Playing a in live 2/5 game, 7-handed and there is a super-aggro player two seats to my right. He has essentially been opening every single pot any two cards, and seems for the most part to be a very competent thinking player who doesn't care much about position and has a very good understanding of repping hands, bluffing people off their hands and where he stands in a hand. To a normal player at this kind of game, he has the reputation of a nutcase who doesn't play well and is willing to go crazy with any two cards.

Aggro player is in the BB, UTG folds, and Hero makes it 25 to go w/ K10 It gets called by the guy on my direct left (V1) and the aggro player defends (V2). Flop comes J64 V2 checks, hero makes it 45 into $75 pot, V1 folds & V2 calls (pot is now $155). Turn comes 5 completing my flush. V2 checks and hero decides to check. In hindsight this wasn't the greatest play, but I expect V2 to bluff most hearts on the river, and potentially stab at most rivers. River comes a 6 and V2 leads for $45. Hero thinks about flatting but feel like I'm losing too much value w/ no raise, and make it $100. V2 thinks for about five seconds & pops it to $750. I obviously immediately regret my decision but think about it for a few minutes. Villain is only really repping two maybe three hands in 78, some combo of 56 or 46. How do I play this hand better. I think I made a mistake on the turn by not betting and compounded it on the river by raising a paired board. Is a turn bet mandatory and/or river raise?

Thanks

I think you played it good, even though my standardline would be to bet in position on the turn to build the pot with second nutflush and give hyperlag the chance to spazz out on me. But on some occasion i dont mind checking back at all: disguising our hand and set ourself up for some potenially massive value on the river.

On the river, i dont like the situation when he 3 bet raises us. Do you have any reads regarding his aggressiveness on riversituations? In other words, are he capable of spazzing out with nothing here? Are he capable of playing a medium flush this hard on a paired board? Like, its all sorts of different hyper lags also. Some are mostly aggro preflop, some are also aggro postflop- but mostly on the flop/turn and a few is also superaggro on all streets. Its important to identify wich kind of villain he is.

Without solid reads that he is extremely aggro also on rivers i am folding this. I dont mind your raise for value, but when he just bombs 3 bets it that looks very strong to me.

Don't have any specific reads but in terms of the type of LAG he is I would say he is capable of being aggro on all streets.

If you dont have more spesific reads on him i would opt to fold this time- and at the same time put a mark behind my ear with this hand for later.

Its no textbook answer or only one correct answer to play against these kind of super aggro villains, so i wouldnt say that either your turn check or riverraise is bad/wrong. What is extremely important though (even more with these tricky villains who will put you to the test than more abc villains) its to plan ahead in the hand before you do something.

Ive had my fair share of experience with those kind of players and i can say its truly some of the most valueable lessons ive had in my development as a player.

OP, please include stack sizes and position. Also, breaking up your post by using the "return" key helps to make it easier to read.

As played I would fold. Few and far between are the players who can bet/raise bluff OTR...even a hyper lag. Plus the way you played the hand is consistent with how most would have played a flopped set...check the turn scare card and raise river now that we filled up. That makes his raise even stronger.

Definitely bet turn next time. You want to build the pot when you have a monster hand, not pot control.

Grunch.

HH is hard to read. You'll likely get more and better responses using the standard LLSNL HH format (see the "driving guide" sticky for a link).

Please remember to provide stack sizes for all relevant V's. It matters a great deal in this hand.


Hmmm, competent, thinking player... doesn't much care about position... opening ATC.

Chances that V is actually a competent, thinking player are very low in my opinion. There are certainly spots where cards don't matter. But there are very few spots where neither cards nor position matter. And almost always opening pots isn't exactly going to fly below the radar of even the most unobservant opponents. I would guess he's a maniac that has been getting lucky in that his maniacal actions have happened to be correct for the situations he's been in so that it looks like he's amazing.

Before we discuss how the hand played, let's talk about what your strategy should be against this V. Bear with me, this is a bit complicated because there's the strategy you should have had if V was actually as you think he was and then the strategy I think you should have had given that V is actually just a lucky maniac.

