1/3 game last night. Not a hand I was involved in, but there was some discussion on the table after it and I wanted some more thoughts.

Cutoff (just under $300): Mid 40's white male. He seems like a regular, but I haven't seen him around. He talks with his friend on his right about strategy and sounds like he approaches the game from a making money standpoint as opposed to a rec player.

Button (covers): Early or mid 30's white male. Regular, decent player. Generally TAG, but he will bluff (don't think he has yet at this table).

We're playing along with cutoff on this one.

Pre-Flop:

MP limps
Cutoff raises to 7 with AJ off
Button calls
BB calls
MP calls

Flop: A Q 7 rainbow (pot after rake: 26)

BB check
MP checks
Cutoff bets 20
Button calls
BB folds
MP folds

Turn: A Q 7 [blank - something under 5] (pot after rake: 64)

Cutoff bets 25
Button calls

River: A Q 7 Blank T (pot after rake: 114)

Cutoff bets 40
Button raises to 150

Cutoff ???

After his 40 bet, cutoff has around 200 behind. What do you do on the river, and what is your range for button?

Unlikely to be a bluff.

We have only top pair, could easily be outkicked.

Button probably has two pair.

Hard to think we are good here.

If it's air, GG him.

It doesn't sound like the cutoff is a pro. He's just talking a good game to puff himself up. His sizing is awful.

$7 pre-flop in a $1/3 game?
$25 into a $64 pot on the turn?
$40 into a $114 on the river?

Easy fold on the river.

I really hate the weak turn and river bet, makes this really hard to fold.

Our hand is weak as hell and CO is saying exactly that, the T is a nice scare card but could easily have improved us and KJ makes a lot of sense. I'm folding and hating myself for such a shameful turn and river display.

I hate the preflop raise size. The only goal (imo) of raising preflop is to narrow the field, and a lol minraise is obviously not going to do that. If possible, I'd try to raise to 10%+ of limper's stack (where we can then stack off postflop with TP), but otherwise at a typical table I'd be raising to $15 - $25 based on overall table looseness.

With an SPR of 11ish, I'd probably aim for 3 streets of 1/2 PSB bet/folds. So I think our flop bet is too large, although we corrected this a bit with our smaller turn bet.

On the river I'd probably go a little bigger, but whatever. Easy bet/fold at this point.

Ghatespreflop,thoughtpostflopwasoksolongaswefolded totheraiseG

Ridiculously easy fold. This board smashes our range and yet villain wants to raise the river? So many hands are in villain's range and we are left with a very marginal hand.

Raise more pre, make it $15 or so. If you're into pot-builder raises, do it with a hand without RIO. Flop is fine, but the turn & river bets are on the weak side.

Baluga theorem

fold river

On a side note, whenever we make a mistake in a hand, it makes are following decisions harder.

in this case, if we show weakness with a weak ass turn bet, then follow that up with a weak ass river bet, then we have no idea when we are raised if we are being raised in response to the weakness we have shown, or we are being raised because villain is stronger.

Weak bets will often induce raises from aggro or thinking players. So if you bet weak then get raised you have no idea whether you were raised because of the weakness you projected or because your villain is strong...

So don't get cute with FPS weak bets because they will put you in awkward positions

Thanks for the responses, everyone. Looks like cutoff has a consensus fold (and atrocious sizing).

When posting the hand, I was mostly curious to see if anybody used this line of thinking to support a call. I'm glad it was brought up, interesting to see it's still a fold.

While I agree that Hero has been making weak turn and river bets, how does KJ make sense here? Villain is supposed to be a decent player. Hero started the hand with under $300, and so Villain has to be calling $20 OTF to hit his 11-1 (rounding) hand to make almost 14ish-1? Does not compute for me.

This looks more like 77, A10, A7, A[blank], or AQ (least likely of these options) to me. I agree the river is a fold as played.

I don't think I like the river bet in general. I'd prefer a check here and possibly a call. As played I fold; feel like I'm being walked with AQ or the guy hit his Ten on the River for 2 pair.

Considering the weak ass bets and how sticky people are with draws, I think his value range is 100% AT,KJ MAYBE some QT.

The T made his hand or it's complete airballs that spazz because CO is begging to get raised, I'd put a bi on that anyday.

Pre flop sizing too small, but I'm not sure the turn and river are absolutely atrocious. What if we had an even weaker Ace, like A-8? I agree if the villain will pounce on weakness we'd want to keep the sizing more standard, but if we can get away with it wouldn't it make sense to reduce our bet-sizing a bit since our hand isn't super strong?

Range for V OTR is 2 pair + most often.

+1

I'm fine with the smaller bet sizing here, and would've gone no more than ~1/2 PSB on each street myself.

Gtheyarenotplayingbackatme,theyarenotplayingbackat me,...G