Hero: hero is sitting on around $600 and hasn't been involved in many notable hands since villain has sat down.

Villain: villain is running pretty hot, came into the game with around $700 and was probably sitting around $1300 at the time. He was late 20s and after talking to him he had told me he was from NY and in town to play a 2k buy in tournament over the weekend. He said his flight was leaving the next day and 2/5 was full so he was playing 1/3. He seemed to be pretty good, was definitely aggressive when he was in pots. He had also lost a decent sized pot the hand before on a pretty sick cooler.

Now to the hand..

Pot has one limper and action is to the villain in the cutoff. He raises to $15.

Hero on the the button looks down at Kh8h. The villain had been stealing pots from late position with a variety of hands and I felt like I was mostly beating his range at this point and I had position. I decided to put in a loose call. Everyone else folds.

Flop ($37): Ah3hQh

Villain continues for $20.

Hero: well this is the best flop we could have seen. I'm crushing everything in this spot so I put in a call.

Turn ($77): Ax

Villain bets $45.

Hero probably could have raised at this point, but I decided to put in a call. Looking back I think I would have raised here.

River ($167): 9h

Villain bets $55

Hero????

I'd say this is a mandatory raise, seeing as you've under-repped your hand a lot by calling the turn. His 1/3 pot sizing makes me feel like hes going for some super thin value with a hand like an A with no kicker. I'd say click it back for like just over a min raise, maybe like 130. If he 3 bets the river I think you can make a fold if its a large sizing, but for a regular sized 3 bet i think you have to close your eyes and call against this type of player. I also agree that you should have raised the turn, to charge Ax hands to draw to their boat, but I don't think calling is horrible either.

I would have raised the flop, but I like nut-flush draws. I don't think he can re-raise us w/o a very strong hand.

Turn is OK.

What do you expect to call a raise on the river? Are you willing to call a shove? If not, just flat; if so, raise him.

Remember, if he's really good, he should know that you didn't flop two pair or a set (at least you didn't play it as if you did), and he might be able to raise the river w/o the nuts, which is fine if you are willing to gii. However, I'm not willing to gii on a paired board.

We should have raised somewhere in the hand, just not sure where. Probably flop.

Would hate to raise river and get shoved on which is a good possibility. Hate it, but I just flat river AP.

K8s is at the bottom of the top 27% of all starting hands. So V opens in the CO with over 54%?

I would have raised because another kills the action.

Agree. It's hard to turn a boat & another kills the action.

You can bet/fold, hoping he has the Q & can't fold it. However, the Q goes with ace X, you said he's good & plays what 55% of all starting hands in the CO?. He now has 3 ways to have aces full......

I would play it conservatively against a good player & call. I would expect, that since he's a tournament player, down from N.Y., that he'd be able to read me.

I agree I should have raised. I feel like the turn is the best spot but I still don't love it. He probably has 3 aces. The whole hand is just weird.. When he continues on the river the worst he could have is 3 aces.

I know the call pre flop was loose but is it that bad? He's opening like 60% of the time from this spot. I feel like I'm ahead a lot of the time. And I have position.

If we're convinced the blinds and limper are going to fold preflop (not something I would ever be convinced of in my loose game), then I guess I can't hate too much on preflop (assuming our plan is to steal a lotta pots postflop against a likely wide range). But is this really where our money is in this game, playing the best guy at the table (albeit in position)? Meh, I just fold. ETA: Whether our hand is ahead preflop is almost irrelevant if our plan is to simply float a cbet and then steal the pot on the turn when he checks.

I raise the flop. We have a huge hand and we want to build a big pot, and the best way to do that is to raise. If he has junk or a weak hand, there's a good chance he might be done with the hand as soon as we continue anyways. So let's just target the times he doesn't have a complete junk hand.

Difficult turn, imo. If the best player at the table is willing to get in $600 stacks against us on this board, he has us beat. So I'm not exactly pumped about raising the turn and playing for stacks, although admittedly most Ax hands will probably continue for a raise trying to boat up. I'm also fine with letting him barrel air if that's part of his range. I'd lean to flat at this stage, but I might be too passive like that.

Another interesting river spot, imo. He's a good player that knows that any Kh beats everything he has (including trip Aces as wells as Jhx); he's good enough to not call a raise with those. But is he good enough to put us to a sick test by shoving over any raise we do? With this in mind, I think I just flat again. The more hurp durp payoff stationy your opponent is / incapable of a sick bluff or overvalue shove with worse, the more you can raise; but this ain't that guy, right?

GcluelessNLnoobG

Well, if he's opening 60%, then you're at the bottom of the top 1/2 of his range. Not so bad but you're only better than maybe 56%-59%. And you have position! However, position loses a helluva' lot of it's value when you are the one doing the calling.

Also I really don't think I'm ever gonna raise the flop.. I think he is cbetting most of the time here. If I raise I'm mostly repping two pair or at worst top pair with a strong kicker. That's going to get most hands to fold. If he has an ace I have him crushed. So there really isn't much risk in letting another card peal off.

Interesting. I'm more likely to call (although I almost always fold this hand) if I think the blinds will come along (and won't 3bet light). I need to nail my hand to continue, and I want as much money in there as possible. Of course, I can get away from top pair here and am only continuing with big hits. I consider nut flush draw a pretty big hit here.