Taking your read at face value, he's using superior hand reading and person reading skills to consistently move people off their hands when he's behind and consistently get value when he's ahead. It also seems that you think he's better than you. Other players are presumably more-or-less standard issue LLSNL opponents. Under these circumstances, your plan to exploit V should be mostly to stay out of his way. Play premiums in position and be prepared to be put to tough decisions with them. KTs is not good enough to raise the pot in early position. Even though you have position on V, you're OOP with respect to the others, and you've limited your implied odds if you do flop big.

So, if your read is right, I think you should fold this preflop. If you limp, he's likely to raise and you'll probably not be able to continue profitably with the hand.

OTOH, I think you should be reading V for a maniac getting lucky. That completely changes things. Now I think you should consider limping with KTs. If you get some limps behind and the V in BB pops it, I'd repop it big. If he's really raising ATC in this spot (or even raising really wide), you're way ahead of his range and will have some dead money from the limpers (who will very likely fold). Depending on stacks, you could shove pre or make it a big chunk of your stack size and shove any flop, or perhaps play poker (though LOL SPR). Swings will be wild (wheee!) but you'll be ahead of his range enough to be, on average, making money.

I don't like raising here under either scenario. Whether he's all that and a bag of chips or a maniac, you have a speculative hand OOP. You'll have no clue what V has, while he'll have at least a clue that you have something decent. If any of the other V's RR pre, you're in bad shape. Even if they flat the raise, you're OOP.

As played, you're right that checking the turn back was a mistake. Any heart, J, 6, 5, or 4 will either kill your action or make you wish it were killed. That's something like 19 cards. Bet as much as you think V will call with a hand that you're beating. I'd make it at least 100. If you think V is aggressive enough to x/r with weaker hands (including bluffs), you could commit here. You're behind the three straight flushes and all the ace-high flushes, but if he'll shove any flush, you're probably ahead of his range.

On the river, your hand has been downgraded from strong to pretty good. Hands that you're beating aren't interested in calling a raise. Hands that are beating you know it and will repop. Your hand is clearly good enough to call the bet (given that you're getting odds and V could be bluffing), but clearly not good enough to reopen the betting. Once he overbet raises, you're screwed. Folding sucks and V might have quite a few bluffs in his range but the blocking bet/3b line is wicked strong and he has overbet the pot. I think I'd probably fold.

Hero started hand w/ around 340 BB & villains started w/ about 315.

OK, raising pre makes much more sense. With these stacks, you'll still have plenty of room to maneuver. L/RR probably doesn't make sense, since there will still be a lot behind. One advantage of your raising is that if someone 3b, it's more likely to be straightforward than if you limp, V raises, and then someone 3b. I'm now more OK with the pre raise, though you'll still be OOP against the field.

I think this makes his river bet stronger. There is still enough behind that you could meaningfully come over the top with a nutted hand. Folding river slightly faster now.

[QUOTE=Case2;49476066]Grunch.

HH is hard to read. You'll likely get more and better responses using the standard LLSNL HH format (see the "driving guide" sticky for a link).

Where can I find this?

Sorry; laziness on my part not to put the link in the post.

here

Tough spot.

I'll go against the grain and say that I call against a hyper aggro LAG. Assume he would raise all NFDs and 8h7h so he's repping only 64 and 65. Against a normal V this is a fold but probably calling given your description.

On flop, I'm checking a lot against a V who could potentially x/r us off of our nice draw. Also, if raising river I go to about $200. Makes it harder for V to bluff us off the best hand and gets more value when he's got a random 6 or J. Why are give V the ability to bluff just to sim another 55? Calling is fine but small raise isn't worth it, so go big or just call.

This is literally the worst combo of flush to check back. I think it's good to mix in some check backs here, but my priorities in order would be:

1) SF, ldo
2) A-high flushes
3) Worst flushes (98hh in this case), though going b/b/b is MUCH better with these in a vacuum so I would pretty much never check these
4) KQhh, because at least we block the Q-high flush.

Again, I don't check back 3 and 4, but this is just to illustrate how far down the list KThh is.

OTR, raise bigger. You've way under-repped your hand, and a lower flush is in a super dirty spot. Get yourself paid.

As played, A6s/76s are the only worse value combos I'd play this way, and those are both severely discounted by play on earlier streets, so I'm fine mucking to this absurd price.

