Villain (UTG+1): 30s white guy, just sat and is talkative, doesn't seem like a grinder ($1000)
Hero (MP): mid 20s Asian, TAG image (covers)

Straddle UTG. Villain opens $30. Hero calls with 88. Everyone else folds.

Flop: AK8 ($73)

Villain checks. Hero bets $45. Villain calls.

Turn: 5 ($163)

Villain checks. Hero bets $115. Villain calls.

River: 3 ($293)

Villain checks. Hero bets $230. Villain goes all in.

Is this ever a made hand turned into a bluff? He's basically repping a higher set. No way he plays AK this way.

Ive seen people play AK this way on dry boards, but its not very big part of his range considering the walk the dog line he is choosing. So i am discounting those combos, even though completely not ruling them out.

Unless we have alot behind i think we call it off. Even though i agree with you that we have to expect to see set of K or A a healthy percentage of the time here, we have a decent amount of money invested in this pot already. People just do weird **** some percentage of the time+ the times he shows up with AK or some other aces up combos we woudnt believe he had in his range.

That's a definitely a call. Don't even try to speculate if he's got a bigger set of aces or kings ...., so be it .. wtf? What can you do? -
If you lose with a set, you'll lose some money. If you don't, you are not playing your sets correctly.


If you start folding sets on the river because villain may have the top set, you may as well quit playing. The only fold I can find is if the board has 4 to a flush without the Ace or the King on the board. In that case villain could have the nut or second nut flush. I mean, seriously,..., if we fold here, what about the other times when we will make other sets? Like the middle or bottom or some other set by accident on the turn or even river? - Wtf? - are we suppose to fold those too because some fish may have the top set? (LOL)

OK instead of just saying "lol I haz set never folding loololol" why don't you justify that? Is he ever bluffing? Is he turning a made hand into a bluff? Is he overplaying AK? What range of hands is he check calling two streets and then check shoving the river for 200 bbs to start the hand? A lot of spots like this which seem to be coolers might not actually be coolers which is what I'm trying to figure out.

If he jams like 800 after you bet 230 on the river i think this is closer to a fold, given the line he went with and just how nutted those kind of lines usually is with a stack depth of 200 BBs or more.

I understand what youre trying to discuss, wich is one of the consequences of mass population/ people in livepoker slowly being better on certain areas of the game: and one of them is to stackoff tighter, and have stronger stackoff ranges in general-especially with deeper stacks. This pattern is getting more and more clear, especially over the course of the last 2 years.

Like, if he is a non drooler+ assigning the early pos raise of 30 pre+ his nutted line+ population tendencies this is closer and closer to a fold if he have decent amount of money behind.

Why don't we put some math to this...

We've put in $420 with $580 behind. Pot has $1430, so we are getting 2.4:1 on our money. There is only 6 reasonable combos that beat us.

If he has 42s, God bless him and we should just quit poker.

So is there >2.5 combos of worse hands here that will play this way?

2x AKs. 1x AKo.

Yup. Call.

Wouldn't there be 7 combos of AKo left? One ace and one king are on the board, leaving 3 of each remaining. Each of 3 aces can be matched with one of the 3 kings, so 3 x 3 = 9. There are 2 suited combos of AKs, leaving 7 combos of AKo.

That leaves us with....

Hands we beat (9): 2 x AKs, 7 x AKo
Hands that beat us (10): 3 x AA, 3 x KK, 4 x 42s

Even if we don't discount 42s, we have 47% equity against that range, so this is a +EV call in a vacuum.

Yes. There is 7x AKo remaining. But the point is that we only need there to be 1 of them in his range for this to be a profitable call.
We're trying to figure out how many we need to break even at least. Sort of "worst case analysis.

And as far as 42s, I'm completely eliminating that from contention here because I think it's incredibly unlikely.
Esp given that he opened from EP and check called 2 streets.

