I had arrived in San Francisco for work meetings and had a couple of hours to kill so I took an uber over to Lucky Chances and sat down in the 1-1-2 game, which is about my normal stakes. I had been doing pretty well and had doubled up in the first orbit, but for the hour prior to this hand I had been completely card dead. Most of the players now at the table had been seated within the last 30 minutes, so my reads were limited to a couple of orbits, but they all viewed me as an insufferable nit, and some had even commented on this.

About 1/2 the table was short stacking - $100 or less. There were two other people at the table playing larger stacks and one of those players would end up villain in this hand. He had only gotten to showdown twice while I was watching. The first time, he led out with a big bet on the river when a flush came in and got a hero call from a two pair hand in which he held QJs. The other hand I had seen he correctly called with top pair on a dry board. As aggressive as he was preflop, he seemed to attempt to pot control post flop without the nuts, and I was anxious to get into a pot with him.

So when the hand in question came, the table had seen me do nothing but fold for a while. Holding 7h8h, I figured this would be an interesting opportunity to either steal some blinds again or win a big pot on a concealed hand. If anything I was actually playing a bit loose despite being card dead - when I go back and look at the hands I was playing, I’d put my pre flop range at about 22%. Still, 7h8h was at the stone cold bottom of my range for this session.

In the cutoff I open raised to $6 and got a call from the button. Villain in this hand made it $22 from the big blind with about $275 behind, which would be the effective stack in this hand.

I called and the button folded, leaving us heads up with $49 in the pot after the rake. I based the call here on the fact that I’d been wanting to get into a hand with this villain and I felt like my table image would make it quite easy to rep a premium hand and would entirely conceal the hand I was actually holding should I end up with an interesting flop.

The flop came 10c 8c 6c, and villain opens for $20.

On the fly, middle pair and a gutshot felt like it was within the range that I would want to defend with - the top 70% of the roughly 300 combinations I had started out with. At the time I had assumed my cards were very much in that top 70% and now that I’ve gone back and done the combinatronics, I was right on the line. But since I had made the decision not to fold, I was focused on calling vs. raising. At this point I worry that my logic gets shaky - I decided to 3bet with plans to fold to a shove, assuming that I’d take the pot down often enough, improve sometimes when he calls and have relatively easy fold if villain comes over the top. I was very unexcited about the prospect of calling three 1/2-pot to pot sized bets on this board, even more so given the straightforward nature of the villains post flop play on other hands I had seen.

So, I raised to $85. The villain thinks for a while here and calls my raise.

With this call, I believe villain polarized his range and I began to think about what was left in there. Based on his pre flop play I decided that I had a small chance of being crushed (AK-A10, KQ-KJ of clubs, and sets), but a much better chance of either being ahead or behind to a hand that would have a very hard time withstanding one or more big bets (hands like Ak-A10 with a club, big pairs, etc.).

The turn brought a 2 of diamonds. Villain checks to me with a pot size of $219 and about $170 left in his stack.

Probably because I had overweighted his likelihood to have a made had drawing to better, I checked back. In hindsight I think this was a big mistake and probably should have removed all of the nuts from my range for villain (maybe?). My logic went that I’m unlikely to be called by worse here and almost certain to be called by better, but that may not be true.

If I have 7 outs to improve and am willing to hero another brick, then I think I killed the fold equity that I had to threaten the rest of the villain’s stack by checking back here. I could be wrong though - in the cases where I do improve and have position I think this move creates the opportunity to get the rest of the money in.

The river card is an 8 of diamonds. Villain thinks for a few seconds and then checks to me.

The check here made me even more convinced that villain did not have the nuts and was hoping to show down cheaply. A set of 8’s felt good enough to me so I moved all in quickly. I thought to myself in this moment “I’m not sure if I want him to call or fold - that might mean I haven’t played this so well”. Would love some input!


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way too many words.

Calling pre-flop with the plan to apply pressure post, is fine. However, after these particular three cards, and V's lead. I'm done. Anything he has is either crushing us, or has huge equity against our middle pair.

If we spike a 7, it also hits his range. If we spike a 9, what's gonna pay us off?.

As played, jam the turn.
As played, river was fine.

Yeah I wrote this for something else. I'll stop with the books. Thanks.


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Preflop is pretty thin. You have position and surprise but your odds are anemic for your hand.

On the flop just give up when villain leads into you. The preflop 3 bet has bloated the pot and without a better read on villain it isn't clear what will work and what won't on this flop. On this sort of board there are a lot of hands a typical villain will talk themselves into calling, any over pair, any pair + a high club, any hand with the Ac. When villain leads into you it is rare that you are typically marginally ahead to crushed and it will be hard to get villain to fold.

Once you get to river it's meh. Your rarely losing but villain will turn up trapping with a flush more often then you would think. How often you can get villain to call with worse one pair + one club hands is important and there is no way to tell without a better read on villain.

Fold to the raise pre. You're not deep enough to play a SC in a three-bet pot, even with position, especially as FE is a pretty rare thing at 1-1-2 in Cali.

AP, would never fold flop, especially to that week c-bet. I don't hate a semi-bluff raise here, though I'd like it better if we didn't have SDV. Still, with a monotne flop and V's huge chance of holding a big club, I prob prefer it to calling down.

The call of your flop raise is basically never polarizing in live. He has AcX, an overpair with one of them being a club, or a made flush afraid of chasing you off, imo. There is no air in his range, and almost no NFs. He's much more merged than polarized. Once he calls the flop raise, I am done with the hand.

Turn check is good, and I probably check back river too. What do we expect him to call with that we beat? His overpairs are the only possible target, and I don't see them calling given your line unless he's really bad. I think your bet gets folds from worse and only called by better, imo. That allows you to muck without ruining your image when he folds (and sometimes when he calls if he flips quickly), but that is the only advantage and as you're likely never playing with these people again, so it's definitely not worth it.

Pre sizing seems small but I've never played this game. If our plan is to bink we aren't deep enough to call the 3! Pre but if our plan is to win without showdown I'm cool with flatting and playing post.

Many people tend to play straight forward on monotone flops. So I'm cool with a plan to turn our hand into a bluff/get value from draws. I sort of feel comitted to emptying the clip ott though to get him off a hand like JJ or w/e but that might be spew sometimes I spose.

After checking turn our River Shove should get called by all his overpairs.

He should have no boats here. We occasionally will have value owned ourselves against a slow played nut flush but not that often.