Hero (covers) - Late 20s/early 30s looking white dude. Haven't been to showdown in a big pot yet today. Probably have a pretty weak/tight image overall due to having a fish directly on my left and whiffing multiway flops. Been putting in quite a few 3bets tonight (maybe 5 or 6 by this point). None of those pots have gone to showdown thus far. In fact, I haven't won any of them that have gone to a flop. Most of my 3bets have been over V's opens. He's folded pre each time. He's jokingly said that he's going to do something about it at some point.

Villain ($600) - Mid 20s white dude. New reg to the 2/5 game. Plays a kind of tourney donk LAG style where he raises 3x-5x with a wide range from all positions. Results in a lot of multiway pots that he seems to play reasonably well in as the aggressor. Have seen him make a big river bluff where he tried to get a fish off of a flush when the board paired by donking like 3/4 (~350 or so) pot into him. Fish called and he just mucked outright.

SB is the fish that V tried to bluff, and BB is a nit.

2/5NL - 9handed

Folds to Villain, Villain raises to 15 in CO, Hero raises to 45 on BTN with AQ, blinds fold, Villain calls.

Flop ($90) : A 8 3
Villain bets 50, Hero calls.

Turn ($190) : 7
Villain bets 50, Hero calls.

River ($290) : K
Villain checks, Hero bets 125, Villain shoves for ~450 total, Hero...

When he called pre, I joked that I should have listened when he said he was going to do something about my 3bets. I briefly thought about raise/calling the turn due to his strange line, but just opted to flat. His bet sizing usually escalates with the size of the pot. Haven't seen him do the "same bet" on the turn before.

Thoughts are welcome on all streets. His line kind of messed with me, was curious what y'all thought his range might look like.

Re raise flop to $130 - $150. You're likely ahead here and puts pressure on villain.

a weird spot due to a bunch of factors

me knowing he plays tournaments will make me adjust how i play this hand against him.

if we ignore the rest of the hand, i think i would raise this flop lead to 110. my reasoning for this is to rebluff (in his eyes) his bluff attempt. if called, i 'shut down' on the turn and bluff catch river if he leads and vbet if he checks (amount depends on board run out)

i am going with my hand on the flop if he 3b over my min raise.

as played, he most likely knows you have an ace and/or improved to two pair. his line makes sense with something like A9ss. i would like to rule out sets due to the river action as it would prob be better for him to just bet himself.

i am ok with how you played the flop and turn. i think the river is a check back unless your plan is to bet small to induce and snap off a shove. id make him show at showdown after checking back as the information would be worth a lot to me.

i probably shrug call here though

his line is pretty good if he has AK himself though, still not in love with his river c/r.

Think you played this perfectly, especially against villain as described.

Flop and turn are good. You want him to keep betting into you with his air, and, either way, there's no good reason to raise since you are probably WA/WB.

Now call.

His line makes no sense at all, and he sounds like a bad aggressive player. He'll put you in tons of high variance situations like this one, and you just need to buckle up, hold on, close your eyes, and call.

Check river. You have a strong enough for showdown.

Given your description, it is very possible that he is turning a weak Ax into a bluff with this line. The 3bet pre from you will broadcast your hand as AJ+ or a decent pair. As such, he would expect you to check behind any of the pairs OTF given the flop is A-hi. This explains his small-ish donk-bets OTF and OTT.
Once you've called two barrels he realises that you're likely only calling a 3rd barrel with a better A, and as such a c/r bluff would be ideal for this situation in his eyes.

Of course, he would likely take this exact line with AsXs as well, since your call OTT is likely either Ax or KK in his mind. As such on this river there would be almost no reason for you not to bet it in his mind.

There are far more combos of Ax without two spades than with two spades, so I would call here, expect to be good most of the time, but not surprised to see the nut-flush.

Of course, I may be reading way too much into this, and my ranging is way off...

Gotta bet, but it is a bet/fold

Just want to correct a few misconceptions of V's image that are probably due to poor clarity on my part.

I don't know if V is a tourney player. I assume he mainly plays cash. Apparently he was grinding 1/2 for a while and moved up to 2/5 maybe two weeks ago. But the style he plays is pretty typical of tourney LAGs who open wide for small amounts, resulting in lots of multiway pots.

