Game: 1/3 NLH, 7-handed, max buyin 500, effective stacks 810 (hero; villain covers).

Villain: Regular 2/5 LAG, probably best player in the casino, loves making huge overbets. Bluffs a lot to setup massive value when opponents call light. No respect to regular opponents and is capable of showing up with any two cards including 72s with the belief that he can outplay the fish. However, that being said, he is very capable of adjusting to hero whom he perceives as solid but on the tighter side of perfect frequencies.

Hero: 2/5 reg with lots of history with villain.

Hand: button straddle to 6, SB folds, hero in BB looks down at AQ and opens standard 5bb to 30. UTG folds, villain calls in MP, HJ calls 30, CO folds to button straddler who comes along. Pot: 120.

Flop: Q98
Hero c-bets standard half pot to 65, which hero does at around 80% frequency, regardless of holdings. Villain calls. Folds around and we're heads up. Pot: 250. Effective stacks: 715.

Turn: 5
Completes the flush and the 67 straight draw, but hero is not too worried about villain having either draw yet. Hero still checks for balance (out of position) and also to let villain bluff at it. Villain obliges and bets 185. Hero thinks about it and calls. Easy standard call since I'm ahead a lot of the time with top-top and if I'm somehow behind, then I have the nut flush draw as backup. Pot: 620. Effective stacks: 530.

River: K
No sense donk leading now, and so hero checks. Villain ships it for 530 effective.

Hero:?

This entire HH makes me feel like you're too concerned with buzz words than actually reading V.
If you have tons of history, what has he shown up with in the past when taking similar lines?
What types of hands do you open pre? Do you play them the same was post?
You describe this as he plays a perfect lag style, aks you play a close to perfect TAG style if maybe a touch too tight. Is that true? If so, fold the river.

Where’s his bluffs coming from when you hold Ad? That’s what you should be asking yourself.

Like he called with multiple players left to act against a dude who opened EP and kept betting into 3 players. Does he have a hand like KdJ? Seems unlikely.

So even if he’s doing something unorthodox like turning KdQ into a bluff on the turn, well, that got there. So he’d need to be a bit of an insaneoLAG for me to find bluffs.


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I literally said, any two suited cards is the range he has shown up with, but of course, against my open we can eliminate most of his trash and weight him more towards suited connectors however little, suited one-gappers however little, any two broadway cards without an ace (as he will 3-bet all AK, AQ, and possibly AJ), unsuited connectors, unsuited one-gappers, etc., pocket pairs under 6s (as he will 3-bet 66+). I don't play TAG. I never said that. I like to think I play perfectly in between LAG and TAG, but if I have to lean one way, more tight than loose. He perceives me tighter than I actually am though.

He can definitely be an insaneoLAG. He doesn't need to have as many bluffs as he could legitimately think I have air since I checked the turn and get me to fold my equity. He could certainly have KdX which floated the flop and semi bluffed the turn and is a very real possibility. He certainly could have one diamond and a gutshot which he decided to turn into a bluff.

Basically on the river, my hand has dropped in value into a pure bluff catcher, and the K is the worst card in the deck as Kd got there.

Looking for opinions on what to do in the river as well as potential comments on earlier streets.

Sorry I missed that you checked. I’m still not finding many bluffs here. Plus he should feel ok jamming JT or many even random Kings up given your line.


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We should be checking this flop 4 ways from early position. Bet flop check turn line plays OOP plays bad against a lag like this at this stack depth. So if I did bet flop, I’m betting on the turn 2/3 pot and shipping most rivers. As played he’s really only bluffing here with some middle pair with a gutter. However your hand is fairly face up in a sense that you have a large diamond that missed. If he’s the most winning player in the room he should have some check backs with worse pairs.

Yeah agree with the fold, also how can he be the best player in the room if he is calling raises with stuff like 7s2s… and yes I’m sure he showed 9T one diamond because…fish

flop I would be bet smaller or check multi-way…if you are betting 80% of your iso range on this board 4-ways here your making a mistake

Yeah people who call 72s are either slumming and trying to deliberately spice things up, or they’re the kind of guy who thinks he’s better than everyone else. And the times he does make a ridiculous flop peel and turn bluff with like Td9, he’s been running good on bailout cards like this and thinks that he can practically get away with murder at the felt.


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Betting flop was the biggest mistake.

So, why is 5x your standard open? Do you ever vary it?

Why is 1/2 pot your standard cbet? Or are you saying that the cbet is standard? 1/2 pot is kind of bad in this spot. If you’re betting the same amount almost always that’s a big problem, but Maybe I’m misinterpreting.

