1/2 9-handed, loose passive table with a couple loose aggressive players. Hero is an early 20's white guy TAG. Here has been proclaimed a nit by one of the young LAG's at the table, a friend of villains.

Villain is an early 20yo white guy LAG on tilt. He 3-bet an OMC big with Q7offsuit, got called, c-bet a 567 board, got called, check check on A-turn, jammed river got called by TT. He raises too frequently from the blinds, probably not fully understanding how bad it is playing bloated pots multiway OOP.

Hands villain has seen hero play. He has seen me open in LP against his friend and triple barrel a T8x board two spades, 6 turn, A-spade river, no showdown I had a set. I played a hand against villain with position 3-way, 9xx FD I c-bet he calls heads up, turn K bringing 2nd FD I bet again with 88 he folds. I raise from the BB against limpers to 17$ with AQs, OMC calls, QQx check check, QQxJ I bet 25$ he jams for pot I call he's drawn dead with J7s? Most relevant hand.. I open from MP with 99, villains friend in the BB defends. flop A25r he checks, I c-bet, he raises with about a pot sized bet behind. I fold. He says "wow your such a nit, you folded AQ?!" I say "no that would be an easy continue.. what did you have?" He says 2pair..

OTTH
5 limpers
Villain (400$) in the SB makes it 15$ (again this range is wider than it should be and his sizing is too small IMO)
Hero (320$) in the BB wakes up with KK
3-bets to 50$
Villain calls, heads up.

Flop(110$) A63r

Villain checks
Hero bets 65$.. In retrospect I could probably size down slightly

Villain Jams all in.

Hero? 205$ to call to win 445$

This seems to be only repping A6s A3s, 33, and 66..
wouldn't other Ax hands either fold pre or just call flop, we are blocking AK heavily and he may 4-bet that hand. AQs etc should be afraid of AK still... right?

Fold

KK goes from the top 5% your range down to the bottom 40-ish% of your range when an ace flops in a 3-bet pot.

You'll have better hands here, like AQ that would still have a hard decision to make against this bet. KK is an easy fold.

when we fold KK here, what are we giving him credit for? obviously we can never fold AK.. I'm not gonna fold AQ either.. so, having said that, what hands are we beating with AK/AQ that we aren't beating with KK. Do you really think a weak Ace calls pre and just check jams this flop?? Does not seem like a good play to me. I would be much more worried about a check call, check check, jams river line than this weird check jam flop line that is trying to saying what exactly? Idk, against this tilted player capable of bluffing, compounded by the fact that I showed I can bet fold A-high rainbow in a previous hand, I'm still on the fence here..

Check back flop and be ready to call his turn lead. Evaluate river.

You're giving a 1/2 villain way too much credit for thinking and remember previous hands, particularly one he wasn't involved in.

Fold. They always have it

Check flop. Call turn. Eval river.

You can take this line with hands like AJ/AQ sometimes which you should be 3 betting with. Even hands like A10s, depends how loose you think he is.

His raising from sb/bb is extremely profitable if he's getting it through vs a lot of limps pre. I do this all the time with QJ+, 88+, A9s+. His bluffs are not super unreasonable imo, but he's being overly aggressive than he needs to be.

As played it's a coin flip for me. If you bet/fold too many hands 1010-KK it's too many folds potentially vs this kind of guy. Probably have to call with some of your kings.

Then call. IDK. These leveling wars make for crap threads. Your effort in trying to describe the table dynamic is notable, but it's still a highly subjective spot.

In your OP you describe a maniac that shoved middle pair on the river, yet in your second post you say:

Yeah, it's not a good play. Neither was his Q7 play. But it doesn't mean he wouldn't do it. And we can't even beat top pair. Ranging a maniac is not something that's easy to do, because you just simply don't know how often he is bluffing. Like RagingOwl said though, KK has quickly dropped in strength as a percentage of your range. You should have a butt ton of aces in your range and stronger under pairs.

At the end of it all though, just go with your read in the spot. This is a dry board, so semi-bluff spots that maniacs love just aren't there. He has to be just blasting off with pure air here at a high frequency to make this call correct. The Q7 hand isn't enough to tell us he's doing it. If anything he should be MORE scared of your range because you have a nit image and this board smacks your 3! range hard. He has all sets and Ax 2-pairs in his range easily, and that includes the slowplayed AA. I'd have to see much more donkalicious behavior before I make this call. Checking back the flop is also 100% reasonable, as is betting much smaller like you've noted.

I agree with this, If I'm always bet folding those hands like you said It's an exploitable fold. So maybe I should be leaning more towards a check with this hand like you guys have suggested. I also don't have as many A's in my 3-bet range as I should so this hand is actually closer to the top of my distribution than you might think. If I have AJ, It's because I'm considering myself 3-bet bluffing, AQ AK yes, but that's about it. I will occasionally flat AQ as well.

