Mid day 1-3 game. Everyone is playing typical day time poker. Villian is a reg and pretty a damn good player. I try and stay out of his way as much as possible.

Hero has a stack of $480 w/ AQ on the HJ
Villian stack $650 and opens in UTG+2 to 18 (standard)

Flop: Q62 (Pot $40)

Villian bets $22, Hero calls.

I thought about raising but decided against it because he would fold his weak hands and only continue with a range that crushes me? I know he wouldn’t have two pair on this board structure though.

Turn: 3 (Pot $84)

Villian bets 50, Hero calls

Back door diamond draw has arrived but I apply the same logic as on the flop and just call?

River: 8 (Pot $184)

Villian bet 200, and we tank...

Villian has been betting the whole way, I put him in a range of, including bluffs after opening EP of QQ+,66,22, AQs+, AdJd, KdJd, JdTd, AQo

This gives me about 35% equity again this range and I’m not getting 2:1. What do we do in spots like these?

How wide is his opening range to 18 in UTG+2 ?

Your play and thought process seems fine, and this is just a tough spot.

His river sizing is huge, so he is either going for max value with AA/KK/AQ or he is 3 barrel bluffing, but I honestly don't know with what on such a dry board, besides BDFD I guess.

Does he know or perceive that you "try to stay out of his way" so he plays aggro against you? How is he ranging you, and what does he think of your play.

I need to know how bluffy he can be in these spots since his range is so polarized. It really feels like AA/KK so unless I know he is capable of firing 2 streets and bombing the river this hard when he misses I probably fold.

If you are trying to avoid this player, this would be a good opportunity to fold pre-flop. You could easily be beaten pre-flop and just calling gives him the initiative in the hand. The only thing you have on your side is position. And position is telling you that he is very strong. KK seems pretty likely and he's hoping you have AQ to pay him off. You would do better to re-raise him on the flop and then fold if he is still coming out firing.

Fold or 3bet pre-flop, but since you didn't 3bet, it seems as if you think he has a better hand or will put too much pressure on? If that's the case, just fold pre.

As played, soul-read. In game, I probably just fold and kick myself for flatting pre.

Fold riv to that sizing

Good point about 3betting.
I will almost always 3bet AQ in spots like this unless I think Villian is aggro but will play cautiously against me in 3bet pot. By flatting, I can underrep my hand as he blasts away.

Which is exactly where we are. 3betting makes the hand way simpler, unless our plan was to call off hands like this.

Pre-flop, flop and turn were played fine.

On the river, fold. I would have happily snapped off a bet of 120 into 184 but a bet of 200 seems more likely to be weighted to a value hand better than ours.

We're being laid pot odds of 34% on a call but against the range OP estimated for villain, our hand equity is only 27%:

ProPokerTools Hold'em Simulation

26 trials (Exhaustive)

board: Q6238

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AhQs	26.92%	4	6
QQ,KK,AA,66,22,AdKd,AdJd,KdJd,JdTd,AQ	73.08%	16	6

Folding pre-flop is fine and standard but if we think he can raise weaker aces, I'm also fine with the call given how deep we are and the relative value of AQo.

I disagree with this. Raising the flop just shuts out worse hands and keeps in better. We don't need to raise to "see where we're at" we can still call down and get a good sense for where we stand by his actions.

Your title says shove but river bet is for about 1/2 your remaining stack?

Your reasons for calling flop and turn were to keep getting value from hands you beat. Now when the river bet denies the equity you need to call, he monkey-wrenches your strategy with bet sizing. If he knows you are capable of thinking this way and he is as good as you give him credit for, he may know AQ is the top of your range (no 3-bet removes QQ+) and he can deny equity to everything but sets.

I may be leveling myself and it's really "it's 1-3, duh, he has it, fold, donkey" is the right answer but, if we're calling for $90 here because of equity and folding for $200 because of equity we're open to exploitation from a good player.

You’re pretty much at the top of your range. I think you should call - at least some of your AQ hands. The first ones you can fold are if you have the Ad (the Qd is mostly irrelevant I think, bc villain isn’t usually going to be so polarized with eg JdQd). If you want to fold other AQ hands, the way I’d do it is fold all red aces.

