Alright, here is a sick hand from last night, it was late in the night and it was one of the last table standing, players were almost all pretty good and stacks were deep. It looked like a 2/5 table, especially that almost everyone straddes. I need help on this one guys.

Game: Live 1/2
Hand: 97
Position: BB (7-handed)
Stack: 600$
Villain: (400$, BTN) Solid 40yo loose-aggressive 2/5 player. Calls really wide preflop, especially when he think I just want to punish limpers/callers and steal. He doesn’t tilt or mess around, he plays draws aggressively and bluffs in the right spots.
Hero: Young regular, probably have a loose image from LP, but more tight-aggressive postflop.

Preflop Action: UTG straddle, MP1 limps, V limps, I raise to 24$, MP1 calls, V stares at me and calls. (80$)
Flop: 776
Action: I bet 40$, MP folds, V raises to 85$, I call. (205$)
Turn: Q
Action: I check, V bets 120$, I tank, he calls time on me after under 2 minutes, ...

He has 170$ more behind, pot is 325$ and it costs me 120$ to call.

It's a really weird spot since he limped-call preflop. He can have a really wide range of hands preflop, but now when raises OTF and keep betting OTT he has to have a 7 or pocket 66 or a draw.

He wouldn't have limped 88 or better preflop. Any 6 MAY have raised OTF but now would give up OTT.

He can have:
66 (3 combos)
76s (1 combo)
A7s, T7s, 97s, 87s, 75s, 74s (6 combos)
89s, 45s, 85s Not sure he would play that aggressively so lets count only 50% (6 combos)

Since the only 7 left is the 7 50% of the combos contain two heart which gives him a flush draw also OTT.

I am ahead of 9 combos (and he has about 20% to win, 25% to chop)
I am behind 6 combos (and almost drawing dead to all of them)

He might also be bluffing some of the time...

What would you do, what do you think on my play on every street, what do you think about the range I give him?

What does his essentially min-raise on the flop mean? Is he ever doing that with a draw? Could he be doing that with a weak made hand to see how you react? Is it a big hand that just wants to insure it can play for stacks by river?

For the range you give him, would he have any other pairs given the action preflop and on the flop? Would he ever turn up with two over cards essentially bluffing on flop? When he continues on turn is it every a pure bluff or is it always a draw or made hand by that point?

Paired boards generate all sorts of weird action and evaluating this is very villain specific.

Yes OTF I feel he can be doing this to test me, to see if I just fold my c-bet, but I think he would bet bigger to do that no? Still I think he does it sometimes, now on the turn when he bets big I think its less likely he has a weak hand turned into a bluff, because I don't think he will bluff my solid image too often.

I really believe he would have raised the limpers with 88 or better, he is really aggressive and he usually does that. Same thing for the two overs, he would have raised any big A, any Broadway... It's also not likely he would raise my flop bet with 2 overs, so OTF I think he almost never has overcards. I think OTT he has a made hand almost always, I'd give him 10% of pure bluff.

And yes I know it's really V dependant, unfortunately I haven't played long with that guy and don't have that much info. And for you guys it's even more tough, but I just want to know what you think about that general allure of the hand/situation against a typical solid opponent.

I see villains make small probing raises on these paired boards, figuring a small raise is super scary in this situation. It also makes some sense in that your range is going to be more polarized then usual. You have more trips+ that are never giving up and air bluffs that gives up to any villain aggression.

That is villain specific but probably true. When you call the flop raise villain has to put 7X and 66 in your range also, hands that are not going to easily give up and likely to nurse the pot for as much money as possible.

Given the remaining stack sizes I would lean towards shoving. If you call your not going to be able to fold any river and villain may give up draws that would have to call your shove now. It's a high variance situation and if you soul read villain for being strong I wouldn't complain about your folding.

If he has a tendency to play his draws aggressively, AND has a tendency to steal, then you're way ahead here. I'm assuming he'd think a 7 wouldn't check the turn, so he'll be taking advantage of that perceived weakness.

Ship it.

snap ship!

Your hand is way under reped.

V might put you on over-pair or over-card and try to rep a 7. Cuz many bad aggro player would think you would never bet with 7 on the flop.

Given the description of V, I believe more often than not he is spew with random bluff and straight draw.

I run into this type of situation and not suprised by V show KTo type hand to you.

If you are going to raise 97s (which I love), you can never fold with this flop. He puts you on an overpair most of the time here. If he does have a 7 which is very unlikely, its more likely to be 87 than anything else.

I like your play so far and would shove now.

Preflop: you raise a medium suited one gapper from the big blind. You'll bet OOP the entire hand, you're unlikely to win without a flop, and theft is now bloated. So, pre flop, not great.
Flop: you hit an amazing flop for your hand. You lead. I like this play. V more or less min raises you. He never puts you on a 7 here. Never. You opt to just call and keep your hand under repped.
Could V have raised flop with a hand that includes a Q? You have more info on V. Would he limp call pre w AQ, KQ, QJ, QT? A pocket pair does seem possible, like 88.
Turn: I can only guess you checked to allow him to bluff or in hopes he picked up a pair of Q. I don't love tanking. Feels gimmicky. Check raise shove turn. You're way ahead of his range, unless he has exactly 76s, and not many combos of that are available. Doubt he plays QQ this way.
Calling this turn bet would look super strong, so raising is the better play.