Its probably worth mentioning as well that your river (and flop, but flop unimportant) pot size is incorrect given the action. Pot is ~$400 and you've bet $230. So I think with that sizing its perfectly plausible that villain thinks AK is a value jam or you've induced. To be fair to him if he does have AK, 88 is really the only hand you have that is beating him because I presume you aren't stabbing flop with 55 or barreling as a bluff with 33.

Thinking about folding here is a sign that you are running bad and trying to make hero folds. I'll add to the math above that there are actually a lot more combos of AKo than 1. You may know that but didn't want you thinking he has to have 2.5 combos and there are only 3 possible. Plus, think about this.. whats the absolute best hand you can ever have in this situation? Surely its 88 right? So... call.

[Edit: AKo issue addressed whilst posting]

It's generally bad to put in >40% effective stacks with a set and fold on boards that have no flushes and a 0.01% chance of having a straight. He should have enough AK and QJcc QTcc JTcc to call it off. You kind of set yourself up by pot committing yourself but leaving enough behind to make a river jam absolutely suck for you.

Only thing going for you is that virtually nobody x/r bluffs the river, but given your read that villain is more rec than reg, combined with the absolute strength of your hand, I'm inclined to shrug call it off here.

Depends if we take OPs comment "No way he plays AK this way" as truth or not.

If it's truth, then we have to fold.

I personally don't know if people consider AK on AK8 vs AA or KK on the same board to be fundamentally different, so I'd disagree with OP.

Yeah you cant fold...sucks when he has it but you have a set

I am also sigh calling it off, but i dont like it and i am honestly unsure of how often we really are good here against non tilted non droolers in todays poker environment.

A clear tendency that i am seing and have observed over lots of lots of hours during the past 2 years, is that as mentioned people stackoff alot tighter than before. And an aspect of that is that they also play 2 pair hands alot more carefully, and especially with deep stacks from 200 BB and upwards.

Like, i cant remember last time i witnessed a check-ship on the river for like 800$ with 2 pair and this excact postflop line.

I cant remember either. If he only shoves sets and just calls with AK then its an easy fold.

He raised from UTG so we are hoping he has AK when he is repping AA

long term tho, we are not supposed to fold a set coz set over set is irrelevant, if you always go broke with a set in this spot, then you will get the set over set for 1 BI back eventually, so calling is actually trivial...we only need villains to be bluffing on average like 2%...its a long term profit to call and much riskier to fold

Yeah AA makes perfect sense here on this runout. I'd probably play it the same way as V if I think you're capable of triple barreling.

Snap fold face up and berate guy for not getting your stack

How would he be expected to play AK here, by just c/c the river lol. Honestly if he had exactly AK and ran into 88 on an AK8 vs a young Asian player, this would be considered a cooler right? How can you say, w little to no reads, that this is never AK? It's not a snap call but if you lose this pot whatever. AK is clearly in his range

Yes, losing this pot is trivial

Call. He also has A5/3 in range. If you think he'd slowplay AA/KK this way, it's entirely possible he'd do so with AK as well. In general, folding 3rd set with no flushes, and effectively no straights is pretty bad when you're just 100bb deep vs an unknown.

+1.

He has way more combos of AK than AA and KK. Give him 1 or 2 bluffs bc it's lolive poker. Sorry that he oversetted you, but this is always a call.

OK, I got it

We will never know if he's bluffing with so much certainty in order to justify folding a monster. I don't suspect him for a set because he didn't bet it himself or check-raise on the turn where another draw was forming (the second come there). He could have start building the pot up at the turn like normal players. But he didn't. He just check and called. Dudes that hold sets OOP usually start leading on the turn trying to take away the lead from you and building it up. Leading is better instead of check-raise. Well, he didn't do any of those things.

And finally: Any other set, I mean AA or KK would definitely have lead out at the river. What if you would have check behind? He would have lost the river bet. Can he afford with the nuts not to lead at the river? - Can he be that idiot?

