Live - 1/2 NLH (Full Ring) - Holdem - 7 players

Effective stacks $450
7-Handed

I have 10 heart: 9 diamonds:
SB : 400
BB : $650
UTG : $100
UTG + 1 : $500
MP : $175
CO : $450
Hero(BTN) : $450

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.4 BB) Hero has 10 :Heart: 9

UTG folds, UTG + 1 Folds, MP Limps, CO limps, Hero Limps
, sb folds, bb limps.

[b] Flop (4 players, $8) [b] 10 K 10

BB checks, MP checks, CO bets $5, Hero 3-bets to 17 , BB folds, MP folds, CO 4-bets to $34, Hero flats 34

[b] Turn (2 players, $76) [b] : 8

CO bets $70, Hero calls $70

[b] River (2 players, $216) [b] : J

CO checks, Hero ?????

Whats my move here? Just a little history. I have been playing tight and the table knows this. The CO and I have history, I have been railing him all week and he has been taking every shot to get some of his money back. So I don't think he is too interested in folding. It's very possible he has QJ or some worse 10x hand. What is my best move here?
Note: this table is full of bad aggressive players. So my general strategy was to make a hand and go to value town.

I'll post the result later.


My first post so if it's a little rough sorry. I appreciate the guidance in advance.

Just a small semantic thing, you're raising his flop bet, not 3 betting. He bets, you raise, it's just the second bet.

To the hand, I know you have some history with villain, but if you bet this river, I think it's basically a bluff. It's a limped pot, people can have weird hands, I can't imagine him 3 betting you on the flop without having a 10, and a pretty good 10 at that. Unless you guys have crazy history.

With the 8 hitting the turn, what could he have that you beat? 10 7? 10 6? Really? I'm checking this river always and folding on flop or turn a fair amount of the time. Feels like he has Q10 to me. If he did get crazy with a K is he really gonna call a river bet?

You're correct I misspoke on the flop action, thank you for the correction.

We have somewhat of an usual hand history of me doing strange things against him and them being successful. He has seen me limp with monsters(tho never on the button). I had initially put him on QJ or Kx type of hands. Until he min raised the flop then I was certain he had a 10 also. I think thats a great point, if he has anything worst than a 10 he folds, anything better he calls or ships. I guess that would be a suicide bet, hypothetically there is no way for me to win anything out of it.

Checking the flop just seemed like he was giving up. I haven't seen him check raise anyone, and I figured Q10+ would continue for value.

Thanks for the analysis.

Check river. Villain's river check puts him on A10 / Q10. A decent player will see the 8 on turn or J on river is in perfect range for your kicker (which is true as you had 9-10).

Granted, can A10 call a shove from me here?

I'm wondering if the limp pre is spew or ok. I know a lot of people would say fold but if your real confident in your postflop play then its ok @ best.

I don't really like it bc for example you flopped trip 10s and on this board and given action your not even comfortable, I know I wouldn't be thrilled with this spot once he 3bets me otf and continues ott.

If you have any live tells on him id be relying heavily on those in this type of spot.
The river bet would all depend on if you think he'd call you with worse.. imo he'd have to be really really bad to call you with worse here. Your both repping a strong 10 or boat and its clear as day. His check on the river is either giving up on a bluff or he has you beat and is trying to induce I think.

Id check back. If your betting I think its a bluff trying to get him to fold 10 Q or A10 and I think that's very risky bc people make hero sigh calls all day long when they have strongish hands.

check behind, it's usually a terrible idea to get V off a trips since many villains make the mistake of calling too much in LLNL. If you bet he's not calling with worse and only calling with hands that beat you.

@Chino85 The limp PF was due to a table read. I was at a table with a bunch of bad aggressive players and some fish. My approach was generally to make a hand and then go to value town on them, normally this hand I could get three streets of value from these guys without any problem. This particular play I was up against was probably the only other good player at the table(comparatively) but he had been making mistakes. In general, I don't condone limping buttons.
Otherwise I agree, at that point our ranges were pretty face-up.

Your read is that V is looking to make money back from you and isn't interested in folding, so you don't think he's folding much here. Even without that read, hard to get someone off of trips pretty much ever here, and you're turning a hand with showdown value into a bluff. Check behind and be thankful he didn't bet the river.

Can calling $2 from the button with suited connectors ever be spew? I'm never folding, and only raising if I think I can get everyone to fold or at worst get it head's up. We have a speculative hand and our implied odds are through the roof.

Not suited.

The answer is trivial on the river (you check behind because nothing worse is calling), but the real mistake is made pf. Limping in with a bunch of other limpers just means you're playing who hit the biggest hand. Only the poker room wins that game. In this case, you got a top 2% flop and are still in trouble because you have no clue what your villain could have, other than it is probably better than what you have.

I previously explained, why I elected to limp with that hand. Raising would have been a waste of money because no one at the table was folding. Folding would be a good play but why not see a cheap flop in position. And if I did get into a sticky situation I could get away from it.

If you can actually hand read and check this river or actually read the villian and bluff him on the river, then the preflop limp is fine.

But until then, its best to limp pf with hands that make the nuts and even better is to fold to the 4-bet on the flop if you think villian has only value hands.

Stick to a villian type and proceed.
Is villian agressive? - check
Is he sticky post flop, say with KJ? - perhaps?
so we call the 4-bet because of course, we haz trips and he is agressive. But lets make a reason for the call than we haz trips.
Turn call is - really depends on the villian, but assuming you called because he does have a bunch of air along with value hands, good.

So river?
three options. - check back. The air is never calling and the ten is never folding.
Shove - full houses would have shoved already, but he checked and perhaps might even fold QT.
Bet like 70 and call a shove because LDO, our villian is bad aggressive and can't give up a pot.


Everything is fine, but you need to know the villian. Until then check-back river.

There is a simple answer to this situation. Raise to an amount where everyone doesn't call preflop and play poker post flop in position.

However I prefer raise, call, fold pre in that order.

Given the effective stacks there is no way calling is spew, ever.

The way you've set it up I'm assuming you won this hand against this particular V, who's been looking to play back at you. This makes it very situational against this particular player and of little help to other players, unless they have the same exact set of facts and information and V tendency.

In general, you limped hoping to hit a straight. You actually got a bad flop cause your kicker sucked and when you 3 bet everyone within 10 miles knew half of what you had. If your normal V 4 bets you're in a s*** load of trouble.

Paragraph 2 above is an admittedly underdeveloped poker concept. Paragraph 1 above is an uninteresting oddity.

any hand can make the nuts

Which is why it's best to limp PF with your entire range.

Haven't read responses, but this is an easy check back.

Result:

I put in a bet in on the river, the villain calls and shows A10 at showdown.

Thanks for all the feedback, I really appreciate it.