I played a 1/1 game today. Very soft game, players are mostly call stations, with some poorly constructed bluffs here and there.

On this hand the player to my right opens for 6, I call w/A5hh on HJ seat and a stack of 270, CO and BB call.

PFR is a player who I've been getting in lots of pots with and I won every single one of them. It was obvious his ego was hurt and he was looking to play back at me.
He covers my stack by a bit.

I decided to flat here, given there's plenty of players to play behind me, and play this player in position.

Pot 25.
Flop T64 w/1 heart. he bets 12, I called and the other players fold.

This flop shouldn't connect with his range, I have alot of backdoor draws and 1 overcard.

Pot 49.
Turn J spade.

He checks. Given that I didn't hit any backdoor draw and he shows weakness, I decided to bet 25. He calls but seems weak.

Pot 99.
River is a low blank. I bet 60, he raises me to 120. I have to fold this?

What do you think of the hand? I'll post the outcome after some comments and discussion.

Pre I'd normally 3-bet, but given the dynamic we probably don't get too many folds so I'm okay flatting in a "very soft" game. If PFR is really bad and wide then we can still 3-bet for value/iso.

Flop is a trivial fold 4-ways. Save your airball floats for pots where you're HU or at least closing action. If you really wanna spew then raising is less bad than calling.

Betting turn is a must once you get here this way. River I probably give up given the dynamic between you two and obviously you need to fold when you get caught.

Fold or 3bet pre, snap fold flop, turn meh.

This is bad.

sounds like you're the one with FPS to me.

pf is bad, 3 bet or fold.

flop is bad, you have middle pair with 2 people behind you, just fold

turn is meh to bad, you are primarily betting to deny equity but it doesn't seem worth given you have to bet a substantial amount and you already have showdown value

river is horrible, why did you bet and now why are you considering calling?

I don’t like this hand much.

Pre is probably bad.

Fold flop.

Turn is okay but I’d size up some

This comment doesn’t make much sense imo

We don’t really have a pair just air imo

misread i thought we had A6s

Fold pre, fold flop, xb turn, xb river, AP fold river.

Your plan seems to be bluff a tilted calling station. Seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

In either case I don’t like the line >.<

3betting pre is usually the better play, I remember thinking about it at the table I should flat this one. I can't remember exactly why but I think it's something about the hand right before this one.

The guy to my right who cbet is betting flop 100% times, his mind is set to taking a pot from me. Some hands before I fired a cbet and he said "I promised myself I'll leave ego aside this game, I want to call you but I fold". His ego is definitely not "aside".

I think given table dynamics (players behind me are abc players, they'll fold to aggression without a made hand) floating on this flop is a bit spewy but ok, maybe I wanted to push this guy around.

When he check called the turn he looked weak to me. When the river came I continued betting thinking I need to put bluffs in my range as well, I can't always bet river for value.

This would be the complete overview of the hand from my POV.

Anyways, after I reluctantly folded river (his line also makes little sense), he shows 34o and says "I just had to get one through you". Oh well, I stacked him later in the session.

His line makes no sense but he was bluffing with the better hand and your line was burning money.

Gotta love it when OP says the game is soft and then he plays like he did in this hand. Somewhere on another poker forum villain is posting this hand talking about the super soft game where guys take crazy lines and spew chips.

I'd gladly take constructive criticism, but most of you ignore every remark I put under each street just to find a clever way to say "OP's a fish".

After a comment on another thread I posted, I've come to realize I might be overthinking with balancing ranges in these soft games.

Yes raising preflop is definitely better here, but it seems like no one in this particular thread understands/acknowledges the importance of bluffing with complete air on occasion? I'd love to hear why you shouldn't bluff this spot (Honestly happy to hear a good reason not to), that's why I wrote this thread, not to be patronized through criticism.

PFR c-bets into 3 opponents so he must have a strong range already. You say this flop shouldn't connect with his range but why? He can have all the sets, he has all the overpairs, he has AT for top pair as well. You need much more than backdoors to call here, the call on the flop is way too loose.

What bluffs does he have on the flop? QJs with some backdoor flush draws and backdoor straight draws? But would he even bet this into 3 opponents? Probably not.

Then he checks/calls the turn. You assume it's weakness but it can easily be a trap, or just check/call mode with a good made hand. When he check/calls the turn on a T64J (rainbow?) you know he's got something and he's not in the mood to give it up. He can have a lot of value hands here, from overpairs that want to slow down to monsters that go for the trap. But when he calls the turn bet, it's very hard for him to have a bluff.

So, the river bluff just won't work enough of the time, it's -EV. Plus you said yourself these guys are calling stations! Don't bluff calling stations.

This is why you shouldn't bluff this spot.

Every respondent right up until Mike's post provided constructive criticism, some of them pointed out your fishiness but that's because you played the hand fishily.

Put your justifications to one side and go back to poker 101, bluffing a tilted guy who's also probably a station (based on what you said about the table) is bad.

You're really inviting some needling when you kick off by saying how bad your opponents are and use phrases like 'FPS' and 'poorly constructed bluffs' and then describe a hand you played which was a poorly constructed bluff full of FPS.

It's entitled to complain about the feedback you received, you're getting free advice from a whole bunch of experienced players. No-one has to sugar coat it for you, you're an adult, so take a step back from your ego and think about why people are saying what they said.

I appreciate the constructive criticism a lot, it's why I keep coming back here.

I guess it's one of these "you had to be there" hands, cause I just knew he was bluffing me in a 4way pot, stupid play as it sounds. That's why some of these comments bugged me. I guess I'll keep these type of hands to myself next time and think them over.

What I will take from the comments is 'never bluff a tilted calling station', cause even though I was right on his hand strength, he had his mind set on taking this pot or blowing his stack away.