back story: REVEL CASINO

hero recently moved to table after taking a beating at previous table where he just kept running into big hands and not reading it (value owned himself a few times). at new table everyone is pretty sociable and having fun mainly because most of them are big winners, and losers just keep flowing through the table leaving their money behind. about half the table has stacks around 1000. 2 of the players are AC pros. 2 are an american-asian girlfriend and her white boyfriend. both are exuding confidence due to their stacks and both opening for raises a good amount. i'd say over a quarter of the hands start out with a raise from one of them. i'm watching them play aggressively and consistently make big hands. i transferred over to get it in with these big stacks. immediately start running into hands again and have already re-bought in. people think i'm just a bad player who over-values everything which is fine with me as i'm actually trying to play tight.

lead-up hand a couple of orbits in after a few brutal losses i'm down to 180 and i get AA.

american asian girl raises to 15 (she's been raising to 15 or 11 usually)

i'm about to raise but see the bad player to my immediate left start getting his raise ready so i just call

bad player makes it 35

american asian girl calls pretty easily

i look at both of them, look at my stack, look at their stacks, and go all in

guy on my left snap calls

american asian girl looks at the pro on her right, looks at me, folds painfully. i see pro tell her he's sure i have AA or KK. she's not sure.

bad player flips over QQ and i win. pro guy tells american asian he told her so. i make a mental note that this girl and the pro have now seen me check raise AA and i have solidified my bad image a bunch.



hand in question

villain asian american girl with over 1000. play semi-loose and semi-aggressive. seems to be running hot.

hero 34 year old white guy, looks depressed and has crap image. stack of 350.

villain: raises in UTG+1 to 15

folds to hero, has AA, raises to 45

folds to villain: pauses and calls

flop: J 8 3

villain: checks

hero: bets 60

villain: min raises to 120

hero: thinks she may think i'm bluffing, may have a lower pair, may have a set. stack size has me with either a shove now, a shove later, or calling a likely shove. no draws on board. hero has bad feeling in his gut but decides he's willing to go all-in, doesn't have much fold-equity and might as well keep her bluffs in so he calls.

turn: i don't even remember. it was a low card that didn't bother me.

villain: very naturally goes all-in

hero:?

When you say semi-loose/semi-agg would this villain raise pre, c/r flop, and shove turn with AJ? What about QQ-KK? Are 33 and 88 in her preflop raising range? That should pretty much be your basis.

People aren't min-raise bluffing at 1/2. She thinks she's got the best hand but there are enough combos of KK, QQ, AJ and maybe even suited broadways with a jack that you're never folding given stack sizes/SPR. I'd click-it-back then call it off or jam the turn, but it probably doesn't matter. You both have a hand you aren't folding and the money is going in.

More important than this hand though:

1. You don't have an image at 1/2 b/c virtually no one is paying attention or has the ability to process the information if they are. If they were/could, they would be playing higher.
2. There are no pros at 1/2. Some players are better than others but no one is making a living.
3. Was the girl cute? Sometimes that makes stacking off less painful.

Good luck in LV this weekend.

i'm planning on committing on most flops, and this is one of them. with an SPR of a little over 3, and only 6 combos of JJs and 88s, (and 88s may not even be in her opening range) and 18 combos of AJ,QQs, and KKs i would feel comfortable getting it in.

Bot really sure why you think the previous AA makes it look like you have a bad image. You coolered a bad player with QQ.

In this hand, has she c/r before? Will she over value AJ or QQ?

Pre- I might go a bit bigger but I don't think it matters...style thing

I like the way you played flop.

Without compelling evidence to the contrary I usually think flop c/r, shove turn is pretty strong especially on such a dry board but with stacks I'm prob not folding.

I think this is the relevant in a vacuum point.

good post/questions. the odd thing is i usually argue the same points. i'll answer the questions on the hand in a bit but to answer these ones cause they sparked my interest.

1. i always argue the same... no one is paying attention. i have started to divide this into truly thinking/aware player and non-thinking aware players. the 2 pros at the tables (one of whom i've played with many times) are definitely paying attention. the villain and her boyfriend... i think they are but not sure. they are getting hit by the deck so their decisions have been pretty straight forward from any hands i saw go to showdown.

2. i see this debated a lot. i think in most casinos... winning regs are not really pros. they usually have other income. but i can say pretty confidently, at least in atlantic city, there are guys making a living playing 1-2. i'd say most of them jump up to 2-5 at borgata (which is usually action packed) a lot, but still play a lot of 1-2 and some only play 1-2. at revel the buy-in is 100-500 so it plays a lot like a 2-5 a good amount of the time. the one pro at my table that i played with is full time live grinder. i don't think he makes a ton... but i think he makes enough. the other guy who've i only played with a few times and know about through others and hearing him talk is a "semi-pro" who uses poker to supplement his income. he's a contractor (who works on installing floors i believe) non-union. he takes that work when he can and plays poker when he doesn't have work. i hadn't seen him in a while actually and first time seeing him at revel. i think hurricane sandy provided him a lot of work in the normal "dry season" for contractors.

and to add to your (and once my) surprise... there are pros at borgata who exclusively short-stack 1-2. i get the feeling most of them live pretty low-cost lifestyles. but they'll sit there every day with 60-100 and wait to double up then move tables. they just sit there and watch the game or watch the tv and eat with their comps. they're aren't many of them. it's like a group of 5 -10 middle aged guys who all know each other and are usually dressed in sweat pants.

i personally am a weekend warrior and somtimes midweek player... down enough to recognize a bunch of them.

