This is my third day playing at Winstar. Table is most solid I've faced, with two or three decent players, a couple regfish, and some bad LAGs. Villain is one of the better LAGs and has a big stack. He is very aggressive and pretty loose but plays fairly transparently. I have seen him raise in position over limpers several times, then C-bet, often firing again on the turn and river. Over the ~2 hours I've been at the table, villain has C-bet 100% when PFR. I am convinced he often has air.

I've been involved in one hand with villain, in a small raised pot, where I had 87s and he had Q7o and we split the pot after hitting a straight. In this pot on the flop, I had top pair + a gutshot, while villain had a gutshot + flush draw. We got it in when the turn made the straight, and villain seemed upset not to have won the pot. He chastised me for not folding on the flop, saying he had more outs. I mention this hand because it tells me three things:

• villain will play a wide range of hands in a raised pot (e.g, Q7o)
  
• villain has some level of understanding of outs and pot odds but does not seem to grasp that a made hand does not necessarily need outs to continue, and there are likely other serious holes in villain's theory and approach
  
• villain sees me as a weak/tight fish

OTTH

Winstar $1/$2 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players

SB: $250.00
BB: $250.00
UTG: $250.00
UTG+1: $250.00
UTG+2: $250.00
MP1: $250.00
MP2: $250.00
CO: $600.00
Hero (BTN): $250.00

Pre Flop: ($2.00) Hero is BTN with A K
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $2, UTG+2 calls $2, MP1 calls $2, MP2 calls $2, CO raises to $10, Hero raises to $35, 6 folds, CO calls $25

Flop: ($80.00) J 2 2 (2 players)
CO checks, Hero bets $50, CO raises to $100, Hero ?

I figured since villain checked, and since I had been playing insanely tight villain would put my 3-bet range on {JJ+, AK} or even tighter, and therefore I most likely have an overpair while he most likely has nothing, so I C-bet, and he check-raises.

This is a really crummy spot to be in. I have $165 behind. I don't think I'm deep enough to float effectively, plus this villain is likely to barrel most turns anyway. My options appear to be shove or fold. I think on this flop, villain has nothing or very close, but I don't feel good about shoving with nothing but overcards. Also, villain plays trashy hands so I can't completely discount he has a 2, but I think it's unlikely.

My read is villain sees me as a weak tight fish, or a nit, since I'd been playing very few hands (card dead), that villain is insightful enough to see this flop misses most of my range, that villain thus interprets my flop C-bet as mostly air, and that I will likely fold to a check-raise.

If I raise all-in to 215, villain will have pot odds of 395:115 or 3.43:1. With pot odds this good, villain could well call down with his air like QT which is only a 2:1 dog. Of course, villain should assume if I shove I have JJ+ almost always, given my table image is super tight, so he might fold everything but a random 2.

A) Flat or 3-bet preflop?

B) AP, check or C-bet flop?

C) AP, shove or fold?

D) Does the decision change significantly with deeper stacks (300-400)?

make it 60 pre.

bet 80% pot on the flop.

as played, you could go either way with this one. prefer a fold since that CR looks really strong. but he could just be trying to shove you off of TT. or something like that with complete air.

but folding is better.

Everything looks fine, imo. Betting or checking behind on the flop are both fine, and I'd probably do a mixture of both. I'd bet all my AKs and AQs with bdfds. Fold to the raise. You aren't being exploited; you have JJ+ here a lot.

I will definitely check this flop, I might trap him with AA if I checked here, lets look at the tendency he might be leading out on turn & bluffing river if he put u on AQ/AK if u check this flop.

If he's loose aggro, let him fire instead of putting yourself onto tough decision by him c/r u

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+1. This flop smashes his range and we would like to induce bluffs on later streets.

I don't fully understand the last two responses. Can you guys elaborate? Why do we want to induce bluffs with Ace high?

This flop does not smash his range, but it's not a great flop. Only hand we are crushed by is JJ that he could have in this spot, not sure if he plays it this way.

Really sucks to punt off half our stack with equity - which is why I think checking this flop was the best play - because if he does have a random bluff hand, like AQ or AT and is doing this, it would suck to fold.

I can't blame you if you jam or fold. I think the mistake was betting this flop.

pre-flop is fine, good sizing. With so many limpers you have to 3-bet, because if you call you're probably going 4 or 5- way to the flop.

I probably check behind flop, but can see some merit in c-betting as well. Once V calls your 3-bet, he has a lot of pocket pairs and a lot of Ax/big Broadway hands. The reason not to c-bet the flop is you're way ahead/way behind. If he has a pocket pair you have 6 outs, and if he doesn't he often has Ax or KQ/KT and really only has 3 outs. Villains are pretty sticky on paired boards with pocket pairs, and I don't think you're deep enough to get him off of a pocket pair by barreling turn/river.

