Both hands are against the same V.

V is early to mid 30s WG, probably the strongest villain at the table. Aggro pre and post, capable of squeezing/3betting light and firing three streets post with air. Positionally aware.

Hero is mid 30s WG. Aggro, winning image. Ran $500 stack up to over double that amount in his first hour, and with very few showdowns. Have not been forced to showdown light or caught bluffing. Mostly been getting paid off on thin value river bets.

V and H have history with each other and respect each other's games. Have discussed strat away from the table a few times.

Table is 1/3 with a mandatory UTG straddle to $6-$15.

Hand #1

Effective stacks ~$1,000. Hero is $6 straddle UTG. V is on Hero's immediate left (full table, no choice to seat change) and opens to $25. Call from MP, call from LP. Folds to Hero who looks at AT. This might be a squeeze candidate for Hero sometimes, but I don't relish the idea against V's UTG open range. Hero calls.

Flop (~$100 after drop) 9 8 5

Hero checks. V bets $45. Other two opponents fold. Hero thinks V is almost always capped to one pair here, he might have some sets in his range but I have all of them, plus 98 and 76, while he has very few of those if any. Also since I hold the As, the only draws he can really have are the ones I'm ahead of. Could go either way here, call seems fine with the BDSD but I elect to raise to $180. V thinks maybe 15 seconds and calls.

Turn ($460) 2

Hero bets $250. V thinks 20-30 seconds and calls. He's almost certainly capped to one pair now, I think he would GII with all sets given how sopping wet the board is.

River ($960) 3

Brick city. Hero jams $500ish.

Hand #2

Effective stacks ~$1,500. Hero is BB, V is $6 straddle UTG. Call from MP, call from LP. SB completes. Hero looks at 97 and completes. V checks his option.

Flop ($30) Q 5 6

SB checks, Hero checks. V bets $20. Folds to SB who calls. Hero calls given this deep with gutshot to disguised nuts and BDFD.

Turn ($90) 3

Best card in the deck besides a black 8, perhaps. SB checks, Hero checks, V bets $50. SB calls. Call is probably fine here too given that we should have implied odds on hearts since its backdoor, and an 8 is still a well disguised straight. Probably hard to get paid on a 4, though. Hero again elects the aggressive line, SB is unlikely to be strong here and my range should be entirely uncapped. Hero raises to $200. V thinks 20-30 seconds and calls. SB folds.

River ($540) A

Still suck at hitting mammoth draws. But now I have probably the worst hand I ever have in this spot, and draws V might have been on have missed, and if he had gotten station-y with Qx on the turn he might now be afraid that any NFD hands I was bluffing with on the turn have pulled ahead.

Hero bets $300.

If the villain folded both times, you're at a pretty soft table if he's the second best player. Just poor play to call the turn to fold on the river to a blank to an aggro player. However, lots of poor play occurs at 1/3.

I guess this comes down to what you feel your image is in the Vs eyes and what you feel he thinks you're capable of. I mean unless he has a busted flush draw as well I have no idea what he would be folding in the river getting 3/1. I mean a lot of people over fold at low stakes when their stacks get deep so if you feel you can push him around then go for it.

The second hand, again I don't dislike your idea but if this guy is any good like you say he is he shouldn't be calling your raises on the turn so much to just be folding on the river when a jam or at least a pretty chunky bet is obviously coming in the river.

I think your plays and thinking is fine it's just that I don't know if I like it against the type of V you described in the op. But then again if he's folding in these kind of situations (especially the first one) often then you should adjust your description of his ability and keep blowing him off hands.

Hand 1: What are you leading the turn with that you would have flatted with on the flop? Also, what do you think is V's MDF and MD range when getting 3-1 on the river? You're really repping two pair that would've slow-played wettish flop and a set. He has all the dominant overpairs given pre-flop action. I feel like we're repping too thin.

Hand 2: I like this one, because we're so wide in a limped pot. He's not repping anything much and perhaps led turn with a weak Qx or a diamond draw. We can have anything and he cannot have more than a draw or a weak Q. On river, he doesn't have AQ, we have plenty of Ax and some that made two pair.