He's not getting it through a lot not even close. Maybe this sort of thing works for you, but the tables I play at love playing IP against raises in the blinds for that price, 88+ fine, A9s not a fan, I'm definitely not taking QJ off and doing this. If I do, I'm definitely sizing up more so I'm not inviting everyone in.

This is a little off topic, but think about it this way, at the correct table of course.

If there are 4 limps, im in sb with QJo, and I make it $17. This gets through a decent % of the time for $10, that's where the real profit is. If it doesn't get through, I'm just looking to realize my equity. There's going to be $42 in the pot (-5 rake) so I need to win it a little under half the time, which is generally easy to accomplish with a 1/2-2/3 pot cbet a large % of the time. Especially if you use this move sparingly, it is mega profitable in a tightish game.

Grunch: Your image, assuming he pays any attention, is of an aggressive player who constantly bets but folds to raises.

That being said, why are you cbetting this flop?

This is a good time to x/c to balance your image. Also because all loose Vs love seeing (raised) pots with Ax.

Check through the flop and reevaluate OTT.

In b4 Hero herocalled and won vs 54s.

we were in even better shape than that

Check the flop dude.

Also your 3bet is too small. Send it to $60-70.

So I guess my first Q is how do you only have $320 when you won almost all those hands in the beginning paragraph?

To me, I think this is close but most likely a call given history and V thinking your a nit. His range is pretty wide given history so I think I call it off.

@johnny_buz: Are you checking this flop to induce a turn spazz or are in u in call down mode because most players are more straightforward in 3! pots?

Thanks,

Shorn

Wouldn't mind seeing a 3-bet to 60 or 65.
Villain called a 3-bet, and with my experience at a 1/2 table, generally this gets narrowed down to 99-QQ, AJ/AQ/AK, AA very unlikely and KK next to impossible as you already have KK.

Check behind villain on flop.
If villain has AJ/AQ/AK they will most likely bet the turn.
If they have 99-QQ they may either check the turn, or take a stab at the pot by betting but being fearful of the A. I think calling here is fine. You will get a pretty certain answer on the river.

If they have AJ/AQ/AK, they will feel confident by the river and probably fire again.
If they have 99-QQ, they will assume you have the A and give up by checking.

Given how the hand played out though (villain C/R shove), this is an easy fold. Very much looks like AQ, AK a little less likely as you have two K blockers.

The board is bone dry and it's a WA/WB spot. We're never betting for value, nor are we ever folding a better hand.

We can still try to get value later from worse later in the hand, but this is the kind of board that usually results in a small pot won if villain doesn't have Ax.

+1

We should be checking a lot of our Ax on this flop as well. Maybe bet AK if you're going to bet some of your Ax.

If we are going to range bet this flop (which we probably don't need to do in low stakes live poker) we should be betting wayyyyyyy smaller on the flop. Something like 35-40.


AP, easy fold


Don't level yourself here and just make the fold

Got it, thx.

He’s repping any ace at all which beats you. Fold.

Fair question but rather off topic. Started with 200$ , AQ on QQx was only about +100$ OMC was short and his jam not quite pot size actually, c-bet fold and the double barrel with 88 that villain folded net 0$ roughly, triple barrel that did not get called was +70$ ish.
so from just those hands I mentioned that's about 370$

I lost a couple limped pots from the BB that I decided not to mention..

but they could very well be relevant to how I'm perceived as they were both nitty folds. I also didn't really want to catch heat for these folds but here are the hands.

1st hand I play at the table, happens to be against villain who at this point appears to be a solid thinking player with a deep stack (+300BB's) and I have no other info. 3 or 4 limpers, villain completes in SB, BB checks option with K3 offsuit. Flop K93dd, villain leads 7$, Hero raises to 20$, Villain re-raises to 50$, I decided to fold.. yes I know its nitty. I also tell villain I folded two pair.. he asks me why I would do that (good question), he says what did you have 93?? I happened to pick up 93 the very next hand and I just nodded and flashed that hand as I mucked it. He says wow so did I , 93 of hearts.. So I lit 20$ on fire pretty quick.

Other hand has 79s (diamonds) in the BB. 4-5 limpers I check my option. Flop QT6hh checks through, turn T, checks through, river 8 of hearts, I lead 7$, MP player flats, one of the lags on the button villains friend raises to 35-40$ I snap muck and after MP mucks I say ok, that was a nitty fold. He shows 84 with 4 of hearts. -only 9$

but, we figure over some orbits I'm gonna lose some blinds, maybe I joined the limpers with some low pairs IP for 2$ or 7$, cant remember but considering those two hands and just normal lose of blinds or possible speculative hands its not too hard to arrive at around 320$.