Hero - $300 - hasn't shown any bluffs, but any one aware would know that I have been raising pre - and c betting a lot - and sometimes getting multiple callers and shutting down. Hasn't gotten out of line yet, but has value bet thin.

Villain - $400 - Seems pretty competent. Has been raising regularly and betting good boards. Seems to be a better player at the table capable of folding and not stacking off with a 1 pair hand like AA or KK. Has not 3bet light yet - and has only shown QQ+ when he does.

Hero is dealt T8 and raises CO to $7 - BTN calls and Villain 3bets to $27 in BB. Hero decides to call and BTN folds.

Heads up

$60 pot.

468

Villain bets $25
Hero of course calls

Turn is Q
Villain bets $65
Hero raises to $165

I felt unless he had QQ he would have a tough time here as this board is starting to suck big time for JJ / KK AA - basically all 3betting hands except QQ. I think this works a decent amount of time, and if he does decide to call with AA I have 15ish outs to improve.

It's OK as long as you dont fold to his turn shove.

i'm obviously never folding haha after i commit

I like the post flop play given reads. It's not great, but it's not terrible and I agree with the logic you used for your turn raise and I believe that, again, given that your read is correct, that this turn play is +EV. However if you haven't seen this competent player 3bet light yet, I would probably suggest folding pre. There are much better spots. Your implied odds aren't that great here you're pretty much getting 15:1, and hitting naked top pair will put you in a weird spot (imagine turn doesn't bring hearts). I'd probably avoid this marginal high variance spot myself.

I also want to add that you likely have even less implied odds here given that he's a solid player, adding another reason to fold to the 3bet

I don't mind the call pre-flop because I have 150 big blinds and he did not 3bet very big but this is high variance

idk.... it's pretty speculative.

For me - easier to fold to the 3 bet and avoid the variance.

Your whole play is based on a couple of reads/assumption. The read that he can fold an overpair and the assumption that he'll believe you called a 3bet with a mid/small PP - since you are presumably repping a set (Given that you called a three bet with T8 suited - I guess you've shown ability to call light - so that assumption is probably okay).

Still, not a ton of 1/2 players will give up on OP.

Well, if you're going to call pre, you have to plan on doing this sort of thing occasionally, I think. So you should have already determined that this will work often enough, based on the guy's play.

Have you actually seen him make a big laydown? He is getting pretty good odds to go with his hand here. The pot's gonna be about $605 and he's got to put in $183, unless I screwed that up.

I think JJ might bet smaller, aiming for an 8, 99, tt. Might not. Might even check.

I'm not a big fan of targeting the best player on the table. There are certainly poor players all around you. There are going to be times where you try to get a decent player to fold, because you know he can fold. But for me you should just wait for that situation to happen, rather than creating it.

Another thing to consider is, anything you hit is going to be a little under the radar, so you might just call to hit and get paid off.

This type of play will only work on good players who target low stakes games. I really couldn't of done it vs the fish.

Results

Are you betting on the river if checked to if V called the turn and the river is a blank?

I would probably just fold if he jams. Not sure if Correct but i doubt he jams with worse. I only had like $60 left. Doubt he dumps it in there as a bluff after that action

I like the pre raise. After that, if your read that he'll often fold an overpair to aggression with SPR 4.6 is good, then I guess this is OK.

It's not all that common to fold overpairs to continued aggression IME. SPR 4.6 is getting to auto-commit territory with an overpair for at least some players.

The queen shouldn't be anything like a scare card for him. He's not afraid you have Q8, nor is he going to fold because you turned a flush draw. No straight draws got there and if you had 75 and called a 3b with it or spiked a 2-outer with QQ, nice hand.

You're repping a set or hoping that he double barreled with AK. It looks like he bought it, but I think many LLSNL V's will stack off here with QQ+.

You risked 27 + 25 + 165 = 217 to win 27 + 25 + 65 = 117.

For the bluff alone to be profitable, it has to work 65% of the time. Of course, you can also make a hand and maybe stack him, so it's hard to figure the breakeven point.

Overall, my guess is that this line was pretty close to 0 EV, maybe a tiny but above, maybe below.

I'd like the line more if you had a more solid read that V was weak tight. I'd also like it more if you had more behind. At 600 or more, you can really start to make V wonder whether he really wants to stack off with his overpair (and you have higher implied odds if you do catch a miracle flop).

@djevans - Sorry not sure if my wording was confusing. Assuming he just calls your raise on the turn, and checks some random blank card on the river.

Do you just check it back and hope you're good? Or betting the river as a bluff?