It is really difficult for me to imagine any sort of "super lag" not check/raising the flop with 78hh, Axhh or 2 pair+. Either he's a lot more sedate than you give him credit for or his value range looks exclusively like (a) a worse flush or (b) a boat with 65 or 55.

Given that narrow range, as well as the fact that your line looks full of crap due to your strange turn check, I am calling here.

In terms of how you play this hand better in the future, the turn check is just bad. There are a lot of worse hands that can call you on the turn, including pair+heart, straights, flushes, and two pair hands. There's also a chance he think he can make you fold an overpair and spazs out with huge raises on the turn and river and you can get stacks in anyway. Something like $85 should do the trick.

Those that are folding river, the question is what value range is he targeting with that kind of massive overbet if he does have a value hand? Is he really trying to get paid by overpairs on this type of board? How does villain range hero in a way that allows this overbet to be for value?

Or are we folding because we don't think villain is thinking that much and is just betting the strength of his hand?

I'm not necessarily absolutely concluding we should fold, because in practice, if I were at the table with this guy and had a better feel for how likely he is to throw out a massive 3b on the river as a bluff, then I might try to own him with a call. Hard to say based on what we're given, but I'm just saying I would have no regrets about folding here just because of the absurd price and how capable I am of showing up with a better hand.

I think it's quite likely he's just betting to the strength of his hand (which population wise, I'd say is mostly what I see when someone raises 7.5xs). if we're giving him credit for thinking, then he might put us on something like JJ that checked back when the flush hit but raised small once it boated up.

Bet the turn. Raise River more. As played call. I'm not folding your hand on this board vs the described player. If you had raised River to $215 and he 3b River to $750 I'd feel more like I'm beat since you're repping a stronger range. As played your line doesn't really make sense so he can have some bluffs and you can't ever really have a super strong hand to call with. You complicated the hand by playing it this way and would've got minimal value from other hands that would have called turn and played differently on River. Either way feels like a cooler if you lost to this dude.

As a side note villain was asking me what I had after the hand & I told him I folded a good hand but didn't tell him what the hand was. After telling him I thought he could rep 56, 46 or 78 hearts there, he went on to tell me it doesn't matter what I have since if I have a flush, I'm likely to lean towards a fold once the board pairs in fear of full houses, and if I have a bare 6, I'm likely to lean towards a fold w/ 3 hearts on the board.

This kind of disproved my theory on him being a thinking player, sine he completely discounted all combos of full houses + 1 combo of quads from my range, since I would potentially play them in the same manner checking back turn when the heart comes out. Not to mention if i have just a six, I think that would be a fairly thin value raise on the river there w/ just a bare six.

By the way, Villain flipped over one card after the hand was over but didn't want to mention the card w/ discussion still ongoing.

1 and 2 are the worst hands to check back.

If you are checking turn in position with a set and then min raising River on a paired flush board with a boat, that is awful and is costing you a ton of money. If I was V in this hand I would assume you have zero boats in your range.

1 and 2 gain very little from protection, and can play any river for a raise/call. Note the reasons that OP listed for checking back a flush; made K-high flushes suffer the most on a 4th heart, and so should focus on getting money in on the turn rather than inducing action on a card that is unfavorable for the hand. Results of this hand bare that out (where we induce loads of action on a scare card and our hand is just vulnerable enough to feel uncomfortable in the face of that action).

A-high flushes also block his most likely turn x/r bluffing range, so that 98hh is doing competitively as well as a b/continue hand as the nut flush is.

I'd say 87hh/A7hh/A8hh block the most disastrous runouts, and AJhh blocks his top pair hands that are most likely to get owned by a bet/bet/bet line, so these should be first priority for checking back.

By the way, this is wholly operating on the assumption that villain spews enough on enough rivers for the value of checking back any flushes to be worth it. Otherwise, I would agree to just blast away with your best hands and check your hands that aren't good enough to blast away with.

If you weren't trying to induce a 3! bluff on the river from Villain, what's with the weird sizing on the raise from $45 to $100? I'd have to consider calling just based on that alone, if I felt he was capable of making a play based on a bet-sizing tell.

i'd lean towards a call cause it feels weird when a hyper aggro player bets 45 into a 170 pot with nut flush or full house.

part of it will depend on your own image too. it's a more reasonable bet if you've been fairly aggressive and he thinks he can bait you into a bluff raise