V1: Young dude buys in for 400, max is 500. Carries himself well enough, holds chips properly, can do stupid chip tricks, but he puts his bets out like he's asking a question. He did some fishy stuff. Played a bit fit or fold post flop - calling raises and just rolling over to pressure. Limps. Limp folds etc. He limp folded vs my BU/CO raises more than once. When he bets he's a little nervous looking. Feel like he won maybe 1 pot and has limp/called then folded his way back to his initial 400 BI.

My image is LAGy today. Im pretty social at the table, I make conversation etc. I look youngish - out of college but not MAWG. Dressed pretty norm core: black hat, navy blue shirt. Ive been putting back drinks like its my job and I have been very active pre flop raising and 3betting a loose/bad opener two to my right. Villain has seen me raise or squeeze out the blinds at least twice already.

I have no reason to expect him to get out of line vs me necessarily - he's basically rolled over to my aggression thus far, but I consider there is a non-zero chance that part of my current assessment is incorrect and he's not fit or fold just running bad/whiffing flops etc (lol sample size). Granted if I were playing me I'd start to try to find some spots to see some pots with intent to take them away post flop w/ a slightly wider range than I would other players given the frequency with which I was opening.

V1 is BU, Im immediately to his left.

Folds to V1 who makes it 10. I look down at AdKc take a few moments and then make it 45.

BB folds, BU flats.

($93) 9s 5d 2h
Hero bets 50

Even though this board seemingly connects w/ BU range fiarly well, he doesnt connect that strongly that often. I think I scoop a good amount of time here so I decided to bet.

Dude tanks for a few then finally min raises to 100.

Here's my thoughts: God bless him if he min raises a set here, that just seems silly though, even for an average to decent player. If he has a set, hes going to call and get value from all the over pairs I am repping. he knows I can barrel. The only thing I can conceive is he's looking for me to spaz shove my entire range. However, sets are still only a portion of his range at this moment (and unlikely given action + likelihood he is trying to induce isnt that high in my estimation)

He can be raising with something like TPTK or a pair 22+ to "see where he's at". But hands that makes the most sense are simply suited connectors around the 9 that have BD potential and maybe some other pairs that he decided to turn into a bluff (T8s, JTs, QJs, QTs, J8s etc) or something like 34s.

I still don't understand minraising with most of these though on the flop as he has to assume I'm not folding anything I 3bet and then bet the flop with.

If I have a big pair here, I'm not jamming and I'm not folding to a min raise, I'm probably calling down w/ JJ+ or checking turn and betting irver so I flat. Additionally, I can still take it away on turn if I want to donk but I honestly have some decent SDV here too.

($293) 9s 5d 2h 8c
Hero checks, villain checks

Hits his range more than mine, terrible card for me to try to bluff at so I check. I guess i should ask: if I'm trying to rep an overpair is there ever a reason to donk?

River ($293) 9s 5d 2h 8c 3x
hero checks, villain checks

After turn checks thru I figure I'm probably good some % of the time. Im wondering if I should be firing river . I would usually bet/fold a river like this with most of what I want to rep.

I'm open to thoughts about any decision point in the hand. Particularly what the **** the min raise says. Generally I treat min raises for what they are- weak bets for weak holdings. However today I'm very active and aggressive so there is a non-zero chance someone is trying to induce. I just dont see any sense in coming over the top - if I have AA and shove do i ever really get called by worse?

Pre flop sizing I will add that I can make this larger but he only has ~400 so 4.5x'ing seems sized fine to me. Additionally, if I'm playing looser like i was today, I'll be raising a little wider in some spots so I'd rather keep my raise sizes lower. I want value but I dont want him to fold everything but the top of his range here, I have the pre flop nuts - i wanna keep some dominated **** in.

What are the stakes? I'll assume 2/5 I guess (but it's kinda weird to see an open min raise).

Preflop is fine; we could argue about sizing but it's a small point.

I don't particularily love betting flop here; especially not for >1/2 pot. I'd consider checking or betting smaller (like 1/4).

