Late Sunday at Horseshoe Baltimore.

Villain is a black dude in his 20s. Loose passive for the most part. Only hand of interest that involved him and hero was about an orbit ago when hero raised in EP, he called in MP, an old woman squeezed from BTN for 5x the open, hero folds face down and villain open mucks JJ. He starts with $353.

Hero is a white guy in his 20s. Tight aggressive. Only hands I've shown down so far are KK and AA. Up to a stack of $1000 in 2 hours, so winning image.

On to the hand.

Limp from EP, hero raises to $15 in HJ with A Q, CO folds, villain calls on BTN, blinds fold, limper folds. $33 in pot after drop.

Flop A K J. Hero checks, villain quickly checks back.

Turn A K J J. Hero bets $20, villain thinks for three seconds and calls. $73 in pot.

River A K J J A. Hero thinks for four seconds and bets $50. Villain announces all-in for another $268. Hero ???

I see this as a fairly interesting probability question. We lose to one combo of QT and one combo of JJ, and both of those combos would be a bit oddly played. If villain has Ax and puts hero on a hand like JT/QJ, then it would make sense for him to shove the fourth nuts (effectively third nuts since Ax knows the second nuts is unpossible) to try to get value from those hands. If he thinks there's some chance he can get me off a chop when he has A3, then that seems rational as well. Assuming he isn't doing this as a spazz out with some losing combos in his own range, we need to chop this pot over 76% of the time in order for this to be a +EV call. Do we see him having Ax 80% of the time when he does this, or is he going to turn over quads or a royal often enough to make this a bad call?

You're also beat by AK, which I think he has in his flatting range if he is flatting JJ. So if he flatting all suited aces and AT you lose to 5 combos and beat 14. You only new two more combos to make it a call and the range I gave is probably a bit tight for a button overcalling range, so its probably a call.

Snap call..... If he has the Royal, or the quad jacks, than Nice hand, but the odds are so minuscule of him having either, snap, hope he had trip jacks and was trying to scare you, but most likely, it's a chop.... but 0% chance I'm folding that for $200 something more....

Edit: realized after I typed this AK also would beat you... I guess that's where you have to go with your reads on the player, but same thing, for only $200, I'm still snap calling, but if it was $500+, I would have to sit back and think, and go with my gut.... but for only $200, if they got me beat, so be it.

i'm calling, but yeah it's not a great spot. recs at ssnl play irrationally enough to add a healthy spazz factor in situations like this.

why didn't you bet the flop?

Flop is a pot control check to x/c a reasonable bet. I'm out of position and I have a hand that is decent but not fantastic. I have TPTK in a spot where villain can have a decent amount of two pair combos as well as the occasional flopped straight, and I have a gutshot but not the flush draw. I would prefer to keep the pot smaller for later streets and give the villain a chance to think my hand is weaker than it actually is so that he can bluff or overvalue a weaker hand.

To put it a different way, I'm not going to be thrilled if I bet the flop and get raised, so checking the flop is an option that allows me to avoid that scenario.

Wow, I can't believe I didn't notice this when I started the thread. Good point.

Thank you all for the responses so far. NHTPA, thanks for bringing up the notion of deeper stacks. I should have added that in the OP, that this really becomes interesting when we consider that scenario. If he was betting $500 more it would also change the math considerably, since I would then need to chop 86% of the time rather than 76% to break even on a call.

One thing I forgot to mention that may also support the counter argument:

Live read: Villain acted fairly quickly. He turned to the dealer and is overly deliberate in enunciating, "I am all in." He just seems very comfortable about the situation....although he had seemed pretty relaxed throughout the session.

Too many Ax in his range and not enough AK. Cry call and be upset when he shows AK.

The live read is definitely helpful, but probably not enough to get away in this spot. They overplay Ax here too much. Seen loose passive people turn KJ into a bluff here before as well thinking they were value betting. If he ever gets goofy with a flush here thinking you have a jack. It just makes it even more of a snap call.

