This is a weekly game with mostly the same guys each week, 2/5 with a mandatory straddle. This week it was playing bigger because everybody was straddling for 20 most of the session. V1 is a recreational player and a calling station. V2 is a thinking player but he's not a grinder, he's a gambler. His VPIP is very high, he knowingly makes a lot of terrible calls pre, gambles too much post flop, etc. He's a good hand reader, capable of making big folds and big calls, particularly on river. He thinks i'm good/thinking, kinda tight. He's also stuck a good bit and tends to play worse when he's losing.

What do we like on river?

1 fold, V1(~1800) Limps, Hero(~2500) makes it 80 with 88, 4 folds, SB/V2(covers) calls, 3 folds, V1 calls.

Pot (~270)
Flop: 865
2 checks, Hero bets 175, V2 tanks a bit and calls, V1 folds
Pot (~620)
Turn: 9::
V2 bets 320. Hero calls.
Pot(~1260)
River: 9
V2 bets 750. Hero has 1200ish behind that bet.

Seems like he always has a straight here; hard to have a boat with him deciding to bet when the straight card comes in on the turn. Might be hard to get value from a straight if he is a good hand reader or whatever, but the fd on flop did brick. Tank shove and try to look nervous.

Shove. What hand are we afraid of? Maybe he will make a big call with a-9 of clubs

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Super easy shove. If you lost its a cooler

shove imo, would be v strange for him to c/c flop and lead turn with 98/96/95 for thin value.

not a line you see a lot, he has many more straights than boats and he plays straights this way very often when he plays his boats this way less often.

jam and its not particularly close unless you think that he will fold all worse, which is definitely true for some live villains but this guy doesn't sound like one of those

Obvious shove is obvious.

agree with shoving this river. I think you are going to get a fold more often than not, but way too much value to just flat. and definitely not one of those situations where only better is calling.

would go larger otf as well. your hand looks like an over pair and you can continue to get value from fds, 2pr, and combo draws that aren't folding the flop to a larger bet bc of how much you have behind

what are you afraid of? No brainer

Easiest jam. Ever. ALmost.

This is a clear shove, ainec. If he has 98, then gg.

Grunch

I don't play this high.

I don't think he's donking turn w A9 of clubs and think worse 9's would fold vs your river push. I think he could call with any 7 in his condition.

Hands ahead:
99 - 1
98 - 2
96 - 6
95 - 6
but but I doubt 95s calls from sb and there is only 1 96s left so really I'm thinking there are only 4 hands ahead of you.

I think he might call pre w some suited 7's. 67(3) 78(1) 79(2) 7T(4) and A7 = 14 hands I think he could call with that are behind but then smaller boats too(6).

So, you are ahead of 20 combo's I think could call and 4 combo's you're behind so shove.

Easy shove. I'm really only afraid of one hand and that is 89, because the 89 wouldn't have "tanked" and just called that flop. I would actually throw 99 in his range also. But with only 2 hands that I'm afraid of and a ton of 7x hands, 55, and 66 we're beating, it is an easy shove.

It's not a shove, it's a clear call. He doesn't call with worse because he knows your not capable of shoving less than a FH. He considers you tight and he's not some random drooler. I'll concede that your ahead of his river betting range, but your near dead to his call a shove range. You might try to bluff catch with an over pair, but your not turning your hand into a bluff ever, who are you kidding.

Even assuming youre correct in your assumption that he is never calling with less than a fh (an assumption that I think is incorrect) we are ahead of more full houses than we are behind when we discount 9-5 and 9-6, so we still make money on the shove.

re: 99 -- donking the turn that deep with top set when 4 to a str. is on the board is pretty bad if thats what he has.

pretty obvious he had 98o then by the looks of the reason for the post, clear shove and just an ice cold cooler if you're beat

I'm super happy to get my stack in here every time. Period. And never feel bad about it.
Any time that someone goes runner runner for two exact cards to beat me, it's just a cooler. Chalk it up to bad luck, and reload.

