$1-3NL at MGM National Harbor. Daytime game with a bunch of passive regs.

Table has been a lovely mix of loose preflop, fit-or-fold postflop. Hero has a solid, aggressive image. Haven't been caught bluffing, haven't made any obvious mistakes, table can tell that I'm raising pretty frequently preflop, but no one is 3-betting without QQ+, and they've been content to try outflopping me without ever putting me to a tough decision. Hero has ~$800.

Main villain ($400) is on Hero's immediate left. 70-something white guy, casino reg (knows the dealers). He will smooth-call raises preflop with any pocket pair, suited connectors and one-gappers, suited aces and any two broadway cards. He plays very straightforward postflop and doesn't raise with his flush draws, even in spots where he likely would have fold equity. He doesn't seem comfortable playing big pots with non-nutted hands.

Table is 7-handed for this hand. UTG and UTG+1 fold. Hero raises to $15 from UTG+2 with KQ. main villain calls, button ($150) calls, big blind ($80) calls.

Flop ($60) is KQ4. Cool. Big blind checks. hero bets $35 (standard sizing, should get called by one-pair king and queen hands, setting up a healthy turn bet on non-spade turns). Villain raises to $75. Weird.

Button and big blind both fold, and it's back to hero. Some range thoughts:

-This is the first time I've seen villain raise anyone on the flop. He doesn't seem steamed, and I don't think he's raising to isolate or to find out where he's at.

-I'm not sure if he would 3-bet AK preflop or not. He really should, given the propensity of these pots to go multiway. But it's not out of the question.

-I'm not sure if he raises with J10, AJ, or A4 in this spot. I know he doesn't raise with nut flush draws on the flop, but I haven't seen him show up with a combo draw. Some people go a little nuts with combo draws.

-His most likely value hands are KQ (4 combos) and 44 (3 combos). Both are in his preflop calling range.

My options here, I think, are:
(a)Jam all-in over top. That's a big overbet ($170 in the pot, $310 left in his stack), but avoids having to deal with action-killers on the turn or river. (And hey, maybe he folds KQ to such a large bet?)
(b)Raise to $175 or $200, planning to call a shove or gii on the turn.
(c)Just call the flop, let him bet the turn for me before raising.

I'm a little lost in evaluating between these three choices, because I think villain's range is so small here and is made up almost entirely of value hands. The jam probably folds out AK, but there's a slight chance it folds him off a chop. The raise also might fold out AK, leaving me mostly chopping or with KQ or way behind 44. The call gives me the opportunity to occasionally bluff him off KQ or 44 if a spade, 9, or Ace comes on the turn. (If he checks behind on the turn, then I think he folds those hands to a pot-sized river bet.)

Which option would you choose?

Vs. a range of QQ+/44/AK/KQ, Hero is a 59% fav. I think a shove is only called by the top of this range, so I'd call and evaluate turn. Likely not folding.

133bb deep, raised pot, with top 2 on a draw heavy board? I'm getting it in here and feeling pretty good about it. If the position were reversed I could see calling to evaluate the turn, but out of position I'm just jamming.

Given this read, fold.

Results: The raise threw me for a loop, and I chose the third option (call and evaluate). Really felt like his range was skewed toward 44 and KQ, with maybe some AK thrown in as well.

Turn simplified things considerably. K:hearts:. I checked, villain bet $65. The smaller bet sizing looked scared to me, but I couldn't imagine any value hands that didn't like that turn. I decided to raise to $150, expecting this would leave him feeling priced in with his combo draws even on a paired board. That would also set up a trivial river shove if he only called.

Villain grimaced at my raise, thought for a moment, and then folded AA face up.

It didn't even occur to me that could be in his range (just calling my flop bet made it likely that he'd play the hand against 3 or 4 opponents with bad absolute and relative position). If I'd included that in his flop range, I would've lead more toward the medium raise.

Thanks for the input. Felt real lost on the flop since I hadn't planned for playing big pots against this player-type in the session.

Definitely calling flop. If you had a hand like AA you could consider a hero fold but top two is too strong. It’s such a small click back that a hand like AK or AA definitely makes sense. I don’t think face up nit guy is just clicking it back with a set in on a board that wet, he doesn’t want to let you get there.

I think turn is more interesting. I wouldn’t expect villain just to bet this small because he is scared. He just made a boat sometimes and doesn’t want to blow you off of a draw.

It’s kind of a close spot because a raise will blow him off so many hands that are basically drawing dead but there are also a ton of rivers that he’s going to hate if he has a hand like AK. If we just call there will be about a 2/3 pot bet left but that’s going to be a big bet in terms of raw dollars.