If I c/c the flop in Hand 1, there are actually quite a few turn cards that I could lead with given my c/c range. Any spade, any card 5 through 9, and maybe some Tx. All of those are way better for my range on the flop than his range, and he'd likely be checking back overpairs on all those turn cards so it would make sense to lead.

I agree laying 3:1 on the river is problematic. But stack sizes on the turn are awkward. A jam would be like 1.7 PSB. I'm open to the idea that jamming turn is correct, so I welcome that discussion. My first thought is that might be best to do on some different turn cards though, such as one that completes more of the available draws on the flop and whiff his range. 6x, 7x, spades come to mind.

Welcome discussion on the bolded as to whether we're too thin, but we've got all 9 combos of sets, all 76, all 98. That's anywhere from 16 to 34 combos depending on if all the offsuit connectors are in our straddle defense range (and I think this deep, for this price, and with the best relative position to the PFR, we're going to have a lot of those combos preflop)

Right. But the flop x r is a little strange once the others fold. If you had a monster, some of them are flatting his bet. So the x r is polarized to the vulnerable nuts or bluffs. You have all the Asxs here too. You only have 76o/98o if you’re a bad player which you obviously aren’t.

Both hands well played - You can rep the nuts in both hands.

Although in Hand 1 I expect to get called a lot on this run out. Wish we got like a JT76 river or spade obviously

H1: River is a blank, so hope your bluff got through.
4-way to the flop, $45 into $100 seems odd sizing for a 1-pr hand. Given his image, B/C line, I don’t necessarily agree his range is capped. Additionally, Hero is aggro and oop, so he can let you pile $ in.

H2: A7dd/A5dd/A4dd paired or better on the river. Can’t win w/o a bluff, again, hope it got through. Having trouble finding your value range with turn x/r. Un-raised pot, with ranges wider, I’d speculate your aggro image is not risking a check through with hands like 65/66/55/Q6s.

Grunch.

Seems kinda silly to talk (aka give away) strategy to another tough reg off-table who seems eager/willing to go to war with you @ the table. I get poker is a social activity & all, but faux-comradery & strategy pillow-talk w/ other regs is something best avoided. W/ that said . . .

H#1, pre/flop/turn seem standard (though I prefer x/c flop after he bets into 3 players), but the river shove is pretty bad.

H#2 better overall I guess, but your line still looks suspect on this board, & outcomes from H#1 (and what you've revealed about your own play in your conversations w/ this guy in the past) are likely non-trivial & should also shape our decision making here.

Grunching the thread...

First hand: your description means that villain can have all the sets on this flop, as often as you have them. Other than that, we would take the same line with any set, 76, and maybe 98 so seems just fine.

Second hand is tougher. Are you trying to represent 33 and 74? A set that...check-called flop? Your line is pretty suspicious and I'd probably just call with the direct odds to hit. You say "my range is uncapped" how so? You completed pre and check-called flop. You don't have QQ and 74 is unlikely, you shouldn't have sets often here...watch yourself for justifying plays based on your perception of capped vs uncapped.

If you fast play your monsters the bluff in hand 2 doesn't make sense.

H1:

Hope we have the first seat change button.

I don't hate our postflop plan although I'm not so certain this is the right guy to make it against nor is our image the right one to do it with. I guess the question is whether it will work enough overall to be profitable.


H2:

If we want to loosely complete preflop due to huge stacks and take a relatively cheap flyer, ok, whatever.

Calling the flop OOP against a solid player and 3way (where we're not sure if we can rep the diamond draw or whether it slaughters us) is pretty meh, imo.

On the turn I probably just take my odds here and call. It's hard folding 2 people, but maybe I'm too passive.

Again not convinced this is the right opponent / we have the right image for this stuff, but I can't hate a river bluff at this point (plus our Ax flush draw "got there" and we only have 9 high).


