I never seen V before but he seems kinda splashy and has some understanding of the game. Late 30s white male, in good shape, talkative. Hes called preflop raises 3-4 times cold or after another caller(s) in 2 orbits but thats the game dynamic. My 25 open is due to getting 3+ callers everytime making it 20.

1/3
(800) H utg2 AJs opens 25
(550) V BTN calls
BB calls

($75) J 6 4 rainbow
BB x
H bets 50
V calls
BB folds

($175) Q
H bets 75
V quick calls

($325) T bringing a backdoor flush JhQhTh.
H x
V bets 105

I have no hearts in my hand but I dont think he has a flush since most of the high hearts are out there so only A6hh and A4hh makes sense. He shouldnt have a Q. Im 99% sure he doesnt have QJ. Only thing that makes sense is JT or an oddly played KJ AJ.

I ended up folding so I dont know what V had.

Why did you bet so big otf on a bone dry board? I'm seriously betting $25 otf.

Turn I can see an argument for making it more or less a range bet, but I like checking for pot control.

Honestly I'm folding here. How is there a 1% chance he has QJ, but could very well have KJ? This looks like a pure value bet to me here, but honestly given price I wouldn't fault you for calling.

Because I have a read on him that he doesnt have a huge hand. Why wouldnt I bet 2/3 otf? People call with 54o stuff anyway, may as well charge them.

You have a read on a player that hasn't acted yet and whom you said you've never seen before?

Edit: And you're betting big for value because you think he doesn't have a big hand?

On the turn my read is he is medium strength. On the flop I have no idea what either has other than about 15% pf calling range. GG says "no one goes to the casino to fold on the flop". I usually bet bigger on the flop because of this. Are you saying tptk is behind this guys range?

If I bet 30 then 50 and V bets 75+ on the river what did that bet sizing change accomplish?

If I bet 30 then x, V is going to more than likely bet a size above what I would bet so now Ive given up the lead in the pot and am calling a bet bigger then I would have made.

Flop bet is fine. People will float all sorts of crap because they put you on AK. Their calling range is pretty inelastic. With a TPTK hand, winning on the flop isn't a bad result.

Don't like the turn bet. You reduced the size of the bet to the pot which is a strong signal that the Q hurt your hand. You're better off checking if you aren't going to continue betting strong.

Against an unknown, I just fold here. You could have induced the bet with your small turn bet, but most LLSNL play their hands straightforward on the river. He's looking for a call. Chances he's even heard of a post oak bluff are near zero. As Mike Caro pointed out, when your opponent wants you to do something, disappoint them.

In general, it's not a great strategy to bet huge when you have a huge range advantage and the flop is very dry. You're honestly daring a station to fold 54 on this board with that bet size.

On a side note QS brought up a good point - why would you bet so big when you don't think villain has a hand?

Also, what venice said about betting a smaller fraction onthe turn is almost certainly irrelevant. I seriously doubt that the guy noticed and/or "made a read" on your sizing. Vs better opponents he'd have a point.

1) Exactly. This is why I almost never bet small on the flop unless its against a good reg.

2) I agree with sixsevens comment below. I dont think V is a thinking player so betting like this does look weak on my part against someone who knows what he is doing but I wouldnt have made this bet vs a good player. I dont think its possible Q hurt my hand at all and eliminated QJ possibilities. When V calls turn, as I said, I am 99% sure he doesnt have a monster.

3) Agreed but I just cant put him on a hand (something no one has made a guess on yet) and getting 3:1 is super tempting. I have seen people bet here just because they were checked to with all sorts of weird ****.

Flop I am betting for value since he could have anything and I believe he would call with any pair here. Turn I downsized the bet due to a scare card for V, not for me, and I wanted him to call with whatever he had since I believe I am still far ahead of his range of hands. The way he called the turn told me he didnt have a monster and after the call I believed the K and the T were the two worst cards in the deck for me since he probably wouldnt call another bet with a mid pair or a 4 or 6.

