$2/$5 NL game. Nice action table

UTG ($1000) opens to $20. Hes a Euro kid who never limps. He's raised an appropriate amount for me to think hes solid. He not winning though. I think hes won maybe 1 hand in 2 hours. Hes stuck about $500 but it seems to be just from missing every flop. Hes not doing anything that seem weird/aggro/out of line. He's just not getting to showdown at all or winning any pots.

Hero ($1300) UTG+1 3 bets to $60 QQ.

UTG calls HU

Flop ($120) J74. He checks. I decided to keep this pot small since AA/KK/JJ beats me. I really only beat AK/TT. Maybe hes wider than that but Ive seen no reason to think so. I check back. I think most everyone would put me on AK here.

Turn ($120) T...rainbow...He checks. Not a great card, but he check again so surely Im ahead. I bet $50. He calls.

River ($220) 5. He leads $150. I'm sure my line looks like I dont have much at all. Anyone think its possible he has AK, and thinks I do also and hes trying to take the pot away from OOP with this river bet?

Ive seen zero of his showdowns. Ive seen what looks like standard ABC play from him. I think I only beat AK/AJ and I dont think an ABC played plays AJ like this.

Maybe he has JJ and after I checked the flop he decided to play for the high hand since it looked like I had AK and was drawing dead anyway? I'm scratching my head.

I don't really know what he has, but against an unknown opponent we have to call here with 60% of our range. Our range here should be mostly overpairs, sets, AK, AQ, and possibly a few KQs and AJs which we decided to 3bet light with. We should call with JJ, TT, all of our overpairs. We can fold the random QK, AJ (that we happened to 3B preflop), AK and AQ (which decided to stab at the turn) and all of our other random hands.

This is really weird, because he should be check-raising JJ and TT on the turn. Your hand looks like AK or a slowplayed overpair, so he would expect you to bet the turn when you turn a gutter, and he could check raise and hopefully get a call from everything you can have. Check/call-lead line makes zero sense, because if you really do have AK, you'd just fold the river, and if you slowplayed AA, he's just missing out on a bunch of value.

Out of the hands that beat you, 55 makes total sense, and just about nothing else. Maybe a very, very strangely played AA that wants to get some value for his hand, but doesn't want to get stacked by a set. That's like 4-5 combos total.

Call. He could have AQ/KQ for bluffs here, even though you block the Q's. I doubt he has AK, because he should 4bet that pre at least some of the time, but it's also possible. He's not really representing any extensive amount of value, though, so call.

This is a snap call given your line, not sure why this is a question

If you can also include hands like 98s/54s/JTs in his 3b calling range, fold. Otherwise call.

While flop is dry, QQ needs some protection to overs. I'd bet $50-55.

he could have AQ as well here, I would call based on the way you underreped your hand here

I fold here. We lose to all 18 combos of TT+ (tying QQ) which has to be the very bulk of his range.

So young Euro never have AJs/JTs/TT-88? Okay...

C-bet flop.

Just in terms of a more macro view of your situation, i would always be willing to put $310 of my $1300 stack in the pot when i have an overpair to the board where the nut hand is 98 with a preflop UTG raiser.

Have you seen any other 3 bets in hands he has opened? Depending on how tight his calling range is, how often he 4 bets and how he will play post flop this could be anything from a easy call to easy fold. If he has not been aggro I'm willing to let this go but it's a live read situation, there is at least some AK in a typical younger grinder type range.

If he gives up the weaker end of his range to your 3 bet and will play over pairs here passively and not bluff very often then it's an easy fold. His range will be pair heavy and except for the rare chop you lose to all of them by river. If his calling range is wide and he will take stabs with anything in passive pots then it's an easy call. In that case he can turn up with AK and power pairs and probably some other bluffs.

AK/TT is 22 combos.... JJ + reduced frequencies of AA/KK is like 6-10 combos. Flop is a clear bet. This is assuming he folds 55-99 this deep at 100% frequency, which is bever ever true when you only 3x it and he has insane IO vs your range. He can definitely peel AQs here, and maybe AJs/A10s... your ranging is way too mubsy and this is coming from someone who gets called a nit a few times a month lol.

So he has realistically 35-60 combos of worse hands and 6-10 combos of better hands than yours. Seems like a super clear value bet. 1/3 otf with your entire range is fine, or you can do 45-55% with a split range altho that is more complicated

Turn i would bet way bigger, you can get so much value from 55-99.

