1/3 NL

Main villain is a semi-reg. He's a middle age man, not really a thinking player, but definitely capable of being the "I'm not gonna let these young kids push me around anymore" guy.

I have been among the most aggressive at the table, pretty sure I had a very loose image although in reality I had almost always had the goods. One hand I c/c the turn, rivered a flush and led out pot sized, and the other guy folded and started talking about how he knew I was going to bet huge no matter what the river was, nice bluff, etc. So I played along and said "Hey man, I had bluff outs!" Another hand I had QQ and was value betting a rock who I was sure had a smaller overpair to the board of all low cards. An A hits the river and I bet about 1/3 pot hoping to get called, and the guy angrily throws his hand away and erupts, I mean erupts, in a rant about how these players keep sticking their money in bad and getting there, etc.

Hero ~ $375
Villain ~ $500


2 limpers, Villain limps from the cutoff, BTN folds. Hero has AJo in the SB and makes it $22. BB folds, all 3 limpers call.

Flop: 6x6x5x, rainbow

Hero leads $40, 2 folds, Villain pretty quickly raises to $120. Hero thinks for a little bit, cuts out $80 and tries to make a show of deliberating with an overpair, then shoves.


After I thought about it for a few seconds it seemed like by far the most likely thing he has is a medium pair, over the board, and he wasn't gonna take anymore of my crap. Based on the preflop action I don't expect him to ever have a big pair here, and I don't expect him to be able to call my shove with a medium pair. At least not very often. And based on my image and fish's general proclivity to try to 'trap' I don't expect a 6 here that often.

Does my thinking make sense here, or is this spew?

Villain is repping a 6. You are repping a hand like AA and he just raised you. If he views you as a normal player or isn't thinking about image then he probably thinks you have a big pair. If he thinks you are a monkey that was just making a move then he is never folding a pair to you.

BTW, I hate every action you took in this hand.

Terrible position with AJo. I wouldn't pop it pre flop to start with. On the flop, trying to steal with the 40, once he raised you I would fold. You really don't have ****. Your only outs are your overs and you still could even be out kicked if an ace falls. If you had some sort of a draw, ANYTHING, it'd still be a bad shove after he raised

Yes when I thought about the hand after I decided that I may have discounted 6x too much. That's what had me leaning toward this being spew. It was his bet size that did it, I would have expected a bet in the range of $90-$100 from most LLSNL players if they're going to value raise in this spot. The slightly larger bet pushed me more towards him being weaker.

Yes I know the pot was $120+ after my bet, but I'm pretty sure this guy is not one who thinks about the size of the pot, only the size of the bet.


Really? You don't think an average 1/3 player is going to lay down 88 or 99 here for $240? I should also point out that, while I say I had been one of the most aggressive at the table, I had never done anything like this before. Aggression at this table did not mean a lot of all-ins or $100+ bets. Which in retrospect may have been an argument against him being weaker in this spot, but I think saying he's never folding a pair here is wrong.


Ok, so let's go through it.

You don't iso AJo in this spot? I feel like isoing is standard here. What do you do with it? Fold? Limp? I don't like either option that much. Limping is going to put you in a lot more bad spots then good ones in a 5 way pot first to act. And yes I know you can probably fold your way out of most of these spots without losing much, but I think you're going to end up losing a lot of value by limping. Unless you meant I should have raised bigger, in which case yes $25 might have been a better sizing. But that's relatively minor.

OTF if you're saying don't c-bet air into three people, I generally agree with you. It's something that I try to avoid doing and usually when I do it I end up wishing I hadn't. In this case I decided to go for it because of how very dry the flop was. If I get called I'm planning on giving up on any turn that's not an A or J. On an A or J turn I'm betting ~$60 and folding to a raise. However, maybe sticking with don't c-bet air into three people would have been better.


As I said above, I feel like isoing here is pretty standard. And I'm fully aware I don't have ****. I'm obviously not shoving for value. And while you may be 100% right that it's a bad shove, two hands I can guarantee I'm not going to see at showdown are AK and AQ.

I agree with your preflop iso. I belive the size of it depends on the table. I see nothing wrong with your cbet, the board is great, it works enough to justify betting against multiple vilains. If you decided to check I say it's not a big of a deal. Now I put some hours playing 1/2 and 1/3 and I am sure that bet/raise is a spew on this LLSNL.

If c-betting air is a good play here then I reckon that shoving after the raise is unlikely to be good also. Especially since you believe the table sees you as overaggressive and likely to be on a bluff but nevertheless has a track record of folding to your bets. That seems to make it more likely that when they start playing back they will have something good.

I dont mind the PF action. The fact that you got 3 callers is interesting as well and goes to your implied loose image. Keep bumping up the raise size to limit your calling opponents when OOP.

I have an issue with the Turn bet ... less than 50% pot? Any player, not just a loose one, hates connected/paired Flopped boards and you have BOTH with multiple callers. You need to protect your OOP investment by pounding this Flop. All you need is for the first opponent to call and then the others feel priced into just about anything. I would have probably viewed your bet as AKish ... you had AJ.

