Villain - Black male, mid to late 20's dressed in a polo style shirt with jeans. His wife is sitting with him. I've never played with him before and at the time of this hand, he had only been at the table for less than ninety minutes. During that time, he only open-raised once (from mid position), open limped several times and called several opening raises from both in and OOP.

Postflop, Villain called several flop bets / Cbets both in and OOP but his cards were never revealed as he hadn't gone to showdown and when he did, he mucked after his opponent showed a winner.

Hero - White male, dressed well, late 20's / early 30's, probably the most aggressive player at the table. Villain has seen hero 3 bet at least three times PF from in position and once from the blinds. Villain has only seen Hero show down in one meaningful pot - Hero had a strong hand and took the medium sized pot.

A couple possible hands of note:

Villain called a ~1/2 PSB on the river of a
A 8 6 A 3 board after I raised PF, Cbet flop, checked turn and bet river with 10 10 from OOP.


Villain (EP) C/Rd Hero to ~3x my bet on the flop after I raise PF from HJ (2 callers) and Cbet a board of 10 6 2 once it was checked to me. Hero folded.

Main Hand:

Villain (EP) - ~$700
Hero (HJ) - Covers

PF
Villain opens to $25
Folds around to Hero
Hero Raises to $80 with QQ
Villain Calls

Flop ($165)
Q73
Villain checks
Hero bets $150
Villain calls

Turn ($465)
Q732
Villain thinks for a second and jams for $470
Hero?

Flop bet is huge. I'd make it closer to $100.

Turn is gross. Really disgusting. But given his relatively passive preflop tendencies, how many flush combos can he have? AKcc, AJcc, maybe ATcc? Maybe he's doing something weird here with KxKc, AxAc, AcQs. Perhaps 77. It's an ugly spot but with top set I think you have to call.

I think we can exclude AxAc and KxKc because with AA he would have 4bet pre and with KK I think he would have raised flop and probably pre. Also don't thin 77 shows up here all that often. AK,AJ of clubs seems like a possibility but so is AcQx. Would he really shove with a flush or continue letting you bet? I think most V's would c/r.

Only way you can fold is if you think he has flush. I think this looks more like AcQx and he wants to take it down right now.

call

I'd say this is a fold because he never has a set himself here. Also the Q is a club so he can't have Qxcc. Tough fold but 2:1 is not the correct price. It's tough because we don't really know his range at all, ESP not in a 3b pot. But you have said he has called a lot preflop which leads me to believe he can have a range much wider than just Akcc or AJcc for potential flushes

wtf snap call

Your near pot size bet almost puts your hand face up unfortunately. I would put you on a range of sets, maybe Aces or Kings with the King of Clubs and Ace of clubs with QX maybe. Your big bet says you have a big hand that your trying to get stacks in by the river, but you don't want to see another club. If your passive villain perceives this, I don't think he shows up with less than a flush on the turn. My best guess is a smaller flush, that he's scared will get outdrawn on if he checks, and gives a free card for you to redraw to. It's a spazz shove IMO, but your behind. If he checked, and you bet big, and then he shoves you have pot odds to call. But, given this line villain has you crushed most of the time when I stove it. With one card to come you have 22% equity, where villain has around 77% with one card to come. So barring some read that villain would be at somehow semi bluffing with only 4 clubs on the turn, you have to fold.

i think a typical player at this level is capable of having the Ac or Kc a lot here, either with AA, KK, AQo or even sometimes KQo. i also think you have to discount most suited hands here based on the preflop action.

even in a really bad scenario, where we give him too wide a range of big suited cards, plus AA or KK with a club, plus 77, you are beating his range.

Board: Qc 7s 3c 2c
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 56.818% 56.82% 00.00% 375 0.00 { QdQh }
Hand 1: 43.182% 43.18% 00.00% 285 0.00 { AcAd, AcAh, AcAs, KcKd, KcKh, KcKs, 77, AcKc, AcJc, AcTc, Ac9c, KcJc, KcTc }

i think in reality he is probably raise/calling preflop with fewer clubs than that and he probably has AQo or something else ******ed now and then as well.

I agree with everything you said, except your forgetting Hero's read is he's a passive. So this has to skew his range more to made flushes on the turn.
If he was aggressive than I'm snap calling this, but that is not the case in this spot.

that. pretty much like beat him into the pot.