River is pretty meh, we block a load of bluffs like AQ/KQs. Losing to JJ/TT/55/98s/44, obv with the last 3 hands not at 100% frequency. Gto says to snap call but i dont think we’re good here that often. Guess i fold but not loving it. I do think the mistakes we made on previous streets led us here though. I think if we bet turn 60%-2/3 and he leads here it’s a pretty easy fold

I like to flat call pre

Ap bet flop for value from JX, and protection from AK

AP betting turn seems good

AP idk just call, we played the hand like AK now we’re under repped

Whether anyone likes my line, whether I should bet the flop or whether they think I should call or fold to the river bet, one thing that's for sure is that he absolutely doesnt have insane I/O odds vs me no matter what his hand is.

You can make an argument that I missed value here or in other hands but no way youre getting massive IO against me

Not 3 betting pre on an action table in this spot is really bad. If I flat, this hand is going 3-5 ways to the flop.

???????????

AA and KK make sense if he wouldn't have a 4bet range pf vs a UTG+1 3bettor which seems like a fine idea.

And it's possible he knows you aren't a fish that is going to just give him money with worse hands post if he plays it fast for value.

I'm pretty certain a good player is going to range you for JJ+, AK based on 3betting UTG+1 so he can't be going for river value vs AJ for instance.

This seems like a really weird line to take with air, just c/c turn after the flop checked through. AK is the only hand that makes some sense for bluffing. Would he even flat the 3b from UTG+1 with AK?

Like you said, if he is bluffing it's to get you to fold your AK, which does seem like a good part of your range here, and he may view that as a better option than check/decide or c/f.

I would be trying hard to get any read here to sway this decision. If he seems frustrated from whiffing so often he might be as stubborn as to have AQ here.

Or he could just be a cautious patient player who understands how many streets of value he can get with KK/AA here vs a decent player and didn't want to blow you out of the pot early on in the hand.

If we can't pick up any kind of tell then I guess I'm going to go with stereotyping the young euro towards the bluffier less disciplined end of the spectrum and crying call this.

A 3 bet preflop to make sure we dont go 5 ways to the flop. Check the flop back to keep the pot from getting bloated when I lose to AA/KK/JJ which are the 3 most likely hands for him to have. I havent seen a single showdown but he appears to be pretty ABC.

Make sense?

This is for Mr Destiny who I guess doesnt understand keeping a pot small after 3 betting preflop.

No idea why you would say this. He probably is and should be much wider than that, especially with your smallish sizing. And why do you say he doesn't have insane IO's? Of course he does, even more so when you put him on this tight of a range to begin with.

Perfectly fine flop check. JJ now beats hero. TT now has a hard time giving more than 1 street of action. And there is a high likelihood KK is in villains range, and possibly AA.

The risk is giving a free card to AK but I think it's worth it to play some pot control vs villains range here.

I would like to know what you think he does with small and mid pairs UTG. I didn't consider this earlier but you mentioned he never limped pf. Does that mean he is folding stuff like 66 or opening it UTG?

Still not convinced he would c/c turn with an underpair but I suppose it's not impossible.

The phrase "insane implied odds" implies that if he hits some big flop that he will take a huge chunk of my stack since we are deep stacked.

How is he going to do that the way I played the hand? He might bluff me off the winner or I might not get enough value but the one thing he doesnt have is insane implied odds.

That's impossible to know what I havent seen him showdown a single hand in the 2 1/2 hours we played together.

Ok dont get all defensive, i didnt say you’re the type to lose 200 bigs with an overpair IP in a 3b pot. What i meant to say was a lot of players think they have huge IO vs 3-bettors being deep and give themselves any reason to not fold vs a 3b with speculative hands like 44-99, J10s, KQs, etc. You have done the same at one point or another.

Ok dont get all defensive lol, i didnt say you’re the type to lose 200 bigs with an overpair IP in a 3b pot. What i meant to say was a lot of players think they have huge IO vs 3-bettors being deep and give themselves any reason to not fold vs a 3b with speculative hands like 44-99, J10s, KQs, etc. You have most likely done the same at one point or another.

“Deeeeep and sooted/PP? I cawl”. If you’ve ever noticed, people’s defending ranges vs 3b become insanely wider 200+bb deep than say 100bb deep. That’s wrong, especially OOP. But the fact remains people almost always do that and you missed so much value otf by not cbetting. Even vs 100bb stack where his defending range is wat tighter you still have a clear as day vbet otf

Results:

I tank/folded. Villain mucked his hand but it flipped up by accident. He had KK.