ETA: These bluffs would work against someone like me (risk adverse to getting in big stacks with one pair) all the time. Course, this guy ain't me, so is he really going to fold enough knowing what you're capable of?

Gweplaydifferentstyles,butmanystyleswork,sowhateve rworksG

Grunch:

H1: Hate the flop x/raise. Villain is the EP preflop raiser, betting into multiple opponents on a wet board. We have heaps of equity and playability vs his entire range, and if he jams we have to fold.

River AP: horrible spot to bluff river, we block all reasonable draws, river is a pure brick and villain has a strong range and has been stubborn throughout. With a 1/2 PSB left we should be valuebetting ~75% of the time and we are gonna be weighted waaaaay too much towards missed draws just with all the Ax alone.

Grade: F

H2: Now THIS is a hand we could/should check-raise on the flop. Villain has a wide range, we have no current value and negligible equity, but a lot of runouts on which we gain equity and can barrel, and we can bluff other incoming draws as well.
However, just flatting OOP is pretty bad imo. Turn x/raise is ok, we are repping pretty thin, but it is the nut drawing card for us, so...

River AP: definitely better spot than H1, still not great tho. The ace is kinda good and bad at the same time, yes it's a scarecard for Qx, but the Ahigh FD's get there also. At least we don't block diamonds.
Sizing is pretty small too, all the draws clearly missed and we are trying to be polarized, so bet a polarizing amount, maybe in the 500-700 range. Give yourself some fold equity.

Grade: C-

Overall you seem to have a bad idea at what type of hands we should be raising with a SPR of >10. Raise draws that can barrel on multiple runouts and that we can easily abandon if needed. Just flat with high equity drawing hands that dominate other draws.

Results:

H1: Villain tanked for ~ 5 minutes and eventually called with KsKx.

H2: Villain tanked for what felt like longer this time, but not sure. Eventually he called with Q5hh.

If V posted this hand from his perspective on this forum and told us he held AA/KK and got c/r on the flop with this action, I imagine a significant portion of posters would be telling him to fold because the Straddle has all sets and straights in his range, plus two pairs, while V is almost always capped at one pair, although he can sometimes have 99. Not worried about getting jammed on the flop when we're this deep.

Also not following you about why the river is awful spot to bluff. We know he doesn't have a missed draw, and we're ahead of any missed draws anyway so we wouldn't be trying to bluff them. We're trying to blow him off a one pair hand.

Plus, we probably do have the 75% value combos you mention. As I posted earlier, we have 9 combos of sets in our range, anywhere from 4-16 combos of flopped straights, and anywhere from 4-16 combos of 98 for flopped top two pair. That's 17 combos minimum of value, up to potentially 41. Axss is only ten combos max, and I likely wouldn't be doing this with A4, A3, A2ss, plus AKss likely is 3bet pre.

Limiting the bluffs to the combo draws or two overs + spades should be enough for balance. A6, A7, A8, AT, AJ, AQ, JT, QT, T7, T8, 86 (all ss).

I would be much more likely to flat either one of these draws if we were in position. Also, I'm failing to see how either one of these raising spots is not conducive to barrelling on multiple runouts. Finally, H2 we don't dominate other draws so that's not a consideration to flat, and in H1 there are not likely any other draws present except maybe two combos of KQss and KJss given preflop and flop action.

Given preflop action I have all 74s and 42s in my range. I fastplay sets most of the time, but this deep and in a limped pot I will occasionally slowplay 65, 55, and 66 here, getting a chance to evaluate the turn card and action before piling in. Definitely not the default, but it happens, and Vs won't know that its rare for me to wait to turn to raise those hands.

Only looked at H1 here and no results, but I've tried this line multiple times in the last year with this exact type of hand on a board that favors my range more than the PFR. Ie, I can have the nuts, all set where he doesn't. Every time I've gotten looked up by a stubborn one pair hand. Basically I'm done trying this bluff, and am now taking this line with more value hands and it has been working so much better. Therefore, just C/C flop. Reevaluate turn.

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