I don't think he's super aggro or anything. The example in OP I gave of him trying to bluff a fish was just an example that he's not afraid to get his stack working if he has perceived FE. In that hand he had cbet flop, bet turn when flush came in and flatted the fish's turn raise. Then open-bombed on the board pair. So it's definitely not an apples to apples comparison to this hand.

what is your reasoning for the river bet btw?

Well, this is a pretty typical line taken by donks w/ AJ and weak AXs trying to get value from big pairs in a 3bet pot. So instinct is to go for value here. I don't think it's even that thin, tbh, considering his sizing, the river K, and the frequency at which I've been 3betting him.

Well if you're planning to fold to a re raise then checking is the best option here.

OP missed his chance to raise on the flop & river, why bet now?

Checking back is the best way of winning the pot...IMO.

Because he is never bluffing us otr but might call with worse so by checking you are losing money since he also rarely has a better hand.

Why are you not raising flop or turn?

As played I just check back river. He's not calling with much we beat maybe AT,AJ but he could easily have got a back door flush with Ax of spades.

I really think we should be raising the flop though and def the turn when he bets 1/4 pot.

Can one of the people advocating a flop raise please explain their thought process? I'm trying to think of a hand that I'd raise on that dry of an A-high board with these stacks, and I'm drawing a blank.

I'm raising the flop to get value from weaker A's. I can see why some people may not raise there but for the most part I would. I'm def raising the turn when he only bets $50 though

I don't think that this ever a bluff or two-pair. It's Ax of spades like always.

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I agree. As I've stated before the value is betting flop and turn.

Betting river has thin value with top pair. Checking back was the wise move.

And if it's thin value then why leave money on the table?

Because hero already left money on the table on the flop and turn by not betting.

Giving that hero describes V as Lag and the fact that he bluffed at the paired board in a previous hand I just think betting the river is pretty bad. He can easily c/r us using the scare card to try and get us to lay down a hand. Our hand is pretty face up IMO and he can easily rep the flush trying to get us to lay it down. Also good chance he can have it. I'm just checking it back. If we missed a bet so be it.

Does he ever check a flush to us here? I'm thinking we might be good

It seems unlikely that he would check the river if he made the backdoor flush. he led flop and turn, why not bet the river? hero has called twice and his hand looks like what it is, a big A.

The Ks would be about the best card in the deck in villains eyes, if he had the flush. I'd expect him to just bet it for value because hero is usually always calling any A, possibly raising if he made top 2. However he very well might check back AT-AQ. (most players do check behind in these spots)

This looks to me to be a weaker A a lot that he's turning into a bluff, repping AK and/or flushes. Usually I'd think this would be a bet/fold as river check/raises are so rarely a bluff, but I think this is an exception.

I feel like he leads 2pair+ after betting the two previous streets. I'd expect him to have the As, blocking you from having the NF and in his mind giving him more FE. I'm calling this one.

Adding on to the above poster...

I think its a mistake to say he never bluffs this river when he's made big river bluffs before on 3-flush boards.

I'd also raise turn small for value

If villain is a thinking player, then a bluff makes perfect sense as hero's line smelled weak.

Our hand looks exactly like an ace (potentially AK) here. If we think villain is sick enough to try to bluff us off this, I guess you could consider the hero call. His line is pretty weird.

Still, people rarely bluff in this spot, so I'd just fold. Well played other than that.

Pretty easy fold on the river. If he's bluffing he's more likely to take a river bomb leadout line, as OP just called down 2 streets (and they were weak bets) and there's no reason to assume OP wouldn't check back a decent portion of the time (OP, from his view, can still have a hand like JJ-KK and will check behind the river with those hands a lot). Op hasn't shown any strength or big interest in the pot.

unless he's capable of turning his pairs into bluffs or C/R bluffing big, which doesn't really happen at 2-5 and not in these circumstances (3bet pot, A high board, etc), easy bet/fold on river. As for his likely hand it looks like Ax of spades. It's pretty ambitious to think someone will be bluffing in this spot, and in this kind of manner, esp. the villain described and with Op's image. so once again turning his pairs into bluffs would be the only likely way he's bluffing here, and that's pretty unlikely