I'm a 2/5 and circuit player In a region very lacking in the large game dept when I'm home. My home casino regularly runs 1/2 but rarely gets 2/5 running except maybe once a week.

Deep stacked in an 8 handed live 1/2 game

Effective stacks are: Hero~$1100
Villain~$555
Play is very loose and passive, full of calling stations. Villain seems VERY bad, limping 72 utg, opening with k4 off, but I'd also seen him limp KK AK and other large aces. Villain made a river shove on me earlier in the night when I held top pr on a very dry board severely over betting the pot which would turn out to be foreshadowing.

6 limps reach me on the button and I have AQs, I raise to $25 to thin the field and also bc this had become the standard due to calling stations throughout the night. I get 2 calls, one is the very bad player mentioned earlier and the player immediately to his right.

Pot: $83

Flop: AQJ two tone. Checks to me and I bet $60. EP player folds and villain calls.

Pot: $203

Turn is a brick 2, he checks, assuming he is on a draw, worse 2 pr/ or pr and also happy to take down the pot I bet $165 and he calls.

Pot:$533

River pairs the 2 and he insta shoves his remaining $330, can we ever fold here getting almost 3/1 being fairly certain he could do this with any A, any worse 2 pr, possibly missed flush draw or even missed gut shot and pr. He's bad!

I call and he tabled KT.. He checked the nuts into a flush board with a flop I could easily flop a set on with the preflop action and been happy to get all in to the river and then shoves when his hand is no longer the nuts lol, I told you he was bad. I obviously wish I'd kept the pot small but with the dynamics of the game I feel this would be hard to do, just a cooler or did i make a mistake?

cool story bro

whats a circuit player?

He slowplayed the nuts, and his image made you pay him off. It's gonna happen.
You got outplayed here. Nothing you can do about that.

Yes, you can fold river here. It being good or not depends on the villain's profile. If his range is actually any two pair and missed draws then calling here getting close to 3 to 1 is fine. That is a pretty unusual profile though and there are a lot of villains where folding this river is correct. Their range on the river is full houses and straights. Turn bet may have been too big, but was probably OK here. Preflop and flop are fine at a game like this.

Saying he is bad isn't enough information here. You describe villain as bad without saying how he is bad. Is he spazzy and makes stupid bluffs? Then calling river is fine. Is he stationary and passive? Then folding river is the right move. Will he call wide preflop but is fit/fold post? Then betting the turn big is a mistake. Will he chase anything? Then the big turn bet is fine.

That villain was such a fishie! Misses the opportunity to c/r the flop, then fails to bomb the turn. LOLZ!

Seriously though. Bombing the river was kind of ******ed. I mean, what was the likelihood of getting a call there, right?

What a dope! How is he even still alive, given the law of natural selection, huh? Am I right or am I right? (You have heard of that law, right?)

I wouldn't describe villain as spazzy or bluffing often but played probably 90%+ of his hands and chased all draws no matter how little equity to the river and his previous river shove had peaked my interest and I was leaning towards that being his weak point, bluff shoving when he missed a draw. Maybe this isn't a great question bc the answer is so borderline but def hard to find a fold against this player IMO

EXACTLY!! And same logic for if he had flopped a set and filled on river, the line was just so absurd I thought it had to be a missed draw a weaker hand

I just wanted to note that I'm a tournament player also and sometimes my theories and gameplay carry over to cash games in ways that they shouldn't. Maybe if I just said, I also play tournaments, that would be "cooler" IYO? Suffice, bro?

The villain sounds pretty passive. Donk shoves otr from these players after you bet twice are usually the nuts or close to it.

Wouldn't be surprised to see KT, A2 or a FD which picked up a 2. He can even turn up with flopped sets which make houses by the river.

Given that general profile I would consider the river fold fairly easy. Most of these guys rarely bluff, they chase flop and turn with any draw and then give up river. Against that sort, bet flop and turn big and just give up when they shove into river unless you have a monster. Sometimes you will be giving up to a bluff and sometimes they shoved a worse hand, but not often. Usually the strange river shove means they backed into a big hand. On that board, when this sort of villain shoves, your hand is just bluff catching and these guys are not often bluffing.

Sitting here reading a poker forum we all see that Villain's line looks terrible. Call big bet preflop, call big bet on the flop, call big bet on the turn, shove river... how does he ever not have the nuts? And how does he get called?