Looks like a call, they have some gutshots that could decide to bluff when the BD flush comes in (87s, 75s, AT) and, like you said, few combos of flushes here. Don't expect to win often but people will spaz in this spot with underpairs and stuff too.

Maybe I'm wrong, but anyone I think has some understanding of the game is a thinking player in my mind. Making a play dependent on the villain being too stupid to notice what it means usually gets people in trouble especially when they are an unknown.

Turn seems small. I’d rather check than bet that amount.

Flop bet size is fine in Live Low Stakes. Build the pot, people call with anything otf because they just want to play hands.

On the turn, you have pretty much decided that your J has become only 2 streets of value, so I would check the turn.
If he bets turn, I would check/call turn and check/decide river.
If he checks back turn, I would 1/2 pot bet river if an ace or king doesn’t come.
If an Ace or King comes, I would check call river.

These lines should ensure you underrep your hand and get 2 streets of value from medium pairs, or induce bluffs, which will be more profitable than the times he has you beat IMO

I actually think AJs plays better as a limp (or with deep stacks a juicing small raise is fine) and is totally fine with a high SPR multiway limped pot (especially OOP, with much more reason to bloat pots with it in position). But that's me.

On such a dry board I'd be fine with checking and going from there. If betting, I see no reason to be hammering for a large 2/3 PSB on this dry flop (I wouldn't go larger than $30 unless I felt that was going to get played back at and put me in an awkward spot).

I would probably have considered checking turn almost regardless of what card came cuz I'm not looking to continue bloating this pot on this board. This pot is getting way too huge for our very small hand OOP on a drawless board, imo.

We are obviously getting awesome odds on the river but I can't hate on a fold too much. Very few busted draws, about every other worse Jx got there (and lesser ones have no reason to bet). A bet in large pot which opens the betting to put large stacks at risk behind is simply typically a big hand, and rarely a thinnish value bet, imo. But I can certainly be accused of overfolding.

Gwhyisthispotsobig?G

And while I pretty much believe this, we really have to balance two evils, and the evil of building far too big of a pot with a very mediocre hand OOP trumps all else (such as the evil of not getting maximum value when ahead) *when not committed* (and we're clearly not committed). If we felt we were committed due to the flop raise (say we were playing a $200 stack), then fine, go ahead and bomb/bomb for stacks.

GimoG

Aight GG has spoken so I can close up shop here. GG, if I told you I actually called and the guy had AQo does that change anything here? **** like this is why I bet so big on flops cause dry or not, whether I am playing tight or not, they still call with garbage at such a high frequency.

I like to lie about results so I can get more honest feedback.

It's hard to gauge without being there and getting a sense, but it's possible he simply called the flop to float deep with overs and possibly steal UI on later streets if you showed weakness. Sometimes there is a pretty thin line between expert and fish and it's unclear exactly where he sits.

The other takeaway (for me at least) is the extreme danger of building bloated pots with medium Ax hands preflop OOP; we own ourselves so terribly sometimes (as we would have here had the flop come A high) with preflop sometimes often folding the Ax hands we want to call and limiting those that continue to dominating ones.

Gjustimo,noteveryonewillagreeG

If the board was dry and A high its a way different story. I would x/c since people do flat with AQ/AK a decent amount and that is a much larger % range that has us beat. We also wont be getting 3 streets of value against AXs so pot control makes sense on a A high dry board. On a J high board with AJ I dont believe there is too much in his range to be afraid of. He might call pre with his garbage hands and raise QQ+, we dont know, but its a possibility you have to entertain. I believe getting thin value on this board is much more important than bluff catching/pot control because the average casual player (I am sure he is a casual player) is massively capped here and our range advantage is probably around 90+/10%.

