2/5, 9-handed
I just moved to this main game, but played with most of the players on the must-move table. Table is playing very tight/passive for 2/5, except for V, with pre-flop raises of $15 and lots of folding. (I would normally ask for a table change, but I'm up next on the PLO list.)

Villain (covers): 30-something white guy who looks as if he was a bully in high school but thought he was prom king and star quarter back and would prefer to live in high school if he could. Too much hair gel, too much cologne, cheesy watch. He’s the table bully. Raising often, limping and check/raising, and running over everyone with aggression. It is working.

Hero (~$550): 47-yr-old white woman. Probably look like a soccer mom, although I’m a soccer player. Drinking champagne celebrating my birthday, but still sober (that will change). Been fairly quiet because I’ve been card dead. I’m not sure Villain has seen me play a hand. I know he hasn’t at this table.

Pre-flop:
V limps from MP, one other limper, I make it $25 OTB w/ AsJc (standard raise size for table with two limpers). Blinds fold, both players call.

Flop (~$75): 9s5s3c
Checks to me, and I elect to check. V has been check/raising relentlessly, and I’m not ready to go to war with him with this hand. In retrospect, I think I should have just bet here.

Turn (~$75): 9h
V bets $50, one fold. This card I like. I highly doubt V has a 9, and since I checked on flop, I think he’s just being his normal bully self, so I call. I think I’m good regardless, and if an A or J falls, I’m sure I’m good. If I raise, he'll just fold his air.

River (~$175): 2s
V confidently and almost immediately bets $125. This card can’t possibly help him, but it’s a beautiful card for him to bluff. Also, I have the As. My read at the table was he thought I was weak (I was) and he could bully me, so I called. I honestly couldn’t put him on a hand he’d play this way, and it is basically what I was hoping for.

I know it was very passive, but I couldn’t handle a raise at any point. At the same time, I didn’t want him to fold, because I knew he’d try to bully me. This is what was going through my head at the table. Does anyone else call him down? If not, what do you do differently? If it’s c-bet, what do you do if he raises?

i think a call down isnt out of line.

obv 9s are limited. if he has any hands that have a 5 or a 3, he has loads of other hands that have 6, 7, and 8s so that coupled with the 'table bully' read, his range is probably wide enough for this to be ok.

Cbet this flop. And fold turn.

Grunch.

I definitely don't hate your line here, nor do I hate looking him up in this spot. But I can get pretty "hero cally" at times lol. His range seems like it would be pretty polarized in this spot. I think checking the flop in this spot against the described Villain is fine. I don't really think that the 2s "can't possibly help him though" it can definitely help him (he can have spades and 64 IMO), the question is... how often does it help him and how often does he bluff with air?

As played, calling would be read-dependent. Sounds like it was difficult to range him.

You could make a case for folding, calling, and raising since you have the As which gives you some FE vs. the mid-part of his range (e.g. 88/77/66).

I'd cbet/fold flop with 2 overs and a FD blocker.

I don't hate the line. It's very high-variance, though. Problem is that he can easily show up with any 3, 5, or pocket pair here. He can also show up with A4, 46, etc. So you've got a bluff catcher that is vulnerable to part of his bullying/bluffing range.

(Also, happy birthday.)

I don't like calling off chips like this. We took the lead and gave it right back to the bully. If you didn't believe him on the turn I would have raised and then folded to a bet on the turn, or bet on the river.

AP, I would fold. You are only beating air and raising is even more of a spew

Tough spot, very read dependent.

If he is a mindless spew-bully and isn't giving any thought to your range or image, and he just assumes he can buy every pot, then I think a call is fine.

If he has some game awareness, and might think you could be calling him down with middle pairs, then he has more value hands in his range, so it's tougher.

Honestly, since we hold As, I think a shove is better than a call.

fold>shove>>>call IMO. We really don't beat much (poker stove it and we are behind ATC), and given our image, you will get a lot of folds. That said, I think a fold is probably best.

Bolded for effect. Us checking the flop turns our hand face-up. We have decent equity against a range that is very weak.

He could have a 9 or some smaller pair or he's got air. Calling is fine.

River is very interesting - is he sophisticated enough to value bet 66 or something of the ilk? If so, WP. In that spot he knows he should be polarized because nobody at $2/5 bets here with anything other than the nuts or nothing. However, 99% of the villains we face in LLSNL aren't that sophisticated, so chances are he is polarized here. Given the villain's profile, I call down here getting almost 2.5-1. We only have to be good here 1 out of 3.5 times for this to be a profitable call.

