Borgata, 2 a.m. on Saturday night.

Hero: 30 year old white male (looks younger). Had been playing LAG earlier in the evening and stealing a lot of pots when the table was tight, but have tightened up a lot due to card deadness and a few loose players who've joined recently. Probably viewed as nitty by villian 2, but villian 1 has been at the table a while so he could have any read. ~$1000.

V1: 40s white male, sports jersey. Playing fairly tight pre, but overall passive, with some station-y tendencies. He seems to be a thinking but uncreative player who plays his hands face up. ~$800

V2: 50s middle eastern whale. Expensive watch, nice shoes. Playing ~80%+ of pots since he joined table an hour or so ago, with about an even mix of raises and calls. Calls very light post-flop (he won a lot of his stack stationing a maniac with middle pair), and has slowplayed a flopped straight. We've played one pot where I raised him with AA IP, fired flop and turn, and he led $80 into ~$250 OTR with 2nd pair and a busted gutshot. Covers.

Pre-flop: V1 raises to $20 in MP, V2 calls from CO, I call on the button with T7. BB calls.

I know, I know, fold pre. But I want to play a pot deep-stacked in position against the fish, and V1 seems to be the sort of player who will go too far with TPGK or an overpair if I flop something sneaky.

Flop: ($80)
A98.

BB checks, V1 bets $60, V2 calls quickly. I think for a second and call. BB folds.

At this point, I think V1 almost certainly has a good ace, and V2 could have any random hand- an A, 9, 8, any straight draw, and maybe even an underpair, so I'm pretty happy with the action and feel I have pretty big IO.

Turn: ($260)
10

Checks to me. I think momentarily about trying to steal, but realize that would be idiotic, so I take the free card.

River: ($260)
10

V1 checks. V2 bets $125. I ???

Thoughts on all streets appreciated.

This hand was played so passively. I'm having a hard time coming up with a value range for V. Call.

Given our stack depth, and us having position on two weak players, I don't mind the call pre-flop, especially since the PFR is on the smaller side for live games.

Flop call is our only option given that V1 is station-y, and V2 seems to be as well. We have pretty much 8 outs to what is most likely the nuts (although we can't rule out QT for V2), and a tonne of implied odds against both players.

On the turn I like the check behind, as the bottom of V1's range for betting flop then checking turn here is JJ-KK, with it being heavily weighted towards AJ-AK. Sets and AK are very unlikely for V1 given that he checked turn, and he's probably not folding AQ/AJ, or even JJ here since he will either have TP, or a pair + straight draw. The T on the turn also hits a lot of V2's range, since a lot of his draws picked up a pair, or made a straight (which he might be slow-playing). We're almost certainly beat by V1 here, and often by V2.

On the river, given your description of V2, I'm calling, and hoping V1 also calls with AJ-AK. Although V2 can definitely call a raise with Ax, there are a lot of better hands in his range here, namely JT, QT, 67, QJ, as well as a lot of boats given his propensity to slow-play. If you think V2 is whale-y enough to call a raise with 9x or 8x then we can raise here, but most likely calling is the best option for us. I'm expecting to be beat by V2 a decent amount of the time though, and pretty much never beat by V1 (if V1 somehow check-raises here it's an easy fold obviously).

Hard to put V2 on enough worse hands that Vbet and call our raise (namely Ax) to make up for the times he has better (Mostly stuff like QT/JT, as straights and rivered boats would prob bet turn, but he did slowplay a straight earlier).

I'm just flatting river.

Call river. I would hate raising and having to fold to a 3-bet.

Just call river....don't see a range for Villain that you beat that would call a raise.

I don't see what's wrong with raise/folding to about $315 and hoping someone of V2's description calls with a weak Ax (that I think he can show up with here).

Seriously, how is this not an easy raise/fold on the river???

V1 is described as "uncreative" so we can and should ALWAYS bet/fold or raise/fold for value vs an "uncreative" opponent because we never have to fear them getting creative and turning a made hand into a bluff or bluff raising us off a hand...

We can raise/fold with confidence knowing that if he re-pops us we are beat.

Not raising here is borderline criminal. An "uncreative" player raised from MP so his range should have a ton of AK, AQ, AJ in it. The turn is semi-scary because it makes a straight and 2p combos so he checks we check it back. So he is value betting river most times here and we can raise him and he can tank call us here with AJ, AQ, AK here 50%-ish of the time.

Value betting (in this case raising) should be a huge component of our game. This is a decent enough spot to do it. I wouldn't even consider this a "thin" value bet. Raise/folding in this spot should be standard for all thinking players vs described villain.

We have to get more in the habit of giving our villains chances to make mistakes. LLSNL players make tons of mistakes. They fold when they are sure their opponents have nothing, and they call knowing 100% that they are beat. They level themselves saying, "Why so much... okay I call..." They get emotional knowing that on the flop and turn they were 100% winning the hand but then on the river they got sucked out on and know they are beat but call anyways just to prove that they were right!

You are right in the sense that villain "shouldn't" call this river with a hand we beat. So villain should fold his AK, AQ, AJ most of the time. However, he will make emotional calls "enough" of the time in this spot to make raise/folding profitable. Not to mention how it is important in our overall range of hands that we are raising in this spot X% of the time with hands that are not the nuts. We raise here and get called by AQ then later when we nut up vs villain's 3rd or 4th nut hand he will insta stack off to us without another thought

anyways, just saying, we need to get in the habit of giving our villains chances to make mistakes when we are in spots where we can bet/fold or raise/fold with near 100% certainty that if villain pops us back we are beat but at the same time, V's range is easily defined and we should be ahead most of the time. These are the spots that were custom built to raise/fold.

Agree 100%. I've always wondered whether those folks who analyze your online database call it a leak if when you value-bet you're ahead 75% of the time. I hope so.

digi, V2 (the whale) bet the river, not V1. He slow played a straight and made a very small blocking bet earlier with 2nd pair and busted gutshot. Plus, V1 is still behind us (I highly doubt he will raise, but he might call). I think I'm OK with flatting river.

G-damn it.

Uggh, hate it when I'm reading too fast and I screw up the action. When I read "BB folds" somehow in my mind I thought that meant V2 folded and we were heads up with V1.

Okay, I can get behind flatting river here.

wp as long as you raise river. honestly you dont need much more justification than 'i have trips' here vs a whale. whales are gonna whale, and you should let them.

I think you need to flat here. While V1 probably doesn't have anything, V2 could have easily played QJ, QT, KT, 67, J7, T9, T8 this way because that's just the kind of thing bad players do. I think that you are probably good here 70%, but raising is a high variance line given that you know he can slowplay. You will lose a lot more the 30% of the time he has it than you gain the 70% where he has crap and folds.

If you are going to raise him here, I'd make it min raise or 2.5x with the intention to fold if he comes back over you.

Calling also has the advantage that V1 might call with something you beat.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I tanked for a second and flatted. I figured the raise was fairly thin against a spaz who could reasonably have a better 10 here, and thought it was likely more profitable to bring V1 along if he can't get off an A.

V1 tanked for about 3 minutes and folded and seemed plenty pissed about it. V2 shows me 10-9 for a boat. At the time I was glad I didn't raise, but I kept thinking a lot of the time I might have lost value just flatting here.