Thought this was an interesting hand to share w the 2p2 community.

Live 1/3 NL game in Vegas. Reads for the hand: villain is a super LAG asian player, the type who likes to straddle and raise it w ATC, based on observation I consider him to be a good thinking player. We have played before, so I know he is a reg and he knows I am a reg, but no history beyond that. Over the past hour, he has spent a lot of time discussing strat with me and berating fish at the table, both to my dismay. I think he perceives me as a good youngish reg.

Hand: villian to my right opens to 7, I look down at AAdc, make it 30. Folds around to villain, he pauses for a moment makes some comment about "what are you doing bro" then calls.

Flop: 522sxx. Check, I bet 40, villain makes it 85. I pause for a moment then call.

Turn: 3s. Check, check.

River: 8s, completing the backdoor flush draw. Villain leads for 175, with about 200 behind. I have a bit over 400.

Our action?

3bet flop or bet turn. Got more money in faster against

I'd expect him to show up with enough jj qq kk to make fast playing far superior to any other line. He seems like the kinda guy who will convince himself you're a reg pushing him around and not fold ever

As played all in

I'm not sure what to make of this hand so don't take what I say as gospel, I'm just thinking out loud here:

V is LAG so I like letting him take the lead and try to barrel us off our "AK" or small over pair on this dry flop. When he doesn't donk flop we obviously have to bet and a small bet does allow him to bluff us frequently. Problem is when we call his x/r he knows our hand is usually an overpair. If you 3bet flop he can think you are putting him on a bluff and rebluffing him, maybe rebluffing him but with the best hand (AK) and get his stack in with his medium overpairs up to KK. Anyway, having called...

When he checks the turn V surely isn't thinking you have A4 or 64 for a straight and getting scared for his KK or X2 so I doubt he has them. I think he either checks here because he has an overpair (QQ-77) he fears is worse than yours or because his flop x/r was a bluff but now he picked up equity and doesn't want to bet and get raised off that equity. Other possibility is he turned 33 into a bluff on flop, turned a boat and switched out of his normal aggro mode to trap (lile some bad LAGs do). If he had 55 for boat on flop i doubt he'd switch away from aggro line on turn. For those reasons I'd bet the turn sufficient to deny drawing odds to a FD but keep QQ-77 in, around $130, and call/shove over a raise.

Having checked turn and facing bet of $175 into around $260 I think he can have a lot of overpairs but also be bluffing the flush with air, actually have the flush or have a boat with 55/33/88. I think the bigger pairs can call an allin but below JJ it starts to get doubtful since he still has 66bb behind and could imagine you backed into a flush yourself with AKs. So , guessing, maybe he can call about 15 combos we beat but could have maybe half that that beat us.

It is a little thin but I'd raise all in unless I had a read he didn't play overpairs like this, couldn't call our allin with them or you had a very strong read that when he slows down it is because he is trapping with a monster. Then I'd just call river bet.

I call probably and laugh when he shows up with like JJ or TT. I don't like the turn check when V checks.

When V made that comment I would have been like oh shoot I clicked the wrong button.

I would look to sit across the table from this Villain; he's going to be opening a lot of pots and simply might blow us out of too many hands preflop.

Looks like stacks are $490? Preflop is interesting, imo. Have we been 3betting at all or does he know us to be an aggro 3better? If we're not known as a 3better, then the 3bet preflop might turn our hand face-upish, while giving him ~22:1 implied odds, while creating a ~7.5 SPR (where he can easily play for stacks if he wants to). However, any 3bet size that I would be happy stacking off to postflop is simply going to be too big for him to call. If we're both in LP (and thus likely to go HU or perhaps just 3ways), or if table is 3bet happy and there's a chance someone reraises behind us, I'd actually consider flatting here (creating a very large SPR which also works well with big pair hands, with us in position with lots of postflop wiggle room, with a disguised hand).

Again, flop SPR is about 7.5. Is this guy going to stack off to us with a worse hand over 3 streets of betting? I kinda doubt it. So this is a pot control SPR, imo. So I'd check back the flop. He's now put us in a tough decision with the check/raise, one that we could probably have easily anticipated was coming. Are we looking to play for epeening stacks here? This is certainly one way to go about that. Having said that, there's really only a couple of hands that are ahead of us, so maybe we're happy with playing for stacks. But we have to decide that before we bet.

As played, I'd call the river, even though our hand does still seem face-up as hell due to this action.

GcluelessNLnoobG

As played, call, but I raise his flop raise or lead turn. No way am I giving him a free card on the turn.

