1/2 live

Only important villain is 30 year old African American male. Has been caught bluffing a few times and got coolered with a set vs quads and is stuck 400

Limp, hero opens to 10 with 9c9d CO calls villain calls from the BB and limper calls.

Pot:36

Flop: 6h6c5h.

Checks to hero who bets 25 and only villain calls from BB.

Pot:85

Turn: offsuit 8.

Villain donk jams for 65. Hero???

So I think there is a zero chance he plays a full house like this and close to zero chance he plays trips like this. The only value hands I could see him playing like this are 97 or maybe 76. The problem is this line kinda screams "I have 97 and I'm scared of a heart" The last problem is he took this exact line earlier with a flush draw and I block 97 really hard.

Call.

Point 1: You can't get coolered set v. quads, only house v. quads, but minor point.

How many handed are we? Effective stacks? I'll assume that you're in the HJ. Also, pot is off, if limper, you and BB call a raise to $10, pot is $31-rake on the flop, so probably $28, not $36. If V has 97, you're up against a made straight, and lose, although you could pay that off and still be +EV since he wasn't getting the implied odds to call the flop. If he has trips, you lose, and there's not much to do about that. I think the only conceivable hand that you beat here is 78, although if it's 78 you're up against 14 outs, since the 9 would be a clean out for him.

On balance, I think that this would be a fold, if a marginal one. You're getting ~2.5:1 here, so you've only got to be good about 29% of the time, though that it seems unlikely that you're good that often. Again, stack sizes matter, and if you're fully stacked, you should have about $165 at the end of the hand, he'll have $130, and you'll be able to find a better spot to stack him.

I think I wrote limper, CO and BB call. So pot was 36. Yea I meant boat vs quads.

I could conceivably be beating a draw although I don't think it's probably that he has a draw. He could have a random flush draw, 57 or pair plus heart draw or just spazzing out. I'm not saying you are wrong that it's a fold but he has hands I beat.

You're right, my bad, I spazzed out on the action.

I don't know, obviously you were at the table, so you know how the action went on the hands that he bluffed at. The one hand that you mention specifically was a house over quads, which is going to stack anyone.

I guess it seems to me like you're in a spot where you're slightly ahead or way behind, and the only way you've got significant equity is if he's on a stone cold bluff, or like you said, a 57 or similar.

He can't really bet less with anything he's got. I can go either way. Sad, but I'm more likely to call him if I have a big stack just to see what he has. If I have 100bb, I probably just fold and let him have it. Not mathematically sound, but you're either winning or your not. If all else fails, you just have to go with your gut.

Gut told me to fold. Head told me folding is too weak/tight which I'm trying to grow out of. Im not going to have that many better hands herebut on the other hand I don't think people bluff enough to justify me making calls just to not be exploitable. Given that he was stuck and had shown some sizable bluffs, I thought if I can narrow his range to basically 97 or a bluff and I have 99 I have to call.

Lol you're leveling yourself thinking about how you block 97 here because he's going to flip over 1010 or JJ here a fair amount of the time. He called 97 otf with a gutshot and like 70% pot bet behind? Not sure why you'd give him any credit for that hand. Aa-jj are better calling hands in my eyes.

You're probably beat, I would fold. Looks like a 6 to me that he's just randomly shoving or 1010 jj and he's scared an overland will come. You beat 87 but thats it. None of his line makes sense because he should have check shoved flop.

I don't think he's flatting QQ-AA pre 4 ways or just calling JJ/TT with them on a wet flop and not closing the action. I wouldn't be shocked if he had TT-JJ but I would be very surprised. I can't remember the last time I saw QQ-AA take this line if ever.

Whatever he's up to its not good poker. He called a gutshot otf with a shortstack? He's shoving a 6/88 into someone likely to bet again? He's bluffing with air on a non-scare card? Any made hand should have check shoved flop given his stack size, but he didn't do that.

The more I think about it, only thing that makes any sense is 87. More likely though that villain is just bad and taking a weird line with a monster.

Result: against most villains I would find a fold but against a bluffy tilted guy with a hand blocking 97 I called. Villain had 97 and won. I actually ran into him playing today and he brought up how he only called flop cause he was tilted.

Seems close to a snap call given villain description

Grunch: (means I have read only OP, no other posts)

No! He's a generally bluffy player and is likely on tilt. Therefore his range is wide, but he's as likely to spazz with the top-end of his range as with air. He has a small stack and could figure that you'll never fold. FHs are possible (but rare). Trips are a huge part of his range. Lots of Vs play trips like this on wet boards because they are afraid of a card coming that kills their hand or their action. There are also a lot of overpairs in his range here, as well as some semi-bluffs with pair+draw, or two big hearts.

97 is very unlikely, both because you block it so hard and because it would have required him to c/c a 2/3 pot bet OTF on a paired board with only a GS.

I still think it's probably a call, given the V profile, but your ranging is way off, imo. You only need 30% equity to call though.

Hey Garick, where did the term Grunch come from?

I'm calling quickly and not feeling too bad about it if I lose. Any hand that turned a straight draw or made a pair of 8s or some random spaz might show up that you beat. He's not really putting enough money into the pot for you to range him really narrow yet here.

Super easy call imo.

There was a poster by that name who advocated that to reduce group-think people should post their reply without reading the other replies first. So it's named after him.

It has some advantages in reducing group-think and making you work through a problem on your own, like you would at the table, but sometimes your post ends up being silly, because you don't know that the OP corrected something, or posted later action, etc. Therefore, it's always a good idea to let folks know that it's a grunch. I'll often post a "post-grunch follow-up" post after I read the thread, though in this case I didn't change my opinion or see anything posted that I felt a need to respond to.