Was a juicy $1/2 game until the deep fish got stacked and went home. The feeding frency ceased and now we have three semicompetent tight players with $1K+, and some shortish bad regs. and fish w. <$200.

V is a nitty TAGish player, kind of on auto pilot. Basically just playing tight, and value betting. A lot of bet/fold lines. Has a tightish opening range. I know he limps AJ,KQ, 99, AJs in EP. Saw him raise TT there once. Saw him bet/snap fold to raise on river w. A9 on AQ497 board. C bets a lot less than a good TAG. Has bad bodylanguage/timing tells. This guy doesn't pay off very many value bets. When the big money goes in on later streets he has the best hand. Might be scared money. Plan is to pound on him and steal pots, raise his bet/folds, play my hands more deceptively.

Hero played this table for about an hour (mostly card dead and folded pf) before going to $2/5 for a few hours. Returned 3 hours later when the $2/5 was breaking up. Got some looks when they saw me show up again with a pile of green chips. The first orbit, I was a gifted a double up when I flopped a set and a fish 4bet shoved flop for 250BB w. Aces. Won a few pots here and there on the flop after raising pre and c betting, but for the most part have been folding pre. Solid, winning TAG image I would say.

Blinds are both old regs who are buddies.

UTG is a old Chinese reg. who plays a limpy/passive game.
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OTTH

UTG straddles $5, V ($1400ish) opens UTG+2 for $15 (kind of a small raise), folds around to hero ($1300) OTB w. 88, SB and BB are already showing their cards to each other and ready to muck. Hero???

3b is a bluff vs. this V's MP opening range, right? We can prob push him off most of his hands eventually but I prefer not to barrel off into nitty players if there's another way

I think I'm going for a call, hopefully UTG will come along as well. How deep is he?

3b is tempting to bring V's whole stack into play, but:

1) if he loves the b/f, will he open/fold pre?
2) if he 4bets us, we're obviously toast, and that was a hand that would have paid off
3) UTG gonna instafold most of the time

I can't see any reason why we'd want to do anything other than call preflop against the described villain.

Don't want to lose the limpy UTG and blow the opener off a weakish hand. I flat here and play poker IP. Seeing as we can win the hand post even if we don't flop a set, the high SPR allows us to have more maneuverability.

call

I don´t remember exactly. I guess $150ish.

Call, see a flop

+1, but I don't think we're just set mining here, either.

Yep, definite call. We have position, we have image, and we have a villain who will try to avoid playing a big pot with a medium-to-bad hand. Call and be prepared to float a lot of flops.

Not looking to drag this thing out like some posters around here. (relax JB...I kid..I kid.).

I guess I'm out on a limb here with my pf action. On the plus side I remember someone around here once said that a good PAHWM usually requires that the hero make mistakes on multiple streets. *cue the Kfish

So...

Hero raises to $45, folds back around to V who looks none too happy, thinks for about 15 seconds and then calls.

***Decided to raise here because:

-V´s don´t open for $15 and fold for $30 more where I play
-My hand is decent and I have postion
-Not going to get 4! unless V has KK+
-For deception
-Postflop I can rep a lot of scare cards and get V to fold an overpair frequently
-I prefer to have the initiative
-I want to build a pot for myself to steal/when I flop huge.
-3! is fun/I've been reading Bip!'s PG&C lately
-Ego?

($91) Flop: 9:65

V checks, Hero?

How do you know he limps all of those hands in EP?
Will he 4b you with anything but AA/KK?

You are 600bigs deep. You can make it something like $45 and play for stacks on later streets if you hit a set. You also have the button. This matters.

If you're "not just set mining" as some have suggested, you still have room to play with an SPR greater than 14 if you 3bet. Maybe it'll be harder to bluff-raise some street. If you honestly think that you can steal the pot more easily without the lead than ok.

I am not saying that you need to 3bet or anything, but I am interested to hear more reasons why hero should not. Also taking the pot down for 9bb w 88 isn't the worst result.

Edit: just saw your above post, my thinking exactly

bets 68

Played with him before.

flat pre, as played bombs away

Bet $75. Fold to anything bigger than a min-raise.

Hard choice is going to come on the turn if he calls. We're either firing one barrel or three barrels here, I think. And this is a board that we wouldn't love if we had the hands that we're representing (AA-QQ), so on a lot of runouts we're going to have trouble maintaining that consistent story.

+1 in all respects.

What you're essentially saying here is that you're turning your hand into a bluff. That's what all these reasons are implying. If these are the reasons you're raising, why use a hand as good as 88 for this purpose?

Flat pre.

Bet 65 now.

Bet $70

Seriously just flat pre. As played bet $70.

Gotta 3! this pre. You're deep. Your opponents haven't adjusted their three being ranges. Ergo you have JJ+, AQ+ in their minds. Help them make a huge mistake.

Edit: nice. Ap, check behind flop and BOMB 7/8.

Well you're 0/3 on this hand and we're not even to the turn yet.

Never really considered checking here TBH. No need to give free cards to AK, AQs, etc. Doubtful we are getting c/r if V has TT-QQ.

Thus...

Hero bets $70, V c/r to $200!, hero?

Well, I think his range now is composed of AA-QQ, AdKd, and 99.

I'm NEVER reraising here. Even though we're mega-deep, a reraise is only folding the bottom of that range (QQ). It possibly folds AKdd, but it's also possible that he thinks "overcards+nfd = 15 outssssszzsss!!!"

I would lean toward a fold. Your hand is a bluff, your read is that he doesn't play big pots without big hands, and he's indicated he wants to play a big pot.

Other option is to smooth call and let him face a complicated decision on a lot of turn cards. I don't love this one, because I won't know whether diamonds are his outs or his scare cards. But it'd be a pretty boring PAHWM if you folded the flop, so I hope this is the route you chose.