Villain: Seems loose pre-flop, saw him win a solid sized pot when his K5 hit a 5 on the river for two pair. Lots of limping and raising pre-flop. Bought in for $150 and lost it in about an hour, recently re-bought for $300. Now sitting on $240. Looking somewhat demoralized.

Hero: Easily the snuggest at the table and probably viewed as very TAG. Not getting involved in the loose limpfest and waiting to pick my spots. Have only played a few hands in the 1.5 hours we've played, most of them small pocket pairs to set mine that I insta-folded on AJ2 type flops.

Played one hand vs villain where he raised and I 3bet him in late position with QQ. Got cold called by the BB and villain called as well. Flop AK5, both opponents check and I take it down with a c-bet. That's the only hand I really was involved with up to this point. I have Villain covered.

On to the hand:

Folds around to the villain in the hi-jack (pretty rare at this super limpy table) and he raises to $12. I think his range is very wide here, probably lots of junk like Q8 suited, K4, J9, etc.

Cutoff folds and I call with Ad3d, blinds fold and we are heads up to the flop:

Pot is $27

Jd10d6s

Villain bets out $15. I have the nut flush draw and likely a live over, and raise to $45, with the plan to barrel the turn and river if villain calls, whether ace/diamond hits or not.

Villain thinks for a handful of seconds and calls. I am guessing he will call the raise even with holdings as weak at 108. That type of range is going to have a hard time surviving multiple barrels.

I haven't gotten out of line at all up to this point, and feel like a set of sixes or J10 is well within my range here on the button. I also have a ton of outs with two cards to come. Then again, it's a very wet board and this might be the type of villain who gets sticky with top pair no kicker type hands if the board blanks out.

Do we like this raise? Do we like the plan to continue to barrel on turn and river when called?

Seems pretty spewy all around. I'd fold pre. I don't like the plan of barreling a guy who called down with K5. I'd just call this flop.

I prefer a 3-bet preflop in position. Our hand isn't good enough to flat in position I think, I'd rather take down the pot right there, or if we get called we will have the lead.

It seems to me like villain has lots of draws here, hands like QK, Q9, maybe a flush draw. Not sure if he would continue with middle pair here. Your image is somewhat snug so if he's at all thinking, he's not calling a raise OOP here with 10 8.

If he checks, I'd fire all turn cards except straightening cards, which I'd probably check behind because he likely makes a straight or a pair and straight draw combo that probably won't fold to a turn bet,and we risk getting c/r off our draw.

On river, if we miss completely, I'm not sure what to do. Depends on read, villain, board run out.

I think the raise is fine.

I wouldn't barrel a missed turn, instead take the river unimproved which is the advantage of position. A-high may win SD so I don't want to commit stack with a turn bet.

Without a read that V has a well-used fold button, I'm not a fan of the plan to barrel him off his PFR raising hand at 1/2. If V is weak tight and will reliably fold without 2P+, I love it.

However, if V is loose preflop, both for limps and raises, we should auto 3b here. We're IP with a hand that has an A blocker against a V that generally raises a lot and raised here in LP. The reptilian portion of my brain has put 40 in the pot before the rest of my brain realizes what's happening. I'd light 3b this against almost anyone except a tight preflop raiser who isn't positionally aware.

In the (I think unlikely) event we see a flop, the plan (assuming we don't hit) is to fire one more barrel and then give up.

I think stacks are just deep enough to consider flatting IP, but I think 3b is clearly superior.

Ofc the flop raise is correct. Also 3b pre is likely better than call. Ahigh FD is just best bluff to balance 2p+, unless you play very exploitive unbalanced strategy this is must raise flop.

I agree a 3bet pre was the way to go. As played, sounds like the flop raise was good.

Hand gets interesting on the turn:

Pot $114

4s comes out, essentially a blank though now two spades on the board with Jd10d6s4s

Villain leads for $70

I wasn't expecting this. How should we interpret this lead? Do we fold, call, or jam?

Bluffs usually work better when the opponent has shown some weakness. V led flop, called the raise and then led turn. That's not showing weakness. I don't think there's much fold equity in a shove. V might be overvaluing some sort of draw, but I think he probably has a hand he likes.

There's 184 in the pot with another 127 back. Best case, all our outs are clean and we always stack V when we hit. In that case we're calling 70 to win 311, which is slightly better than breakeven. But sometimes our outs aren't clean (like if V has a set) and sometimes we may not stack V if we hit. I don't think shoving is profitable. I don't think calling is profitable. I think we should do that other thing.

There are players who will size draws and lead into the raiser. However, without more history, I'd fold turn. Even we are certain he will pay off a flush, calling (at best) is marginal imo. Raising seems spewy.

Agree the turn is an obvious fold.

However, for reasons I don't fully understand, I called. My read on this villain was still that he was weak, and I think I just stubbornly did not want to give up on that notion. I really wasn't happy with the play afterwards and that's why I posted this hand, to try to think it through again and understand where the error was made and why. Helpful to read the thoughts of others and hopefully slow down and correct this leak for next time.

As played, the river comes a Qc, leaving the board at a Jd10d4s6sQc

At this point, I'm feeling a bit lost and have quickly realized the turn call was poorly thought through.

Villain has 5 remaining $25 chips. He tanks for about 10 seconds, grabs them, lifts them...and then pauses...and raps his hand down for a check.

Pot is $254. Jam or give up?