Unless he's fond of double barrelling air (which admittedly he might be), with junk he's mostly done with the hand anyways, so don't worry that most hands will fold. We're simply targetting the times he *does* have a hand, and there are easily some hands that will continue here, and we want to get some money in before a scare card drops (of which there are 17 if you count all flush cards and board pairing cards).

Gflopisthebestspotforaraiseinthishand,imoG

People bet a monotone flop HU all the time; it doesn't mean they flopped a flush. Your V bet into it; it doesn't mean he has a flush & we know he doesn't have the K, so what's he betting here? AxJ Air? JThh? You play made hands aggressively, you get to play not so made hands aggressively later, so long as you are a "good sport" and show him the nut flush when he folds. The time to slowplay the flopped nut flush is when your opponent knows you're aggressive & would bet it along with not so made hands.

The blinds were a few older guys who were pretty tight and short. They had been folding to his stealing raises all night.. Didn't think there was much of s chance they were playing. The limp was a business man who was in town, first time playing at a casino. He was limp folding almost every hand.

I hear you on the flop raise. I don't know. It didn't feel like the right play. I felt like I had sucked the air out of the deck. And I felt like if he had AXs maybe a raise gets him off that?

Yeah, I guess two ways to look at this.

1) Hope we go very multiway and just ~nutmine against the world. Although our relative position (directly behind the raiser) sucks. Although, honestly, I typically dump Kxs even in LP now unless against some real postflop ******s, as I just don't think it has nearly as much value as Axs.

2) Hope we go HU against a wide range raiser and hope the times we make a better hand + the times we steal the pot is profitable. Stealing the pot often will be necessary to make this play profitable (I certainly hope we're not simply banking on making a better hand), and that will be far easier to do HU.

GcluelessNLnoobG

He definitely was capable of double barreling. He was super deep and our table was very nitty. He had done it a few times. But I hadn't been in many action spots since he got there so I didn't know what he thought of me? I didn't think it would be too strange for the turn to brick and he barrels.

Agree, but not against the best player at the table.

Granted we are both preaching because we both would have folded in the first place!

Yeah I typically would fold this. I called for reasons I stated and I had just watched him get coolered the hand before. Definitely thought he was raising light out of frustration. But idk. I agree this probably wasn't the best player to make the play against.

I mean, sure, there will be times a raise will prevent his double barrel, or when he makes a good fold of a hand most would continue with (another reason for not playing against the best player at the table). And perhaps some of that has to be taken into account here in this spot.

But in general, when you have a big hand you'll want to build the pot ASAP so that overall you get in more when he has a hand willing to get in more. The exceptions to this (i.e. when slowplaying is fine) are (a) when remaining stacks are so lol small that we can get them in whenever we want easily and/or (b) not a lotta scare cards to slow down action (and both of these don't apply here).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Well, if you're at a nitty table & haven't shown the type of aggression that he has, he has most likely put you in the nitty camp with the other players. So, he either believes you have a good flush, or, he thinks you call down with a weak flush & he has the J or he boated up. However, he's good so he's not barreling with nuttin', right?

I find it hard to believe, that OTR, he didn't have you sized up as being strong. Not if he's a good traveling $2K tournament player, or his ego got in his way......and he thought he could let it get away in this chicken feed nitty 1/3NL game.

Anyways the results:

Hero decided to call... villain had A10 was shocked that I had a flush actually. Hero takes it down.

You sure he was shocked that you had a flush, or that you just called OTR with the nut flush?

I would probably 3 bet pre.

The reason youd be calling here is to play IP deepstacked so you can float him OTF with weak holdings like a backdoor and an over. Like you could call him on a 973r with a h flop. 6/T gives you OESD, H gives you a FD, K gives you top pair, 5/J gives you a gutshot, so most of the deck gives you something OTT. Even if you airball the turn, he probably checks plenty of air, and you bet and take it down.

These are the two disadvantages I see:
1) blinds/limper are likely to come along, which hurts your floating opportunity, because youre effectively getting squeezed on his flop Cbet.
2) youre likely facing someone who is better than you, and you dont seem to have many reads as far as whether he is double barrel bluffing regularly (in which case youd raise flop with bluffs and float less often) for example.

To me, this seems like a 3 bet, especially if you havent 3 bet him yet, but I will say that you should also seriously consider just letting it go if you arent willing to take some learning pains, because if you dont know how to play light 3 bet hands, it may end up costing you, but flip side, its the only way to learn.

on to the flop... RAISE. The great thing about raising this flop is that you could be doing it with just Kh, or just an A. On monotone boards you need to protect strong hands like sets and 2p so you can be raising with all sorts of value as well as all sorts of bluffs and semi bluffs. You should be raising monotone boards a lot.

On the turn... OMG RAISEEEEEE! if he has trip A, youre getting his stack, he may well have a FH, but if you raise and he ships (or calls and ships river), you can just fold.

River... I mean, I guess call? Raise might be a value bet, but only because you played it so poorly to this point that you may well be getting a call from trip A. I have no idea what to do OTR becuase you played it so poorly I dont think the answer is particularly important.

you played this like a passive fish. You called, called, called and called, just like the fish do.