The table is 7 handed at the time.

My image is very creative + aggressive. I don't think it's like "wow, this guy is really good", more like "this guys seems a bit insane, but maybe he is good?". The game is pretty deep and I have about £1,300 in front of me.

UTG, the villain in this hand, is decent but not great. I think he is someone who has dabbled with online, but probably has not got close to 100k+ hands of poker. He is chatty and relaxed on the hole. He is winning too and has about £650 in front of him.

The hand:

He opens in UTG to £12, UTG+1 calls, I'm on the button with AA, I 3b to £39.
UTG Calls
UTG+1 Folds

Flop:

6dTh6h

UTG checks
Hero £52
UTG calls

Turn:

Td

UTG checks
Hero £126
UTG calls

River:

2d

UTG bets £420 and is all in
Hero ?

Sux but fold.

Hero played well.

Thanks for the response. Can you give me a bit of your logic behind the decision? Want to understand how you got to that point so I can compare it with my own reasoning.

I think you're beat that's for sure. There's a chance he's doing that with Ax but I think you're up against a boat or a flush. You're in for over 200 pounds and he wants 420 from you. That's a big bluff. I think AK of diamonds is a good possibility but you didn't say what suit you had.

After the 3 bet preflop and bet flop+ turn, your hand looks like exactly what it is: a big overpair like KK or AA.

And despite that your hand is easily readable as a big overpair, villain is _still_ blasting allin into you on the river with a huge bet. Villain pretty much have zero bluffs here in this spot, and his nutted valuerange have you smoked. I mean, its not like he is playing JJ or QQ like this saying to himself: "The board is getting more and more scary, so i just pile allin with a massive bet with my JJ after i just called pre/flop/turn."

Villain just have the nutz here every single time, and you exploit that fact by just making the disciplined laydown.

My reasoning for a fold is I don't think a typical villain is bluffing 1/3 of the time like we need for a breakeven call. There are people that bluff here, and there aren't too many 10s in a UTG raise/call range but it takes a gutsy and good opponent to bluff you here which you typically won't find. Basically I think he needs to have a PP that for whatever reason he decided was best turned into a bluff. At higher stakes players think that way but at low stakes that kind of play is exceptionally rare.

Meh, fold.

Check turn to bluff catch river. V has Tx in his range. People hate to fold pre/you are pretty deep.

Firstly, it's not an easy spot. Villains are going to spaz here without a boat some percentage of the time and if we want to take a GTO approach and choose a hand to bluff catch with then I can see the case for AA. Obviously I think it's less than 33% chance we have the best hand otherwise I wouldn't have advocated a fold.

I would have preferred a raised to 50 preflop but I guess its not that significant.

Villain could have:
JJ, QQ, 99, 88, Ts9s, Tc9c, JsTs, JcTc,QcTc,QsTd,KcTc,KsTs,AcTc,AsTs,9h8h,9d8d, 8h7h,8d7d, 66, TT.

A lot of these hands are going to check to us on the river, keep our bluffing range wide and aim to bluff catch.

If villain views us as a maniac barreling with AK or ATC or if he was on the verge of tilting, I think we would have heard more about that in OP's description.

I've also heard nothing to suggest villain thinks hero is capable of folding the overpair in this spot.

So it comes back to how many combos does he have that are more likely to take this sort of line and I see him having more XTs combos in his range than 87s, 98s (only 4 combos).

It's just not that easy for them to donk off £420 like this. If he's capable of this I assume we would have picked up more info on that before this hand. How long have we been at the same table?

Thanks for the responses everyone. How would you have played the hand if Villain had checked the river?

Do we block either FD? Also, whereabouts in the UK is this?


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Tough one. I could go either way. I would have checked back turn for pot control and then called a river bet or led for value if checked to.

Flop bet is too big. Check back turn. AP fold river.

I don't know. Seems to me V has 66, TT or napkins....nothing else makes any sense. His flop call pretty much eliminates most diamond hands (except MAYBE 87, 97, 98 which would still be a stretch to call 52).

Man I hate to fold only to be shown some random crap, especially when I feel suspicious. It is a pretty good board to bluff when Hero can look at it and feel like he can lose to one card. As others have said, Hero's hand is face up making it another good reason to bluff.

Dammit...I probably flip a coin and let that decide (and knowing my luck am wrong no matter which).

Bet 220 into 450 to get max value from JJ/QQ

And if they check/raise jam for 200 more it is a crying call

I think you are missing a lot of value here. E.g. giving free cards to draws. Losing value to hands which are worse than yours which I think make up a good part of villain's range (e.g. 77 to KK).

I think that my play is higher variance, but I think it is correct. I'd love to hear an argument against my thought process, other than it reducing variance, which is not what I think should be optimised for.

Anyway, I called (it's a leak in my game) and he showed KTo. . Still ended the day up £128!

I have noticed that I don't give enough credit to credible lines in big pots. I think that, except for a *very* small part of his range, he folds all no showdown value hands on the turn and checks all bluff catching hands (inc Ax - two pair, high card ace) on the river hoping for me to check or be bluffing. So in hindsight I think the line indicates he has Tx (e.g. JTs) or a rivered flush, but he might even check that, so I think it should be fold.

Also interesting: what would you guys have done on the river in V's case?

Lead flop, lead flop AI (as he did) or x/rai?

My own thoughts: I prefer leading b/c H would prob. call hands which he otherwise might check behind on the river (such as AA/KK). If H has more bluff in his range, x/r would be better. However, given leading is better, why would a shove lead better than just a normal lead? Since most of the people above argue that you are most of the time beat here and H should fold, wouldnt that make a normal lead better here?

Two things. First, the only draw out there is a FD. Second, you're more likely to get value from lower PPs if you check turn and bet smallish on river. Third (okay, three things), you never said what suit your aces were. If you have blockers to the NFDs its a much less likely they're on a FD and thus you're giving up less by checking back turn. Fourth (whatever), Tx is still in V's range, especially because of your smallish 3bet pf.

I prefer a check turn, bet smallish river.

Turn bet is awful.

Lol.

Both betting and checking are fine.

But with a spewy image against people who play straightforward, betting is by far the better line. And when people are calling you down wider, you should be going for thinner value.

Their range largely consists of 77, 88, 99, JJ, QQ, KK and they will keep check-calling.

We're unlucky if he has Tx but he'll often let us know on the turn or river. Its just not easy for these guys to put lots of chips in on the turn or river without Tx.

Not an easy spot.

Yes it is.

Yes it is.

Like i said in my post before results, when a guy blasts in front on the river like this with a huge bet, its nutted hands like 99 percent of the time. LLSNL villains dont bluff very often, the vast majority pretty much never bluff with a relative big money bet relative for the stakes youre playing. And LLSNL villains is even less likely to bluff big on the river. Its just an near idiot proof tendency ive seen for thousands of hours of play, in many different countries.

Sometimes less is more,overcomplicating things isnt very helpful. River here is just a bread and butter easy fold.

Yeah river is a trivial fold here.