Playing at Harrah’s Chester, when I come across this large hand vs a pretty aggro villain, and I could put to a fairly difficult decision.

Hero ($450): Early 20s, taggish image, usually brings it in for a raise, C-bets good boards, but might have a slight weak-tight image due to having to make a few big folds (I think I was beat with strong hands in all situations, but I digress)

Villain($470): Early to mid-20s Asian kid, 3-bets more than you would expect at 1-2, doesn’t appear to be getting too out of line (not too many were squeeze situations). He C-bets with a pretty high consistency and sometimes into multiple villains. Fired multiple barrels quite a few times after C-betting, and has shown more aggression when heads up (has not gotten looked up with a weak holding since I sat down).

So he is either running good or running over the table. My only hand vs him he raised me all in on a K72r flop when I raised his C-bet (he 3-bet me in position pre). He gave a smirk like he was bluffing and is acting way too serious for ½ lol. Player next to me (younger regular) makes a comment on how “you will often need to get it all-in with pots v him).



The Hand

Hero looks down at 10c10s, raises it UTG to $10. Fold around to villain on the button, he stares me down for like 15 seconds, and pops it up to $27. Folds around to me and I call.

Flop: ($57)

7s7d5s

Check to villain, he makes it $35, hero calls.

Turn: ($127)

Jh

Check to villain, he makes it $85, hero calls.

River: ($297)

5c

Hero quickly checks to villain, he thinks for a good 30 seconds, and ships the rest in ($323)

Hero Calls.



He set up a pretty solid River PSB, but this board is not really fun for QQ-AA, especially for a river ship on a double paired board and with JJ in my range. In fact, JJ is the only hand I could see him doing this with that beats me (he may bet even less depending on his read). I guess that is the NIT in me speaking, but you need to have a pretty solid read on your opponent to ship the river with the board when my open/3-bet range can be fairly wide (Don’t know if he knows that).

I did not want to raise on any street because that essentially folds out all the hands he will keep barreling with that I beat, and get action from hands that beat me.

What are your thoughts on all my streets of action, and the call on river? Will post results of the call later, just wanted to see what you guys thought of my thought process vs. aggro villain (something I def need to improve, especially OOP)

Posted from my phone, hope it isn't too sloppy!

When this type of V has position AND the ability to 'turn it off' at just the right times, it's a nightmare. He's been barreling and you want to harvest some of that but....I never seem to do real well in these spots.

You've got a lot of your stack in PF and it's tough to bail here but I hate unimproved TT OOP.

If you were fairly certain he would raise PF then a limp will make this play easier. You can still stack him with a set instead of getting fully involved with an ugly pair on an ugly board.

Not sure how he is running the table over with 'only' 470 in front of him, unless he started with 100.

What is his history against 3-bets? Players like this like to control the betting and it sounds as if you know this by 'letting' him barrel Flop and Turn, but I think on Turn or River you need to put out a blocker bet to get a little more information. Yes, he may shove Turn but you think that you have the best hand anyway, right? ARe you ever folding here?

You have given him no reason to suspect JJ+ (or 7x for that matter) here as you certainly would've lead Turn or River. He has a pair or A5/A7 .. cant think he would go for Ax shove here when you could have 88-TT easily. You aren't expecting to see him with 7x? Not really.

It should be an interesting result, but I think you are right in the middle of his range here and that makes it an =EV play to call. I agree with you thought that by c/c each street you are up against the widest range of hands he can have since by leading Turn or River you could move to the lower end of his call/raise/shove range. I still want to lead the River here but if you can expect some sort of barrel out of him it's the wrong move if you are willing to stack off.

I hope you saw 88/99 here and not QQ since I think he may think he's beat here some and that's why he took his time before shoving .. or it was a good act. GL

if you think his range is full of air, wp
if you think he actually has a 3bet worthy hand, fold at any point after the flop
the sizing on turn and river seem heavy for value
since u raised him and folded to him earlier, he probably thinks you will fold now as well. which weakens his range.

