1/3 live game.

V: Early 20s tag. I haven't played with him before but from all accounts he's a good winning TAG.

Hero: Also early 20s. Probably a LAG image. Villain has seen me play as he is a dealer at some games. Eff stack: $300.

Villain (BTN) straddles for $6 (Dallas stradle in which the action skips him and he is always last to act).

Folds to hero in CO who raises to $20 with AhTc, SB folds, BB calls, BTN calls.

Flop ($61): 5c5s2c
BB checks, Hero bets $30, BTN thinks for a while then raises to $90, Hero moves all in for $280.

My thought process: a good TAG is going to be raising here with draws most of the time because it misses most of my range and he has all the club draws in his range. I don't think he does this with a 5 because calling is better in case I have an over pair. I think I can get most of his club draws to fold and even if he calls with the draw I think my A high is ahead on the river enough of the time.

Is this a good play?

With a $6 straddle, $20 is too small of an open IMO. I'm going $25-30 here.

I did the below before I saw that you "don't think he raises a 5," but I stand by it. If your perceived range includes a lot of overpairs, I can't imagine why you think he wouldn't raise a 5 (very few players are capable of laying down QQ+ to a flop raise here, so a good winning TAG should be raising 5x a lot). He can also be raising his small overpairs for protection/value against your overcards/club draws. If his flop raising range is truly only flush draws (that he folds) then this is a clearly +EV line -- but if that's true he's just a bad aggro, not a good TAG.

If he's playing all suited connectors (I included 75s) and suited aces here, he's actually got a 5 (30 combos) or deuces full (3 combos) as often as he has an overpair (33 combos of 66-JJ). So if he folds all his overpairs and calls with all his trips +, you need quite a few more combos that he folds for this to be a profitable bluff...

If he's playing all suited aces and kings (not including AK) and all suited 1-gappers and and connectors down to 64s, he has about 28 combos of flush draws. If he folds all of these, then:

He has 94 combos that take this line, and he calls with 33 of them, so he calls 35.1% of the time.

Therefore:

He folds 64.9%*181 = $117.5
He calls 35.1%*-250= -$87.75

So if all those assumptions are correct, your line shows a profit of around $30.

Of course, IRL, I think he probably has quite a few less suited combos (all suited Kx and Ax seems optimistic) and probably also somewhat fewer 5x combos, so the math can get messy (he also repops preflop with some of the stronger overpairs pretty frequently). Him calling with his FDs (which may happen, particularly the A-high combos) is also not great as they have ~50% equity against you.

Taking all that into consideration, I think he needs to be raising with air sometimes for this to be a +EV line. I'd rather wait until I have some sort of draw of my own or a much stronger read on this particular V before I punt off a stack on a low-equity rebluff attempt.

...a good TAG is going to be raising here with draws...

Are you limiting what a good Tag is going to call pre, and raise flop with here? I would have folded to the $90 (1.5 pot size bet?) as it is too much to risk on air. If other players said he was a good LAG I might continue after some serious thought.

You seem not to realize that nearly all of his draws are flips or equity favorites over your hand. In order for you to be actually ahead, he has to have a nut flush draw that isn't AK/AQ/AJ/A4/A3. Even when that happens he has 11 outs. All his other club draws have at least 6 extra outs beyond the 8 clubs left in the deck because they can hit a pair to pass you (and sometimes also a straight if he has low enough cards). Also, he will not fold after raising a club draw here because you're laying him too good a price. He only has to call 190 more to win 430ish and you almost never have better than an overpair here. Even if he put you on AA, he would only be making a slight mistake, at worst, by calling. You should not count on having any fold equity unless his raising range is wider than you think it is.

This play is a recipe for getting it in bad. If you actually think his range is weighted toward club draws, so much so that you are willing to put your whole stack in the middle with ace high, why not just call the flop and then jam most blank turns?

I think a TAG has fewer 5s in his range here than a LAG and I think is just as capable of raising draws.

You talk about his sizing, if he had min raised would that change your decision?

Thanks for this. Very well thought out and I appreciate the effort.

Isn't it a theory that if someone raises a paired board they almost never have the trips? It's definitely is a theory with a name but I can't recall what that name is. If I thought he was raising his 5s with any regularity this is an obvious fold.

V has 1 A5s and a few 5x SCs in his range here and what Vern said. Not a fan of this.

On top of apparently underestimating villain's raising range here, it's apparent that I severely overestimated my fold equity. I'm going to conclude the answer to my question is no. This is not a good play.

Grunch:

Just off the top of my head-

I agree draws are a big part of his range. He could also be trying to raise out hands like AT with just about anything or maybe a PP.

The bigger issue is that the part of his range that you've centered in on (FDs) is geting about 2:1 to call your shove. That's break even and he's likely to call you i a coin flip situation. You could very easily be a dog as well although I imagine he would 3 bet a few of the bigger aces.

I can see why you probably have a LAG image.

You say why would 5x raise? Presumably because you can't fold AA here. Lucky for him you have A high.

Haha OK wise guy. Obviously I'm not raising for value here. The only thing my A does is block one combo of A5s and give me a tiny bit of equity in case he calls with a draw.