The problem with this hand is preflop. Raising 97s from the BB is highly questionable. But, once you crush this flop, I don't see how you can consider anything but getting all your chips in the middle.

Def re-raise the flop, he easily can have 54, A6, 98, 58. You're hand is too big to not play aggressively especially if this guy isn't giving your bets much credit.

On the turn you're forced to jam, if you're beat you're beat. No way am I folding to this bum. Hopefully he turns up with 5h4h.

Hum not sure, checking the turn is pretty standard since he reraised me on the flop. Anyway I feel it will just look too strong if I bet the turn after he check raised me on the flop. If it's the case, than my plan worked since I also did it in a manner of deception.

Hum no not in this situation, he is a solid player and knows I am solid too and will pick up on his bluff if he does that too often. I know he puts me on an overpair and that I know he doesn't have an overpair. He can't represent much here (so he doesn't have much FE). I would be really surprised to see him showing a complete bluff here.

[QUOTE=Dutchstreetfish;49168866]
Could V have raised flop with a hand that includes a Q? You have more info on V. Would he limp call pre w AQ, KQ, QJ, QT? A pocket pair does seem possible, like 88.
[QUOTE]

Like I said earlier he is really aggressive, likes to steal, and would have raised the limpers preflop with any two high cards, any pair 88+... His range is strong and I am pretty sure he doesn't bluff me.

Anyway I still figured I was probably slightly ahead of his range so I shoved the turn. The primary reason for shoving and not calling is to make him pay his heart draw since most of his combos contain two hearts. He had to call 170$ into 480$ (2,8 to 1) which is bad odds for is heart draw. I snap called me and showed 74. We were 47% chopping, I was ahead with 30% and he had 23%. River was A and we chopped.

I was really stocked to be ahead when I put my money in. And also really stocked that my read was on point.

Bet-c, ck-c, ck riv (and call)

I didnt see you were in the BB. Now I HATE your preflop raise after with all those limpers who a lot will call like dominoes one after the other, but the rest of the hand is fine.

I jam sometimes from the BB too, it would be too obvious if I only do from the BTN. Anyway table was good and I had a pretty tight image from the BB..

this makes zero sense to me? "i jam sometimes from the BB too"?? what????

"it would be too obvious if i only do from the BTN"?? what???????

"anyway table was good and i had a pretty tight image from the BB.." what?????????????????

preflop: look what you're setting up... a multiway, bloated pot, OOP with a relatively small SPR... is that what you want? if not, don't raise.

I don't think it's that bad of a play to do this sometimes (rarely, it was the first and only time I did it that night), this time I was unlucky and got 2 callers, but still I was in good shape representing a big pair almost always. I got one weak passive ABC player to call that I can easily push away with a c-bet. Unfortunately V called behind, but he had an even weaker hand than me, if he hadn't hit the flop I was taking the pot down easily by c-bet or betting 2 barrels.

Yes it's risky, but I would do it sometimes at a good table for deception and also to pick up all the dead money.

you deceived nobody. and you picked up no dead money. and the times you do pick up dead money, it will be totally based on the luck that your opponents have nothing pretty to call with... not based at all on your trickiness of repping a big pair.

i think this line of reasoning isn't likely to result in long-term winning at 1/2.

It's exactly what I want to do, fold the bad hands, now if people call with good hands, I have a deceptive hand to play with postflop and I represent a big pair so I can throw a couple barrels post-flop what a good chance of winning the hand. I think you underestimate the power of taking the lead in a hand. Weirdly I've been showing a pretty good winrate over 700 hours...

Even if this play might be slightly -EV, it for sure is +EV for future hands, when I pick up a big pair in the blinds perhaps.

But this isn't the point for the discussion, I wanted to discuss postflop play more importantly.

Stealing from the blinds is table dependant. A good poker player can trust his reads that his opponents are weak and WONT call light once they have limped in. This is a winning play if you are at a table that is tight passive otherwise known as weak tight. At a table full of loose passives (aka calling stations) it is suicide.

+1

I would much rather bomb the BB as a bluff with our ~0 equity hands like J2o if we expect the entire table to limp fold than our hands like 97s that flop very well multi-way. Just check pre and see a flop.

However, if you do decide for some reason to raise this hand in the BB over limpers and flop this well you should really never be folding. The whole point of your preflop raise was to cap your perceived range on flops like this to stack people when you bink.

How is this a discussion?

He won`t call with worse and may continues with his bluffs.

c/c turn
c/c river

Come on, pre-flop is terrible. You say it's late in the night, almost all players are pretty good, stacks are deep and a solid LAG who calls wide pre-flop is on the button. So you decide to raise 97s on the BB, with the straddler and two limpers left to act, all of whom have position on you, with your reasoning being mostly that you can rep a big hand and throw some barrels out there post-flop (any flop?) to make 'em fold their hands.

I dunno, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to me.

Also, I don't get why you're seriously contemplating folding the turn (or did I misunderstand you and were you Hollywood-tanking?).