He probably doesn't understand what Ax hand checks flop.

Never folding to that bet size.
I expect to see a weak ace most of the time for a chop, but fair chance he plays a random J that way more often than showing up with AK or JJ.

I think a spazz with a J or flush is more likely than JJ or the royal. AK would suck but I'm not ever folding here.

ETA: I gotta discount AK a bunch too because even a loose passive is going to bet top two on such a wet board.

Bet about $20 on the flop to get value from worse Ax. I would plan to check most turn cards. I suppose the check/bet line is fine. I prefer bet/check because we're probably only getting one street of value from worse and the board is already ugly.

I hate the river bet. We're only targeting Jx, which should have raised the turn. The As limits the number of flushes out there. Very few flushes call a double paired board anyway. We're mostly chopping or losing to AK. There is very little value from a bet. Don't bet non-nut boats on double paired boards. If you think he calls with any Jx, I'd rather just shove the river than make a small bet, unless we plan to bet/fold

Call river. Btw what stakes is this?

I like a bet for value on the river all day. Flushes can call, not being a believer, straights, Jx, a hero from Kx and I expect to get raised from Ax, some spazzed flushes turning hand into bluff *small %* same with Jx, and even a a straight might spazz some small %.

Most of the raises are going to be chops and rarely behind.

Sucks when we get raised and get owned but it's far and between, especially given the action on all streets.

Can't be scared to get value because you're afraid to get raised.

I like V's all-in though, I'm doing that with any hand I'm raising on river.

This is a 1/3 game.

Yeah, this surprised me a bit. It was almost as if he had heard of Zeebo Theorem.

considering villain flatted JJ earlier and open folded it to a 3bet I would consider folding AQ here. That sort of player seems like he might just call the river bet with Ax rather than raise. It seems really close to me. Theres like 0% chance we win the hand outright. we've put in enough money at this point we probably have to call though. since he checked back in position on the flop does he really have JJ or AK? not likely.

Thanks, Rich, for being willing to take the contrarian position.

As you point out, the thing that made me hate life after his shove was the sense that I was prob playing for a chop rather than a win considering his passive nature, body language in the hand, and the fact that he hadn't done anything particularly stupid that day other than having the standard gigantic gap between VPIP and PFR percentages.

While I now concede that the decision is more trivial for this raise size, if we were both 500bb deep it would make the call very tough. I would need to get the chop a much higher percentage of the time, and a competent opponent could take advantage to represent the absolute nuts and push the OOP player off a chop while holding Ax...someday I might try to use this information if I find myself with Ax with this runout in position HU, and I hope that isn't the moment that the OOP player randomly decided to check the flop with the hands I'm trying to rep.

Given the way the hand was played, I think you can rule out JJ and AK. So, you really only lose to one combo. Even really deep it probably a trivial call.

I don't know...if villains were aggressive and logical all combos could be ruled out since he should want to put in some kind of bet to build a pot on the flop when he flops broadway with a redraw. I don't know what the thought process is. Could be along the lines of, "This guy is winning and I don't want to lose money so I'm not initiating any action unless I have a lock."

If I'm sitting in villain's shoes with A3 I guess it would be hard for me to represent nuttish hands to observant opponents since they should know that I don't get to this spot with the first, second, or third nuts. It would have to be different circumstances, but it has got me thinking a bit more about spots in which pushing your opponent off a chop for 27bb could be possible.

Axel, you have to call xD

Haha.

Yeah, I've been trying to push a discussion, but that might be painting a false impression of how I reacted in game.

Results:

Hero shrugs, looks at the board, throws out a red chip.

Villain tables Q T.

Hero notices that the river was in fact a spade.

Hero drives home and starts to wonder if I'm ever winning, or if I'm chopping at best and not chopping often enough.

But yeah, after this discussion I'm convinced a call is trivial for $268 and only becomes a tougher decision with much deeper stacks.