Villan (~$300) recently sat down, white dude who looks like he would do beat poetry or play the saxaphone or something, I assumed he was not very good.
Hero (covers) 30s WG. Has played very loose and aggressively. I guess V hasnt seen much of that, but if V has a read on me, its probably that im very aggressive.
V1 limps MP
V2 limps btn
hero (bb) raises to $20 with QsJs
V1 calls
V2 calls
Seems fine but flop is questionable. Might be best to go for a c/r and get maximum money in with guaranteed high equity. If it checks through, not a big deal.
If MP and Button are both meh players (ABC face up who have zero chance of outplaying us postflop, and typically fit/folders), then I'm okish with preflop. Mostly I just complete here though (and would rather be in position before doing this).
I'd probably bet less on the flop, like $25. Overall, we probably have really good equity and this could almost be seen as simply a value bet (so bet more for value), but the few times we are crushed / drawing to a smaller flush, meh, I think smaller is better. Also makes calling a raise easier. Course, I also believe that there is no difference in calling frequency between $25 and $40 on this flop.
Good scare on the turn to rep and get him off weak pairs, so I understand our thought process here. Course, it's also likely going to lead to a river bluff when we whiff, which is what happened.
It's possible this may have worked, and we just owned some guy for a bunch of $$$ with Q high. But a decent amount of the time he shrug calls with whatever lol hand he has and we just spewed a BI against a not very good player. Against "not very good players", I mostly play this hand exactly opposite, by keeping the pot small preflop and try to build it big postflop when I hit and take free cards when I don't. I don't know, maybe I'm missing out on some huge triple barrel $$$ here. But the more I get called on my bluffs (even ones that make perfect sense, such as when the scare card comes in that I can credibly rep), the more I ask myself whether bluffing should even be a part of my game.
What range are we representing with a PFR followed by a flop C/R? I pretty much never take that line, but when othe decent players do it, i generally assume its a bluff or draw like 100% of the time (because a monster would likely call and continue to trap.), so you can basically just ship into it with one pair.
Not saying it matters what we rep to this guy, mostly asking what you guys do it with so I can know how to respond to this move.
WRT betting smaller, yes its a value bet. I essentially planned to 3 barrel bluff/value bet on the flop, and expect to win a good amount, so most of the time its a value bet even if I miss because i can take down a bigger pot, if he raises im probably shipping, even vs Ac3c im 28%, 99 im 33%, not a complete disaster.
i cant imagine check/calling down on flop and turn with a huge hand like this is EV+, you can take down a lot of pots without ever seeing if you hit, and if they call and you hit youre playing for stacks.
Other turns might have arguments for checking (particularly 9 or 6), but A should be an auto bet.
On this particular board c/r is always a strong draw from me, like 100% of the time. I don't really care that that's the case because 1) lol balance in LLSNL and 2) it's not really that exploitable because I have 50% equity against ~everything.
Yeah, it's typically a strong draw for me as well, although I doubt my opponents will see enough of my hands to ever figure that out. However, it's still damn hard for most unaware opponents to call with second pair or whatever junk they were betting with.
Also, the check/raise gets more money in on the flop where we have decent equity (where we can actually shove or effectively shove by planning on shoving all turns), instead of what ended up happening here (in getting in a bunch of chips on the river with 0 hand equity).
Also, I'm never exactly in love with betting and hoping to get raised, cuz against a lot of opponents if we get raised we're up against ~nuttish hands, so all we're doing is getting our money in pretty bad (often as a 2:1 dog) with a 3bet.
ChrisV- I agree with #1, but not #2. the reason why its exploitable (by good players) is not that youre getting the money in way behind, its that youre taking a very strong and disguised hand and making it a coinflip against weak holdings, which is a meh to bad outcome rather than a good one. However, not having a C/R range after PFR is pretty exploitable as well, but exploitale doesnt really matter vs most Vs.
I asked what people were doing this with because I have on several occasions, jammed hands like J9 into a draw in a hand like this, and gotten either folds, or a coinflip against a hand like this, and if they had played it b/b/b it wouldve forced me to fold turn, if not flop.
Anyway, i do think flop C/R is a decent option, lets me keep the pot small if he checks back, cuts down on variance, probably doesnt work with my playstyle, but I can see it.
GG- I was not hoping to get raised on the flop, because I figured I would win almost 100% of the time when he calls flop, because his hand wont be strong enough to face 3 streets of aggression. I dont think getting it in as a 50/50 is a goal to strive towards, obviously taking it down on the flop is better than facing a raise. I figured the best outcomes were fold > call and i hit a pair or better on turn > call and K/A hits turn and I have a good semibluff opportunity