As played just fold flop to the min raise.

As played rest of the hand looks fine

This hand is confusing. Who/what is BU - did you mean BTN? What spot is V in? Please present the hand properly

BU is obviously his shorthand for BTN. Also, hero states, "V1 is BU, Im immediately to his left".

The min-raise is probably an overpair or 9x seeing where he's at.

Preflop raise size is on the high side already, no need to go higher.

read the stickies, there's one for abbreviations that will help you out.

**** sorry everyone - this was at a 1/3 game with a 100-500min/max buy in structure.

Maybe Venice or Garrick can edit title if its worth while.

So against this particular V, i think im gonna probably jus let him have one until he makes it a habit. when youre running over the table you sometimes just gotta fold even when youve got decent holdings and he may well be bluffing.

I have one breakevenish seeming reg at my 1/3 game who loves this move on dry boards, he will minraise ANY cbet with atc on rainbow boards, i saw him do it severla times to other rando people who cbet regularly, so i blew him off his bluffs with big 3 bets two hands in a row, and the rest of the night he just folded to my cbets lol (havent sat with him since i did this cuz i moved up in stakes)

Calling flop is obviously not bad since its 25% of pot and youve got overs, and id be elated with his turn check, and lemme guess, he turned over 87 or 86 for the flopped gutshot turned mid pair?

I think your line is pretty good, i probably wouldve just folde dthe AK cuz of the ROI since i cant even confidently bet when i do manage to hit top pair.

My fault - stakes are 1/3 and yeah min raise would be weird, tho online i minraise in bu vs blinds when it folds to me.

Why so small on flop though? I know its becoming pretty de riguer to use small flop bet sizing to keep continuing ranges wide & this board is super dry/disconnected - however I'm still looking to make a bet that carries some FE. I'm not in terrible shape vs the range that sees the flop w/ AKo but if I can 1/2 pot it and dude sighs gives me credit for a pair and folds I'm pretty stoked.

Also my range for 3betting vs LP raise is pretty wide so I do have all sets in there: [22+, 45s+, T8s+, J8s+, Q8s+, K8s+, A2s+, KQo+, AQo+] - sometimes wider or sometimes tighter depending on opponents/table


i want to address this but will do so after my next question

When V1 checks backs turn without much thought (in other words, seemingly resignging to just check to get to showdown), is betting the river absolutely terrible here? Earnest question but here are my thoughts:

The only reason I dont like betting the river would be vs a decent player who is going to sigh call w/ 1 pair ~all the time.

V1 can improve to 2 pair w/ that river sometimes and 67 gets there now but as far as a range assessment, I cant shrink it down from my position of SB and Im wondering if betting river in my position is practically mandatory.

As far as teh min-raise, why do you think we should be folding to the min raise there so easily? It just reps nothing or makes absolutely no sense as indicated.

Add to that my current understanding of the villain is probably in line w/ something like: long term break even/losing player, probably better than his friends in home games, has played on the internet, has read strat, doesnt understand how to implement most of the strat he reads.

In other words, is it likely he makes an awful bet w/ a strong hand here? Yeah, non-zero possibility; but once he checks back turn, why dont i have carte blanche to bet/fold now?

edit: just thinking a bit more - the 8 does improve a lot of the holdings around the 9 i was giving him though so meh but still why check back turn? Are we/me still worried about being trapped by a stronger hand here/Villain attempting to induce? Is that the concern?

So what I see the crux of your confusion here is that you think villain is a decent player but he minraised. That minraise should erase any doubt in your mind that he's decent. He's a fish. This is what fish do, they minraise the nuts to milk you for value. Because he's a fish he doesnt take into consideration possible board runouts, your hand range, whether or not he could get outrdawn or if absolutely nothing worse calls him. He has a set so he's minraising to get some more out of you, it really is that simple.

you read the whole hand? you check back a set two streets IP?

No i didnt read the whole hand but if he starts checking out of position then this is also just typical fishy fancy play syndrome. He thinks he's got you so he needs to bust out all the tricks to win your stack.

