game is 2/4 euros (~3/6usd) in France, 600 cap. this night the 8-handed table is mainly built on a strange kind of fish. tho he's rather loose-passive pre, i'd almost never seem him call a 3bet, especially oop. however, if he gets to see the flop, he just can't let go of any piece, and will call down till the river, even overbets otr w/ TPNK, cuz somehow he seems to level himself each and every time into thinking people just want to bluff him because he's losing already. he's down ~3k for the night.

Hero got the Jesus seat on him. Hero is late20s white male, looking older than his actual age, wearing smart casual outfit, seemingly a weekend recreational player. in his heart and mind, a true TAG nevertheless.

and then there's the superTAG in the HJ (V1). he's one of the best llsnl players i ever shared a table with. mid20s, talkative, making the table feel comfortable while emptying their pockets. he's switching back n forth between tag/lag in a heartbeat, uses position and board runouts perfectly, seemingly terrific at ranging opponents (thus also making some extremely light calls otr, and sometimes turning made hands into bluffs), not afraid to bluff big, not afraid to go for extremely thin value.

V1 thinks approximately the same about Hero, altho he knows I'm on the tighter side. nevertheless, he has seen me turn a made hand into bluff (that got caught, early in the night), and valuebetting in a couple of thin spots.

V2 asks Hero to straddle, to which - tho not too thrilled - i oblige to keep the friendly pace with him.

Hero (stack 900) straddles UTG to 8
folds to V1 (stack 2400) in HJ who raises to 32
V2 (stack 1000) calls in BB
Hero looks down at AdKc and elects to flat

my thoughts on just calling pre: as said, V2 is a huge donator who's shying away pre when facing aggression, but willing to go to war post w/ marginal holdings. a standard 3bet would most probably chase away V2 and his hugely dominated range, and then i'd be oop w/ awkward SPR against V1. also, V1 loved to use scare cards, so i could expect more barrels if a K/A hit the board, even if he had complete air.

flop Kd9c4c
pot 98
V2 and Hero check, V1 bets 64
V2 folds, Hero calls

turn Ks
pot 226
Hero checks, V1 checks

river Qc
pot 226
Hero bets 150, V1 thinks for 30-40 seconds, and moves a tower of 100 euro chips in, putting Hero all-in

Hero...?

Thoughts on all streets would be warmly welcome and highly appreciated, especially pre and river play!

Flop c/c is pretty bad against this player, imo. He is going to make your life suck on a lot of runouts, boards is wet, you are deep. I would c/r here once we lose V2 and try to take initiative to make up for lack of position.

Turn check is AIDS. He's never barreling here except with pure air, so if your plan is a c/r, he'll take the free card a lot.

AP, I'd rather c/c river, as b/f sucks since there is so much air in his range, but b/c sucks because so much of his turn check back range actually got there.

AP, call only if you think he thinks you are good enough to fold trips. Unless he *really* respects your game, your range is pretty face-up here and he shouldn't be expecting you to fold much of it.

i'm calling this all day long.
was the plan to C/R the turn or why did you not lead out?

sorry you lost to KQ or 99, but against this V this strikes me as a call every time...

Why not JT, or AcXc, or SCcc?

The call otf gives you no info on his hand. I think your play is yoo passive here. V had complete control of what went into the pot every street. Youve got to c/r flop and if he calls then fire for sure on this turn! A c/c otf flop isnt bad if you fire a big bet ott but to check there too is bad.

AP i feel you didnt give yourself much chance to gauge V's strength by being too "trappy". Youve got to put him to the tough decision at some point instead of letting him put you to the test the whole way.

Ive gotten myself in that exact spot many times and learned that its usually better to be aggro with your hands that are best at the time but vulnerable. With the tricky plays throen in as the curve ball not the standard.

my original plan was to let him barrel off. so i did not plan to c/r, rather call down on like 98% of runouts. for that, turn was a disaster card.

i think i made the mistake by betting river, in retrospect there's way more of air/improved hands than what i beat AND is willing to call a bet.

so however weak that might seem, c/c river could be the best... that's why being oop sucks against super advanced opponents.

also, flop c/r doesn't accomplish much imo. gets rid of his air (or peels one to make life hell on s...ty turns), and continues w/ hands w/ decent equity IP, which is just as much of an AIDS against this type of player.

Sorry but I'm 3Betting this preflop nearly 100% for value against both. It would be different if V2 hasn't acted yet. There I would call to let him overcall. But both have already invested money and although V2 folded to 3Bets in the session doesn't mean that he will always fold.

Once taking the lead Preflop the hand plays itself with given board runout.

As Played I would take the lead at the flop. After you decided to go into Check/Call mode I would C/C turn and river as well but this line leaves sooo much value at the table

Def agree with 3 betting pre. There is already $72 in the pot when it gets back to you. You have AK OOP against what you say is the best llsnl player you have played with so why not just try to take it down pre?