But this line is the nuts. x/c, x/c, shove is the nuts, even if in this case he had the nuts on the flop and didn't care that the nuts changed on the river.

(And, BTW, when a player disregards that the nuts have changed on a later street, you can narrow his range to super strength or nothing -- extremely polarizing read.)

Its just the line that bad players take when they flop huge.

Its not going to be easy to fold here. If I'm on my A-game, I can find a fold here, and I have. But its not easy. Is this a cooler, it shouldn't be, but in reality, its going to be very hard to find a fold here.

One thing you can use to help you is to consider if they player has a tendency to badly play their strong hands. Because players who tend to play their strong hands badly, will never show up with a bluff after the x/c, x/c, shove line.

(ETA: don't feel too bad, had he raised on the flop or turn, you'd have to call anyway and were going to be AI.)

For future ref: You should also pay attention (and list in OP) which two cards share the suit on the flop.... especially when an Ace is involved. DUCY

I was def playing my B game. It was the end of an 8hr session, I was racked up and on my last orbit. You're right though a fold can def be found here, I even said out loud before I called, "broadway, boat or air". I was overly excited to play a big pot with this villain and it backfired.

AcQcJ, 2, 2

Once he called the large turn bet, he had K10.

If I'm him, I would have check raised you, but I think he felt pretty confident you didn't have the flush draw. He is just hoping not to pair the A, Q or J and then bombs away on river and you may even hero call him with just any Ace (thinking he missed his draw). If he check raised you, you can get off of AK or any one pair hand.

Even though he doesn't have the nuts on the river he is of course betting it. He's not check folding, letting the river check through is terrible. You have many hands in your range that he beats that will pay him off. I think he played the hand fine.

I forgot to mention a hand earlier in the night that I was not involved in in which villain flopped nut flush and c/c flop and turn and then checked river.. W the stone cold nuts.
Just tough to give this type of player credit for any kind of deep thought or intentionally mixing up his lines, he's just playing wide open and every decision is impulse.

It's going to be tough to get good responses when you post results in te op. that being said Id like to hear what your thinking was on bet sizing. Also search mpethybridge threads for the mpethy theorem. Kind of applies here

In hands where similar action has transpired what kind of hands did he have? Has he jammed the river before in similar situations with only nutty hands before? Does he overvalue his hands when he bets or just play loose? Even bad players who tend to play passive like this tend to have nuttier type hands when they either bet or raise the river. He was letting you do his betting for him, and even if you are getting 3-1 on a call or whatever, the bigger question is what would he jam the river with? It does matter what your odds to call or if you can't beat his range in this given action. This is why paying attention is so important. That being said, its not the worse call in the world if you think he would do this with A10 or QJ -with QJ being less likely - or maybe AK. If you don't then maybe its a fold but it is certainly more than just a math problem at this point.

Tsk, tsk. Don't rack up and then stay. Rack up when you are ready to go, and not before. Keep your head in the game or get out!

Egg-zactly.

The fish can withstand extreme pressure for a while before they:
1. Tighten their opening range
2. Start calling cbets when they have equity
3. Start denying information by allowing you to bet their hand

The only thing villain did wrong was lead the river, although he got away with it.

You have to watch the fish. Once they start getting sneaky and trappy, I think you have to start moderating your risk by tightening your range, adjusting bet sizing and lowering cbet frequency a bit. I don't think they ever really get a grip on position or opening hand value, so it's not too hard to stay ahead of them

If he is playing that randomly then calling on the river is better, though I'm not sure it is the right thing here. Just be sure you have a handle on what they will and won't do. Don't fall into the trap of thinking "This play is so terrible it must be a bluff". Unless you have seen him bet big/shove river multiple times, it is a good idea to assume a passive fish who bets the river is rarely (if ever) bluffing.

Thanks for all of the input, i appreciate it. Ran into another hand tonight where someone check-shoved their nut flush on the river after I led the whole way, unfortunately I had Q high and once agn couldn't find a fold, gross couple of nights.

I like this, def agree

He was calling all 1/2 and 2/3 pot bets with all draws and hitting everything and I incorrectly put him on a draw and was trying to price him out. I obviously over valued my hand in this spot but I felt like I had the best of it.

This.

Also, you define him as a station, then when he shoves otr you say he can be doing it with missed draws. Both of those can't be true.