5/5 late night game

8 Max

UTG+1 (1500) is a TAG Asian kid. I saw him range cbet a few times in good spots multi-way for small sizing, and I saw him overbet the river for value vs a fish with an in elastic range. He seems to know what he’s doing.

LJ (250) is a big VPIP whale with a mission to lose all his chips.

HJ (1400) hero with a very tight nitty/TAG image. I 3bet/folded once tonight. The only hand I’ve shown down is top boat when I stacked the whale about an hour ago.

OTTH

UTG+1 opens to 20.
LJ calls 20.
Hero is HJ with AQo and I squeeze to 90.
Folds back to UTG+1 who tank calls.
LJ folds.
HU
(210) flop 885r
X hero bets 105. V calls.
(420) turn Qx
X hero?

There’s 1200 left at this point so I can just bet 300 here and slam the last 900 into a 1K pot OTR but it does feel like a bit of an overplay. (He might have been trapping pre with the whale so short there he could have been hoping for a jam/rejam?) plus, he can only really pay me off with JJ/TT/99

Or I could be smaller twice? Maybe 220 now and 300 OTR?

Or I could x back here and bluff catch OTR to pick off an AK. If he checks the riv the. I can value bet there of course.

Thoughts?

Pre is fine.
Flop is too big imo, he´s not folding anything better besides maybe AK, and he´s not gonna call with worse if you bet half pot.
Better 1/3 to keep his range wide and allow for more playability.

Turn i´d bet 1/3 again.

I would def bet 1/3 pot if we’re 100bb deep, but I sized up cause we’re 300bb deep

True.
Dunno, might be fine.

Obviously will depend on "actual" preflop ranges but a Q in this spot is a very high freq betting spot and potentially a range bet spot. IP has more Qx because villain can't profitably float even some bdfd 2 over type hands otf in this spot vs 1/2 and Qx now beats a lot of villain's condensed middle pp region of 66, 77, 99, TT, JJ but in these spots we usually leverage that advantage with frequent small/medium bets as it tends to put most of villain's range into indifference; if we bet too large the portion of his range that can profitably defend narrows to rather easy calls like Qx that did float, KK, and 8x. I would guess these dynamics don't change drastically when super deep but honestly idk

Another way of explaining to use frequent smaller turn bets in this spot is that we want to maintain our preflop/flop range asymmetry advantage (Qx, KK more often and AA pure) and betting too large on the turn isolates villain's calling range to hands that we are no longer crushing with the vast majority of our range.

All of this

A player at 5/5 that seems to know what he is doing is probably not going to call a bet with worse than TPTK since you have been barreling the whole way given the reads and your image.

The board is dry and you have show down equity now. I'd check the turn and get a decent sized bet in on the river. I think a small bet on the turn is just value cutting yourself. He's definitely not calling a river bet if he can't beat TP after a turn bet.

Curious as to why the stack size vs. a competent player affects your bet sizing?

FWIW, I'd go $65-70 on the flop, ~40% turn.

Given the situation my goal wouldn't be to play for stacks with TPTK. Villain appears reasonably good and shouldn't be losing a lot here very often.

Villains worse hands are mostly pairs under QX. They might bluff catch sometimes but mostly are not going to put in a lot of money. KQ/QJ might lose a good chunk but they fold preflop or flop, running into one on the turn should be rare. Better hands are never folding, AA/KK slow played preflop might not be happy but won't fold, 88/55 and rare 8X are going to be beating your money into the pot.

Your plan here should be value extraction but very carefully. You have one of those low end value hands where villain shouldn't be paying you a lot with worse but most of villain's hands are worse hands that can pay something.

I like a check on the turn and a plan of betting $225 on river. You should generally bet river here because you can't expect villain to bet much on river. Occasionally check river and try to pick off a bluff but that is mixing it up on such a dry board.

why are you c betting?

if for value...from what?

if as a bluff...to fold out what?

