Game is $2-$5. 6 handed. No reads on villain. Never played with him before. Effective stacks $500. Almost the beginning of session.
Villain raises to $15 UTG ( LJ). Folds to me in BB with KdQh.
Flop ($32) 2sThQc. I check as I do my entire range here. Villain bets $20. I call. I see no reason to check raise. He’s going to still have his entire range which I should be light years ahead of.
Turn ($72) Jd. I check again. He bet s$35). I decide to just call again. If he ha AK I don’t want to build the pot for him, but I’m still ahead of KJ, J9, 99 type hands. Am I wrong to think I’m still way ahead of his range?
River ($142) is 8h. I check. He bets $80. I call.
I’ll give the results because I am more concerned with whether or not I’m thinking correctly about where I’m at against his range. Also, I want you to have the results so you can advise me how you’d adjust playing against him the rest of the session.
He had 7h6h and I picked off his triple barrel.

If I am V, my range in LJ, 6 handed is about 50% of hands for a 3BB open, assuming I'm up against rec type players or unknowns. I'm going to play any pair, every suited A & K, A8o+, K9o+, Q9o+, any suited connectors all the way down to 45 and I'll play 23 once I know the table is typically tight, all one gappers 64+, and two gappers J8+. I am typically the loosest player at the table because in my home card room, almost everyone is OMC.

I'll tighten that down, perhaps substantially, if I find there are 3 bettors at the table who go wider than JJ. Typically i find that not to be the case, especially early in the session when they don't understand how wide I open.

Having had a chance to ID the player styles as the game progresses, all that might change hugely in either direction to opening ATC or only top 15%. If up against tricky players who use their position and chips, I'm not going to needlessly put myself into difficult spots.

The fact that he opened with 76s means he might open with top 45% of hands or conversely, he might open with only top 15% hands plus suited connectors down to 76. Some people, like me, love SC's. Use a range calculator to see what the difference is between those ranges and it is huge.

One hand early in the session is a good data point, but only one data point. Don't let it overly sway your judgment. Count the number of times he opens in EP to get a better estimate of opening range and relative tightness.

One of the mistakes I'm trying to get out of my game is that I assume a player doesn't change. If V is tricky, once he's shown you a particular bluff, he probably won't use it again that day vs you. The next time that V shows a 3 barrel vs you, you should give him credit for a better hand.

Flop: Way ahead of his range and check/call is standard to pick up c-bets.
Turn: His barrelling on a J is a bad sign but you are still ahead of his range and picked up a draw.
River: 8 is another bad card and he shouldn't be barreling air much. Your turn call indicates you have some part of a scary board. The 8 is more likely to help you then hurt because you have more 9X in your range then his UTG range.

This is only one hand so you need to be careful drawing any conclusions. I wouldn't really draw any firm conclusions from this but it certainly pushes the villain towards LAG. It may mean he is opening too many hands and barrels too much but it's dangerous to get that specific from one hand. And early in the session you have to watch for the common pattern of an opponent going on a bezerko bluff and showing it to make think he bluffs a lot.

I noticed the rest of the session he seemed to be purposely avoiding playing pots with me.

You sum up nicely my concerns while in the hand. He maintained aggression on a board that favors his range as the PFR, yet I’m not going anywhere. I figured it’s a WA/WB situation. Either he’s full of excrement, which he turned out to be, or he has me smoked with two pair or better. I just felt I had too much hand to fold for the price.

Harrington in HOC wrote about this years ago. Generally, players increase their bet size relative to the pot if they have a strong hand and shrink it with a weak hand across the streets. He stated that some % of the time, you need bluff catch some hands. He recommended that you pick the ones where there is not a consistent story. This fits that model.

As Quad J said, you want to see how he handles other hands before coming to a conclusion. I'd start off with thinking that bet size = hand strength. He probably likes to play a lot of hands, but isn't overly skilled. This style of play probably works well in his pool because a lot of people fold to a bet on the river.

I loved those books. Learned a lot. I miss seeing him on tv. He’s awesome.

A call seems very ambitious here. What evidence do we have that this villain has a ridiculous range? What evidence do we have that villain will barrel with no equity at all?

The only suspicious action this entire hand is that his turn size is bizarre. If he has a set or two pair or a 98 straight, why would he want to bet so small and give all sorts of hands in your range a shot to peel one?

River is a classic example of the difference between low and mid stakes. Against an online reg at 2/5 I’m either check raising or check folding, mostly check folding as the only value range I’d have in my range is K9. Live I think people aren’t going to value bet enough, which gives you an opportunity to make calls that are potentially exploitable like this (as against any sort of sane opponent, we’re basically hoping that they turn a hand like KJ into a bluff).

FWIW I do know a few strong players who will fire total air simply because people under defend on turns and rivers.


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Calling down is totally standard vs an unknown. As you build some history you can actually x/r this flop sometimes against difficult opponents who cbet a ton. Essentially it's for value and you want to reduce their cbet frequency.