The main reason to bet flop is to get him to fold his equity, since he always has at least 3 live cards. If you're going to c-bet, I'd probably do it smaller. 35 or 40 actually charges him correctly to draw to six outs if he has a hand like 87 or QT. While V's are sticky on paired boards with pocket pairs, they're otherwise pretty fit-or-fold, especially in 3-bet pots, so I think you will be successful in getting him fold out his equity if he missed.

As played, fold to the flop bet. A min-check raise is very strong, and there's no reason to believe that V is ever bluffing here, nor do you have any reason to believe you can get him off of a pocket pair. Your outs may be dirty too, because if V has a J it's often with an A or a K.

I wasn't really thinking in terms of way ahead / way behind but rather that most of the time villain would miss the flop and not want to proceed. Given my super tight image, I figure most villains would fold here on a flop this dry and I scoop up $80 risking $50, so the C-bet needs to work 38.5% of the time. But this guy is pretty aggro so that was likely naive of me.

I think I get why you guys are saying to check... we have a lot more fold equity vs. turn bluffs (and he's more likely to bluff the turn) than when we get check-raised. Plus we can expect to improve to TPTK sometimes.

I expect this villain to bet most turns if I check behind. So if this happens, I shove?

You think villain's fold rate is about the same for 7/16 pot C-bets and 10/16 pot C-bets? I didn't know that. I figured most villains will peel almost anything to a small bet like 35. Interesting. If true this will save a lot of money when the flop misses us, however, I worry about the one or two people paying attention being able to differentiate C-bets from value bets based on size. If I bet ~2/3 for value bets and <1/2 for C-bets I become very transparent, no? But...I guess I could bet the 2/3 size for value and C-bets vs. more competent opponents and bet more exploitatively vs. the fish and bad regs.

Villain is very aggro. As noted in the OP, I witnessed him C-betting 100% and barreling the turn most times when a single opponent called. Even saw him triple barrel 2 or 3 times, and IIRC one of these triple barrels was called and he had bottom pair. Unless he was running insanely hot (which I can't rule out over a couple hours, but it seems unlikely), a lot of these C-bets and barrels must have been bluffs. He appears good at exploiting weakness in opponents and I believe he saw me as a weak/tight fish. Given all this, how can we discount that it's a bluff? If villain puts me on {QQ+, AK} for instance, which would be reasonable given I'd played like two hands before this one, a checkraise will fold my AK if he views me as weak/tight.

There are 18 combos of QQ+ and 16 combos of AK. He could guess I'm calling a check-raise 53% and folding 47% based on this. His checkraise-bluff needs to work only

100/230 = 43.5% of the time, and that's ignoring that villain likely has 6 outs.

If he puts me on a wider 3-betting range, say {99+, AQs+, AKo}, then he can assume something like I'll fold 99 and TT half the time, AQ and AK always. There are 21 combos of JJ+ and 23 combos of 99-TT (assuming I fold half), AQs, and AK, so villain could guess I'm calling a check-raise 47% and folding 53%, making a bluff even better.

I don't expect villain to be doing the combinatorics in his head obviously but intuitively he probably has some thinking process like "this board is dry, I figure my opponent has nothing good about half the time, so this is a good bluff spot." BUT...maybe I'm giving him too much credit.

I think even if villain is bluffing this often it's probably still a fold though as we don't have enough money behind for good fold equity.

In this game you should be primarily utilizing a value oriented strategy. Check flop because it's impossible to get value from worse. Given that the villain plays a bit too aggressively, it's even more reason for us to check behind here. Not just because villain could check/raise bluff but also because he could bluff future streets and our hand has showdown value.

Small pots for small hands, big pots for big hands. You have a small hand here so lets keep the pot small. If villain wants to inflate the pot that is fine but we don't need to help him with that.

I do utilize primarily a value-oriented strategy, but there are profitable bluffing spots against certain opponents (regs mainly).

I agree the C-bet was probably a mistake against this player given his level of aggression, the fact the board is highly dry and static and I'm likely ahead. At the time I expected he would take note of the fact that I hadn't played a hand in ages and thus give me credit when I C-bet here, but I think he recognized it as a C-bet and exploited me perfectly. I am fairly confident he has air the majority of the time. Guys like this would check/call their monster hands (JJ or a random 2 in this case) rather than trying to scare me out of the pot, and just bet his top pair hands. There are no draws, so raising with JJ or a 2 makes no sense here. He could have some random pocket pair but there's a lot more airballs in his range.

Once villain check-raises, I think I should shove or float and shove the turn, if I were deep enough, but I'm not. If villain is half-competent (which I think he is) he will know with these stack sizes he should call a shove from me with just about anything.

If I have 150BB I shove here. With 200BB I think I float and shove the turn. Villain bets very aggressively but that doesn't mean he'll call down with air. I never witnessed him do this and most LAGs won't. This guy is just decent at reading board textures and applying pressure to induce folds.