I'd call river too since his sizing doesn't make sense for a value hand unless he's making it big on purpose to make it look polarized and bluffy. But he would have to think you're good and you're capable of hero calling for that to make sense and it doesn't seem like he has that info on you yet.

In my experience, when someone thinks before betting the river, it means that they have a value hand and they're not sure how to size their bet. In this case, I would expect Villain to have been thinking because he realizes that any bet would commit him to call a shove, so he shoves himself.

This is how LAGs get paid--you assume they have air, and you call bets like this not realizing that they would have slowed down by now if they did. (I know a handful of exceptions to this rule, but even against them I'd expect them to have value hands in this particular spot.)

Another bet sizing tell from my own experience: Villain bet a higher percentage of the pot on the river than he did on the turn. This almost always means a value hand.

By the way, in a 3bet pot, the 5 on the river is actually a great card for overpairs. It takes 55 almost entirely out of your range, and it's very hard for you to have called a 3bet with 5x.

Overall, I'd be way more surprised if you won this hand than if you lost. I also don't understand the people who are saying that this river bet is "too big" to be for value. Large sizing means weak hand? What?

If the effective stack is $450 then that is 225bb; not 450bb.

I as referring to the overall size of the pot, not the amount I won.

Great points for both sides. I guess I'm just a different player type, but if I was in his shoes I would be looking at a really narrow range to value bet/ship on the river in my expected holdings. The sizing doesn't seem like it wants a call, and his pause seemed on the weaker side since his value bets appeared to come more quickly (not a huge fan of live tell, but just something I noticed)

I personally like a ship here if I have jacks full and opponent is a station, but I shouldn't come off as that type of player even with a short hand history.

I think his history of not quitting in heads up pots with position is what pushed me towards calling, not to mention the comment about how he likes to get it in after he invested some chips (multi-way is of course a different story)

This is my argument for calling. V doesn't know hero is capable of hero calling and it's not like V has some maniacal image at this point expecting a call because of his image.

If V is thinking about hero's range on the river, which he seems to be capable of, then hero's hand looks like what it is, 88-TT. And if V thinks that's what hero has then a value shove with any hand QQ or better doesn't make sense here unless he thinks hero will hero call with those hands. And it's not like we can do combinatorics here because he isn't balancing his overbet river range against someone who's mostly an unknown. It's either all bluffs or all value hands and in this particular spot I think it's the former rather than the latter.

Except for the preflp stare-down BS and his 3b sizing, I play it the same way that he did with [QQ+].

With the weaker parts of my range, e.g. AK, I probably do not bet the turn.

I just don't think he makes this play enough with QQ+ for us to lay it down.

21 combos of hands that beat me aren't exactly in his range given the situation/action/sizing. Also, are you saying he put me exactly on TT, so he can value town AJ lol?

I appreciate the insight but to call me call flat out "wrong" doesn't seem accurate

Well your logic makes sense. But otoh, when you helicopter out: how much do you see people bluffing off 200bb in this spot at 1/2.

Seems like one of those i dont know how he has me beat, but he has me beat hands. He could have a 7 no?

Logic and range analysis says call. Real life says fold. I vote fold

i think we have to go by hero's read on villain, that is an aggressive Asian who is going to fire 3 barrels (at least that's what i take).

having played with guys like this, sometimes you just have to strap in and live with the variance. against a tighter, more passive player, it's a clear fold. but against a guy who is 3-betting more than normal and a player who was described as 'you will often need to get it all-in with pots v him' you have to call here.

I would tend to agree with you with 95% of live players, but this kid tried to pounce on any weakness, is know for getting it in by a regular, and had at least one rebuy. Anyone else at the table I snap fold river ship

There's a pretty easy adjustment for this.

Don't hero call again for a while, at least until he thinks you're capable of folding again.

The nice part about hero calling him, besides winning the pot, is that he's going to play really straightforward against us in the future in the short term. Double and triple barrels will be for value and he'll shut down his multi barrel bluffs thinking we're gonna station him down.

grunch

This is not a scary board at all for V if he has what he is repping. You should never have a 7 or 5 in your hand and with 2 of each out there it makes 55, and 77 highly unlikely.

