NWI N/L 1/2
Hero is at $240 an hour in. Villain is a 45 yo WG who's a "pro." That's his job playing 1/2, sometimes 2/5. He thinks Hero is a nit. He's a classic LAG. He stacked Hero with 2 pair a month ago when Hero had AK and hit a king on turn. Hero is UTG here and makes it $12 with AK
It folds to Villain who's on the button. He calls. The blinds fold. This is a passive, tight weekday game.
FLOP $27
A62
Hero bets $20, Villain Calls
Hero thinks Villain's on a flush draw
TURN $67
8
Hero checks flush card.
Villain bets $55
Hero thinks Villain could try to bluff Hero.
HERO????
I thought he was on a draw if he had hearts he got there. Is a fold here too exploitable? I don't like playing for stacks with 1 pair. Do I need to stop thinking this way? I'm trying to nit reform but i also don't want to spew.

Call and evaluate on river. Too nitty to fold here. His range is still super wide, Ax, pocket pairs, 1 pair, etc.

Why do you think he has a flush? Is he a nit that will never bet without it - you should think about the hand without worrying that he might have a flush. It's not like the majority of his range is a FD, yes it's a small part of his range (very small in conjunction to all the hands he could be playing) but it sounds like your more worried about the hands that beat you and not his complete range which includes more hands that you beat instead of it being the other way around.

Call the turn.

Calling the turn isn't spew.

Personally I stick it in here with no Vaseline. If you call the turn you’re left with around a PSB for the river. If he has one heart, he may fold to the shove. If the river bricks you’re calling the PSB anyhow.

Why did you think he's on a flush draw? Given description of his play style and dynamic with you, I wouldn't be surprised if he played a flush draw more aggressively than that OTF.

I wouldn't mind a check on this flop if V is really a LAG, but I find people mislabel TAGs as LAGS frequently.

LAGs love to bet when checked to, and you have a hand you can xc all 3 streets.

Obviously if river is a middling heart its a tough spot, and bet sizing tells are useful then.

Call. It looks like you just c bet the flop and gave up on a scary turn. There's no reason for villain to assume you even have an A. This makes it a good bluff spot for him with many hands, possibly ATC if you fold enough.

Remember a LAG is playing a lot of hands OTB, and there are max 45 flushes here, and zero AX flushes leaving mostly Broadway flushes and maybe SC flushes in his range. Probably about 10 - 15 flushes. There's 16 AQ/AJ by comparison. No reason to fold just yet.

However, if you're planning to x/f river and expect villain to always bet when you check river, better to fold now and save the money.

I would probably x/c most rivers though. LAGs like to bet when you check. He may have nothing at all.

You could ship it in here...but I don't like this as we take away the LAG's ability to bluff future streets and fold out his air.

Also, it's surprising a LAG could make enough money at 1/2 to be considered a pro. Every LAG I've ever seen playing 1/2 is a losing player. The solid winners (10+BB/hr) are universally TAGs, at least where I play. At 2/5 the LAG style is somewhat more viable but still almost all the winners are TAGs. Then again I play evenings/nights. Maybe during the dayshift at passive tables a LAG style can do quite well.

$12 is not enough pre-flop.

It constitutes an engraved invitation to "come in and draw out on me".

Villain knows he will have position on us throughout the hand.

Make it $18 or $20, it's live poker, we want exactly one caller with a range that isn't helped by this kind of flop.

What? This is bad advice IMO. Don't make 10x opens. 6x UTG is fine in a 1/2 game. I would actually do 5x. 10xing just makes villains' call ranges really strong, which maybe we don't mind with AK, but 5xing with weaker hands and 10xing with stronger hands is not a good idea unless you're at a table of drunken idiots, and that doesn't sound to be the case.

And why would we want to get drawing hands to fold? They're a huge portion of villains' ranges that allow us to value bet on flops like this.

I want villains to come in and try drawing out on me all day. They mostly miss and I make more money.

Disagree unless you are opening 10x with all of your hands and not just the "hated" hands like TT, JJ, AK.

OR sizing is clearly fine as we are HU. If we find ourselves going 5-6 ways often, then I agree on sizing up.

I think that's what I should have done. The size surprised me. I know "folds to big bets" is something I don't want following me around though as it makes me very exploitable.

I try to make it 12 or 15 so they don't know if I have AJ or AA or 99. In this game 18 or 20 would be 0 callers. It was folding around a lot and tons of chops on the blinds.

Yeah that's why I try to do 12 or 15 so it applies to all hands. I also had QQ yesterday bet 12 and it folded around, gain of 3 bucks.

His range is super wide. I think I had flashbacks of the 2 pair hand from before here and i didn't want to just give away my stack with 3 to the flush here.

Yeah your sizing preflop is fine. Nozsr is in some crazy soft games if 10xing every hand is normal and profitable.

Oh and I wouldn't open AJo UTG (not sure if you meant to imply AJo was part of your opening range here or not).

That's an excellent point Chris. I kind of think now he floated to take the pot away on a later street. I hated the size of the bet which I think he knew.

There are some real nits in our games who do this and everybody laughs when they make it 24, no one calls and then they're not heard from for 2 hours. LOL

That's the way it was a few years back but it seems like the most profitable players are LAG in my games overall because they get people to fold and they're afraid to play against them. I do think this guy has a high variance style though. He told my friend he "ran bad" for 2 months which caused him to pick up a side job. I suspect there was some bad play in there too because running bad for 2 months is rare if you play every day and also play against bad players as we do.

Against described villain I think a turn x/c is expert play because a classic low stakes LAG will bet this scare card 100% of the time when you check.

You need to call off a shove OTR though on non-heart boards.

Yeah, I have to stop putting people on the flushes. Part of this is that I know the guy will float and not care about pot odds at all in terms of drawing. If I bet 60 into 27 he'd still call for a flush. I think I made a weak move in this game and I wish I had more gamble in me. It's been a good year but I have to improve further.

Now I really don't believe he's a pro if he ignores pot odds to such an extent. He might think he's winning over some sample size but probably not significantly long term.

Sounds like you can overbet this guy as an exploit. Also x/c lines work well with strong hands on boards you know a LAG will bluff like this one.

As they say in my poker room, "Does he have a job?"
"No."
"Then he's a professional poker player." LOL

If he’s really LAG, should we really cbet the flop?

Lol at the idea of a $1/$2 pro

I thought of that you're 100% correct, i was heads up and should have played him differently