2/5 game with the straddle on this hand, but not every hand. Hero is known to some at the table but is unknown to this V. Hand is 20 minutes into session. In short time, Hero VPIP roughly 30% and should be seen as LAG. V a few hands prior tripled up 3 betting/shoving AJs and spiked an Ace vs KK and JJ, and then lost a pot to Hero where on a board of Jd-qd-4c-6d, V bet 1/2 pot and HERO ch/raised with Ad-10x and got him to fold (and did not show). Villain said "Just wanted to see where I was at and I got it".

Effective stack is HERO with 1.4k

UTG Reg (700) raises to 30
UTG+1 Villain calls.
Middle position player calls
HERO on button with Ad-4d calls
Everyone else folds

Pot ~130

Flop: 7d-3d-jc

UTG bets 55. V calls. Middle position folds. Hero flats NFD.

Pot: ~295

Turn: 5c

UTG ch, V ch. HERO bets 350. UTG instamucks. V tanks and eventually calls.

Pot: 995

River: Ah

V leads for 325. HERO has approx 1k behind.

Smells like a 2 pair or set that is afraid you will check behind. Possible he was going to XR turn but decided to flat since you bet so big. I dont think you have enough fold equity with so much money in the pot and I dont think your ace is ever good here so I say its a fold unfortunately.

He’s not repping much, maybe exactly AJ. When lines don’t make sense I usually find a call.

Sets "should" be raising flop or at least turn with 2 flush draws and a possible combo straight draws. Especially with my sizing and what I have left behind.

That being said, only 2 pair we can put V on is AJ exactly with this line, which we block.

So what is he doing, just betting QJ or something like that in hopes of seeing showdown cheaper? If you think its that then jam to make him hate life

50/50 between raise small (less than ALLIN) and call.

Raise small as a bluff?

I would think a raise would only be for value. I dont know what better hand he would fold. Since we have the Ad he cant have some better one pair ace he found on the river we can make fold.

What worse hand could possibly bet for value, let alone call a raise?

I'm a bit perplexed too. Why are we bluffing with top pair garbage kicker on this run out? Both flushes missed, the ace doesn't really help any straights. It's hard for UTG2 to have 2P here. AJss (and maybe some A5s?) is all I can think of.

We are sweating a bit of A-broadway in clubs that floated, tanked turn hoping to catch clubs, and is now block-betting hoping the maniac will let them table their TP. Bluffing with the best hand, basically. So we can't just call, if we think that's a significant part of V's range.

With H's image, shipping river might get looked up, right? It's only a 1,000 after a 325 V bet though. And min-clicking tends to goad people to at least call, right?

I guess the math question to answer is: does enough of V's range have A-better kicker in it that we should ship vs calling behind? I thought fold at first too, but we only have to be better 20% of the time. (Edit) Or, are we actually losing more than 80% of the time, and the times we get V to fold, even with our image, outweigh calling, and outweigh sticking another 1,000 in the pot?

I agree, which is why I said fold even though it sucks. Because what worse hand is betting for value here as a donk on the river and what bluff does he have? One combo of 65dd he decides to donk bluff for small on the river? Unless hes super sticky and loose and just has every diamond combo possible that he still calls with on the turn vs overbet. The only remote possibility for value if we raise is if this guy has some kind of QJ/KJ and he somehow talks himself into believing we're bluffing on the river raise and he cant fold given the price hes getting.

I dont think a raise makes sense for value or bluff. What better hand do we get him to fold getting that kind of price? We dont have enough stack left.

So im left with fold>call>raise. Just my opinion though.

Some of his AJ might bet when checked to on turn. There are some combo draws, having the 4d is admittedly bad, 6xdd, 89 8T 9T diamonds, some pair + fd. Maybe he heroed a jack or worse pair + gutter and now realizes he can’t win. Also AJ might check call river given our scary overbet.

Raising small would be a value raise

There are a lot of combos of Jxdd. The problem is that he might bet TP+FD on the turn quite often. So he only has partials of each combo of Jxdd.

Before the river, I believe KQdd and KJdd are the only hands we beat. It was only 20 minutes into the session but I didn't feel this V would flat pre UTG+1 from a UTG raise off a straddle with 56dd or 89dd.

If I was in Villian's shoes with TP+FD on the turn, I would fire. I think most would. The fact that he doesn't and then tanks the turn seemed off but I totally thought it could be an act cause he called this overbet.

I think it's a marginal call. I wouldn't have over bet the turn and I might have 3b pre. but taking your line I would only do this if I slow play the sets on the flop, which I wouldn't. So I over bet my nutted hands and combo draws. So now I have 6 sets , four jx suited 9 thru k, a3d a5d a6d. On this one third bet I need to call 75pc of my range. I am in the top 75pc so I can call this hand and fold the jack pairs. He will have some value that beats us like two pairs ace with clubs and maybe sets. For bluffs he can have some club bdfd floats that picked up a straight draw on turn. These hands thought we aren't folding so they call turn to bet river when no heart or other scare card comes, as a bluff. Maybe it's a blocker bet with the jack heart draws.

