Before I get into the hand I just wanted to thank everybody that takes their time to post here on this site. A lot of you guys have helped me tremendously and then a small amount of you are just terrible but I love you anyway. Over the past 8 months I have played only 1/2 regularly and have built myself a nice roll to move up to 1/3.

Wednesday night 1/3 casino is full of mainly regulars. After about 4 hours I can say that 1/3 played no different then 1/2 obviously just bigger stacks, but as far as player skill there wasn't much difference.

2:00 am and a 2/5 game breaks that is full of really solid players. That game you see a 3 bet every other hand and a ton of isolation. Very aggressive solid players play 2/5 at my casino and obviously fish with deep pockets

v2- 2/5 regular and sits with the max (500$). I have never played with villain before but I get the vibe that he is solid since he sits in the 2/5 game all the time. First hand he plays he squeezes from the BTN and takes the pot down.

Reason for all this pre talk is because I cant tell if I overthought this hand since I moved up stakes (it had nothing to do with money). Did I give this villain to much credit????

OTH 7 handed Parx Casino

v1- utg limps $3

Hero- utg+1 QQ makes it $15 Eff-$800

v2- Btn calls $15 Eff-$600 this v is the 2/5 player

v3- sb calls $15 ( total fish ) $220

v1- utg calls $15

Pot= $63

Flop- J 9 3

v3- donks out $25

v1- folds

Hero- raises to $75 (v3) roughly has $160 behind

v2- flats the $75 This is the 2/5 reg When this villain flats us from the button does anyone else's warning bells go off? Can we argue check the turn if v3 calls? If v3 goes all in do we ship?

v3- calls $75

v2- What is the villains range? He's been TAG all night (AJ KJs 99 JJ 33 we block KQ Q10) maybe but I doubt it the occasional K10 suited with the gutshot and backdoor flush draw.

Do we check the turn?????

Pot= $288

Turn- 6

v3- checks

Hero- checks .... Thoughts????? Bad play????

v2- bets $130

v3- goes all in for just a little more

Hero- ?????? if we call and the river is a blank what do we do on the river if he bets like $250

You have 2 choices at this point. Fold or crai. Im fine with either. It all depends on your gut (ability to read people). Hands like this separate the men from the boys.

ok but explain why calling isn't an option

Calling is an option but IMO not a good one OOP like this. The pot will be over $700 and effective stacks will be $370 on the river. There will be a dry sidepot and you will have no idea if you are ahead or behind on the river. You have no idea whether or not this 2/5 reg has the balls to shove on the river as a bluff so you wont know what to do on the river.

The odds are that that V3 fish has a J and you have him crushed. Id much rather crai and put V2s head in a vice and him being the one playing the guessing game instead of me.

Hes not folding hands like QT, or big draws like 8c7c, Tc8c ect. Not to mention playing a hand like this puts the fear of God into people and they will think twice about betting when you check next time.

So as I said, I soul read him and fold or crai.

+1

From a purely strategic point of view, this might be a pretty good time to leave the game. You're deep and a whole bunch of solid players have sat down at the table; not exactly seeing where we are printing money.

Before I raise preflop, I'm always super aware of who is on the Button. I'm not loving the fact that a solid player is on the Button and we're deep against him. Do we want to build a bloated pot deep OOP to this guy? The fact that we happen to have QQ (our equity!!!) is almost irrelevant in this case. Just something to consider, imo.

I'd probably just flat the donk by the fish. The person we should be tailoring the hand around is the deep good player who has position on us, not the shorter fish we have position on. If Button folds the flop, we'll have lots of time to target fishes stack. But until then, we should not be building a huge pot OOP to the Button. And yes, warning bells should be going off when he flats our raise. This is pretty much a better hand or QT/T8 (and that's a pretty speculative call with action re-opened and a big bet so draws really should be discounted here).

With the fish trapped in the hand, I don't think the Button is getting out-of-line here. If he shows up with lol AJ, he's not nearly as good as we think he is. I nit check/fold the turn.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Your hand strength is fairly obvious and if V2 is good he didn't cold call a gutshot OTF, and I think draws take a free card OTT when the SB should be calling just about any bet, rather than making a less than 1/2 pot bluff that has a near 0% chance of working. You also block the hell out of the only draw. You are hoping he plays AJ this way, and I don't see it. His line reaks of pure value trying to stack 2 players with a nutted hand. I'm folding the turn (yuck) and moving on. If he shows down a weak hand, good for him, we learned he overvalues whatever he had.

Very important and good point GG- when to leave a game, and having the self insight to gauge when its indeed time to leave a game is something we dont discuss enough on this forum.

Its an underrated skill as well.

this is a great point
late night/ early am
tables break
players leave
new players come in
whole table dynamic changes
you need to be very aware of this
if someone you feel is a better/tougher player has position on you
might be a good time to pick up
"GAME SELECTION!!!!!!"

I mean, there are arguments for staying in the game (experience against good players to improve our game, for the pure love of the game, etc.). But from a purely eye-on-your-winrate perspective, I'm at the very least looking to table change ASAP.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I think you have to bet the turn once this blank card hits. Sure, villain can have j9, jj, 99, or 33 here. But if j9 in his range, then so are 108, q10, aj, kj, and qj. And that board is wet enough that he would sometimes be reraising with two pair or a set on the flop.

Other than that point, I agree with MikeStarr. Either soulread your way to a fold, or crai at this point.

How does this hand separate the men from the boys. Sincerely asking.