Stack sizes are critical for planning your hand, especially with AA. Because you don't note the starting stacks up front, I'm guessing you're not fully appreciating their importance. Here, effective stacks are $490, so you've got an SPR of 7.7. I'm not excited about playing for stacks at that SPR. You'd need Villain to be very stationy and/or he has to believe your 3bet range is wide. Or OOP Villain has to believe you're capable of folding AA to aggression.

Check behind on the turn seems standard if your plan is to call a river bet or bet the river if he checks.

If you want to play for stacks checking the turn would be odd, but I guess might work if you thought more likely that KK-JJ will pay you off this way. I'd expect a b/f from hands like 99-QQ if Villain is any good and views you as ABC. Villain can randomly have 88, trips, a flush and certainly he's likely ranging you at KK+.

In case I'm not clear: I like how you played the hand assuming you checked the turn planning to call a river bet and then you called the river bet.

I would interpret this as an attempt to induce passive play from Hero. Since the flop hasn't even hit yet, would anyone consider Villain's comment a strong or weak tell?

To me, the comment seems as if he's strong.

Call river.

First, if you 3-bet the 552r flop small, you can level V into 4-betting with all sorts of hands (air, overpairs, backdoor draws, etc).

130 is clicking it back, and I might make it just that and never fold.

As played, bet the turn, and still don't fold.

While I like leveling the guy on the flop and continuing to value bet on the turn, I don't feel that way at all on the river. River is a call. Yes, he can have some pairs like 99-JJ, weird QQ,KK, etc., but there's also no reason he can't have a ton of airy flop hands that rivered the backdoor draw or hands like 88 or rag pre-flop hands he peeled that actually did flop big made hands.

A river value shove targets way too narrow a range. He'll obviously fold any air he has when we shove, and you just can't value bet against the range of hands that are left. I really like trying to level him on the flop, but once he blasts river, it's just a call.

His comment is probably just a comment.

But if I had to choose, I would say it's strength. It suggests an acknowledgement that hero must be raising light / weak ("what you doing?"), and villain just calls, which messages that he's also light / weak. He's very subtly feigning weakness, which suggests strength.

That said... he's probably just saying words.

Incredible people don't want to play for stacks here against what's described as a loose fpsy live player.

I want to do the exact opposite of pot control given this flop when planning the hand. And I want to get it in fast before a scare card (relative to his range) peels off.

Spr is useful concept but pointing to it as a reason to want to pot control with near the top of your range vrs a wide and likely dominated range is a misapplication and value cutting yourself big time

Live low stakes value bet and raise relentlessly


I hate when turn goes x/x and obviously this isn't a nut runout. He can certainly have trips or a laughable flush (that you failed to charge on the turn) but there are way more combos of 99-kk than hands that beat yours.

Villain is also described as a "good thinking player". If we haven't been 3betting wide, I'm guessing the 3bet might turn our hand face-upish. Does he think we're ever going to fold our overpair postflop, especially on flops like this? If not, then it enables him to call pretty loosely preflop (getting great implied odds) and stack us every single time he hits a lucky hand.

Gatleast,that'showIseeitG

Straddling raising atc discussing strat berating fish playing 1/3 live


I'm not giving him much credit. Going to be going for lots of thin value. And I don't consider this spot thin (at least on the flop and turn) at all. This is super fat value

On the river, there's a difference between the betting range and the calling range of a fpsy live player. Against his betting range, I feel pretty OK (not elated) about calling. Against his calling range, your equity goes down significantly, and I think it's to a level where value betting is not possible.

You have to inject a little bit of math and creative range analysis.

For a start, hands like 99-KK are only 30 combos.

In terms of the creative range analysis, we have to realize a few things about this guy. For one, he can have a ton of backdoor flush draw combos on the flop. Like 30. Next, there's no reason he can't have 88 (3) and had planned to fps c/r the turn. Against this guy, 2x, 55 are possible, as well. A4 and 64 are certainly available to him, as well, and if he's peeling like a madman pre, that could be 32 combos of hands just there.

What really matters is that he is not a normal villain. His range of flush draws didn't have to connect with the board in other ways (pairs + backdoors) on the flop, and it can include a huge # of backdoor draws that he would start with pre-flop. And once you consider the number of flushes (as well as those straights, 2x, better) compared with the number of worse hands that are calling, the river is a call.

Air is irrelevant re: call vs. raise because he just folds air when we raise. But the presence of air sure gives us a lot more equity when we call than when we shove. Of course that's not a sufficient explanation by itself, but when in doubt, I'm OK playing against a range where we have the most equity.

I agree river raise is more thin than the flop/turn. Said so in the original posts. I guess someone could count combos and then make assumptions on what he calls and folds to see what is the best river line (could in fact be a call). However op and others should consider there are better ways to plan and play this hand ie shovel more money in on flop/turn so the river becomes a no brainer all in.

