1/2 $300 max buyin NL

Utg (100) 20's white guy. Looks to be a poor player. Raised to $6 twice in the last few orbits and basically c/f the flop, so i think his raise is likely to be a weakish hand more than a big pair. Might fold a hand like 99 to a 3b also, but haven't seen enough to know.

Villain (175) 20's white guy. Talking about a small tourney he played. I think he's a reg, but i haven't played much with him. Seems to call too much pre, but probably has a tournament "doesn't like to fold" mentality although i can't be sure. He bought in for $100 and doubled up when he raised with kk and then bet flop/ check/shipped turn vs some other guy but chipped down a but.

Hero (500) pretty good image, although i haven't won a hand in a little. Haven't 3b really at all this session. Had some strong hands but haven't really got to showdown so i'm not sure how i look to villains. No one has played back yet and my bets and raises seem to be getting respect.

Utg raises to $6
Mp calls
Villain (button) calls
hero (sb) a k raises to $26
Utg folds
mp folds
Villain calls.

(63) with rake taken out
Flop: q 9 4
Hero bets 40, villain calls.

(143)
Turn: q 9 4 6
Hero?

It's not a great flop, but if he's bad he might be trying to setmine small pp's that might fold. I don't want to check and give him a shot to bluff, and if he calls and the turn is a diamond i can ship with pretty decent equity and put a lot of pressure on him.

Once he calls, is it worth betting this relative brick turn? Most tourney players don't like to fold and if he "puts me on ak," he'll level himself into a call with qj or a9 or w/e.

Alternatively, would you ever go for a check/ship on the flop? My concern was i might look a little full of it, and if he were to bet big he might not be able to fold a hand like t9s or pocket 8's so i just end up getting it in bad.

Thoughts?

its tough to not fire that second barrel here but it just looks like we aren't getting this particular opponent to fold. I think double barreling is very important and a huge leak if it doesn't have some place in your game, but i've found that shoving in this spot, if you are unsure how loose or light your opponent will get it in, usually ends in a spew.

firing the second barrel with air is much better against nittier opponents ip in smaller pots, especially when they will always fold to scare cards.

in this 3b pot, its just a lot harder to get some opponents to fold, even if they do have something like JQ, bc they just call way too often.

Pot is $18 to you, and you're going to be OOP, so I think your 3B is too small. I'm probably making it $60 expecting UTG to shove (which I snap call). Its been my experience that fish love to call 3B so I tend to overbet basically all my 3B. 3x the pot is my nominal number, but sometimes I just pull the top $25 off a $100 stack of nickels and push in the bottom of the stack.

I might also just call and c/f flop if I don't hit. Playing from SB just sucks. Given your stack size and image, I'm most likely 3B this time though.

As played, Villain's range is pretty heavily straight and flush draws, which you're probably not getting three streets of value from. Of course, Villain can have a Q or a 9, but these hands aren't going to feel too comfortable, so you probably don't have to worry about being semibluffed.

I would probably check the turn, call up to 1/2 pot bet, c/f to a bigger bet. Lead river for 1/2 pot that doesn't complete straight or flush. Probably, c/f if a K hits on river.

I also 3bet preflop. There's already a lot of dead money in the pot and the raiser is short at 50bbs so let's do this thing. I would raise to $30 which sets up a PSB shove against UTG on any flop.

Unfortunately the wrong guy called preflop, which puts us in an uglier spot on the flop. I just hope he's whiffed his pocket pair / overs and cbet hoping to take it down. If he has no clue about sizing I might just make it 1/2 PSB which makes it easier to be profitable; if he has half a clue about sizing then I'm cool with the 3/4 PSB.

After he calls I just give up and hope we can check it down to showdown UI. His flop call leaves him too little a stack to bluff him off anything. If he bets (and with these stacks any bet should be a shove) I give up.

GcluelessNLnoobG

While I am usually a big fan of double barreling against thinking players, this is not a good spot!

The villain only has $110 behind and has already called the flop. For $26 dollars preflop he shouldn't be calling to set mine, if he has a brain.

I just feel like I have been in this spot a few times before, and have made MULTIPLE mental notes that say "don't bluff players with no money".

Anything less than "all in" here invite him to ship it, and if do go all-in here, he will call you off pretty light, with the pot being so big.