I think given our line we have to jam the river as a bluff on most cards, no?

The fact that our implied odds are not good means exactly that we need to be calling with hands like this so we can exploit his tendency to fold too much. If we think he's not going to pay off our sets then we have carte blanche to call with lots of speculative hands and try a bluff like this.

As played, I love the turn raise (except with stack sizes being the way they were I might have just jammed outright). I have played in some player pools where Villain can be expected to fold everything but QQ (and get to this spot with way more hands than that). Well played. I wonder, would you have still raised the turn had you not picked up hearts?

Is that reason enough to do it? Say you're a fighter with some advanced counter move that you would only have occasion to use against an excellent fighter. If all you care about is winning, it's still better to just fight worse fighters.

This probably works best against ABC players who are kind of scared money. Weak/tight, whatever. A player and/or a situation where you have some special reason to expect a fold, other than just the guy seems good enough to fold overpairs sometimes.

In other words, I wouldn't be like, "the better the player is, the more I'm going to go out of my way to attempt to out play him when he has a better hand than I do."

A good player might, for example, pick up some kind of tell on you here.

You are factoring in your image/history, which is good. I'd prefer to have a little more working in our favor. Maybe, for example, he plays ace high flops very predictably.

I think it was OK. You might lose money over time on the preflop call. There will be some additional tough spots when the button calls behind you. On the whole, I agree with Case2 that it's probably not a big deal one way or the other, though for sure you're paying more rake and tips and adding variance.

It was an interesting hand and probably fun to play. Nothing wrong with that being a factor for you, if it is.

I would probably just say, "yes," to his question or refuse to tell him.

If he just flat calls my $100 bet I check back all unimproved rivers. I can't win at that point LOL - who folds to a $60 river bet in a massive pot?


No, the Q of hearts was a good card for me, besides an 8 T any other heart. I might of done this move on a scary card like a 5, 7 or 9 considering his range is weighted towards high end pocket pairs that won't like aggression on a bull **** board.

Most low stakes grinders like easy spots, and when you put them in tough spots they just usually fold and say meh, i'll find an easier spot to make money.

Well once I call pre and flop - my money is part of the pot too, so your math is wrong.

i'm risking $165 to win $169 ( 27+27 - 25+25 - $65) The other streets are no longer a factor since my money is in the middle already and I didn't plan to make this bluff had I not gotten a good turn card to do it. It's high variance, but something I rarely do and I thought it would work a high % of the time.

why so small ott. You should be shipping it. As played you raised $100 more into a $240 pot which is lol small. Use appropriate sizing and Jam for $180 more into the $240 pot

Why tell him?

Good for you that it worked this time, but why give out info voluntarily that you are calling 3! with 8xs?


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Fold pre.

As played Jam. But seriously just fold pre..

in these games so often you will be 3 ways to the flop in the middle against a strong range with that terrible hand

I thought it would look stronger.

I figured I was deep enough to call. Could of ended up getting stacked though.

pre very marginal due to stack depth as others have mentioned, and importantly, btn is calling behind often, so no button for hero and without a solid weak_tight read, if villain isn't terrible, good luck getting him to fold an overpair.

turn raise should be a jam, definitely should be in the plan on this board if we bothered to call the 3b pre

Then I'm not sure I like the call preflop. And the reason is because the percentage of the time you will end up making this move and winning the pot, weighed against the times it doesn't work and (more importantly) the times you don't make the move and fold postflop, might not give you enough compensation for the $20 call with the worst of it.

Well, the math is right. We're choosing different points to establish the decision point: I chose preflop, you're choosing the turn. If the question is about the turn decision, you're method is right. I was slanted more toward evaluating the decision to call the 3b pre (which is why I included some minor discussion of hitting the flop hard, which is obviously counter-factual by the turn).

I agree my points are somewhat murky because I used the actual bets instead of estimated bet sizes (which is all we'd have pre). Also, I should have said "for this line to be profitable preflop..." instead of "for the bluff to be profitable".

Agreed that if we're evaluating only the turn raise it's 165 to win somewhere from 169 to 175 (flop pot is given as 60 rather than 54).

I'm a huge fan of exploiting V's tendencies. I think this thread is basically about whether you had a good enough read on V to know that you could barrel him off his overpair. I don't think anyone other than you can really determine that, since we weren't there.

So your preflop call and subsequent line are good to whatever extent your read is accurate.

IMO, stacks aren't deep enough to fully apply pressure, hand isn't good enough to provide enough make-a-hand equity, and I'd like to have some direct evidence V will lay down a big hand with SPR < 5.

But if your read is good enough, I'm happily wrong.