Oh, this isn’t quite the right way to think anymore... These are no longer the reasons for betting

well the good news is I'd love for you to explain your reasoning for c betting here then.

I’m checking all of my range here on the turn. Seem to pick up more value from snapping off bluffs on the river than targeting 99-jj

I would choose to continue small for value, clearing out any potential equity from lower ranked suited aces, and suited broadways.
I would also X back at some freq, opponent-dependent.

Not c-betting as a bluff.

Great spot to check for value. You should only get one street from worse and you have a better chance of getting paid on the river.

As stated, if he's any good, he's not calling a turn bet from a TAG/nitty player w/ worse than AQ. I'd check and try to get value on the river either by calling him or betting if he checks.

It'd be pretty sick if he check/raised a blank river, though.

I think there is two schools of thought on flop either bet like 180 and say hey buddy we got aces do you really want to hero call your whole stack here with pocket 9s. Or bet like 65 and just hope to get fold from his worst hands and keep imitative to the turn. With 105 we are kind of over charging ourselves for the initiative.

Solver thinks you should be playing this for stacks (if you were 100bb) on turn.

We’re 300bb

I suspect everyone instinct on the hand is correct. We want to for sure get in another value bet on either turn or river two value bets is probably a touch greedy.

I think bet folding is ok here. Like if we bet big here on the turn. Is the population really bluff jamming on us in this spot trying to get us to fold aces or kings? Who folds aces or kings in our spot? Like it would e a crazy ass bluff on this board.

for starters, i will write from a theoretical point of view:

PF is a tad loose if we were up against two regs, but with the VIP in the LJ this is fine.

OTF betting small isn't really a thing, wether it's 100 or 1000bb eff. it kinda is, as your weaker holdings like TT-JJ can't go huge, but in general you just wanna pot it here. 8x shouldn't be in anyones range, so the effective nuts here are the big pairs, QQ+, and these hands are very unlikely to be outdrawn by the river. while we always have QQ+ at 100% freq, villain doesn't. we want to bet big, because we wanna start making villains bluffcatchers indifferent between calling and folding. we want to put pressure on his mid pairs, and that is done by betting big. villain will not have a hard time calling, when we go like a quarter pot here.

villain is supposed to start folding 99-TT OTF at a high frequency, if he's not, well, good for us i guess. hint: in villains shoes, AK is a much better call OTF, and is basically calling every time vs PSB, while 99-TT is not. when we look deeper into that, this makes perfect sense, as AK has 6 outs to improve, while TT or 99 only has 2 outs + AK blocks the most likely value hands, while mid pairs don't.

Qx OTT is like the nuts, not only for our specific holding, but for our entire range. it literally is THE nut card EV-wise. when turn cards like that roll off, we basically want to bet huge again at a high frequency. it is a nightmare spot from villains perspective, just because he has no more hands that can call comfortably.

OTR we want to jam most cards, again at a high frequency. no overall, this might seem pretty splashy, but in reality it isn't. OTR we either have the nuts, like QQ-AA or we don't, while villain never has the nuts, with his strongest hands being some mid pair bluffcatchers. more or less, this is the prime example of the well known gto toy game, but in this case, it starts more or less OTF already.

so overall, this is a good spot for pot, pot, jam.

now from an exploitative point of view, things are a bit different i guess. i don't play much live, but i would guess most villains at 500NL won't checkraise flop against PSB enough, or checkraise at all + don't defend correctly. in that case, i would start with a PSB with all my pairs, and checking back my unpaired hands. OTT, on this specific card, i would go like 25% pot or any amount i think that villains bluffcatchers (kind of the wrong term when we never have a bluff lol) will call, followed up by a river bet depending on the specific card. i guess any size is possible. prolly suck him in with a small bet again or so.

Run a lot of 300bb no rake UTG+1 open LJ call HJ squeeze UTG+1 call LJ folds have you?

yes, and i strongly advise you do so as well