Had an interesting hand in my last session. Game was played somewhere in Europe.

It's a 2/4 Euro Game with an occasional straddle (Uncapped). Table conditions at this evening were fairly bad. Lots of semi good live Regs some with online background but no move possible.

Two interesting villains in the hand:

Villain 1 (Stack >3000): A Live Reg who plays in NL and PLO games up to 10/20 and even higher. He is very laggy and from my point of view the most dangerous player at the table. His leak at the lower stakes is that he plays way too loose and way too aggressive maybe due to boredom or disrespect. As long as I'm not very deep I can handle him and as long as I do not have him on my direct left (he 3Bets especially me very often).

Villain 2 (Stack ~1200): Unknown up to this session. Played ~3Hours with him and unfortunately couldn't get a clear picture. He was a white guy somewhere in the 50s. He played very loose (way too loose) - e.g. limped J9o from MP. He took some passive but also plenty of aggressive lines. He 3Bet three times with good sizing. He won plenty of small - medium pots mostly without showdown and managed to triple his starting stack. Couldn't see him getting out of line or saw him showing bluffs.

Hero (Stack ~1000): Villain 1 might see me as an annoying new TAG in his game with for this game short stack (100bb – 150bb). Within the session I played tight and straightforward. I won some medium pots only with the goods or without showdown. No action between me and both Villains in this session.

Preflop:

V1 Straddles to 8, folds to Hero with 88 in MP2, Hero raises to 30, V2 calls in HJ and V1 calls

I usually balance here between limping and raising but in this situation with a relative tight table I think raising is better.

Flop (106):

A 4 5

V1 Checks, Hero bets 60, V2 calls, V1 calls (both call relative quickly)

I Cbet here to Rep the Ace and take the pot down. After both call I’m more or less done with the hand.

Turn (286):

9

V1 Checks, Hero checks, v2 Checks

River (286):

8

V1 quickly raise to 260, Hero thinks for a while and calls, I call here because V1 has definitely bluffs in his range and also weaker value hands that are hoping for a call from e.g. AK.

V2 puts slowly his stack together throw out 6 bucks to tip the dealer and went all in with ~1100

V1 thinks for a while and folded. V2 looked very nervous and aggressive. I talked a little bit with myself and spoke a word with V1 and he instantly called me to be quite. The more interesting point is that he called time after I was only 40 – 60 seconds in tank mode.

I’m not very used to life tells therefore I’m interested in your opinion. He definitely wanted to force me into an action with his time but the question is into a call or into a fold. I from my side would never ever take my opponent under pressure when I want a call.

Hero?

Grunch

I'm pretty sure this is a call. Your hand is way under repped at this point. You are suppose to have Ax with a weak kicker or like JJ here, not the mortal nuts. You are only really losing to 76. Just curious, why are you talking to V1 in this hand after he has already folded? V1 also seems like a bit of a douche IMO. But yeah, as played call. If he's got 76, then oh well.

Oh and BTW, the river is a raise I think. Not sure why you are flatting.

hehe.
yeah, agree with this, only one hand beats us, call now, and definitely raise V1s bet.

Call.

Seems like he wants you to fold. Your hand does seem super under repped since you didn't even raise the river.

He told something like what the hell of a good hand he folded and I mentioned that my hand might be even better. That's basically it.

I called instead of raise due to the fact that I do not see V1 to call with less in this situation (might be wrong). In addition I was hoping of a call from V2 with hands I beat and i didn't want to scare him away (might be also wrong).

Read PM plze

Not folding but it is a good rule to be fearful of river aggression, ESPECIALLY with prior passivity. But yea I'm not folding.

You asked for live read...most in this forum dismiss them but in particular the villain calling the clock is interesting. I have never seen a clock called when wanting a call. It is actually a pretty solid rule. The reason being that you don't want to influence an action. I had top set and jammed the other day, I waited 8 minutes and still didn't call clock. It was a 300bb pot so luckily I had a respectful table that also didn't call clock (though I would have been fine if they did)

Guy finally called with his obviously crushed 2pr.

That said, with live play and live reads, the phrase "it depends" always comes into play.

I really don't understand why you called the river the first time. Can you explain your logic?

Ah, I see it now. Really, you think they fold 2 pairs and undersets?

You could put them to the test to prove they can fold A9, AK, or 44. You're basically saying you're afraid of 76 (since it's a little hard to think they called flop and checked turn with 99, and AA also feels unlikely). That feels too nitty to me.

I have quite the oposite expirence. Calling the clock puts opponent to a more instinctive decision, and if he is a fish, who is not playing scared money he is more likely to call.

I'm also pretty convinced V raises for Value here, but as Hero hand is underreped, he will value raise two guys otr not only with the stone cold nuts. But what else? There are not to many good hands at this board in general.

$1906, $840 to call.

2.3:1.

30% equity.

Losing to just 1 hand (1.5 hands if you somehow think Villain has 99 here).

uh... call.

FOLD.

You made the right call. People don't over jam on the river as a bluff on low stakes games, sounds to me like he had 6 7 of spades.