What? Why raise? What are you trying to represent or fold really? In position, I flat and lead out non st8 turns, possibly check back riv if he's sticky type. Often you will win A high vs his competing st8 and flush draws. If your 3b doesn't fold V out, check/check is ok also.

If we look at the potential ranges that you have repped, we can assume what the best play is at the river...

When you raised on the flop you are repping 44, TT, JJ, JT, as your value range and draws as your weak range. But are you really raising a single paired jack on a draw heavy board... maybe not.

The turn play narrows your range even further. When Villain bets, maybe sets and two pairs are raising the turn to get more value from weaker made hands, and for equity protection against draws. But with just a call, Villain might be putting you on a draw or a paired hand.

A plus to a call is that it might be seen as strength if Villain feels you are slow playing your nutted range; but, as played it seems under-repped especially with a draw heavy flop.

When the queen comes on the river, and Villain checks. He may be assuming your straight draws with a queen have paired. But the important questions to ask here is:

What range are we repping with a shove on the river? and What is our perceived shoving range?

Value ranges that would shove here are AK for a straight or maybe JQ for two pair; but are you really raising AK and JQ on the flop?

As for repping a set, this might be difficult if Villain believes you are raising turn to extract value from draws/pairs.

Of course a shove makes it difficult for a single pair to call, but if Villain put you on just a queen and doesn't feel you would shove, he will most likely call you, especially if he feels you are checking a Queen here.

There are levels to this, like reads and betting patterns at the table that can induce a fold. But if we take the average low stakes player who is used to seeing standard lines over and over, its important we design our bluffs to be as clear as day that we have the nuts.

One way to do this is developing a strong understand of hand ranges and board textures and their relationship to what is checked, bet, raised, folded... etc. That way you can exploit others and it protects you from being exploited.

Call pre. Call flop and keep ranges/spr wide/big. Turn you'll have up to three reasonable options depending on sizing, action, card. I'm not ready to narrow him too quickly/push questionable FE just yet on the flop this shallow.

If your preference is raise flop, make it big enough to get some folds otf, but leave him enough stack behind so you can get him to ck-f a lot of turns. I think this is generally the wrong way to go with this much equity and IO. While raise calling is a decent result, I'm not thrilled gii with a naked FD against a fishy guy when I can see a turn for relatively low cost and have likely more +EV options on later streets.

Pre is fine. Raising flop is good but I'd rather you size it larger. Prefer that you check back most turns, but as played turn is a call.

Don't think so. Quite unfortunately, poor flop play/sizing has rendered folding as the most profitable option which is particularly gross when A high is the best hand once in a while too.

Math says turn is a call.

Um, I don't think this anymore. I was not counting our ace outs (and I got the stack size slightly wrong). If I may revise and extend my remarks...

I like the flop raise. We're HU against a V we think has a very wide preflop raising range. Every flop misses a large portion of a wide range. V could easily be cbetting with 100% of his preflop range. And we have some equity to fall back on if we're called. Calling the flop to make a hand is not attractive for the same reason that a raise is attractive: V's range is wide and weak. He's unlikely to have anything that will pay us off if we do hit. Contrast this with a tight preflop raiser (let's not worry about how we get to the flop in that case), where V is more likely to have something that will pay us off and less likely to fold the flop.

I think 45 is at the low end of what we should raise, but I don't think it needs to be much larger. We're folding out V's junk even at 45 and not folding out good draws and strong hands with any reasonable bet. I might go 50, but don't think higher than that adds much value.

Once V calls the raise, we need to reevaluate and tighten his range. There is always a fudge factor, but he isn't likely calling with complete junk. We've called a PFR and raised his cbet, announcing confidently that we like our hand. (More information about how he won that K5 hand would be interesting to illuminate his calling range.)

When he leads the turn, we can further tighten his range.

I gave V a PFR range of 36% of hands (roughly any pair, any ace, any two cards 9+, 54s+, 75s+, 96s+, K8s+, 98+).

The question becomes what parts of that range will call the flop raise and lead the turn. I'm going to take a stab and assume he called the preflop raise only with made hands TP+ and good draws (OESD, flush, and some combo gutshots). I'm going to further assume that he leads the turn only with the made hands.

Under those assumptions, more than half his range on the turn is TP, the rest is overpairs, 2P, and sets.

Note also that his turn bet is committing (though he may not realize that). With our call, pot will be 254 an he has only 113 (not 127) behind.

Using this range, and assuming he stacks off 100% on the river (since he's got TP+ and will be getting more than 3:1 odds) I get about $13 in expectation from calling the turn bet. That takes into account that spiking the A may not win and that hitting the flush and pairing the board may not win. It doesn't take into the account all the conditional probabilities around his holding (such as the reduced chance we will spike an A if he has one).

Different ranges and estimates of behavior will yield different results, but I think it's probably positive EV for most reasonable estimates of V's range.

Thanks to all for the thoughts and responses. Some good stuff in here.

In retrospect, this is a great spot for a pre-flop 3bet. I still like raising the flop, though I think a smooth call is good too.

Bet sizing is something I need to strengthen in my game, so I'll take the feedback I've gotten here into serious consideration. Definitely need to be sharper on that aspect.

As played, I probably just fold the turn. Typically I would fold there with a bare flush draw. However, in retrospect I think the call (+ nitty image) showed strength and may have ended up winning me the hand.

As it was, after villain checked the river, I jammed for the final $125. I don't think that's the optimal play but fortunately he tanked for a handful of seconds and folded.