3. everyone is beautiful ... i personally didn't find her attractive.

lol! and thanks for the well-wishes in vegas. i need it!

ps: i'm living by this quote from you now until i'm proven otherwise by a player or he's an outright maniac. i should have removed any bluffs from her range, especially given my self-perceived image.

"People aren't min-raise bluffing at 1/2"

Don't get married to that. They aren't bluffing but sometimes they're so bad they're spazzing with JTs on a J83r board, LOL.

min-check-raise/bomb-the-turn....that's super strong but there were enough KK/QQ/AJ combos and so few nut combos (really just the 6 of JJ and 88) that it didn't much matter. The money was going in.

Good luck again and give us a TR on Vegas when you get back.

Call. You already acknowledged that you know your going all in at some point. Worse case is a set best case is she believes you are bluffing and thinks she can bully you off the hand

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Call. AJo+, QQ+ are in her range.

pic of girl first then call her

Saw the spoiler...you'll have that. Sounds like a rough night

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Look, you did your best on this hand, by raising to 45 PF with only 305 back, you made it unprofitable for her to call with 88 to set mine. If you do this with her 8 times, your immediate EV is +30, and that does not count the times she flops a set and you redraw to beat her. If that "pro" is looking consolingly at you cause he thinks you are a fish....well, all I can say is buy him a beer, cause I doubt he can afford his own.

The fish are gonna play the cards they want to play, you can't do anything about that, you can simply make it profitable or unprofitable for them. In this case, SPR suggests that stacking off with AA here is correct because it just is. Even if she plays with her cards face up, you can still profitably play your hand exactly the same way (FIoP). This is a great example of why we use tools like SPR to help us make decisions, if you start trying to soul read opponents on boards like this, you will end up making too many unprofitable folds post flop.

It sucks to get coolered, I know, but if you allow hands like this and nights like this to get to you, you will start playing way to weak-tight, and your win rate (if you still have one) will plummet. Instead of worrying about this hand, think about whether there were others that night where perhaps you backed off on a raise PF because you were sick of being coolered, those are the hands you need to fix on a night when you are running bad.....

I don't like your flop betsize because it's going to leave really awkward stacks on the turn. Either bet 45 so you can take a 1/2pot 1/2pot 1/2potshove line, or bet like 80 so you can jam the turn. On this board IP I prefer the former. Obviously stacking off though.

thanks guys. good to know i'm not just blatantly missing some point of logic.

to answer some questions

i hadn't seen villain check raise at all but had seen her be aggressive post flop, though everytime she got to showdown she had a strong showing. but she took down a lot of pots without showing.

i chose my flop size to setup a turn shove, but in retrospect on a dry board probably would have been better to try and draw that out to the river like neverscurred said.

when i was faced with the flop min-raise my main thought was "would she call 45 preflop with a pair of 8's?" it really seemed like she was trying to play good thinking poker and even though my gut was screaming "she has a set!" my mind told me to discount 88 and 33.

i think i needed a day of separation and some commiseration for you boys to get my head back on straight. i'm going to stay aggressive and continue to range my opponents as best i can. that night just got to me as that single night took me from being profitable for the year to being slightly in the negative. i ran QQ into AA 4 times. so many draws that hit. one guy who hit his draws against me all in 3 times actually apologized the third time before calling saying "sorry man, i got another big draw, i got too many outs".

i think i may actually write a trip report in vegas. i really enjoy them when others write them. some of it will be filtered out (if not blacked out) as it's my bachelor party. if anyone wants to grab a drink there or in ac when i return shoot me a pm.

thanks boys!

and next time i'll get a pic of the girl... or just pretend it's a boy when posting on here!

The large type 3 bet you made makes your hand represent a big pair. So most nits call with a pocket pair here to flop a set as you saw. On the flop the min raise always sets off alarms in my head to a big hand. I might even fold the flop if my read is they are playing TAG. If I do call its with the intention of playing a small pot. Now villain shoves the turn on that dry board. I'm folding probably 90% of the time unless I have a good read to go on or some history on this player that they could do this with top pair. But, the fact is here that you just have to let it go. Sure, sometimes your folding the best hand, but more often your behind.

To be clear, she did not call 45 preflop. She called 30, with 60 already in the pot. Given you had 305 behind, if she thought you had AA or KK (based on earlier play) and would stack off if she hit, it doesn't seem like a horrible play by her. I would discount 33 because it's unlikely she'd raise that pre. But JJ and 88 are very possible.

It is also possible that she does this with a KK or QQ worried that you have AA, and you both have a bad feeling in your gut. I would definitely discount top pair hands. If she seems as conscientious as you make her out to be, she's not open raising even AJs for 15 utg+1 and then calling a reraise from you, given the earlier hand.

I think that the first hand, she reluctantly laid down JJ or AK.

To be clear, there is a reason we want at least 15-1 when we go setmining. Calling 30 or 45 when he has 305 behind is still a bad play.