Unless this guy is a maniac who I've seen trippple barrell multiple times I fold the river.

This guy is not slowing down with QQ+ on this board. He is LAG. And if he is good LAG he understands that people will be "taking a stand" with mid pairs and callling river shoves, which is how he makes his money. Board run outs don't get much better than that for QQ+ in a 3bet pot

I like your thinking and thank you for the post. I will certainly keep the part of the Lag's thought process in mind, but maybe in situations where I have been at a table for hours with the same villain and has multiple large pots with him. Here, he would need to think I'm just sticky with 88-TT and that is about it (not sure how great his reads are thus far).

Also, if he is capable of firing this large of a value bet with a high pocket pair, he is also capable of firing a large bluff with All big aces KQ combos he is likely to 3-bet with.

No, not saying that.

What I am saying is, if he has AA/KK/QQ/JJ/AJ, how do you expect him to play it? You are claiming that AA/KK/QQ/JJ aren't in his range. Why not? What would he do differently with those hands?

JJ would of cored be played the same exact way (would love the river shove if I had it). QQ+ however seems like it would take a more conservative approach to the river. After staring at his chips for a little he just grabs everything and flings it into the middle. He seems like too good of a player to make that play and essentially say "please don't snap call". But he also doesn't seem good enough to do it as a pure value bet reading me as 88-TT.

He would probably take a $150/fold to raise like with QQ+, or even check behind due to little info on hand and hero's tendencies. This of course is my personal opinion on his play, what I would do in his situation, and I guess slightly result oriented as I scooped the pot.

This line will mean so much more when non aggro players who have reloaded a few times and like to play for stacks make them, so it is heavily villain dependent and I thought this was a great spot for a hero call

This.

If we posted this hand from V's perspective and had QQ-AA and asked the forum what we should do on the river, some would say bet $80-100, some would say bet $125-150, and some would say check behind. How many people would suggest overbet shoving river? Pretty much 0.

The only value hands he might have are JJ and 7x and even then a good player wouldn't overbet shove those with no history and limited reads on hero.

OK, so in this post you start by saying that with JJ, a shove for value seems like a great play.

So let's examine why, if this is true, it implies that you are totally wrong about the right way to play AA/KK/QQ.

Look at what you did in this hand: you raised UTG and then you called a 3bet. With how many 7x hands are you doing this, and then checking all 3 streets? With how many 5x hands are you doing this?

My point here is that Villain should be well aware that you should almost never have a boat here. If you are calling down, you are most likely calling down with a pocket pair.

So if the shove with JJ is a good play, the reason it is good is because you're going to call light with a bluff catcher.

What does JJ beat that AA does not beat?

What does AA beat that KK does not beat?

What does KK beat that QQ does not beat?

Basically, when you have a bluff catcher, these hands are all equivalent, unless Villain thinks you can have AA or KK. So if JJ is a shove for value, so is AA. If AA is a shove for value, and Villain doesn't think you have AA in your range, so is KK. And if KK is a shove for value, and Villain doesn't think you have KK in your range, so is QQ.

Finally, bet/folding is terrible here by Villain. The stacks aren't big enough to bet/fold $150.

And this is the opposite perspective, where we start from the assumption that AA-QQ should not be a shove for value.

By the same logic as above, if we are not shoving with AA-QQ, we should also not be shoving with JJ, since we are targeting the same bluff-catching range to get called by.

Right. I'm making the same point, that logically JJ shouldn't be a shove for value either, but in reality people will tend to shove JJ/7x just because the absolute strength of the hand is so strong.

Yeah, so you could make the case that we expect all value hands not to shove.

But that's silly, because Villain shoved here. Are we really going to say, against an unknown who we haven't seen play a big pocket pair, that a small bet is for value and a big bet is a bluff? This is bad fundamentals, and if Villain has any skill it's also wrong.