Hero stack $1000 , aggressive image, been winning lots of showdowns with strong hands
Villain stack $340, drinking, playing lots of junk like k-7, etc etc, weaker player...lots of "if only this happened" type statements

limp, limp, limp, villain raise to 12 at high jack, hero raise to $30 with Ad2d on button
limpers fold, villain call

flop 2x-8d-10d
villain bet 15, hero raise to 35, villian call

turn 7d
villain bet 50, hero raises to 170
river Qd villain all in, hero calls.

Preflop: Should I even be in this hand in the first place? My initial thoughts were just to steal the blinds and the $12 open on the button. If so I am assuming I should have raised more than $18 pf.

Postflop: I was raising to keep him in since I was assuming he had weaker overcards (KQ, KJ, etc) . Should I even be raising in the first place? Or raising but a higher amount on my pair/draw?

Turn: I had the current nuts, better to just raise him all-in?

Thoughts?

Flat pre. Raise larger on flop. Turn/River fine as played.

FYI, at no time in this hand did you have the nuts.

I would flat pre, stack sizes make a 3bet awkward and you lose a good value hand if he 4bets. I would raise bigger on the flop. His bet looks very weak so there's a good chance he just folds and if not you can always make your diamond on turn.

Preflop is a fold. You have very little FE vs this sort of villain preflop. Depending on villain you might post flop, so against some putting in the first raise against villain with garbage might be OK, but with the 3 bet your risking too much for too little with a hand that will rarely flop well. I would rather be raising here with T9s then A2s.

Flop and turn depend on villain. With a pair+draw I don't mind raising flop if you do have FE, but if villain is going to call anything he bets, then just flat. If you do raise, it should be bigger. Turn is the reverse, if you do have FE then I prefer a smaller raise and jam river, if you don't have any FE then go ahead and jam turn.

Aside from 3betting higher on flop if your goal is to get folds, I don't think this is the hand you want to do it with. Although you flopped really well, usually you won't. If an ace hits you can't be very confident and I'm assuming villains range has a lot of better Ax in it. I'd much rather 3! something like suited connectors if the plan is to steal/balance your range.

Aggressive drinking V probably isnt folding to a 3b unless you go bigger. But it is not a terrible play. I might go closer to 45-50. The raise is fine though in position especially deep.

Otherwise, on this flop just get money in. Shoving the turn is fine if you think he will call. Otherwise you have like 95% equity, letting him peel a card on the river and betting/calling with worse to a underflush is fine. He had straight flush....ehh ok cooler.

Btw on the turn J9dd was the nuts.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Once in-I didn't hate the way I played it, although I agree with the consensus I should have raised more on the flop. Moving forward this is probably a hand I should just fold in that spot, but if I am going to play then just flat with the button and deep stack

If you're going to 3b you need to make it larger, say $43 or so here.

The donk bet on the flop is lol small ($15 into about $63 or so?), your raise is even loller small, just make it $90-$100 or so here looking to get all the money in, then you have an easy jam on the turn.

The hand is played well IMO.

Pre-flop 3-bet is good in that you can get value from worse hands (I assume he doesn't fold to 3-bets ever?). If he's calling with pretty much anything OOP, its going to be really hard for him to play anything except fit or fold which is really good for you. As long as he's not doing anything nuts against you post-flop, the 3-bet is really good. You should make it like $36-42, though, since he's not folding worse hands to any sizing. Also, when you miss, there are a lot of flops and turns where you can put a lot of pressure on him since you are 170bb deep, as long as he does make somewhat reasonable folds to big bets.

Flop is a very nice thin value bet but I think you can make it bigger here. Depending on some factors, I'd probably make it like $55. This serves as a two-way bet in that you might be able to get him off 33-77, maybe weaker 8x... but you get a lot of value from his drawing hands.

Turn and river are obvious. You actually don't have to make your turn raise that big because SPR is really low and you can easily get all-in on the river. The argument for getting max value though on this street would be because a 4th diamond might kill your action so I don't think this is bad at all.

I don't see what a 3-bet accomplishes but I wouldn't fold ip vs. this guy pre with a suited Ace.

No problems the rest of the way.

Value. he calls with worse hands every time and he puts in a lot of money OOP with the intention of playing fit or fold postflop, which is good for us. Also the deep stacks allow us to still maintain maneuverability postflop so our skill edge doesn't get diminished much. We have room to do things like value bet thinly, barrel him off when we miss but have equity, etc

I like the idea, I just don't like doing it with a weak ace. Far too often we are going to flop an ace or have nothing, bet flop and villain calls. Then we are flying blind because villains range is huge.

