I was never doing anything but calling the flop anyway, but this is definitely useful information.

so, call.

That's sort of the whole point.

Our preflop and flop sizing have made this hand problematic now. If we sized smaller preflop and on the flop we'd have no problem calling a raise with sufficient implied odds behind. Just thinking through this in my head I'm guessing villain would need to have a healthy number of combos of QJ played like this to make continuing +EV.

Reraising will mostly limit villain to hands that beat hero with a small chance he goes with KQ/QJ. Folding a set on the flop is way too weak. No choice but call. Hope for another ten because the hand is likely to be tricky to play on any other card.

Hero is at the bottom end of the monster range. This deep I wouldn't want to play for stacks but can't give up easily no matter what the run out is.

Any idea how comfortable he is playing this deep? The fact that you bet 4/5ths pot and he bombed it 4x sets off alarm bells to me. If he has AK we got equity but I highly doubt we win a huge amount more when the board pairs, and we get owned when he does have JJ/QQ. I kinda doubt he's bombing this flop so big with QJ.

I'm actually leaning towards folding. It's close though, might call and play a turn. Would come down to intuition I guess. I would expect him to shut down with anything we beat on the turn.

Gross spot.

I get the feeling that he's not super comfortable playing deep. He is a middle aged Asian guy. If he was a young Asian I'd expect him to be more fearless. So I'm leaning more towards his range being nutted on the flop when he raises us

$30 is the standard open in this game. $20 induces a waterfall of callers. Not something I want with 10s. I will agree that I could have bet $40 on the flop.

That is kinda what I expected. I'd probably pitch it. We're just in such a bad spot. Like even if the board pairs we aren't that happy because he can have a bigger set a decent amount of the time, or the occasional two pair. and we aren't stacking him if he does have AK.

I just don't really expect this type of player to really have anything else besides hands that beat us here that often, not after he bombs the flop. They tend to play very cautious deep against other good players. Honestly he's probably very happy to take down the pot here even with AK/JJ/QQ as he is uncomfortable if a bad turn card comes and faces a ton of pressure, which is part of why he bombs it.

Calling and evaluating the turn is reasonable, because as I said if we do have him beat I expect him to pretty much shut down. But I think folding is the more profitable play.

I think the fact that we all knew a raise was coming has really colored the responses. Including OP's. You flopped a set on a Board that should hit V's range hard in the realm of 2p to p+draw. You have to bet flop and just be aware that you might have to deal with a raise.

As played I think you can call and see what the turn brings. Tight decent regs will be raising a lot of combo draws. Good news here is you know what cards complete those draws. They also don't follow rough enough on turns trying to just "realize their equity" on the river, which again you have a pretty good idea which cards are bad for you. Yes occasionally, you need to boat up to win and sometimes you're drawing to one out but most of the time you're not.

He said he's decent but ABC & tight/solid. Not really the type of player I expect to be bombing scary flops with semi bluffs 300bb deep against another good aggressive player on this scary board.

If he was a good/aggressive/creative villain, then that'd be a different story. ABC players don't really get out of line deep against other good players.

Clearly a Hero B/C on the flop would put his (Hero) range near the top, especially when u consider position. Opponent will narrow (range) further if Hero calls.

Stacks are 300 bbs eff, so plenty of time to get them in by the river, however not focused on stacking off with bottom set on this texture vs. this opponent.

Lol at this thread at this point. Did you all miss the post where OP himself said he's pretty sure villain wouldn't 3-bet AK and QQ pre in this spot? You guys all really giving villain exactly JJ here? For real? Like seriously?? Man, and I thought I was a nit. Jeez.

JQ, JT possibly QT. (Yes, I understand how hard we block Tx hands, but there are still a few of them out there.)

Also this villain sounds like the exact kind of villain to over value AQ and KQ in this spot.

Lol at folding this here and lol at the uber nits in this thread. And trust me when I say, if I tell you you're a nit, then you're a nit.

I think the responses are pretty good so far itt. I said I expect villain to 3 bet QQ and AK most of the time but he's capable of flatting those hands as well. Nobodies narrowed his range down to exactly JJ.

Not sure why you'd think villain would play KQ or AQ so aggro here based on my description of him. I'm %95 sure hed just call with those hands.

I will agree that folding to the flop raise is too nitty though.

Getting raised on this flop is definitely concerning, I never said it wasn't, more that we shouldn't get raised often.

Agree that V is calling flop with KQ/AQ type hands. Definitely a reasonable chance we are behind but not folding yet - it does suck to be OOP here though obviously

I think you guys are giving villain too much credit for being able to discern between relative hand strength and absolute hand strength here. In my personal experience with this type of villain at LLSNL his thought process when seeing the flop is going to be more like 'Top Pair Top Kicker, and a gutshot to the nuts, YAY that's like the nuts essentially, let's go,' and not bothering to think about all the range stuff you guys are, or the relative strength of his hand on this board.

Ultimately I don't think he will always over play AQ and KQ here, just that this type of villain will do it sometimes. Enough to factor that in if you feel it's close between better value hands and worse value hands.

lol ITT you're terrible.

Also I think it's important not to get stuck on a simplistic view of oh we got a set, folding would be too nitty.