If you pound this Flop and still get resistance, then you can fold out more easily. What are you hoping to force out here? 99/TT? He bet quickly, which means it was a no-brainer decision. You already 'knew' that he was on the verge or very capable of being stubborn so why risk good chips with really nothing to draw to. I think at worst here you are against AK/AQ.

Not so sure I like your slow Turn shove either ... Yes, it shows you are thinking, but if you take too long then it screams weakness. This is what you want when you actually have a hand, not when you don't against low limit players for the most part.

He was in late position ... A5/A6s/78/55/99/TT/JJ/AK/AQ maybe even QQ are out there and have you crushed. My question is why is he raising you? Does he really expect you to shut down on the Turn? This might be more likely with 6x, but not a FH ... I just let you hang yourself and yet he 'knew' that he might get a call or shove from you.

I vote good move PF, Turn bet and shove both spews ... GL

By chance is your name RAAAAAAAAAAAAALPH?

Did this guy saying anything after this hand? I'm just curious cause you mentioned he erupted before on a hand he assumed you had Ax.

In regards to raising preflop, my raising range from SB is more polarizing and does not include AJ. With a tight image, raising pre with AJ is fine but with a loose image you are often just building a big pot OOP. Also, at this level opponents are often going to have middle pocket pairs here which makes it quite unlikely that your c-bet will work on this board which is why I dont' like it. The rest of the hand was just awful. Not sure why you are putting on a show like you are deliberating. If you were going to bluff vs a middle pocket pair an insta-shove would work much better.

I just complete and see a flop preflop (and probably play the hand very passively postflop). When we're 100bb+ deep, position is king, imo, and we don't have it. So I really don't want to bloat the pot with a mediocre hand (we're often dominated here), and obviously a raise isn't going to thin the field with our image against these guys. Going 4 ways to the flop here with this hand OOP sucks so bad, imo.

I'd check/fold the flop. We're 4 ways and didn't hit. No pair (even an underpair) is ever folding this flop with our image, and there's a very good chance someone has a pair due to preflop action.

With our image, plus the fact that dude just stuck in over 1/3rd of his stack (i.e. it really looks like he's happy with committing), I really think this is spew. Yes, 88 is going to have a difficult time calling, but I think we get snapped off here too much. At this table, with our image, it's time to change gears and just value bet these guys to death.

GcluelessNLnoobG

But we didn't iso. We went 4 ways to the flop, OOP, with a fairly crappy hand (honestly, it's a mediocre hand that is often dominated in these limp/call fests), and was that really very surprising given our image / table dynamics?

And playing TPGK is far less dangerous in a limped pot than it is in a multiway raised pot with a difficult smallish SPR. In a limped pot, we simply play it very passively (probably even checking TP and just seeing what happens behind us, getting away for cheap if action breaks out / we whiff, or getting some bluffcatching / value streets later if we see fit). Don't underestimate the importance of position here (i.e. I'd lean towards raising if we were in LP).

GimoG

I'm going to tell you something that you can take to the bank.

ABC Rec-fish and Old Man Coffee (OMC) types just do not have it in their DNA to show strength to a bully without a big hand.

The problem here with thinking aggros like yourself is you think, "Man, I've been pushing these guys around all day, eventually they are going to adjust to me and take a stand..."

and you are absolutely positively WRONG.

Old Man Coffees and ABC rec fish just do not have it in themselves to take a stand with a marginal hand. Not ever. When you have been running them over and all of a sudden they "take a stand" you can be assured that it is the stone cold nuts, near nuts, or a big hand they are never folding.

For the sake of argument, lets say that OMC had 99 in this case. Once he raises you HE IS NEVER EVER EVER FREAKING FOLDING!!!!!

Anyways, this is a lesson I learned over the past 18 months, and that is, when you've got these whiney OMC types and rec-fish that play weak-tight ABC poker and they are always bitching and complaining about you always raising and sucking out etc etc these players never adjust. They just don't. They do not have the balls. They do not have the guts. They will whine and complain and puff up and talk tough but when push comes to shove they just are incapable of adjusting and standing up to you with a weak sauce marginal hand.

Thus, when said player FINALLY does stand up to you, you can be 100% assured that its the near nuts or at the very least, said player is NEVER folding. When he stands up to you, its the ABSOLUTE WRONG TIME TO BLUFF.

Just fold, and then on the very next hand bully him some more.

Flop shove was total spew. You weren't likely to get him to fold a mid pp either. There wasn't much else he could have had. If you leveled yourself into thinking he might be bluffing, you need to work on that.

I tend to flat AJo from the SB with four limpers, especially if there were EP limpers. Too many guys limp AQ for UTG or UTG+1 or 77's, 88's, and 99's from LP where I play. Moreover, raising makes most 1/3 players think you have a decent Ace which scares weaker aces and makes c-betting into a multi-way rag board a breakeven proposition at best.