If villain will call with any random suited garbage preflop but is fit/fold post flop then fine. I've played with villains so bad that raising them with ATC and betting 100% of flops could be +EV. But most villains like this are stick pre and post. In those situations I would rather not inflate the pot with a hand that is going to flop bad top pairs. Hero can easily wait for a better starting situation then a weak ace.

I don't mind any of the three possible plays preflop: fold, call, or 3-bet. However, as you mentioned, I would advocate a larger 3-bet if you do decide to reraise; at least 35, probably 40.

As played, I'd probably raise the flop to at least 50, although I don't think calling would be terrible.

I think your turn raise is fine as played.

If he's sticky Pre and post flop, his range is just so weak that hes going to miss the flop too often to do anything against us OOP. If he is someone who calls flop incredibly wide, usually you can make a big turn barrel because his range OTT will be too weak to call a big bet. This is obv not true if he's one of those guys who is just never folding anything ever in his life, but I just mean against a somewhat reasonable player.

Any AXs is really good in this spot but yea we have a lot of domination issues which sucks and miss the flop quite a bit

Results?

Pre-flop is very dependent on how aggressive Villain is. Is he raising most hands he plays, or is he just calling all the time?

Unless Villain is raising most of his hands pre-flop (and most drinking K7-playing Villains aren't) I'm folding even A9s to his raise (and maybe even bigger hands than that if he's usually super-passive pre).

I think flatting pre-flop is by far the worst option; the reverse implied odds are enormous.

If Villain is very aggressive pre-flop 3-betting is okay, but I would make it at least 40. But even then since your image is aggressive Villain may get sticky against you post-flop (or repop you pre)...which again makes me want to fold.

As played you hit a great flop. Villain's weak bet almost always means a weak pair or a draw. Raise bigger, say to 80 or so, and plan to shove the turn. This line should maximize fold equity against pairs, and he's probably not folding the flop with a flush draw.

After leading weak on the flop, flatting your raise, and leading the turn he will almost always have a flush. There isn't really a 'bad' way to play it, but I don't like raising to 170 here. I would either raise to 110-120 or shove. Raising small allows him to donk-shove with some weird hand, and most people wouldn't expect you to shove the nut flush so you might get calls if he has something like K8 with the K thinking his outs are good. Also, if he happens to have J9 you want to get the money in now before a fourth diamond comes.

Flating in position with a suited ace is fine. You want to be multi way with a hand that makes the nuts. If this guy is a calling station I don't see a ton of value in 3 betting. The flop action is weird due to his small donk bet. You should raise realative to the size of the pot. Something like 60-65 range. With better sizing you can get stacks in on the turns. You have the nut flush but J9D is the actual nuts.

I am guessing he could of the. I of diamonds her air and the actions are pretty standard. If you walked into the nut flush vs straight flush sorry for the cooler. It' happens.

Villain had Kd-8x

Explain please?

he obviously can't fold an A high flop cause he's outkicked.

Fyp

If he hits an A then it's a way ahead/way behind spot where he's unlikely to win significant money from a worse hand, and when he gets decent action he's usually dominated.

At the time of my post we didn't yet know he had raised with K8o and had no info on how aggressive Villain is pre-flop. Many loose players are also quite passive pre, and if that was the case it's much more likely that A2 is dominated.

Of course, now we know that Villain has a very wide pre-flop raising range; that still doesn't make flatting all that attractive to me. A multi-way pot is great when you make the nut flush, but not so much when you flop an A - if the limpers are generally passive pre-flop (as limpers generally are) then one of them could easily have a better A.

And the fact that Villain raises with hands like K8o means that a big 3-bet is more likely to win the pot right there.

Besides, what are we hoping for by flatting? To win a big pot with a flush or two pair? That doesn't happen very often, and without a big show of strength pre-flop we're basically either playing fit or fold with A-rag or trying to get tricky and bluff a bad/loose player. That seems like a losing proposition to me.

I think I still like folding pre. If Villain is raising junk hands let's make smallish isolating 3-bets with KJ+, AT+ type hands and play heads up pots in position with a huge strength advantage. Playing A2s in this spot may be marginally profitable, and maybe I'm being nitty here, but I'd rather wait for a better spot.

i would be ok with 3b to 40 or flat pre. i probably tend to flat against this type of player, but ok either way.

villains like this just hate hate hate to bet-fold and his lead is small relative to pot, so i am ok with the turn raise sizing.

nice river

Everything worse than A2, he calls with.

He calls every time, and it's always with worse.

Those means different things. Obviously, V has A2 beat some of the time, and he's calling with those pp's and better Ax.

But I see what you're saying. A2 is just hitting too infrequently, made hands or equity wise, that I'd be 3-betting wide just not this wide.