Obviously folding is out of the question as played. If you're giving him credit for cring some bdfds you can't only assign him spades when it hits. He can then have 2 wiffed suits given the flop rainbow which makes not folding the river trivial.

I always look at SPR when I've got AA. I use it as a guide to assess, do I want to get in stacks against this Villain at this SPR. In the end, it's just a guideline and I use it as such. (For example, If my hand is disguised and a deep stacked drunk Villain is always triple barreling ATC, obviously never folding at any SPR.)

This SPR is danger zone. We need quite favorable conditions. We don't have enough info to know if we have those conditions, so we can only speculate. (sure, we have top of range hand, but maybe bottom of range too?) IRL I'm nearly never folding to aggression from described Villain. But, I also don't expect him to x/c or x/r the turn with worse very often if our hand looks like KK+ to him. Checking back the turn to win a bet on the river seems like a reasonable line to me. If he's never folding JJ, sure, bet bet bet.

It really depends on reads. How good was his strategy talk? What does he really think of hero? If he raises his straddle big and frequently takes it down, this isn't a sign that he's bad. OP says he's a good thinking reg. What's his preflop 3bet calling range? If it's tight, then yeah, gii. How about his x/r on the flop range? idk

Don't get me wrong man, I love thin value betting. And I appreciate the creativity and the courage of trying to fire out here. So I like everything you're writing. I just don't think the thin value bet quite does the trick in this spot, but I also don't think it's horrible.

His comment is, on the surface, showing weakness therefore he is strong. I give him more decent pairs than normal here.

I think hero has a better read than we do on villain since hd spoke at length about strategy with him. He has the info to decide between call and raise on river as I detailed in my first post. I make it twice as many combos of over pairs that can call a raise and lose to hero than can call a raise and win. However, that's with me in the dark over conversation between hero and villain.

Perhaps OP could tell us how it went down since we've discussed this sufficiently now...

I think we should always be betting and going w it after the check /raise /check. We picked up extra equity against the 2 if he has it and I think overpairs are going to have to be sticky in the 3 wheel (4 w an A in anyone's hand) board. As played I'm paying against this Vil type our check back ott is like waving a red flag at a bull.

Wow this thread generated a lot of great comments. Sorry for not responding soon - hectic schedule in Vegas and now traveling in Europe made it hard to digest and response probably. Now 2p2 just crashed as I was posting, so will try to do a short recap.

Results:
- I tanked a good minute or two, then shoved.
- Villian instafolded 77 face up, commenting "smells like tens."

Thoughts/Responses:
- I'm glad some here agree w shoving the river. Most of my friends thought it was spew that only gets called by better.

- I was aware of stack sizes here, just omitted them from beginning because I thought river was only interesting decision.

- I haven't been 3 betting wide, which is standard in these games, so he probably puts me on a range of {99+, AQ+}. (Unless he has leveled himself into thinking I'm a young maniac.) Not quite face up.

- Given stack sizes I generally didn't want to play for stacks on the flop.

- His c/r future streets led me to put him strongly on a range of mid pocket pairs. His 3 bet call range is probably {22-QQ, AQ+, some suited connectors and one gappers.} Mid pairs seem like the hands that he would c/r most to get me to fold my cbet.

- I check through the turn planning to call a river bet. If he shoves it's gross but this way I think we get max value from hands we beat and bluffs.

- When we get to the river, I realize that his check on the turn makes it very unlikely he has 22, 33, or trip 5s. These hands should value bet the turn to get more value from what looks like a strong pocket pair from me.

- So I'm not worried about being behind by the time he bets the river. Maybe he hit a boat on the river or bdfd, but it's unlikely.

- I shove thinking based on villian profile and our table talk he can find a call with 99, TT, JJ, and any weirdly played QQ. It's hard to give me credit for a hand that has those hands crushed.

- Unfortunately we'll never know since he has 77, but his comment "smells like tens" leads me to believe he calls with JJ+.


By the way, I thought it was interesting he essentially turns his 77 into a bluff on the river.

He's not bluffing he just has no idea what he's doing. I have a pair! Uh oh I got raised

I think you value cut yourself big time by not betting turn to set up a river shove. Weak players love calling with pair especially with more cards to come

He has KK. ship it.

If he has AA and you chopped, too bad.

I probably call the river because V probably does this with 66-JJ maybe more if he thinks you have a high pair. He could also show up with A4 suited or a boat.

You say not only better would call...he folded 77 so you didn't win anything extra.

I'm in the as played call camp. Definitely would have raised his flop raise.