1-3 Aria. History: I'm visiting vegas and played a session 2 days ago with V2. Next day I sign on to 2+2 and see a hand posted by V2 where I was on his direct right during the hand. He is a very experienced 2+2 poster in llsnl. I pm him to say Hi and tell him I will be at Aria today and to say hi if he can. He texts me and eventually ends up at my table. In the previous session we played about an hour and I played extremely nitty. We have been at this table for 3 hours and hero has been playing a fair amount of hands and usually good at showdown. My image is more to tag this session but may still be viewed as nit to v2. Villain is likely a professional or semi pro with tag image with strong poker ability. On to hand.

V1 has not been at table long. Not really relevant to hand. $250
V2 2+2er described above. $420
Hero $835

V1 calls in mp
Hero raises to $15 from sb KcKs
V2 checks BB out of turn not seeing my raise. After dealer points out raise he calls right away.
V1 calls

Flop 9c-2s-3h

Hero bets $25
V2 raises to $75
V1 folds
Hero calls.

Turn 7s

Hero checks
V2 bets $120

HERO???

At this point I am very confused mainly because he checked his bb out of turn. I can exclude 99 from his range as he is very likely to raise that hand (remember he checked thinking it was limped to bb). Only likely 2 pair hand is 2-3 suited. He could have straight draw and/or picked up flush draw ott with 4s5s. I do not know him well enough to know if he raises small pocket pairs pre flop oop. In the metagame I know he views me as a nit and he knows I know this. He also knows i'm leaving game soon to go to the airport and fly home.

2 pairs don't really exist.

This seems like 22/33 or a play. I'm probably folding without more info.

Weird spot, his value range is small and you can likely peel the turn and chf the river.

Tbh if he hasn't gotten out of line then get likely isn't getting out of line here and you can fold otf.

Now I really want to know who V is. This hand is so confusing.

I won't give him up. Maybe he will post a separate thread for the hand as hero - lol

I was V in this hand. Don't know if OP saw but for what it's worth I did have a hand earlier where I raised AQ to $15 after UTG limped, lead $22 on a 899 flop, UTG raised to $60, I 3b to $122 and UTG folded and I showed, not sure how that may have played into this one or not. Made a few other small 3b/cbets but was generally pretty card dead up to the point when this hand started, so there wasn't a ton of big hands going on. When I played against V the other day I did 3b him twice and took both down with a cbet, but different dynamics/stacks obviously.

Forgot to add I also had about $475 to start the hand not $420

Given that its wj94, this is a set. He flops almost as many sets as GG.

I take it you saw the OP as a donk because you raised on the flop with the Sahara of all dry boards.

OP, this is a common situation. You have to make a decision on the flop how you're going to play this. If you're going to fold on the turn or river, you need to fold to the raise on the flop. A good player is going to barrel the turn for sure, and possibly the river. If not, you call him down. Personally, I'd just move to another table. You need to be the best player at your table to win significant money and you're just not right at the moment.

When in doubt, raise.

Hey brian, alex here. Im either calling turn or jamming turn, depending on remaining stack size. Looks like wj said he had 475 back, so im kinda leaning towards calling and giving him some rope, if hes shown any 3barrel tendencies; but shoving is fine too since the turn brought in some draws.


Never folding though, since wj is a competent player, you are only losing to 33 22, of which there are 6 combos, and a discounted 99.

Also sometimes players will opt to slowplay sets on such a dry board texture, so we can discount his value range yet again.

Its also unlikely he has 97s, 4 combos and its further unlikely he would raise your cbet with another player behind to act with 97s

Haha that is not the reason why i'd raise...but it is a good situation to 3bet bluff the flop.

Instead of blindly raising when in doubt, one constructs a 3bet bluffing range on the flop, by using two overs or high equity hands,especially on these paired boards where the utg limper cannot rep much

Ok PF I wouldn't exclude 99 just because he checked out of turn. The play feels like a small-medium PP set mining. I think the sizing is fine given 1 limper.

OTF I would make it more like 35-40, there's 45 in the pot. V2s raise is a PSB, which makes ranging him tougher imo. If we cbet closer to 40 and get raised, we know we are most likely beat.

In this case his sizing is good, so I would float to the turn and look to b/f anything that doesn't complete a draw only if I am committed to barreling again. If I don't think my overpair is good or am considering c/f OTT I would just fold to the flop raise, nice hand.

Turn no one is ever slowing down after l/c PF, raising OTF.

As played I'm folding.

I think I like making it 125 on the flop instead of basically facing the same bet oop on the turn.

Alex, does the player checking his bb out of turn affect your decision? Do you range him any different because of this? The combo of the bb checking out of turn and then raising on this board which was as a poster said is "the Sahara of dry boards" - really confused me. It seemed like an unlikely time to make a move on me.

Also, do you think my flop bet of $25 looks like a weak C-bet to V if he views me as a donk? Would you consider this as a factor in deciding if he is "donk pushing". Or, is V more likely to push if I bet big and my hand is even more defined. Thanks

When he checks the bb out of turn we can immediately cut the top premiums out of his range. Whether or not that includes 99 depends on player tendencies, but most good players raise 99+ from the bb when there are 2 or less limpers.