And even if he didn't have the str8, and was over valuing a lower set or 2 pair, folding is still the correct thing to do. No reason to play you whole stack against this guy in this situation -as decribed he gives plenty of action and you'll have more opportunties against him.

ehmm...

Tipping the dealer before your action is so 2003.

I'll be pretty surprised if Villain has the straight.

One question to you guys. What is his value raising range on the river which checks behind the turn.? And please be aware that he shoves into two guys and v1 has definitely shown strengh and is even deeper than me.

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Yea I think you are beat here pretty often, but folding is hard since you only need to be good ~30% of the time.

What are you guys thinking he has in his value range that calls that flop, checks back that turn, but shoves that river? I think it's almost exclusively 67, maayyybbbbeee A8. But I question A8 being in his value range since lagtard bet pot and can easily have 67, and it's very unlikely anyone is calling his shove with worse.


I think this is a pretty polarized bluff/nuts spot. It's definitely not a bad spot to shove as a bluff though, so he will definitely have some bluffs in his range.

And as said you only need to be right like ~30% for it to be breakevenish. So I'd probably just go with my read/gut here. Definitely pretty close. I'd actually lean towards folding since we don't have much of a read and I don't think most live players, especially old men, are capable of bluff shoving this river >30% of the time.

And you guys really need to stop thinking like " only one hand beats us so we should call. "

Anything villian2 can shove for value on that river that we beat would bet that turn close to 100%.

Also hero having the 8s removes a couple of the combos that villian would likely turn into a bluff.

3 hands beat us actually, 2,3, and 7,6 and AA

He could have flopped the wheel and played it real cagey his line looks a LOT like a horribly played AA or literally something like 2,3. He slowplays the flop, given the inaction on the turn he probably figures any bet would just fold people out and then he goes spastic on the river. It's hard to put him on anything else honestly. That raise into a bet and a call is showing immense strength. Honestly you beat 44 and 55, that's about it. I can't see this being something like AK pretty much ever unless you categorize that hand along with all the other "wtf" hands that he might have some really small percentage of the time. Given that hero doesn't have a read on this guy, I think AA, 23, and 67 are absolutely in his range.

Meh I fold but I'm weak tight. I don't like calling river raises into 2 people. Disclosure - i don't play live in europe so maybe it's a bit of a different dynamic.

This is a good point.

Thanks to all responses. I folded the hand and villain 2 didn't show. villain 1 told me that he folded a set of 4s. Thus discussion can proceed because we will never know what he had.

My biggest leak so far was calling too much in situations like that, therefore i take it as a good sign to be able to fold.

I couldn't give him a value hand i beat and i do not think an unknown has a more than 30 percent 300bb overbet bluffshove range at the river. The question for me was does he has some of these weird played hands we might beat.

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Probably some really small % of the time, people do ******ed stuff. Don't think it's enough to get you anywhere near the 30% you need though.

Pretty solid fold imo.

The last paragraph sounds like scared money. If he is capable of shoving here with lower set or 2p this is certainly a call with the pot odds. The fact that it is for your stack doesn't matter, you can rebuy and still take advantage of future opportunities.

He has it here always. Great fold.

after i dug my cards out from the remainder of my dinner i just threw up on the table, i think i fold.

is V2 capable of turning made hands into bluffs? based on your description, i doubt it. would he check 2pr+ back ott w/ many draws out there? doubt it. so what makes sense for such a move otr?

note that V1 is ~potting and you call. that's lots of strength in front of him. so i highly doubt he'd shove w/ A8/98ss. or bluff-shove a whiffed fd. i'd give very little probability altogether of the scenarios above, and the rest of the times he just rivered the nuts.

fwiw, against Vs w/ considerable ego, calling the clock on them works like a charm. i did this multiple times w/ the nuts/top of my range in big pots and got snapped off many times by even second pair etc. especially because of that they think you would never call the clock w/ the nuts.

one more thing. in my experience, moving all-in while tipping the dealer is similar to when an OMC looks at his watch, says "let's gamble", 4bet jams pre, then stands up and says "i wanted to go home already anyways"

but regardless of reads, i still think it's a fold. a puking-so-hard-it-hurts fold, but still...

It might "sound" like scared money, but its not. You're assumption couldn't be further from the truth.

In fact its the opposite, the comment was based on a [proven] long-term winning strategy. In nut shell, A) you don't have to get involved w/ every little conflict that comes up at the poker table, B) sometimes its better to fold and choose your battle a different time.

And playing for stacks does matter in the real world. Goofy players make goofy bets and goofy plays, I don't care who you are -in a live game its imposible to figure out anything that makes since aginst a goofy player in real time....they're just goofy and do goofy things. And because of there goofy plays that don't make since, often times you'll have plenty of more opportunity to clip them in future hands, a piece at a time...and not set yourself up in a situation where you're "guessing" if youre hand is good or not when playing for the whole stack.

Of course now we know it was set-over-set, its easy to speculate after the fact and not in real time sitting in a live game. I would have folded. I don't play 100% perfect poker, however if a "mistake" like this was the *only* mistake I made in a session I'd consider it fairly small.