That is FPS extreme, imo. The Villain, who started the hand < 90bb, now has less chips than the pot. There are no plays left to be made. Why would you ever call a bet on turn?

If you're saying c/f turn, I'm fine with that.

My line here is not to bluff against this player in this situation. A shove here is a bluff, and I don't like it. I agree, this is a bad place to bluff.

I'm calling up to 1/2 pot on the turn because I think a tourney player would bet small his draw here, and either bet bigger or check with a Q or 9. It might be wrong to allow Villain to put 1/2 his remaining stack in and not get him all in -- IDK. I don't see how we get Villain AI here without being behind to 6 outs.

I'm leading any non-flushing and non-straightening rivers for thin value.

This is a nightmare flop for our hand, and a great one for his range. I c/f flop. Leak?

3bet to 35-45 pre. Ur missing way too much value by 3bettig too small and utg is short so u should be setting him up for a pot size flop shove (and isolate pre)

A lot of people don't 3bet large enough with hands like aq,ak, or 1010. U want it heads up with those hands but u also don't mind picking up the dead money. Once u get 2+ callers, ur cbets will work a lot less often and u will often have to hit tp+ to win

Not a leak. I agree with you. Maybe he's on a draw and we get him to fold but I think it's less likely since we have the ace of diamonds and what draw hand is he calling with, kj diamonds? doubt it. If he called flop with a queen do we think he's going to fold to further aggression? Doubt it, but depends on player. I check fold the rest of the way unless I know this guy could of called that 3-bet with aq kq or qj and is a capable folder. Otherwise we are spewing.

I probably still cbet it. It's going to be very tough for 88- to continue and even JJ/TT has to think hard about it. And even though we are technically ahead of whiffed high card hands, we're pretty cool with ending things now.

I really don't get some of the bet sizing advice I'm seeing here. If villains are going to try to call to setmine or call with some kind of garbage hand, we want them to call preflop whether we're 3betting AA, AK, or 23o.

If the guy is going to call 20 more with pocket 5's and then fold unless he hits a set, why do I want to 3b to $40 with AK and blow him off of the hand when 7/8 times he just folds the flop whether I hit or not? It doesn't even matter if he's getting >10-1 because some of the time I will have a weak hand and I will be squeezing and he won't stack when he hits, some of the time I'll have KK and an ace will flop and he won't stack me for $300, and some of the time I'll have AA but he'll still pay off a flop bet without setting.

So making this $40 to "end the hand now" does not really make sense with a value hand. If I had a hand like A2s and was squeezing I could see it.

Also, would any ever go for a check/jam with AK? Maybe if we were a little deeper? I pretty much never do this, but I'm wondering if it can ever work.

My experience is that fish find reasons to call 3B (possibly because they've seen me 3B with 99). I have watched many many hands where someone 3B to $35-45 and got 3 callers, and then his AA got cracked on a T83 flop because one of the fish thought that T8s had good equity against AA. I've let it happen to me. If someone opens to $12, and you 3B to $35, they'll call with 90% of their open raising range, and as soon as one fish gets in, then they all start to feel left out. Let them find a reason to call 1/2 their stack.

Good player find reasons to fold to a 3B and that's just fine with me.

My thoughts here:
-we should develop our plan on the flop. Imho, firing a single c-bet on such a wet board without a plan to continue with a double barrell on relative blank turns(as this is) will not be profitable enough. There are times when it is, and you could make an argument for it because it's heads up but the description of this guy seem like he will call/take one off light. That being the case I think a double barrell is mandatory now. I would expect to be called by qj,qk,aq, however with our positional disadvantage a large part of his range is flush draws, hands like tj, and possibly even taking one off in position with stuff like (a,9)(9,10) suited type stuff, and flush draws, also 10,10-jj. I feel a shove will get a fold out of everything but top pair here and he has probably a wide enough range that is calling on the flop that a shove is profitable. You are clearly repping aq, or an overpair. The stack sizes are abit awkward to do anything but shove, because youll almost be committed to call it off and you want to maximize fold equity.

it pretty much never works as a bluff, pot tends to be too big for someone to bet/fold pairs. but it can be an ok line vs someone who plays too many hands in 3bet pots and stabs with everything once we check, and we aren't comfortable calling down on the given board texture with ace high. basically a trap then protection play where you sometimes get it in behind, but our equity and scooping the dead money when he folds easily make up for it provided you pick decent spots.