One thing I know: The error can be too great for us in order to fold in this situation a set. The hell with him .. wtf? Whatever he's got I suspect he's not the nuts. I don't care if he's got AK. He may be a true moron that plays AK or even an Ace like that. We don't know. He may as well think that here KT is the best hand and you be bluffing. (LOL). Seriously, man..., wtf? . If we clog our minds with with all possibilities of all the idiots out there we will find enough reasons in the future to fold almost all hands short of Str8-fluses or Quads. That will be the END of our poker career. There will be no more hands left for us to play. How the hell are we suppose to play the day after this one? - Please answer this one! - Please do!

In some instances, maybe bottom set on the flop could be folded on later streets if the board tells us so. But as a general rule: Never slow play a flopped set! Nobody knows you have a monster anyway, therefore, it is stupid to conceal the strength of your hand. Backing off to a raise and then check-raising on the turn is a valid strategy. I do not back off when there is a third suited card on board. I feel that I have enough outs to disregard the possibility of a made flush against me. If you lose with a set, you'll a lot of money. If you don't, you are not playing your sets correctly.

You seem to think live poker is too much like TV poker with call+call+call+check-raise on the river from OOP by Durrr with the nuts. It's not. Good poker is dull and predictable. Low stakes live is much more like bingo than you think. You're not going to make money by making slick plays and elaborate bluffs and very Biblical lay downs. You do make money by playing smart in position, and value betting solid hands. That's all it is. ... wtf?

Oh my freaking god, your post is full of so much nonsense i dont even know where to start.

You have no clue what youre talking about really and what we are trying to discuss.

We know that sets is a strong hand and that we should usually play them fast, you dont have to teach us that. Were not beginners that started to play 2 days ago, let me remind you on that.

What we are trying to debate is how accurate we can range villain here with the line he takes and the stackdepths of 200 BBs, based on how many times we have witnessed this being the slowplayed stones with this line combined with the trending population reads about peoples stackoffranges being alot tighter.

I dont think we can in this case, but its certainly an interesting discussion- that deserves more serious well thought out posts than bs statements such as "if you dont lose alot of money with your sets you arent playing them correctly" and that kind of stuff.

Edit: regarding your nonsense about we cant play the day after this one if we fold because then we cant play any hands than quads or straightflushes. Maybe you can slow down and ask yourself how often this kind of a spot really comes up? That when your 200 BBs deep the preflopraiser check-calls bot flop and turn, then he check-bombs the river over our third barrell, basically telling us that he got the stones? This is about context and hand strenght correlation to certain spots and certain lines.

Hero's capped at 88, and has all the 2-pair combos. V should know Hero almost never has nuts or second nuts and will credit V's line as highly nutted, plus V knows that H knows that V's range is uncapped.

He still probably has exactly AAA, but still a chance for creative bluffs he might be running here.

OK, man .., If you find what I'm saying nonsense, the only thing to do something about my argument is start folding flopped sets because of some fantasy reasons that some idiot villain plays the nuts with a check-raise on the river. Have a logic based on him being sure 100% his check on the river was the optimal play with the nuts. ... wtf? - Where GTO says that optimal with the nuts on the river from OOP is to do a check-raise? - That doesn't exist

I say it one more time and I'm say it with whole my heart into it because this is what I'm doing for a living here in Vegas. This brings bread on my little table in my little house acquired with poker winnings over the years.
I will force myself now to forget all about this post because I'm afraid my mind may be contaminated and I'm ready setup to go out at The V. ..., My God! why the hell I need all this nonsense polluting my mind?

You are levelling yourself big time if you seriously believe this is the thought process of the average 2-5 player when he check-jams the river and putting his 1000$ stack in the middle.

If we dont have in depth reads of this spesific villain that suggest otherwise i would say that we can safely assume that villain has exactly _zero_ bluffs when we get presented with this line.