I am not trying to have a huge ego, I am explaining my thought process as clearly as possible so you guys can tell me why I am wrong. I am still not convinced I am wrong.

flop bet sizing i might go a little smaller like $40-45 not a big deal tho. 1/3 is kinda meh when there are draws here and multiway where at least one person is likely going to call. the whole 1/3 copycat GTO bet sizing is getting pretty lol, coming from someone who uses 1/3 as one of his primary bet sizes online. it usually isn't optimal at live for pretty obvious reasons. 1/3 originated from the GTO/highstakes/online games for a variety of complex reasons. And although a lot of GTO concepts/applications from online do apply to live, a lot of them also do not. Betting 1/3 in spots like these is leaving a ton of money on the table.

It's not as simple as "dry flop, range advantage, ok 1/3", especially 3-way or 4-way. 1/3 was a strategy bet sizing that was solved for HU and HU only, assuming playing an optimal player. When you add in an extra player or two, or more, it's really not the same as playing HU and your strat needs to change to reflect that, especially when you're playing with half brain-dead idiots who can't fold even if they had a gun pointed to their head.

Turn is a pretty bad card for your range and IP has a lot of incentive to bluff here, your hand isnt a three street game anyway and if you want a second street of value checking turn and betting river is a much better line.

River you can't really call, it's a raise or fold. He never has AK here as well, you can.

Thank you. That GTO 1/3 bet **** IS getting really annoying and I think some people ITT forgot the flop was multiway. If I am HU against a good player and its a dry flop I will 1/3 it and mix in a check, otherwise we are missing value against idiots who call $50 on the flop with AQ high.

Again, it really depends what type of idiot he is.

If he's the type of idiot simply to call $50 on the flop in order to hopefully hurp durp an A/Q on the turn then there's more reason for betting large.

But if he's the type of idiot to simply call here against a perceived whiffed AK/underpair/widerangecbet in order to steal on a later street in position, then all we're doing is building a big pot for him. Heck, even going into check/call mode on a safe run outs with our TPTK still brings up horrendous spots thanks to these large early street bloatings that now bring up ugly commitment issues.

And it still goes back to what our overall goal should be here. We're not committed (right?), and we're going to end up with a very mediocre hand at best (likely just one pair), and board is pretty dry (very few draws to charge). Our overall goal should be to not build a large pot OOP, and the best way to do that is by betting small or perhaps by not even not betting at all.

I'm not coming at this from a GTO angle at all (I wouldn't know GTO if it bit me in the ass). I'm coming at this purely from a "small hand, small pot; big hand, big pot" point of view. And by the river, we have a very small hand in a very large pot, which suggests we may have made a mistake somewhere along the way.

GimoG

GG, TPTK is a big hand here and by your logic then we should be playing it like one. You’re basically saying AJ/QQ+ are not big hands here and only sets are big hands, and that’s just absurd

I could have been more descriptive of V. "Some understanding of the game" doesn't mean he is going to be some wizard who double floats with air to take a pot away from me on the river. He "could" be doing this is an argument that could be used in every poker scenario. I would argue what most the most likely scenario that is happening here is he was going to pitch his cards on the turn until he 3 outed me and I made more money on the flop then most would. Think of all the junk hes going to be calling me with if he played AQ this way. Sure sets and maybe 64 are in there but so is 55,77-TT, 54s, 56s, 67s, A4s, A6s, KJ QJ JT J9s. Maybe even 22-33, 57s, 68s. Im going to get 2 streets of solid value against a large amount of those combos with a 50 flop bet and an inticing 75 turn bet and I gave him ****ty odds to continue in the hand on both streets. Him playing AQ this way just reinforces that I should be betting and keeping the lead.

A64r board is WAY different compared to a J64r board and until I see a more casual player cold calling pre with QQ-KK and trapping post I am not going to give him credit for these hands. I have blockers to AA.

If you consider one pair a big hand, then fair enough, play it like one.

One pair is right at the bottom of the hand ranking chart; I consider it a very small hand.

GcluelessNLnoobG

But what does he do when you check the turn? You've very rarely hit this flop.

Gyou'rebeingresultsoriented,imoG

This is what fish do. Look at absolute hand strength with no thought for relative hand strength because of the board we are on. You are only losing to sets because of buttons range for calling utg open.