Local 1-2 game. Hero has been playing only an hour or so. Table is not bad, a total spew fish just got hammered and left the table and the rest of the table is mostly rec/reg players. A few regulars and a few I have seen before but not played with often. Lots of limping pre and one loose reg trying to steal pots often and playing too many hands pre.


I wake up in UTG+1 with JJ (stack 300$), I open to 15, choosing a slightly larger sizing since there is lots of calling pre and I want to size up with my value hands because I am almost assured to get called by far worse at this table.

Folds around to V1 in the CO who 3bets to 45$ (285$) Folds back to me.

V is a young white guy with headphones and ball cap. I have played maybe one session with this guy before but not that much history at all. Seems like a decent player so far, not playing too man hands and haven't seen anything out of line from his thus far but I also have not got any info to let me think he is a great player.

Folds back to me and I think folding is a but weak here, I make the call planning to check all flops and evaluate his action on the flop.

Pot is 90$ and Flop comes Q95dd, I check, V checks.
Turn is an offsuit 10. I check, V bets 60$. I cannot fold here, with a good pair in my hand and picking up equity with the OESD. I think calling is the only option here.... I call.

Pot is 200$ on the river which comes another 9. No flush gets there.
I check again. V thinks for a few moments and shoves all in for his remaining 180$. Hero? Im inclined to fold but also I would expect bets from his over pairs on that flop? Should V be playing his AA and KK that strongly on river? Do we expect many bluffs in this spot? I can see him maybe playing his QQ this way, but also some AK and big diamond draws which he check and bet turn and bluff river. I do not have the Jd.

1-2 game. Early position big raise. And he re-raise you. Looks pretty strong to me.

Why call?
Any AKQ on flop.. we are afraid. Set mining odds don't look good.
Only thing we catch is a TOTAL bluff.
Any pair 99+ have us crushed. AK is the only viable bluff

Is a pre-flop decision. I would fold or re-raise pre to 125.

Ok well he is certainly polarized here; river is a complete brick , Feels like he is trying to take down pot with AK; I think he would bet the flop with AA or KK; he could have QQ here but that is only 3 combos; This boils down to the question of is this player capable of bluff shoving the river? you did take a passive line so this may have been induced; 3! ranges tend to be very narrow at 1/2 so u probly only beat AK here but at least there's 16 combos of it.

PF open was way too big. Don't size your opens to the strength of your hand. I would open to $6 or $8, no more.

And to the person advocating a preflop shove, don't be silly. I'd much rather shove with AK (which blocks AA and KK) than JJ (which blocks pretty much nothing that beats us). Our hand is too strong to merely setmine with, so we should call that 3bet (but be aware that the raise prices us out of setmining, and that's another reason not to open for so much).

On the turn, even assuming we can extract maximum value if we hit from out of position, pot + implieds are laying us 5.3:1. We have ~16% equity so we need 6.25:1 to turn a profit. The likelihood that the villain would do this with AK probably tips the balance towards a call, but if so, it's close.

On the river, our MDF is 53%. Do we really think JJ is in the top half of the range with which we reach the river like this? Against an unknown, we should fold. I would want a positive read that the villain bluffs too much before I called here.

I had adjusted all open raises to a larger size, I was not doing it based on hand strength, didnt mean to make it sound like I did that. 6-8$ would have had the entire table calling... There was also a fair amount of straddling on this table though not in this hand, so there was an overal more actiony vibe at the table..

The actual result was that I tanked and called and he tabled 10-9s for a boat. Was a bit surprised to see a light 3 bet here. Good info now noted on this villain.