Here's our situation. We bet 4/5ths pot on a super scary board that hits our range hard against an ABC player 300BB deep and he bombed it 4x against a good aggressive player. In my experience a tightish ABC player is never doing this as a semi bluff this deep or with medium strength 2 pairs against good aggressive players.

If he's got semi bluffs here, or even QT/JT, then our read that he's an ABC player is wrong. ABC players just aren't doing that in this situation like ever, which is what makes them ABC players.


Side note, I'm the furthest thing from a nit. I'm actually pretty aggressive and make hero calls more than anyone in my games. Maybe this is why ABC players pretty much never tend to get out of line with me, as they see me making light calls & aggressive plays against other aggressive players & fish.

I can't edit my last post but I think folding to the flop raise is actually reasonable considering villains perceived narrow range. Also... I'll humbly admit that I'm just not good enough to fold in these spots. I think calling and evaluating the turn is the best play here though.

I don't think you've paid enough attention to my reads and description of villain. You're describing more of a donkey reg. This guys pretty decent and if I ever saw him "mix it Up" and 3 bet light/bluff/semi bluff more. id consider him good.

Uh...OK. Well seeing how I actually gave a, reasonably detailed, opinion on why this would be a bad fold and was definitely not just saying 'oh I have a set, how can I possibly fold that,' perhaps you could tell me which part of what I wrote is so 'lol and terrible.'

I have definitely witnessed plenty of villains, like the type this one sounds like to me, who will over play AQ and KQ and raise with them on this board. I know that for a fact. Maybe we play in dramatically different player pools but I doubt it.

And, OK if you think he never over plays those hands ever I guess, but you genuinely believe top 2 isn't in this villains raising range here and you're loling at me and calling me terrible. That's a good joke.

So let me get this right. Villain just flats pre doesn't 3-bet, OP believes he would most likely 3-bet QQ and AK pre and yet you are just almost certain bottom set is dead to villains raise here in a situation where you should be heavily discounting his likelihood of AK and QQ.

Makes perfect sense.

He didn't just raise, he bombed it 4x against a near pot sized bet. This polarizes his range much more than a normal 3x raise. In my experience ABC players aren't trying to bloat pots deep with medium strength hands against aggressive players on scary boards. They also aren't semi bluffing.

And I didn't say we were dead. I said he could have QJ here, I just think it's less likely because of his sizing. I do think the decision is super close, I just lean towards fold because I feel his sizing polarizes him a lot. If he made it 150ish It'd be 100% call.

I rarely ever fold in this situation, but an ABC player bombing it 4x on a super scary flop 300bb deep when I'm out of position is one of the times I'm considering it. Making big disgusting folds is apart of being a good player.

I actually went back and re-read your description of him after my last post. Pretty tight pre, and straight forward ABC type don't make me change my opinion at all on his ability to sometime over play these hands.

Decent reg might. Depends upon how decent that is exactly. As well as how many sessions/hours you've played with him lifetime. If not many, then I think you might be giving him more credit than you should.

To be clear I'm not saying I think AQ and KQ are a big part of his range here, just that the possibility of him over playing those hands should be considered when figuring out his range, and thus a few combos of each should be tossed in to your calculations. I think if you toss 0 combos of those hands in, thus saying he over plays those 0% of the time in your opinion then you are making a mistake.

Unless you've logged at lot of hours with him life time and you can be sure he wouldn't ever do that, which perhaps you have but it's not in the description of him that you gave.

Short of sufficient reads on how this particular villain plays, this type of villain in a vacuum I'm saying will sometimes over play AQ and KQ here and thus I would toss a combo or two of each into the total range I'm assigning him before doing my final calculation.

OK, but I think a lot of ABC players at LLSNL consider top 2 to be a monster here. Once again relative hand strength isn't really a factor for them. They just look at absolute hand strength most of the time.

I think the actuall question here though is on the other side, the value hands that can beat us here and how many of them there really are.

OP initially said he was pretty sure villain would raise QQ and AK most of the time, then said he might flat them sometimes.

For folding here to have any legitimate merrit there needs to be a decent enough chance villain has QQ/AK here because if he doesn't and JJ is pretty much the only legitimate better hand he shows up with then folding is complete lol. Unless you somehow think he has multiple K9 combos running around in his range here.

So how often do you actually think this villain would just call pre with QQ/AK OP? How much do you have to discount the combos of those hands here postflop.

We clearly have different perceptions of what a "pretty tight pre straight forward ABC players" raising range on this flop texture, facing an ep raise and large c bet from a good reg oop is.

So we'll just go in circles...

Top 2 is pretty much a bluff catcher here if stacks go in.
A decent reg shouldn't be going too crazy with it.

It's hard to fold when he could be doing this for value with worse but you block a **** ton of the worse hands he can have. Give him 89sT9s JToQToQJo AKo QQ JJ (also maybe KJo KTo) and maybe a spazzy AJoATo once in a while

His range is way too polarized to have AQ KQ, maybe KT/KJ/AT/AJ if he's feeling aggro but TP + open ended or gutshot never does this kind of stuff here

This spot is so weird because it's so easy for you to be nutted this guy has to be very faceup OTT unless he's a sicko tbh