The question IMO is what does V put Hero on that he would bet size (value?) on the River with and expect a call? Or is V barreling the now paired board with a busted flush draw? That doesn't explain the donk on the Turn unless he connected somehow with additional draws or he thinks he is going to get pot control by leading out.

The interesting spot in the hand here is the flat call on the Turn from Hero. Would V expect a set to raise this Turn? Or is it enough of a scare card to shut down Hero in most hands and/or cross fingers with a set up against a made/drawing strt or flush draw. This is an image question for Hero that we cant answer for sure ... and with plenty of history between the players I would think that images are well established here.

Ignoring the unknown image, I think that the flat call on the Turn will open up the range of calling hands by the V on the River and will 'allow' us to shove here more often. I also like the idea that we dont have to show our cards if V folds.

V is down, which also opens up calling range on River ... no one has mentioned 9T as a possible holding here for V .. any takers? GL

My guess is that V will curious call almost any 2pr or better here if he doesnt have Hero beat already.

^ you're overthinking it. We have a hand which is good a vast majority of the time. We can shove and either take down a decent pot or have villain make a mistake. The small percentage we're wrong is a cooler.

Ship the river, we have the effective nuts

Easy shove. The only hand that beats you is 98 and that's super unlucky if that's what he has

Wow... V2 is stuck and still has > $2500! What a great game!

This is a snap shove... but I probably Hollywood it a bit.

The only hand that doesn't call is 65, since he's obviously counterfeitted.

V2 is calling with everything else.

No 999xx boats make any sense since why is he betting the turn? Hero's hand looks like an overpair or AX, etc. Two pair on this board at the turn is most likely the nuts, given Hero's action preflop.

I guess V2 doesn't call that often, but you have the opportunity to stack 555 and 666 here.

A note from the Villain:
This was definitely an interesting spot for TGM and worthy of debate. The purpose of this forum is to inspire thought provoking discussion and analysis. While many people will argue to the bitter end for their side I think the final answer is much less important than the analysis we use to get there. The fact that so many variables come into play make it hard to judge a winner.
I’ll provide a couple more variables for discussion:
● I was in for $5k, with $2.5k in stack = STUCK … This usually means that there are exactly 0% of hands to exclude from my “range”- Hard to admit, but true.
● Taking into account the above statement I think it’s fair to say that a likelihood of a lighter call is greater than if I was currently winning in the session. (Light = straight Never calling with A9 type hand, not THAT much of a drooler)
● I find it interesting to see that so many people think that a turn bet makes 2pr on turn less likely? From my POV I’m facing a pf raise and C-bet from a player who is very weary of all my bets. If he has AXcc or overpair I expect a call 100% of the time and a check close to always. So leading 2pr into this player on this board makes all the sense in the world (To this recreational dummy).
● (This might cost me $ in the future) My river lead of this size is probably a value bet 80%+ of the time. While I’m not sure what I would have done with other hands (i.e. straight) I do know that when I was raised I automatically narrowed in on full houses. I could not imagine him raising anything less in this spot. Admittedly, I failed to think about hands that beat me on turn- I bet for value and didn’t really have a plan in place for what I’d do if raised.
● I’m a nice guy with a close relationship with #ThePokerGods. When it comes to runnin’ good, I’m #TheCaucasianJerryYang

if you are villain and turned 2 pair; you are not very good

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with "villain" on this one. What exactly is wrong with leading the turn with two pair when our opponents likely range is mostly over pairs and draws?

And even as we see here, were not even getting raised off of (or put in a tough spot) our hand by the top of villains range here.

Confirmed V2, and your right, he's not good, he's the best.

And if everyone here knew the Heros image, V2s turn lead with 2p+ makes complete sense, because his PF open narrows Hero to AJs+ 66+ AQ+ ( not a bad thing given that the game has 4 maniacs that inflate pots, call all draw, and 2 that will pay off) and he will check the turn a large majority of the time IP, but pay off both streets with over pair and 1 street with FD.

But reading V2 now, I realize my assumption was wrong about him folding a straight, therefore shove>call