$1/2

Hero ($600) - Winning TAG image

V1 ($550) - Cocky 40 y/o white male LAG. Raising lots pre. Pretty sticky postflop. He's played 3 hands with hero. The first two, he called a pre-flop raise OOP. C/c the flop and folded on the turn. The last one, he called a pfr and c/f the flop. He's gunning for hero and bemoaning the fact that he can't catch a piece of the flop against him. Fearless player. Talks an intelligent game (aware of ranges, bet sizing tells, and other things that most rec players don't pay attention to). Loves to see flops either as raiser or caller.

Pre-flop
V1 limps UTG+1
Hero raises to $15 from MP JJ
LP V2 calls in CO.

Flop ($45)
T93
V1 checks
Hero bets $40
V2 folds
V1 calls

Turn ($125)
K
V1 checks
Hero?

Check back, evaluate river

Check and snap blank rivers.

Did you pick up any kind of read when he called flop? Did he tank-call or insta-call?

I'd prob b/f ~60-70 ott, then shut down. If he has two clubs or some wierd straight draw, I'd projectile vomit if I gave him a free river card.

Would like to hear why we'd check turn? Are we concerned about {Kx, QJ}? We have two Jacks...

you should bet the turn

I like checking back the turn planning to bluffcatch almost all rivers for fat value.

The king is a decent card for him to come over the top and we will really hate life if he does that.

Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, this check gets us value on the river. Many players, especially aggressive ones, and most especially the cocky LAGs, will bluff the river way too often. I would even call his bet when half the draws get there -- a flush OR straight card. If we are playing our deepest game, we would Hollywood for a minute so that he thinks his bluff came close to working.

Against the passive stations we definitely want to bet the turn for value (with this hand, in this situation, although it's a little thin). But against the lag, he will often just give up on a draw here, or occasionally check-raise it. Both are bad, and we get river value from him instead of turn value.

This is the part of the HH that typically makes it nearly impossible to give decent advice. You call the villain a LAG. However in the four hands discussed, he's never bet out nor raised once. Is he raising the snot out of everyone else at the table or do you mean that he's playing a lot of hands? Someone calling a lot of hands and giving up on the flop or turn is a loose passive player. Playing them is very different than playing a true LAG.

Once you let us know what type of player he is, you'll get more useful guidance.

Yeah, great point. I didn't even think about the contradiction. Yes, he was running over the table with the exception of me. He was probably raising 40% of hands pre-flop. C-betting close to 100%. He was raising the weaker players at the table off of hands on the turn and river. This is why his stack was up a few hundred despite losing probably $150 to me. He was taking money off of everyone else and redistributing it to me.

Maybe I should have posted V's history with other players rather than his history with me (or at least pointed out that he was playing me differently). It would be useful to know that he was raising 22 UTG or 97o from MP. It would have been useful to know that he bluffed-raised the river on a 4-flush.

He also had a fold button. He folded two pair vs set on the river. He incorrectly folded a counterfeited 2 pair to a complete air bluff from a donkey. He was involved in many, many hands and made many, many plays. He had a complex LAG game overall. He was a very good hand reader.

He was playing me differently than the rest of the table because I was playing really snug. He knew that I was raising big pairs (which I was). He knew he wasn't going to blow me off a big pair on the boards that came out with a raise. His adjustment to playing me was correct. If he had raised me in any of the hands we played (on any street), it would have been complete spew. He would have gotten called.

He was a thinking LAG, not a reckless donkey. He usually knew where he was at in hands. It wouldn't surprise me if he was a big winner overall in $1/2 games. He absolutely was a LAG though; but you're right, against me, he was playing loose passive.

btw - his folds against me in prior hands were all correct. I had KK twice on dry boards and 99 on a friendly board for 9s.

Bet/calling is also an interesting option with da blockas to QJ and no blockas to FDs.

I'm betting turn for $70+ for value and to protect our hand. Gotta charge those draws

Against that Villian, I'm checking back turn and probably calling river bet depending on runout, sounds like he could blow us off our hand here.

Check turn. Call 100% of Rivers

That's what I was worried about. This V was definitely capable of c/r bluffing the turn. I thought jacks had excellent show down value.

I was torn between charging draws on a draw heavy board and getting to showdown.

Tbh the more I think about it the more I like bet/call. He raises most of his range pre so we would expect him to raise QJs and QJo some of the time, plus we have the blockers. We would also expect a raise from TT and 99 and maybe even 33 pre. T9 we would expect to c/r flop on this super wet board. KTs raises pre often. So yeah his value range on the turn would be quite narrow combinatorically while he perceives it to be a good c/r bluffing spot.