2/5 at Bellagio. The villain is a young kid who hasn't been at the table long, but appears quite fishy. First hand he plays he posts the BB with $200 stack in a straddle pot. There's an open to 35, and he flats. Heads up flop of J99 all black. He check calls 40. Turn 6 c/c, river 6. He check folds and shows Q7dd. So obv loose and fishy.

Probably 3 orbits later, I raise one limper from the button to 25 with AKo. Villain (who has yet to 3 bet) makes it 60 from the sb. He has 200ish behind. So what do we do? Is this just an obvious ship? That seems like the thoughtless play to me "well he's fairly short and I have AK, all in LDO!" But is that correct?

I feel like he calls all pairs he's 3 betting and should he have a dominated hand is not getting it in.

If you push all in every time with this kid you win more often than not.
Basically, do you feel like flipping a coin that is slightly bias to you for $200.

Which is fine. But are there any merits to calling the small raise in position?

This situation is pretty much ship/fold and given player description and the hand you described which was just LOL bad I cannot imagine folding AK here. Ship it and be happy. 2 Orbits is not that long to make a determination about his 3b range or frequency except to say that it is not insanely wide. He could have any PP, KQ+, some random **** he is squeezing you with because he is frustrated. This type of player has a chance to stack off with KQs, AQ type hands here also, and hes not always gonna call a shove with hands like 77.

If you think he's going to fold dominated hands and only call pairs, I see nothing wrong with calling and playing in position against someone your certainly much better than.


why get it in as a slight dog when you can own him post flop? This is assuming your right about his stack off range pre flop. If he can call w/ AQ AJ KQs types and fold some small/mid pairs then it becomes a must shove though.

Very easy jam given stacks sizes.

I don't agree.

this kid had NO reason to show that prior hand. It's almost like he was advertising just for a spot like this. Not enough time to build a credible read I am defaulting to sb 3 bets at these stakes are usually very strong.

I think a -EV play is -EV even when the stacks arent huge. I would fold.

AK though. It's still an easy shove.

This is about $105 at a 1/2 table. I have no problem shoving AK for $100 at 1/2. And the guys at 1/2 show up with a lot worse than you'd think, so at 2/5 where people actually put $ into pots, I'd expect this kid to be even wider. I think any A-broadway,suited hand looks like gold to him.

If you push everytime you will lose more often than not, so fold.

He has JJ+ AK and never folding. We are NEVER ahead here and never get him to fold. Pretty simple.

CLIFFNOTES: puke fold believe it or not

This is an interesting conundrum Based on the limited information we have, do we think this kid would/could overvalue AQ, AJ, KQ????

And through associative logic I think the answer is yes.

However, the next question is, would this kid 3-bet with AQ, AJ, KQ???

And therein lies the rub. What flavor of fish are we dealing with????.

If V was an aggro spewtarded fish. Then 100% absolutely we get it in here with AK.

However, if V is an passive spewtarded fish (which the first hand shows he is just passive spewtarded) then that means his 3-bet range should be exclusively QQ+, AK with majority weight to QQ+

Given that he hasn't 3-bet in 3 orbits (which is about an hour of live play) that makes the case that he is more on the passive side. So, lets say his range is JJ+, AK

as sick as it sounds, we need more dead money in the pot here in order to shove since we are behind equity wise.

This is counter-intuitive. Just because a villain is super fishy passive doesn't mean he is super fishy aggro.

And based on the limit info we have, this villain is super fishy passive which means his 3-bet range is going to be JJ+, AK and that is generous. Its more likely QQ+, AK with majority weight being QQ+. Not to mention he is raising from the blinds!

so believe it or not, this is a fold


In order for this to be a snap shove, I would have had to have seen this kid 3-bet around once per orbit or seen him 3-bet with KQ or AJ or garbage. But since he hasn't 3-bet in 3-orbits and this is his first 3-bet and its from the blinds...

His range is QQ+, AK all day everyday and this range crushes us

Interesting to me that some find a fold. I didn't consider that at all. As it turns out I played this hand in a very unusual way for me. Not saying I played it well or poorly. More thoughts on these other streets are appreciated.

I flatted the 3 bet. Flop came J76r. He checked after a bit. I checked back. Any reason to bet?

Turn was an 8. About ten seconds later he bets $100. I default fold here, but upon deliberation I thought he was waited heavily to no pair. Perhaps he has a set of jacks, but I don't think he's checking pairs on the flop.I called. Any reason to raise his last $$95?