That range looks pretty good, if anything, it's a little conservative. You gotta account for random spaz + lady watching factor. Which is good for a couple more random 2 pair or 1 club combos imo.

Unless I have a soul read, I don't make a habit of folding top set in 3bet pots with 100bb or less. Live players do funky things when they've seen you 3betting with decent frequency, even f you show down good hands.

but by that same token, you have to give him relatively few suited cards because he opened to 25 and called a three bet. you really think he does that with Ac9c very often?

in order to make this a fold you basically have to eliminate all but a few non-flush hands and give him too wide a range of flush cards. like if he has only ONE combo of AcAx, never bluffs and never has KcKx, then it's a very thin fold:

Board: Qc 7s 3c 2c
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 30.519% 30.52% 00.00% 94 0.00 { QdQh }
Hand 1: 69.481% 69.48% 00.00% 214 0.00 { AcAs, AcKc, AcJc, AcTc, Ac9c, KcJc, KcTc }

...and again, that's giving him a very generous range of suited hands to raise/call preflop

I have to admit it is possible given the line that villain raised and then called Hero's 3 bet that his range can contain a lot more semi-bluffs in his range. Even though I think Hero's beat, I'm starting to get more convinced the call is correct from a mathematical standpoint. Now I'm really curious about the results.

I appreciate all the feedback.

When Villain shoved, I took a moment to consider what he could be doing that with and decided that, based on the action up to that point, his made flushes were limited and there were enough single card flush draws, possible lower set and random spazzes to give me enough equity to call.

He had J 10

Villain has plenty of flushes in his range. This will be a flush much more often then a random spazz with Axc... I think I'm folding but hating it. Bet smaller on flop... 100 is fine.

While in a higher/tougher limit game or online against more competent opponents, I'm betting closer to 2/3 pot on that type of flop, I have found that at this level, in this particular location, most recreational opponents' tolerances for the amount they will call to a flop bet in a raised pot are relatively inelastic and their determination on whether to call the bet is based on the perceived absolute value of their holdings (from their perspective) opposed to the relative value in comparison to my holdings. This seems to hold true even more in hands that are HU.

For instance, on this type of board, I have regularly had villains call PSB on the flop with hands such as QJo.

This same principle applies to an extent on the turn but the inelastic tolerance frequencies and ranges change and it varies more on an opponent to opponent basis. Once they get to the river, the dynamic changes again but I have had great success absolutely bombing a lot of different types of rivers in places that I believe most would advocate a modest value bet but the villains call a PSB or larger. I don't want to derail the topic so I can save going further into the aspects other than the flop for another time / another thread.

I have also found very little reason for balancing sizing against these opponents - they do not seem to adjust.

There are a few opponents that are exceptions to this and I adjust to them accordingly but until an opponent at this location shows me otherwise, I assume that they generally fit this model.

When I first transitioned to live, I was concerned about balancing and generally costing myself money by leveling myself too often. Shortly after playing for a bit and realizing that the level of competition was vastly different than what I was used to, I began to just focus on maximizing value. I was a winning player before doing so but changing to a more straight forward game focused on extracting value, I believe significantly increased my win rate.

However, I am certainly open to the thought that my sizing was not / is not optimal. Could you please elaborate on why you believe that a bet of $100 would be more optimal on this flop, in this hand?

My initial read about the situation was right. There were a lot of compelling arguments to the contrary. But, what had me leaning more to made flushes was villains perceived range of your hand. You bet pot on the flop, and he had to be thinking you weren't folding, so shoving looks weaker than check raising all in.
Did you fill up on the river?

No, I didn't fill up. So, I said nice hand and made a mental note about his play.

As I found out, Villain was just a complete station - regardless of how he perceived anyone else's hand, he was calling with any flush draw. In a later hand, he called off over 80% of his stack to a check raise on the turn with bottom pair and a 9 high flush draw. PF in that hand he called a standard raise with 95 suited from mid position.

I stuck around in the game longer than I had planned due to Villain being deep (>$1.8K at one point) and me covering him as I knew if he stayed in the game that he'd likely drop the majority, if not all of his stack eventually. Unfortunately though, although he wanted to stay, his wife that was sitting behind him forced him to leave

Based on my conversation with a couple of dealers, Villain is a rec 1/2NL player that usually comes in, plays the same style he was in the game we played, drops ~$400 and leaves. Hopefully, with his new windfall and success at 2/5, he'll continue to play in the 2/5 game

Lol snap-call.