Please elaborate on this a bit please. It just seems a bet is better to charge draws. Is it for deception? Pot control? Why, what is the logic of checking TPTK on a 2-flush flop 4-ways?

We cannot really pot control out of position. I just don’t think our hand is very strong. This board favours our opponents' PF calling ranges moreso than our 3! Range in terms of any nuttiness. We are deep stacked and unless we back door into the nut flush I do not feel very good about getting stacks in with TPTK in a four-way pot on this board texture so I would rather not bloat out of position. I think charging draws or protecting against draws that have decent equity is overrated and often costly. These draws will call anyway and we are in a very tough spot on most turns. I would often check AA/KK here as well.

5x is always my standard open if I'm first in. I do that with AA and my trash. If there are limpers ahead of me, I might open higher. 5x is not too large, as I almost always get at least 1 caller, and it's often multi way. 5x is not too small either, because if I start opening 10x with my AA, then I will have to light money on fire by opening 10x with 88, 67s, etc.

If I choose to bet the flop, I almost always bet half pot or 2/3 pot. So, essentially I ensure that my opponents have zero information from my bet size.

I didn't want to check the flop because I didn't want to give a free card to the trash hands the other two opponents may have had. Also, I will be lost in the hand if one of them (especially the straddler who has the widest range since he's only completing action) chooses to bet the flop. But yes, there are several merits to checking the flop too.

I fully agree that bet flop check turn line plays really badly OOP against a LAG like this. That's also precisely why I check strong parts of my range for defense. Which is also why I'm posting this here. Since, I gave him some rope on the turn to hang himself, I must find some calls on a river bet. Obviously, I'm snapping him off on a diamond, Ace, or Queen, and stacking off on a brick or board pair. Can I find a call with the nut blocker on this river or should I always be folding?

I guess you're right, once I bet the flop, I must bet turn against this particular player.

Lots of valid points, but essentially we're check folding top top and check calling overpairs then?

Unless there are bets and raises I'm certainly not just c/folding TPTK with backdoor nut draw. I'd rather c/c than have my c-bet get raised.

Q98 smashes opponents calling ranges and it’s unlikely we can have the nuts here. We basically have sets and one pair hands and ace highs if we are a true tag. No two pairs. We can have 3 flush combos. The field can have all the two pairs, j10, 99 and 88 and non nut flush draws. If we get raised on the flop we have to fold which sucks. If we bet we bloat the pot oop we either need to continue betting or we will get blown off the hand if we check. And with the sizing opponents can continue to the river with most of their holdings correctly.

So check and see what develops.

Yep, this is exactly who he is. I respect him a lot though.

Fair point.

You are lost in the hand because you are out of position. Taking a value check line on the turn would be better with a two pair or sets. Since we shouldn’t have two pair here, if you bet this flop you should continue betting. Better for us to turn our hand into a bluff on the river than bluff catch since we hold The Ad

No-one likes c-R turn shove?

You may want to reconsider this strategy. There is very little exploitation going on in these games from what I've seen. You really veer pretty far away from optimal play by limiting yourself to the same bet sizing all the time. I'd rather tailor my bet sizing to board textures and let my opponents try to figure out what the differences mean. That way you're not giving anything away but you're betting your range optimally. Just sayin.

There are two ways to play this hand against what you consider a LAG who is the best player in your room. First, you can show continued aggression against him. LAGs do not like to bet into aggression as the hand goes on. The second is to play rope-a-dope with them and let them hang themselves.

Holding the ace for the flush, I'd prefer the rope-a-dope. As a LAG, he isn't going to let the flop check around. He's going to bet. Then you can call. On the turn, check and RAI. You need to start teaching him that a check from you doesn't mean you missed the board. On top of it, you played this exactly he would expect a TAG to play with the nut flush. If he has two pair or something, he congratulate himself for being clever.

The river as played is almost a perfect GTO situation. If he's doing stupid stuff like trying bluff people with 72s, he's not going to play anywhere near GTO. So it comes down to whether he shows up here with a bluff over 1/3 of the time. If yes, call. If not, fold. As a LLSNL player (even a "good" one), he's going to be imbalanced in one direction. If he's a regular, you should know which way he goes.

I'd fold the river as played - don't expect many large bluffs at these stakes and we block the ace of diamonds for doing it. Kj/kt are some of villains best bluffs.

I agree with thread that against this player we should take a different line on the flop, and can consider different lines on the flop.

X/c turn is not bad, but when we take that line kjt on the river are the worse cards for us.

If villain is going to go all-in on a lot of rivers we can force him to define more of his relative hand strength earlier by betting the turn with nut flush blocket and top set blocker.

Against maniacs it is sometimes preferable to sacrifice ev for increased fold equity and lower variance.