River is a 9. So board is J7689. He ships for $95. I don't think this changes much. Still think there's a decent chance he has AQ or AK. I call. Somehow he has ATo.

So clearly he's spewing around. Probably the first time I've played that kind of hand and called down with A high. Looking to expand on my fit or fold style.

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Its usually good to have a white blackbird thrown in your face (mine) sometimes so that I can clarify my lack of communication skills.

So here goes.

We won here, but what do we learn? As with so many hands that come across this forum where difference in ranges are an issue. Barring spec reads, we have to decide how we will play this hand 100 times (not just this one hand) So what did we learn?

Fold?

Go with results and shove everytime?

From what i have seen -- routine players playing 200 stacks in a 2/5 game are not usually 3 betting wide ranges since they obv know they have no room postflop to play. Anyone at any skill level will just about know this that i have seen, so they are fairly tight on avg. when 3 betting like this. 3 betting kj or At is pure donkyfish and i dont think we had quite enuff info. to put him there yet.

So back to the 100 hands. When you see the guy here show AT, two things could happen. It could be a total random item that we may see only 1 time in 20 or so, OR it could be the norm for players at 1-2 shortstack to do this. Obv the results here will be solid confirmation bias for the shovvers, that players do this routinely and as a standard.

(Maybe they do, I just have no evidence of it other than the rando hand here and there)

But...

iF you dont see it routinely, and then simply shove everytime this spot occurs, you easily could be shoving into JJ+ AK 90 times out of 100 and racing with AT KJ etc. only 10 times out of 100.

I will leave you with determining the AVERAGE range for players in this spot to your judgment. I would easily fold myself because i dont remotely think that the avg player with a shortstack does this. Maybe if i see a ton of hands that suggest otherwise i will change my mind.

Just be sure of what evidence you really have for making your plays. And be sure to note that we humans tend to want to CALL way more than we should, and quick to believe that others hold lesser hands than most likely. It is all in the nature of why nobody really wants or likes to fold, period.

Play smart, play tough, do your best every day all day. Do this and you win everyday. (Even though you may take home less cash)

Not to backtrack and make excuses, but if V was this aggro and you failed to notice then I submit you weren't paying attention...

A villain this spewy doesn't all-of-a-sudden splash around like this with ATo.

How often had villain been raising and splashing around???

Ship/fold IMO. For 52 bb my standard play here is a ship unless I think this guy never reraises without KK/AA and just calls everything else. Maybe not enough history to correctly Peg him on this tight of a range just yet so prob ship it in and hope I'm not up against those 2 hands, and if he has KK, bink the A and tell him sorry but

To AintNoLomit, I didn't win the hand. He rivered a straight.

And to DGI, I hadn't seen him be aggro at all. Just the hand described in the OP, and he flatted a couple raises and we never saw his hand, or him take an aggressive action.

That is a moot fact. That fact that he showed up with AT is the issue.

Heres the thing.

We are playing for the long term.

Within any mathematical system there will always be an anomaly or some outlier.

Now there are one of two possibilities here.

#1) this hand is a random outlier of aggro spewiness on villain's part

or

#2) this is NOT a random outlier of aggro spewiness on villain's part and is representative of his play.

If it is #1 then we really shouldn't worry about it and our fold is correct.

If it is #2 then we need to take a look at ourselves. Were we paying attention to hands V was involved in but we weren't? Did we miss a sign V may be tilting? Did a friend show up and he is trying to impress his friend? Did V just take a bad beat? Were we too busy talking and watching TV? Perhaps our system of acquiring information isn't as precise and accurate as it should be?

It is my opinion that 90% - 95% of the time, all the info we need to make the correct decision is available if we were paying attention and "know" what to look for. And i'm not talking Oreo cookie soul reads. I'm talking basic hand histories, sizing tells, betting tells, timing tells, etc.

So when these things happen and my read is way off, I'm critical of myself and always ask myself if I did anything wrong to not acquire the right information especially if I've been sitting at the table for an hour with said villain...

just food for thought...

I was just clarifying that we had very little info about what he plays, other than that egregious first hand. After the discussed jand, seems clear he's just a button smasher.

I'm well aware the result is not relevant, was pointing out to you I didn't win the hand because I thought that you thought I thought I made the right play because I won.

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