Obv that means his range also includes 93 92 32 27 and all this other garbage, but when he calls your raise preflop we can cut most of the bottom of an ATC range out of his calling range, which means we are extremely unlikely to be up against two pair here.

Hes either got a set of 33 a set of 22, or its a bluff/semibluff. And im heavily leaning to it being a bluff/semibluff. The flop bet of $25 is ok since the pot should be $40-$45 depending on rake. However the question is does wj view the cbet as being small? Since most twoplustwoers would bet $40+ with an overpair here, since that is the prevailing advice (bet big when strong and small when bluffing) (which btw is bad against good players) its quite possible he's discounted overpairs from your range and is making a move.

So to answer your last question, i think villians are far more likely to make a move when they percieve your sizing as small.

Now when he continues on the turn hes likely picked up additional equity. Its up to you whether you want to shove now to protect your hand or if you think he'll continue bluffing brick rivers. And that depends on dynamics and stack sizes.


If he has a set here and you lose, chalk it up as a cooler. There's no way you can fold the top of your range here on this texture. Folding here is massively exploitable and basically means you only stack off with sets, which is too nitty.

first, its an error to assume someone is pro just because they have a high post count on 2p2, for a variety of reasons.

the major error in your play was that you clicked the "PM user" button instead of the "see user's posts" button and come to the table prepared to destroy his soul. lol

he knows that you know who he is so maybe he's just fooling around. but as a default you have to fold the flop unless you're prepared to call 3 streets off.

I don't really have any advice for the original hand that hasn't already been given (agree with venice: make your decision on the flop), but I strongly disagree with this part. I have had some of my best sessions as the second-best player at the table. To give just a single example, one of my all-time best sessions at 1/2 happened when I table-changed to follow the best player in the room. I did it because I saw him change to that table, and I trusted his game selection skills and took the next open seat. It turned out to be a great decision, as we took turns beating up on the other 8 players and avoided big pots with each other. (It didn't hurt that I got the best seat in the house--directly to his left, and 2 to the left of the main mark.)

In that spirit, though, here's what I'd say to the OP: if you are going to play with a player who you think is better than you, it's probably a bad idea to play big pots with him in a spot where he has an edge. In this case, when he raises the flop, he's representing a hand better than what you have (33/22 only) and he has position on you. If you think he's a better player than you, then almost by definition, you don't have reads that are good enough to counteract that edge. Fold the flop. In fact, working backwards, you might even consider checking the flop.

This is my thinking exactly, Perfectly put to words.

Regarding being best player at the table I am usually OK being the 2nd best if there are enough soft spots. This particular table had lots of good spots and was worth staying. I also find I can learn a lot by playing with better players. It can be short term -EV but long term it is +EV for the learning experience. If I was staying longer I would have moved tables as a budy of wj's moved to the table and it appeared I likely moved down another notch.

To finish up the hand after V bets the turn I decide I am going to continue with the hand and I am thinking thru do I flat and let him bet river or do I jam. While in the middle of these thoughts I remember how bad I have been running (my first real extended bring you to your knees negative variance streak) and I think about the fact that I am into this game deeper than usual and want to book a win. Next......my phone alarm bell obnoxiously goes off during the tanking process to alert me that it is time to cash out and head to the airport.

Having reached the threshold of having my brain explode I decide F***it, fold, cash out, and get my cab. Somebody was saved by the bell......

Given PF action and positioning, I lean towards bluff / semi-bluff as well. I'm not seeing most sets C/R that flop. As played, I'm C/Cing turn.

My friends in the 4 and 9 seats are both very solid $30+/hr winners at 1/2 and 1/3, both tough to play against OOP especially when deep-stacked. Game revolves around the 8 seat since even when he's not in a hand he's still driving the action and influencing the game, people playing wider ranges, raising and 3b lighter than they normally might, so any time he is in the game you don't want to table change. Even if the rest of the table is full of solid players the game will be amazing. Usually there are 3-6 people on the table change list at Red Rock to get to his table because the games are so good. Still good playing with you, and nice smash on the quad deuces.

Almost the only thing that matters in this hand is where we are sitting, and nothing else is even remotely close. Wtf, we're sitting with 140bbs to the right of probably the only guy at the table that knows what he is doing? Seat change.

I would have raised more preflop to setup a better SPR against V1. Is $25 too out-of-line at your table? Even though it's definitely on the big side at mine, it's not insanely big. So I'd go ~$25.

We are now in a pretty gross spot thanks to our seat position. I hate building a huge pot OOP to a good player who is not shortstacked. Our hand isn't that vulnerable on this drawless board, so I attempt to keep the pot small by simply checking. I'm pretty happy if it checks around.

As played, what was our plan? Just call the check/raise OOP and hope for the best? We are building a big pot OOP to a good player. This is a no win situation. I probably just fold now to limit the damage.

Gseatchange,everythingelseisirrelevantG

ahahahahaha! That was me he beat with quad deuces! Which seat were yo in? I was in the 2 seat and changed tables soon after that, as the table quickly go full of regulars.

I was in the 7 seat. Didn't see how the whole hand went on the quad deuces, but it definitely looked like a boat minimum. Recap?