Gold Strike Tunica
$1-2 NLHE

Reads: Villain is an older Caucasian fellow who works at a neighboring casino. It's obvious that he's spent a lot of time in poker rooms, and he strikes me as somewhat less nitty than might be expected of a 60-something.

Table image: I've raised a few hands and cbet them. I doubled through by set-mining 33 versus AA. In general, though, I'm folding a lot preflop and the observant players realize this.

I'm on the button. Villain is in the BB.

Stacks: V $187, Hero covers.

A A

Preflop

UTG+1 limps, Hero raises to $10, SB folds, V calls, UTG+1 calls.

Flop ($26 net in pot, $177 behind):

J 8 4

V leads for $25, H calls.

Turn ($75 in pot, $152 behind):

V leads for $50, H ????.


Probably a pretty easy fold isn't it? The only way I'm ahead is if he's two-barreling Kx or similar, and my implied odds are terrible.

Gee whiz...He never has AJ?/T9 with a diam?/QT with a diam? I only have a few live hours under my belt but it just seems to me that we don't have nearly enough information to fold this hand...

Wait what is the turn card? If it is blank you really have to jam this here.

Oops, sorry, thought I'd put it in there. Turn is 5

Id play the flop more aggressive, always raising to ~60 here. As played I'd shove turn. I think villan calls with JxKd/Qd often enough and gets them off 10(d/x) 9(d/x). V tired I'll come back an take a look when I wake up

Never raise flop/turn unless I want to turn AA to bluff.
We can call turn. Ofc we dont have direct odds but there are some hands we ara still ahead plus Khigh flush should pay a bit on 4th diamond.

Always raise flop, try to get it all in there if possible.

Run it twice

What hands should pay our gii otf? We have nice hand and turn card is brick or good for us, raising with SDvalue+redraw not good.

I raise the flop. I want him calling with his KdJx, AJ, QdJx, etc. Also, if he has a small flush, I want to see two more cards and we might (doubtful, but I've seen it) have FE.

As played, call turn, although I almost want to raise him here, too, for same reasons as above. He could have a ton of hands here -- some we are behind and some we are ahead. However, his chances of folding a small flush are smaller now that he's put more money in -- although they should be bigger. In game I probably call, but I can see a shove.

If he fires again on a non-diamond river, I can see a fold. Players like this rarely triple-barrel w/o a flush here. If he checks, I'm happy to check behind.

^This

Raising the flop is suicide. I know flopping a flush is a long shot, but if you raise here, then V is going to put you on AT LEAST the Ad if not a made flush.

You're not getting called by worse. You're not getting a better hands to fold.

Raising blows all of the J's in his range out of the water. It gives V a chance to use Baluga Theory correctly. He'll dump his one pair hands, which is what we are targeting for value.

Call the turn, hope he leads the river too.

I don't see in any value in raising the turn, in the face of this guy's two leads, on a flushy board, with one pair, and just HOPING that we get called by Top pair/weak kicker with a second or third nut re-draw. That's a fantasy.

I seriously love necrothreads, especially this one of my own. I'm aghast at how weak-tight I must have been thinking when I wrote the OP.

Granted, I haven't played much NLHE in a long time, but I disagree with the bold. I could be semibluffing (not sure if he's thinking on this level) and he could think one pair is good. Or he might want to chase the flush with a big diamond. I think a lot of Villains are calling a smallish raise here with KQ, AJ etc. QJ. Certainly few Villains are folding KJ to a raise here.

This bet looks like either a probe bet or a semibluff--he hopes I missed and will go away. I expect big diamonds and jacks to be a large part of his range.

Against typical Villains I like making a small raise here--a minraise seems transparent, but little more than a minraise looks like I just threw chips out there, or maybe I'm scared to raise bigger. I like raising $30 more, making it $55 to go. He could think I made a mistake to give him odds to draw, or that I'm hoping for a turn free card, or that I'm fishing for information.

If my read is that he's actually good enough to bet/fold a big diamond reading me for the A, then a flop call is better. But then, he seems likely shut down on the turn with the kinds of hands I'm targeting.

Anyway, I certainly shouldn't fold the turn here unless I think he's a complete nit.

I agree with almost all of this (we both identified the same value hands) but not the river check. If he goes bet flop, bet turn, check river, then most of his range is hands that we've put in that same Kdx, AJ, etc. range we're targeting with a flop raise. Many of those hands will pay off--it looks like I called chasing AdK or AdQ and missed, and now am bluffing.

The only hands I really fear in this sequence are sets or weird two pairs. A paired blank river is even better for vbetting; now I beat the two pairs, can rule out full houses, and only really have to worry about trips or scared flushes.