When we bet flop for 50 I think we isolate his range too much and while it's nice when he folds literally anything except Ax/Kx we accomplish the same denial of equity with a small bet. Also I think 50 might fold out hands like Ax/KQ which might float for a much smaller bet like $25; when we do turn an A and he has an A we're likely to get 3 streets or maybe even stacks which is amazing. I think checking is good as well. If we were to use only one bet size like 1/2 pot then I imagine it's a mixed strategy and we should check sometimes with AK and bet sometimes.

I'm folding to the min raise cause I think his weird range looks kinda like 9x, 5x maybe 66-88, TT-JJ and some weird random **** which includes some small amount of sets. I think the weird random **** is less likely tbh. If he's got a pair we have 24% equity OOP and I don't expect to get much value in later streets (if he's got a 9 or TT etc and we bink a K or A are we really gonna get paid?); I think it's unlikely he's min-raising hands like AJ where we can expect to get paid off on multiple streets if an A peels. Not to mention the very small amount of time he does have a set we're drawing dead.

I imagine call vs fold is pretty close in EV but meh. There's just no run out that doesn't include A or K that we're happy about and even if the turn is an A and he bets we call, river is a brick and he jams we're not in a great spot either but of course we're gonna call.

I'd only call flop if you think he's likely to only minraise 9x type hands with some random other **** like QJ/AT or w/e and then check back turn unimproved (cause he "saw where he was" with the flop raise).

As played river I'm not sure what you expect him to fold that's worse if you bet; just cause you know that you would play TT+ like this and bet river (which I think is good) I don't think he's going to perceive you to play TT+ like that.

Yeah - I definitely take a line as a bluff that I would never take with a value hang against opponents who dont read hands well/understand lines well (ie raise the min raise which i would most likely never do that often in this situation) but like you said you were able to do this because you had solid evidence to support the conclusion. I was goin on simply spidey sense tingling.

At 1/3 I think we can confidently bet fold rivers often, especially against the face up recreational types.

He showed me A5o which kind of blew my mind as I just dont get what exactly he was trying to accomplish shrug emoji. I just started to 3bet him to iso pretty much every chance i had after that. Unfortunately ran a Khigh flush into the Ahigh flush two times so i picked up and left before i started tilt spewing.

hey sorry - that came off a bit harsher than i intended when i read it twice, wasnt trying to be snarky - it was earnest questions.

Fishy FPS fits my eventual overall estimate of him as a player tho

I guess I might be overestimating how often he folds to a psb considering when he checks back turn, he can still have some monsters but I can fold to any jam.

In other words if I pot river, I imagine he folds out those PP ranges that dont set up, any 9x that got silly and obviously other non pair holdings and jams w/ sets and the occasional 67 that got there but played it super weird.

Perhaps I should be discounting my estimation on FE vs the PSBs. He didnt seem like the "shrug call" type as indicated above, which is also why I did flat min raise.

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As for < 1/2 pot bet - i like this line of logic, i wasnt even analyzing it like that. Thank you for the explanation

You're welcome

I've seen this line with middling overpairs (TT-QQ in this case) so often that I just assume that's what they've got until they've shown me an ability to play other hands this way. I don't mind the flop barrel based on your description, but I fold to the min raise here. This is an example of Koss's holdem rule #134 - People overplay weaker overpairs. I don't know how many times I've seen people stack off with JJ vs an OMC with a 1% PFR who just 3-bet them and board comes 9 high. They have AA EVERY TIME yet folding an overpair is just IMPOSSIBLE for them.

In this case, I've ready your results, and instead you've invoked Koss's holdem rule #84. They put you on AK.

Like others have said, I like the smaller bet OTF here. He's never folding a better hand for $50 here, but will likely fold all of his whiffs for $35.

Ok so when he turns over A5o hopefully you recognize now that whatever read you had on him is out the window. This guy is just randomly clicking buttons at this point. When he minraised i said we knew he was a fish without needing a showdown, well now you have positive confirmation he is you can adjust accordingly, which is just hitting TP and betting all 3 streets.