It's probably better to make it $135-$160 if you really want to continue on the turn (and immediately giving up if called, folding if he donks the river) but the default play is to fold. Raising preflop is OKAY but calling is probably better. Exactly how long have you been watching this guy play for? You need to be careful about rushing to snap judgements on how your opponents play. Player super tight and observe them for a long time. Pay attention to what they turn over at showdown, and then review the play throughout the hand, and use these data points to build reads. Otherwise you might make some costly mistakes.

Consider short stacking.

Well u only have A high. U can be good or beat. You are playing a high variance game.

On the turn, he's either betting a monster, a flush draw, or air. You block and beat a flush draw. Monsters are only a slim probability, and a table bully stabbing this turn card after flop checks through can be a ton of nothing.

Calling down requires villain to barrel 3 times with total air. You need to give him a chance to fold crap like pocket 6's.

Raise the turn.

Disclaimer: I'm giving that advice as a guy who checks back top pair on the flop in position with some regularity.

Why raise the turn? We fold out his air and calls with his value hands Plus there is zero chance in villain's mind we have a 9.

Call>fold>>>>>>>>>>>>>raise

I have seen very few of V's hands because they don't get to showdown. He is pounding these players and they are folding. I saw him play a few orbits at the first table, but never saw his cards. Seriously, it was amazing. He was playing a lot of hands, though, and extremely aggressive when checked to. He folded if played back at or lead into big, but that happened only once or twice.

I agree this should have been a c-bet, but the way he was raising, I didn't like it. Not sure what he thought I would c-bet with and then fold to a raise with on this board, especially when he doesn't hold the As. Not c-betting was definitely a mistake.

Very read-dependent hand, so I understand it's tough for you guys to give too much advice. He was a big old bully, though.

Totally agree with this.

Also, it's only two barrels, and I was planning on him doing it with air.

if i'm V and i get raised by a 47 y/o soccer mom on a 953ss[9] board that she raised pre, checked her cbet option, i think she is FOS pretty close to 100% of the time and would call with ~100% of my non air range.

but thats just me.

When I see a 47 year old soccer mom I usually peg her as a calling station until I'm shown otherwise. And if she's card dead, I wouldn't have been. A raise from a calling station here would pretty much be 5's or 3's full, and I'd happily dump my pocket 7's or whatever flush draw I was chasing.

The guy is playing loose aggressive. Perhaps badly, but even so, the formula is pretty much 1) perceive weakness 2) bet at it 3) fold to uncommon resistance. A raise from a calling station would be uncommon resistance.

If you think your hand is better than his, than calling is fine. But if you think you could get better hands to fold, then you should bet.

How smart would you feel if you got shown A3 here?

If you cbet flop and he raised, clearly he is at or near the top of range. Pot is multi-way and your image has been tight, so his raise would be for value imo. No shame in cbet/folding.

If villain has A3 (which, realistically the only A3 combo villain should have from a value standpoint), he's not folding to a turn raise. A set from a "calling station" bets the flop because they don't want a flush draw to give them a bad beat. So soccer mom should never have a set here. A 9 would bet the flop here as well, so we can't rep it now. If villain is any kind of player and sees a turn bet now, they should call with any piece of the flop.

Stick with me, kid. We have gluten-free pizza.

I actually love that people think this because I can bluff way more often -- and I do

However, against this guy, playing back at him is only going to make him fold his air, and I don't want him to fold his air.

(I agree that As3s is about the only 3 he should have, but I have As -- another reason I wasn't worried about it.)

The point was, villain could get here with some cruddy hands that still beat ace high.

Maybe he thought he could rep a nine and then rep a flush as a back up plan. Maybe he thought he could barrell you off your flush draw then decided to barrell you off your 9. Guys like this find a reason to bet.

I mean, if we think ace high is good here....then that means we believe he's betting with a range of total air. So if we believe total air...why can't we believe pocket 7's, or A5, or AK?

...or he's bluffing if he raises the flop. That's the whole point of the hand.

I don't really see any other way to play this hand. Folding to this level of action is out of the question if we have not been standing up to this guy so far. Betting the flop is pretty bad imo, because we are effectively trying to prevent him from bluffing when: (a) his weakness is probably playing too aggressively rather than folding too much or playing passive, and (b) we can't rely on deter him from bluffing with a flop cbet on this flop. We should also be checking our midstrength hands here (like 66-88 or a pair of 5s), so he can't value bet us aggressively.

Comment in blue this time

which is exactly my point in post #2.

if he's calling wide pre and has any part of that board, by default, he will have all the parts that miss that board because people, in general, arent going to call 56s but not call 67s and 78s. if he calls 54o, he'll also call 76o, so on and so forth. so for every combo that he can call preflop, he has about 2x to 3x that amount of air.

couple that with being a bully, and you have a V who is going to have air a lot.

trust me, i dont Hero call lightly, but against a V like this, i might give it a whirl in a spot like this.