1/3 NL 7 handed $300 effective stacks

Hero was super aggressive early in the session when the table was mostly nits. V2 probably has me pegged as a super maniac since he has been there the entire time. I also rivered him in a couple hands so he may be looking for revenge.

Since V1 came to the table I have been playing much tighter. Still loose compared to the table average but nothing too out of line.

V1 ($300) seems a bit clueless. I doubt he considers much other than the strength of his hand.

V2 ($250) is nitty and very easy to read. His value bets are large and the few times he tried to bluff he went super small like he was afraid of losing his money.

OTTH
Hero UTG (A A) bet $15
V2 BTN call
V1 SB call

Pot ($45)
Flop J 9 8
V1 donks $25
Hero call
V2 call

Maybe I should raise here. I don't love raising before V2 has acted since he can have some pretty strong holdings here.

From the way V2 acted I am pretty certain he is on some kind of draw. Probably either flush or combo.

Pot ($120)
Turn 4
V1 donks $35
Hero call
V2 call

I thought about raising here to get V2 to fold but I don't want to pile money in if V1 is strong especially when his donk bets are so small.

Pot ($225)
River 8
V1 donks $55
Hero call
V2 fold

At this point I think I am beat but I am probably good 20% of the time. If he is strong I don't know why he wouldn't bet more to charge the draws and if he is weak I don't know why he donked three streets.

you're losing most of the time here, but you have to call

the 8 counterfeits some of his 2p like J9 and makes J8/98 less likely

he's also bet such a low amount you don't need to be good very often

he's also clearly a recreational player based on his bet sizing so he could reasonably take a line like this with Jx

you're still going to look dumb quite often when he flips over QT/T7/T8 etc, but it's the price you gotta pay

I limp preflop but that's me.

Think I'm pretty cool with our postflop line. Preflop at these stacks has setup a fairly awkward spot due to SPR / great offered IO / commitment issues / OOP / balancing between protecting our hand versus not overplaying it / etc. (which I actually try to avoid), but I think we dealt with it as best we could postflop.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Err...maybe I just don't play 1/3 enough anymore, but these bets are all so tiny in relation to the size of the pot I can rarely find a fold without a serious read on V. V still has QQ/KK/AJ at some frequency, and top two was counterfeit. Not loving it though.

How do you go from wanting to raise the turn to wanting to fold to a quarter pot bet on a good river?

Facing the 3rd consecutive bet into multiple opponents (including the preflop raiser) is much stronger than his turn bet (especially when the draws are still in play on the turn).

Gnothatin'orfoldin',justsayin'G

I make the crying call here. The odds are just too good, and given description of villain he could be over-valuing something like KJ.

Don't expect to be good often, but at a rate marginally higher than the odds we're getting.

Standard call the whole way. Without more information on villain his bets are so small you can't fold AA. I would consider the river as much paying for information as a crying call.

If you wanted to raise turn would have been the point to do it. His flop bet is big enough that raising would be very expensive when he does have a big hand. His turn bet is only slightly larger into a much bigger pot. His play looks more like a draw or an over pair at that point.

V only donked flop. His turn and river bets aren't donks because he took the betting lead on the previous street.

There isn't any other way to play this you can't fold getting such a good price.

Raising flop isn't good and raising turn isn't either. You played it fine

Shove river

Raise every single street; this line is almost always top pair/top pair + draw or flush draw

Don’t raise flop with V2 left to act.
AP, absent some population-specific reads that I’m not aware of, I would raise river small to 125. In my player pool these small bet sizings tend to indicate a capped range, meaning he doesn’t have a straight. Plus the river 8 board pair is actually quite good. It would be somewhat worse if the 9 pairs, since then we lose to 9x diamonds. But the 8 pairing counterfeits some two pairs and cuts down on set combos.

Villain isn’t following predefined logic with his bet patterns. His view of hand strength doesn’t have to match yours. He’s just trying to see a cheap river with what he considers to be a medium strength hand. With a better hand like a straight he’d bet more on the turn to protect against the flush draws. A medium strength hand could be AJ, JT, T9, it could be two pair (medium-strength if Villain is nitty), it could be QQ (some players won’t 3bet pre with QQ), or it could be a flush draw. With the river board pair cutting down on the number of combos of two pair and counterfeiting J9, I’d assume we’re nearly always good here and a raise is standard. Once in a while we’ll get shown down 98/J8, but it’s not often enough to deter me from making a raise on the river.

If we were ever going to raise in this hand, I would think the turn would have been the time to do it. There are two opponents, both of which are live to beat you in some way or other, and probably at least one of which could call turn with a hand we’re ahead of.

As played on the river, there is no way I am folding.

I think this is what a normal fish might do. I read the description as "clueless" as he has virtually no idea what he's doing let alone anything about bet sizing or what protrection even is. Also he might not even understand countereiting. OP correct me if wrong. Given that he could show up with anything from the nuts to a shitty underpair.

lol V1 has like J5o

Possibly true. Somehow I think even the most clueless of players understand the basic philosophy of NLHE: “big pot big hand, small pot small hand”, and this dictates their bet sizing patterns on some level. Question is would a clueless player go for the same size bet on the turn with QT/T7? That’s a “big hand” even for an experienced player. I guess anything is possible, but I’d guess they’d probably size up.
If we can eliminate some of those straight combos from range then a raise becomes more profitable (either on turn/river).
If we can’t eliminate the straight combos (and I noted just now we also lose to T8), maybe a raise is too thin?
If OTOH Villain is playing ATC preflop (and can show up with J5o like javi said), a raise starts to look good again.

Yes you are correct. In the actual hand I called the river and V1 had QT for the flopped nuts.

Yeah if he can have all of QT/T7/T8/J8/98/JJ/99/88 with this line then a raise is definitely too thin. There’s just so many straight combos that dominate his range.
We still have to call river though because he might have QQ/KK/AJ/J9 and we’re getting a good price.

Folding HU would be bad, I'm unsure in a 3 way pot. I think once we get to the river, it's a trivial call on this brick that counterfeits two pair.

Raising flop is terribad IMO, as mentioned above turn is the spot to juice it up if you're going to but personally I call.

Fist pump river call

Never ever fold river as played. You should win this like more than 80% of the time, given small sizing from villain.