So it's super marginal, as a slightly larger bet from him and I'm folding the A3 too. If you fold here it's not a disaster either

Raising is insane because we have show down value so it's value merging which is bad.

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Kind of like it until the river.

Agree with whom said that river is a marginal call, but I am on the stationy side, so I still call.

Of you expect to get looked up wide with some probability there’s a handful of Jx villain clearly has here and if your image is as BS as suspected that could be even wider.

I can’t really think of a ton of value hands villain has here that are obvious and even if we assume the tank on turn is deception/deviation from standard play with a strong hand - im still capped in the # of hands I can reasonably give villain as already stated.

The overbet call on the turn however would give me pause but as played villain if I simply ignore action and look at a normal PF range and analyze runout there just aren’t a lot fo two pair hands villain would have here with high probability leaving sets and a small group of suited connectors that hit a straight.

Also since v said “wanted to see where I was at” in hand history description prior, it feels reasonable and more likely to suspect V is not getting cute with the small river bet and would be more inclined to read it for what it is: block bet with a marginal strength hand vs a complex plot of hitting a monster and inducing.

The question really becomes will villain be susceptible to the play of shoving or would clicking it back be ideal or would shoving?

The estimation would be comparing likelihood of villain calling the shove vs clicking it back min raise - but I don’t think we have enough info/feedback to have a good sense to estimate this as precisely not witnessing all the meta and game flow.

So my default would be shove > click back > call

So you are raising as a bluff I assume? Which marginal hands, that lose to your marginal hand of A4d, are you bluffing out? Could you name them? AKc AQc? A3c A7c? Not sure the 2p fold, or that the one pair even exist. we are talking about max 4 combos here. I don't understand the logic here at all. You can't be raising both to get a call from Jx and a fold from better A. That is not logical. If you want a bluff raise here then use something like T9c which unblocks hearts and can thus fold out Axh. The problem with your logic is that the marginal hand you are trying to fold out is.... your own hand! We block everything that will bet thin and fold!

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No no I’m not trying to get a better A to fold, I’m saying the range of hands that call any raise or shove here has a narrow value range but if your image is LAG and you think you’ll get looked up light that range now includes a grip of more hands that call that you’re ahead of.

You lose to the Ax hands he has sets and the minimal # of possible straights but win when the show up with Jx stuff and maybe PPs that look you up light.

Assumption: villain is not responding to a range of hands and strikes me as the type who is going to “put you on a hand”

Eg:

You shove they sometimes fold out a mix of hands you beat and hands you lose too (Jx stuff you’re ahead of, maybe the a few Ax with a diamond blocker possibly) when they just give you credit for straight.

Some % of the time you shove and they don’t put you on a straight and call with all the Ax, sets but also Jx and possibly even lighter if your image is as loose aggressive as implied (TT for example blocking JT with no diamond as to not be reducing your diamond draws. I don’t think villain is actually thinking of blockers per se as stringently as someone more apt to strat would but the idea of holding a diamond preventing you from have TdX isn’t too far fetched.

I’m saying it’s value due to image and the likelihood villain calls with wider than the set of hands you’re behind.

Re narrow value range: villain didn’t 3bet pre so I’m reducing AK combos to minimal ammount. Maybe all the AQ but in order to make a reasonable assumption of villains range, we rely on frequency info about villains play that we don’t have so i either must assume AQ also is reduced or removed in my above analysis or I include it.

I'm still confused if you are raising as a bluff or value. It cannot be both! So what exact hands ( ranks and suits) are you expecting to call and what hands are you expecting to fold? If you think Jx plus calls, you are behind that range ( count the combos as obviously there are fewer Jx than sets straights 2p and better one pair aces) so that's a terrible value raise. If you think some better aces fold tell me which ones because you are blocking most of them ( I found 4 combos as per above but I think the 2p call and the 1p didn't get here).

If you think Jx calls but Ax and 2p fold then...????


But just list the exact hands that are calling including the ones that beat you, and the ones that are folding and we can see if the raise makes sense as a bluff or value bet.

And that's why the bluff hand is something like T9c which has no showdown value and unblocks all the hands that were trying to block bet.

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And he can't have Ax with xD because how the heck did that hand get here? It called the turn over bet with ace high? It called the flop 3 ways with ace high?

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Call.

We rivered top pair and are getting 4:1 odds on a call?

Just call.

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Hero calls.

Villain has AQcc

I think a jam could have got it done but no way to know for sure. As played, I tanked longer than I do in hands for 3x this amount. Just clueless. I really thought I was never good and only called because both FD's missed and my image.