You can probably have some KQ and JQ combos getting to this river, as well as occasionally hands like 99-JJ if you decided to call a double barrel. And very rarely, you can maybe have a slow-played set here.... So if you call only half of your AQ combos, you will still be exploitable in this spot, just not as much as if you fold all of your AQ combos. It’s perfectly fine, though, to be overfolding when villains have a significant range advantage against you, and the runout wasn’t great for you. I just would try not to fold everything.

What OP considers to be a goodbplayer really doesn't tell us much. Is he TAG or LAG? Is he capable of making big bluffs?

How does villain villain hero? Does he think we're a nit or a calling station?

agree with ^^^^^
his bet size reeks of putting you on AQ and trying to get max value
I wouldn't lose sleep over a quick fold here

Say ”KK no good?” as you’re folding so that he exposes his KK.

This is 100% a fold. Calling some % of the time is probably going to be the pio answer, but even then I'm guessing we reserve our AQ calls for when we have Ad blockers.

Wouldn't we want to not have the Ad so that puts some more missed flush draws in his range


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I don’t think it really matters - whether villain has KJ or AJ it’s never good here and needs to bluff all the same.

I read the heart as a diamond, yes you are correct it is better to have our hand here than AdQx.

Regardless, I think the exploitative play is to fold here.

+1. Seems like the times I don't 3bet AK/AQ pre I regret it at some point when I'm forced to make a really tough post flop decision like this. If you think his EP open range is too tight for you to 3bet AQ, just fold and move on to a more profitable spot.

I would think AQ is too high in our range to fold, depending on starting ranges of course. We'd probably have to defend some weaker top pairs, too. Villain only bet about half pot on the flop and turn. I bet pio calls all AQ 100% of the time.

I would find a call against a "very good" player, but honestly I've never met someone I'd consider "very good" playing as a regular below 5|T. We block some value and don't block any bluffs, and chop with AQ which he could be value betting. It's a pretty clear call against someone we think is good enough to triple barrel. If his value range is {AA, KK, AQ}, he only needs about 4 combos of bluffs.

My first thought is that this is not managed well preflop. SPR of 11 and we hit TPTK is literally the exact formula for how to end up in spots that make you want to vomit.

That is the explanation for why many posts, and I agree with them, started with 3-bet or fold. In higher levels of poker (ie not this game like 5/10 and higher), a mix of calls and raises would be proper play, but here it is definitely 3-bet or fold. I would lean toward a fold here given the fact that we respect villain, exploitation at it's finest. Difficult spot avoidance is not something people like to talk (because it's passive and not sexy) about but is just as important as the concept of exploiting and being in more pots with weak fish.

Note we are offsuit. If we were suited that is a 100% 3!

This is the #1 stack killer of 99% of players ^^^
EGO makes them think they are better at post flop play than they are
EGO makes them think they can read anyone and every situation
EGO pushes them to be the guy making that hero call with bottom pair
EGO pushes them to call $18 pre-flop in a pot they currently have ZERO invested in.

I agree the conditions are right for a real player to 3barrel and grab a third of his AKs to get to 4:1 value:bluff at this sizing to make us indifferent. However, that’s a whole lot that has to happen just to break even on a call and I just have to take the Occam’s razor approach ... 1/3 EP pfr guy who makes money bet bet bets 200 on Qxxxx, if he has no bluffs/worse for value then I have an easy fold.

If we think somebody is “very good”, and we’re lost in a river situation like this, I think the best answer is to at least bring some GTO aspects into our play. If we call with some of our AQ combos and fold the rest, and it turns out that yes villain has AA or KK or whatever when we called, it’s just not a huge mistake because we were folding so much of our range anyway. So while he won $200 on the river with their specific hand against our specific hand, overall they only won a fraction of that with their specific hand against our range as a whole. And that really is ok. They’re supposed to be winning money in this spot with KK+.

One thing to think about, though, is pre. How often does he raise to $18? If he usually raises to $12-15, and this hand he suddenly bumped it up, and we have seen him do that with only the strongest parts of his range, then that might change things - maybe we decide to just fold pre... However, if he’s raising like 15+% of his hands to $18, then we can’t just always call/call/fold to this line.

Good questions...

Is villain really raising 2-2 and 6-6 UTG +2 pre-flop?

I like the flat pre-flop.

If you're looking to avoid the river decision, you'd do better to raise flop.

As played, the board is SO dry and, as you said it's typical day time poker. Unless there is some strong reason to call, I just fold disgustedly.

Good point. If this is indeed a shove and OP made a mistake with his stacksize, then I think it's a call.