I check raise flop. Bet turn. Check call river

I agree with the analysis above, but I also propose an alternate line.

I don't donk bet much, but this seems like a good opportunity to do so. I can see the merits for the flop c/r, but donking out puts the good PFR in a difficult position with a player left to act, and I'd prefer to not play the entire hand OOP with him. I doubt most of us check raise the flop enough that doing it with TPTK is that profitable anyway...

The biggest factor though, is that the passive fish is where the money is to be made. Even to fish, check raising flop is scary. I'd rather isolate him cheaply.

thank you for all the responses! i definitely didn't play the hand perfectly, or at least there could have been many ways to play it. maybe i was too scared to loose the fish pre and it was a mistake not to 3bet.

donking also has its merits, however against barrel-happy Vs its such a perfect flop to enter c/c mode.

results: I was tanking for ages. I hated myself for not c/c otr, not because of he shoved, but that it was just dumb to bet out on one of the worst river cards possible, especially after taking such a passive line. there weren't many cards to expect a thin call from, there weren't basically any. right there I thought he might look me up w/ TT-JJ, QJ-QT, but in retrospect this was stupid wishful thinking. whatever. so I tanked for ages, and then sigh-folded. V1 waited for a bit, then looked back at his cards and flashed a Q. then he mucked, but somebody yelled "show one show all" because he thought both cards were shown. then the dealer, who didn't pay any attention on 6th street while counting down the rake, just grabbed and turned up both his cards... 2 RED QUEENS. so yaaay good fold, but still, it's the action and your opinion on everything that happened before 6th street that mattered at least as much as the actual results.

thank you once again for the input!

There is merit to just flatting pre. We keep in the super juicy villain, we also have a monster hand vs V1 and can own AQ, AJ, KQ hands that are definitely in V2's raising range.

If i'm up against a super station that calls with TPNK all the way to the river but is folding to most 3-bets pre, you can make a strong case to just flat here with AK. So the flat is fine.

You said V was a super station right? So, why are we checking against a super station on this wet of a board? Our preflop strategy was to get it in with the super station, also we under repped our hand preflop PLUS there is a flush draw on the board. Whenever there is a wet board we should feel very comfortable FAST PLAYING our big hands because:

#1 Wet board means villains will usually put us on a draw and thus call us down light
#2 Villains can be on a draw and call us down to draw
#3 Villains can raise us light hoping to blast us off our draw

I also like donk betting here because since the board is wet V2 can easily level himself into thinking we are making a move and repop us to regain initiative and then we can reraise him and it still looks like we are making a move or drawing. Basically, this type of board is ideal for deception.

As played, once fish villain folds, your turn check vs the player you described isn't bad. WHen you c/c flop that means you have Kx or flush draws in your range. If you lead this turn you turn your hand face up for Kx which folds out all of villain's air/hands. Conversely, if V has a K he is betting turn and you get to prison rape him. Also, do you have the A that is an important card to hold since if you do it dramatically decreases the flush draws he'll have in his range. But truth be told, heads up I'm less worried about aggressive preflop raiser having the flush draw. If the hand started out 6 way, sure, I'm more worried about the FD, but 3-way and heads up vs PFRer, nah, I'm not gonna stress to hard.

So counter to most, the turn check vs OP you described is fine as played because you checked flop. To be clear, I would have led flop for the reasons I mentioned above.

Once you decide to take a passive line and check flop and that freaking Q hits on river, you have to c/c. Betting out on river is 100% counter to the logic you used to checked turn. Think about it. The whole reason you checked turn was to induce V to bet his air right? So, how can V bet his air if you are betting into him on river?

When you take a line, you've got to ask yourself what are you trying to accomplish? Are you playing for value? Are you trying to retake the initiative? Are you trying to rep a certain hand? How will villain see your line?

So when you bet this river, you are screaming "I hit my flush draw". So how exactly is Villain supposed to respond to that if V has air (which was the principle logical reason for why you checked turn right?)

So, if you are going to bet this kinda river, then you need to jump in a time machine and go back to the turn and bet turn. ANd while we are at it, if we are going to bet turn then we need to jump back in the time machine again and bet flop...

Hope you can follow my logic.

Lastly, when you are up against really good opponents that may even be better than you, its best to just not get all FPS and just play aggressive and straight forward. Your focus should never be to try to stack them, because stacking very competent villains is really hard. Your focus should just be to play strong and aggressive and deny them proper odds. That is, you want it to be UNPROFITABLE for them to play against you. That is your real objective. Even if they are better, even if they can soul read you, you can still play in a way that makes it unprofitable for them to play against you and they will likewise move on to weaker prey...

GL hope this helps

dgi...


p.s. check out my PG&C thread CLICK HERE