OOP on top of it)

tough hand but I would have to go with your read and fold the river. We can get out if it cheap enough thanks to his small turn donk bet

depending on how tight you think his 3bet range is there's nothing wrong with folding. I would fold if I think his range is kings plus w/o AK

We don't think he's savy enuf to let us bet 4 him
Otf?

I think its wider pre due to heros read and history hand

Edit: OP has put v on a range

Fold pre. Given table dynamics, we're in pretty bad shape versus this villain's 3b range.

As played, such wonderful a-hole cards for you to pick up. Villain's x/c, donk line with the ace on the turn screams "I know you have an ace but I've got trip kings and you can't lay down to a turn bet.". He fills up on the river and voila! You lose the maximum with two pair.

Still, I can't fold because I'm a donk.

the only other hand he 3bet could have been kings. I would want more reads that he is 3betting lighter.

I saw it, I don't know why AK was included unless he was seen 3betting it. Usually that player type won't 3bet AK

I feel he was trying to play loose hoping to hit and get paid and made his straight on the turn

So you're a tight aggressive player who is only fairly aggressive playing against another tight aggressive player who isn't aggressive. Jesus I wish that term wouldn't even get used anymore. But onto the hand:

It's almost as if in writing this you already knew the mistakes. How are you betting for value from QQ when he folded in the previous hand "with ease" sounds like you would only get called by AA KK and AK if you're lucky, which clearly isn't the case in this hand. Now our tight aggressive but not so aggressive villain has taken the lead from us on the very same card he was terrified of in a previous hand. He is not bluffing by your read and it sounds like you're barbecue chicken.

Line makes sense for AA/KK/JJ .. not sure why he didnt c/r you with this board but you said he did want to trap. He leads Turn since the board got a bit messier or he hit a set of Aces (same thing though .. protection against straight and flushes).

I am surpriesed he didnt bet slightly less on the River to make you think he could fold. Betting 50% of his stack (and less than 50% of pot) sure looks like value.

I understand your 'willingness' to bet the Flop, but I may have let this one go by just because it was him and you could get c/r off your hand right there. GL

I don't like the bet on flop, we can't get any value from worse and when he called and led the turn we should know we are beat.

If villain is described as straight forward, is this a flop he's gonna c/c with a set? This is a wet board in a 3bet pot.

Its a strange line, and I think we see AK here sometimes or maybe AA.
IDK, I think that riverbet slightly leans me towards folding, I assume you lost the hand, thats why you're hating yourself, lol

As others mentioned, folding pre is ok too vs his 3bet range. If an A or K falls, you won't get much action after all, unless you are smashed, besides AQ or AJ hands (which might even be in his 3bet range)

Bbq chicken lol

Its called tag/aggro and,tag/aggro maybe youve never heard being a live player. Can be confusing at times. But to wing this id say at llsnl fairly aggro maybe,we can say is aggro.. Altho im STRETCHING here
He bet riv? I didnt get that far


Edit: tag/passive

Edit: actually I did get that far, I lied.
Nt on purpose tho

Two questions:

1. Would this villain 3bet you with AQhh? You say you've shown down a good mix of value hands and bluffs. How often are you raising straddles preflop? Is he putting you on an elite hand when you make it $25 pf from UTG+2?

2. Is there any sort of royal flush jackpot offering in your casino? If so, that would affect his flop betting pattern with AQhh.

Based on his line, I don't think this is ever a bluff. There also aren't a lot of hands in his range that beat you. So the question is whether he would take this line with hands that you can beat.

He can have AhAs (1 combo), KdKs (1 combo), or JJ (3 combos). I doubt 99 is in his range. I highly doubt he plays QQ or 1010 this way. And I highly doubt he 3-bet oop with Q10. So that's 5 combos that beat you. He can also have AhKd, AhKs, AsKd, AsKs (4 combos) for the tie. So if we think he can have AhQh (1 combo), that actually affects our calculation quite a bit.

Against 5 combos, we lose $250. Against 4 combos, we win $285 (chop pot). That's already pretty borderline, just barely -EV. Add in the 1 combo where we win $820, and this becomes a slightly +EV call.

If his pre-flop range is JJ+, AK then on the flop there's not a single worse hand that you can be reasonably certain would call a bet. Therefore you can't value-bet.

Along the continuum of bluff, show-down value, value: AK is solidly into the show-down value category. Almost always showdown-value hands should be checked.

I would have checked the flop.

Wow this guy flopped the sky.

This is why AK is a hand you can be aggressive with, but massively sucks donkey balls when you are passive with it. I really really don't understand the call pre, 4bet or fold, in this hand, fold.

Bad flop for us. Fold now.

Fold pre.

When an older tighter player 'who rarely bluffs' puts in a hefty 3-bet from the SB, I'm turbo mucking AK.

If this is his one big bluff of the night, where he is spaz raising with air, then kudos to him for outplaying me.

I think I would manage a hero fold preflop. I really don't get the sense this guy is fooling around and we could get in serious trouble on K high flops vs AA/KK plus won't make anything on A high flops against KK- / K high flops against QQ-. There's also no other reasonable dead money in the pot to pad things. I mean, ya, we're deep (actually, after the 3bet we're not really very deep at all), but other than a QJT flop vs his set (that doesn't draw out) are we ever going to make serious money postflop?

SPR is 4 so it's going to be difficult not playing for stacks. But we actually have been given a chance not to do that, so I would check back the flop. Also, this guy has been trappy (AA/KK/JJ very much in play here). Also, this guy looks like he could fold QQ/TT without a second thought on this board (a check back probably gets us value against these hands).

The turn and river are why I fold preflop. We're basically calling down hoping to chop a big pot against another AK, which seems bad to me. Against this guy, what are we actually beating?

GcluelessNLnoobG

Could definitely find a fold pre vs this Villain. Only thing we have going for us is position and deep stacks.

Why would a set check flop and bet $100 into $370 on the drawiest board possible?

My sense is that V doesn't like his hand and wants to get to a cheap showdown. Im calling.

I really like your analysis. I think it sums up bits from what everyone else is saying. At the time, I saw no reason to 4bet my AK vs this villain here, but you are right that it is incredibly hard to profit once calling here. Therefore I do like finding a fold here pre, as most others have suggested. I think part of my problem came down to me giving him too wide of a 3b range for an older tight player on the SB. (To whoever asked, no I could not imagine him having AQhh in his range often at all, and the casino did not have a royal payout that I was aware of).

That's a good point about the SPR being 4, I didn't even realize it had gotten so small at the time. I guess a straddle+3bet pot can do that pretty quickly! Haha as for the flop, I somehow convinced myself that he was sticky enough to peel one street with QQ here, but I do understand everyone's logic behind checking back on this board. No value, too many traps, bloated pot, etc...

Ya, as I was sitting there on the turn/river, that's when I started to realize that I should have folded pre however, my subconscious must have been determined to continue the streak of god awful play on this hand.. Even though my thoughts were saying "FOLD, FOLD, FOLD" on the river, I decided to pay him, basically praying for a chop I guess (?), to see KK for the boat.

Thanks for the help everybody!

That's a shame. Just one point I want to reiterate though: his river bet was small enough compared to the pot size that calling for a chop becomes a lot less awful than usual. There were five combos in his range that beat you, and four combos that you tie. If you make more from tying than you risk from losing, then it becomes only barely -EV on the river.

...All of which is more evidence of why preflop was the spot to fold. Once you called preflop, you got into a situation where you were bound to commit enough chips to make the river decision so borderline.