Against a 30 year old guy seems like a clear raise but here I don’t know. I’m probably usually just calling but I suspect I’m in the minority on that opinion.

I definitely raise flop. Why call flop if he has no bluff range? Makes no sense.

OP, what would do if the turn is blank and assume villains bet half pot?

I would call again. I think folding KQ is too MUBSy in this spot, and I want to keep AK in his range.

Even though it looks like you're running over the table, I'd still fold preflop. You're just too likely to limit the hands you're facing postflop to dominating ones OOP, and that ain't a good result, imo.

I probably take the passive route. You raised in EP and continued betting into the world, is he really raising AK enough here? Even KQ might get MUBSy sometimes and think you have KK/QQ, although I guess the same can be said for 44. I don't think he ever folds top two (no one does). The problem is that even just calling leaves us with just $310 left in a $210 pot, so if he bets just 1/2 PSB of $100 on the turn that leaves us with just $210 in a $410 pot (can we ever fold?).

ETA: Lol, before I saw results I was going to mention that AA is always in the range here, which I think leans towards passive play on this type of board (with respects to losing him to aggro play, although we can get counterfeited).

GIthinkthisisagrossspot,althoughotherswilllikelydi sagreeG

Why raise the turn? You aren't worried about the flush coming anymore and you have the board pretty much locked, no?

I would have called the turn bet and led all rivers. I think that is a more profitable line.

+1. Also, c/r the turn when you hit the nuts is awful. I didn't expect AA to be in V's range either, but you're just going to fold out everything except precisely QQ and 44 with that line - it turns your hand face up.

I think this would be my default line too, where we can set the size we want to play for on the river. Only problem is that if he bets a small 1/2 PSB on the turn it really leaves us with so little for the river anyways (although Villain bet like 1/4 PSB on the turn, so I guess sometimes he helps us out in this regard).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yeah sure, "table has been a lovely mix of loose preflop, fit-or-fold postflop" and main villain "will smooth-call raises preflop with any pocket pair, suited connectors and one-gappers, suited aces and any two broadway cards. He plays very straightforward postflop and doesn't raise with his flush draws, even in spots where he likely would have fold equity. He doesn't seem comfortable playing big pots with non-nutted hands."

How exactly are we limiting the hands we're facing to dominating ones?

The point I'm trying to make is that this is an extremely borderline hand. If your table is ultra loose and people are calling with K9o/etc., ok, whatever, but most tables, even loose tables, aren't that loose, so the lower you start opening the more you start eliminating hands you're ok with seeing a flop with and limiting to those you don't want to see a flop with. And on top of being borderline, we'll also be OOP, which is all the difference I need between playing this as a raise vs a fold, imo.

Git'sborderline,that'sallG

GG, given OP's reads on the table's pre play, it's no longer marginal. KQo might be a marginal open-or-fold from EP on a normal table, but if the table is as OP describes and they're all going to play fit-or-fold post, then KQo is a slam-dunk open. We're missing far too much value pre if we're scared to play postflop here, which it sounds like we can do quite straightforward.

Well, here we flopped the ~nuts and we're not even totally sure of what to do.

GcluelessKQnoobG

"Not being sure what to do" ≠ an unprofitable open

We aren’t even EP here we are in the HJ. There is a ~55% chance we have the best hand preflop of the remaining players, and people play very wide out of the blinds and we will have position on them. Unless the CO and button are skilled lags seems like a slam dunk open.

Yeah I missed that, good point. Zero chance I'm not opening KQ 7-handed.

I mean I agree with everything you're saying about villain here. This sounds like your typical loose live reg; plays anything remotely playable, plays straightforward, doesn't stack off without a hand or draw he's confident in regardless of SPR.

In this case, you've clearly defined that you're behind his value range. But you're not far enough behind to even entertain folding. So I'd call and play turns. You have a nice calldown hand here.

My thinking was a little muddled. But I figured if he has a flush draw strong enough to raise the flop/bet the turn (when he isn't generally raising with nut flush draws), then a small turn raise would prompt a sigh-call because of "pot odds," when he's actually drawing dead.

I figured all of his value range likes the turn card (everything except AA does), so I should try to drag an extra bet out of whatever combo draws are in his range. He'll fold those draws on any river that misses him.

OP, you just articulated perfectly why we shouldn't be calling the flop raise instead of 3betting it. DUCY?

I hear what you're saying, and I guess I should've been more dramatic in my table description. A couple people are calling raises with K7s, and no one is three-betting light, and postflop raises are pretty rare. It's a really good table.

Raising KQo 7-handed at this table is for fat value.

I don't, not yet. (and that's why I posted the hand -- I feel like there's something important I'm overlooking.)