And your flop sizing is terrible.

I outlined in an above post why I generally believe that the dynamics of the games where I am playing warrant such large sizing but I am certainly open to why that may not be optimal - could you please explain on why say ~2/3 PSB or less there against the typical opponent in this game would be better than a larger bet on that flop? Thanks

I'll take a stab at it.

You are ahead of every single value hand villain is raise/calling with pre. Most of these value hands fall into an elastic range, where they may call up to $x dollar on the flop but any bet higher than $x and he will fold. You need to bet within this sweet spot to get max value from these hands

Betting a pot sized bet on the flop (or close to it) is only going to be called by one or two hands, if any. almost all the hands you want to get value from are going to fold with that sizing. In this hand, he is going to continue with FDs on the flop or pocket 77 (if it's in his raising range)

DeadmoneyJ, some people in this thread are giving you a hard time because this seems a somewhat trivial hand to post that i would kind of expect 1/2 player to post, not an experienced winning 2/5 NL player. It seems your being very results oriented when thinking about this hand.

While you've said you've only played with the guy for 90 min, that should be enough time to correctly label him as a random fish. Just the instant clue of him having his wife sit behind him and watch him play automatically assumes he's just a recreational player. With him jamming the turn for the pot, your getting 33% equity to call. Even if he turns his hand face up and shows a flush you still have 20% equity. To think that a fish can only show up with this tight a range is crazy so when u add up the other possibilities of he's bluffing with air, he's semi bluffing with the Ac or Kc, has a lower set, or has AQ or KQ, or the random spazzing with a misplayed AA or KK and its clear you have at least 50% equity.

To address the issue of your flop sizing bet, while in a vacuum you made the right play in betting the pot on the flop, but once again it seems that your being results oriented and trying to justify your play by outlining reasons why going for max value and aggressively charging draws and inferior hands is the right play. And it is the right play in a majority of situations especially going up against fish. But in this instance i think clearly this is the wrong play.

While the flop does come with a club flush draw you have the board dominated and basically locked up vs the villains utg open and calling oop a 3bet. His range is basically 55-AA(heavily discount KK and AA though) and AKo, AQo, and all the suited broadway cards(ATs-AKs,KTs-KQs,QJs,JTs) You have this range crushed on this flop. Out of the 75-80 combos in that range your getting value from the 6 combos of flush draws(AT,AJ,AK,KJ,KT,JT) and the rare 3 combos of AQ out there and the even rarer 6 combos of AA and KK that i would discount to 1 combo considering he prob 4 bets with these hands.

Thats 10 combos out of 75-80 where it would make sense to make the flop bet size u made. But if u make a probe bet of say 1/3 or 1/2 of the pot, fish esp calling station fish will auto think u could have AK and call down with pp's below QQ's which make up a majority of his range(30 or so combos) or get him to make a crying call with AK(16 combos) all of which u fold with your pot size flop bet.

Saw results already.

I'd snap this off given all your info. He hasn't been opening pre so I'd be disinclined to include too many random club combos for him, and I'd assume that he c/r's flop with atleast a decent % of his flush draws since the sizing would just be so convenient and because he has history of you bluffing/cbetting every time/folding to your cbet getting raised.

Worst comes to worst, we have decent equity.

Also I don't really like flop sizing being so huge when we have top set HU in a 3b pot. I don't particularly care about balancing live, but when we have top set it's hard for him to have very much, so I'd want to keep in things like 88-JJ if he has them.

I'm seriously considering folding the turn instead of lol snap calling

Not to say that I do but I think it's close

OP,

In regards to your flop sizing, remember what you are blocking in spots like this.

I also play in games where I get away with ridiculously large sizing with my value hands, but I mean you have top set. You block everything but lower sets and flush draws which he will rarely have as the pfr in a 3! pot ( lol don't be results oriented here ). Plus you want to keep lower flushes in anyways.

So like that same bet is totally different if you held AA for example. Though I would still say it was large. But with AA it is less bad bc villain now has a wider calling range (Qx). Do you see?

And this is never a fist pump call but it is also rarely a fold imo.