The "boys" are incapable of folding overpairs and stack off here all the time, where the "men" know its a tough spot and there are times for folding this, but its not an auto fold. But I wouldnt have used that phrase.

Whats funny is that about half the the threads on page 1 are about overpairs facing heat, yet very few about tptk. In spots like these tptk is usually a stronger hand than an overpair because we block some 2pair and set combos we are afraid of. Just some food for thought.

This is a very tough spot, and potentially a big pot to win, but I lean toward folding here. There are no hands the fish can have that he played well, but you still need to worry about his holding (I agree he likely has J high, fish love to donk out top pair like this) and there are alarm bells going off with the 2/5 player-- unless he is also not that good of a player (just bc he comes from 2/5 does not mean he is good. He could have AJ or might just trying to bully the table and betting large every hand with middle pair, I have seen those types when they come down from 2/5 to 1/2.)

That said, I have one of those threads about an overpair facing pressure, and I made a bad move on that one, though multiway I tighten up much more.

Think one street ahead, you should not expect for the BUT to check back when you check it. When he jams, what are you going to do? If he is weak/bluffing, he folds to a turn jam, if he jams on the river you're not folding at this point, the stack-to-pot ratio is such that you might as well fold or get it in now. Why call and have to start guessing again on the river, especially if new scare cards come out (J, 9, K, A), etc.

It is a tough spot. If you fold it and would of ended up being good does that automatically mean it is correct to call in this spot?

If you make the call and end up being wrong does that mean it was an incorrect call?

I just think its a results oriented way of viewing it but I'm not sure if that was what Mike was saying.

I try to think about how many hands the villain could be bluffing with and the amount of hands that beat me and then come to a decision.

In this spot the "fish" could end up having a good hand too although it's most likely a top pair type hand.

I lean towards a fold but in the moment it would be player dependent.

EDIT: The turn bet also screams value to me more than trying to put TPTK or an over pair in a tough spot. With $288 in the pot I would think he would size up a little bit more with a bluff if he expects to get any folds there.

"Good player" flat calls a donk/raise of $75 from PFR Hero on a relatively dry board with $500 behind? I have a hard time thinking this is QT, T8 or AJ. His range has very few bluffs in it because the pot size (assuming fish calls the additional $50) will be $270 with $500 effective left, less than 2 SPR so fat chance he can bluff Hero off a good hand. This is J9+ like always. Add in his "gonna take you for a little walk down by the water in value town" turn size (just less than half) and I would be shocked to not see sets and sets only at showdown.

This is an easy muck for me with QQ, especially given donk is all-in now and we will get to see the hands.

Agree with Shorn. There might be some scenario where this hand is good. Players moving down in stakes often spew. But the bulk of the evidence points to a fold.

If the fish has a J or QT that skews Mr. 2/5 to lower sets.

Mr. 2/5 Might 3 bet or fold AJ to a raise pre. I'd expect him to always call 99 and 33 and maybe JJ. But he could 3 bet JJ too.

Would be surprised if he called preflop with QT off. Suited, maybe.

If he does have AJ (somewhat reduced likelihood), to call here on the flop would be pretty bad. Even someone moving down in stakes is more likely to develop FPS than to become a calling station. What does he put you on here? TT? A worse J? It looks like you've got an overpair. I think AJ is greatly reduced.

QTs? Well, you have 2 queens and that's still an ambitious call pre. Also greatly reduced.

I think this is mostly 33 and 99. Then JJ. Occasionally a slow played AA or KK perhaps. QTs sometimes. QToff less often. AJ occasionally.

If he called a raise with AJ pre, hit, then decided to float a lead and a raise on the flop to bluff you both off the turn or something like that, then bless his heart. He gets some money from me.

Edit: And as Thin said, you can't just assume you beat the fish 100% of the time.

I agree, good post. And lmao to bolded part, well put

This.

I agree that V2's sizing screams value town...he's not betting <1/2 pot as a semibluff with a draw on the turn after that flop action + v3 being short stacked now, that sounds like a set trying to get both of you on the road to being all in. He figures, correctly, that you don't have QT here very often when you raise from UTG, you have something like AJ or QQ, so he doesn't need to worry about you sucking out on him unless you have an overpair that binks a higher set. I'd be pretty surprised if V2 has worse than J9. I think it's a fold against a good player.

question for the group that may also help the OP: How do we feel about the flop raise versus flat calling?

Mostly just flatting flop to keep the donkbettor’s Jx in.

I'm more for flat calling for reasons I describe above. Although I guess one of the benefits of the raise is that it makes a turn check/fold much easier (whereas if we flat the donk we might have to consider calling a flop raise, although honestly I don't cuz, as I've mentioned in other recent threads, I think bet/calling is always the nut low if we don't feel committed).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I also like just calling the flop however

lets say I do just call the flop

v2 on the btn is going to put massive amounts of pressure on us still with this range that we are giving him

this is where I get into a leveling war in my head because I have

underrept my hand strength

I almost feel like raising the flop now actually makes this an easier decision for me

THOUGHTS??

It really depends on how disciplined you are.

Yes, raising the flop makes future decisions easier, but you also put in a bunch more money to find that out.

Is this guy really raising a fish + preflop raiser with something we're ahead of if we flat; what, he thinks we're floating the fish with AK with a person behind? Overall, I don't think he is enough of the time, so again we can lean to an exploitive fold if he raises (cuz I'm not convinced he's exploiting us enough here to worry). But then again, I'm really of the mind that we should almost always be folding to a flop raise if we don't feel committed with just one pair, but many here think that is too exploitable.

GimoG