Any insight into this hand appreciated. I am thinking dumping it on the flop was the correct play but also think the 3bet pre was perhaps a bad idea. In general I don't like to bloat the pot pre but with a strong hand on the button, I do like to play the straddled pots pretty aggressively.

1/2
Eff Stacks $225
Villain ($225) MP
Hero ($425) Btn

Villain 45-50 y/o just busted out of a tournament and sat at our table about an hour ago. He seems pretty tight. He was unfamiliar with the straddle and had asked how it worked this hand. His bet sizes seem quite small even by live poker standards. He hasn’t opened many pots. He called PFRs with 2 broadway cards a couple times and thus far showed down a straight, 2pair and TPTK. The TPTK hand he opened the pot PF w/ AJs for $10.

At this point in the game I was fairly active in late position and had taken down a few hands recently on the flop and one straddeled pot preflop. My cbet frequency was very high.

Hero AhKd

Straddle $4 with 3 callers
Villain bets $10
Fold to Hero who bets $40
Folds to Villain who calls.

What is this villains 3 bet calling range here? 88 through QQ and AK?

Flop ($93)
10h 7h 3c

Villain donks out for $25

I have to say I was surprised by this bet. I have the Ah so a weak semibluff seems out of the question. 99 or 88 probing maybe. I would expect QQ, JJ, TT or 88 to charge the heart draw more (even this villain) with the 2 hearts on board. I consider AA and KK but this guy seemed to play mostly tournaments and I believe he 4 bets with either of those PF. I even consider he thinks I am FOS and decided to call my 3bet with A 10 although this seems unlikely.

What is villains range here?

Should I be done with the hand? I showed considerable strength preflop and was called and donked into. Had I just flatted PF and not bloated the pot, I would consider a 3bet here and shut it down if called but I don’t want to build the pot any more. That said I am getting almost 5:1 on a call now with 2 overs and a backdoor to the nut hearts. This small donk bet confuses me a bit.

I call.

Turn ($143)
10h 7h 3c (Jh)

Villain leads out for $50

At this point it kind of looks like he hit the flush but I really can’t think of a hand he flats the 3bet preflop with… KhQh seems unlikely. So I am thinking a set of 10s or a set of 7s. However QQ and JJ seem a big part of his range as well.

Shoving feels spewy although With the Ah in my hand I know I can probably rep AhKh with the flush. I think he only folds QQ and Underpairs to a shove and calls with the sets.

Calling feels really weak. I am really feeling like I should have cut my losses OTF but getting 4:1 on a call here do we call? Since 33 is not a part of his PF calling range, I figure I do have 9 clean heart outs and 3 more gutter outs to beat sets and an A or K if by chance he just has QQ.

I figure at worst I am about 4:1 dog to win about 4:1. Not much implied odds since villain won't call much of a bet if a 4th heart hits.

Preflop: Good.

Flop: Raise to $70. If he calls take a free card on the turn if you don't catch top pair. With an overpair, set or 2 pair your opponent is highly unlikely to have played his hand in this manner preflop and on the flop. He most likely has a weak 1 pair hand and he's probing to "find out where he's at." Make him think he's successful and push him off the best hand.

Turn: As played on the flop, call. It's a little thin, but there's a decent chance your gutshot outs are good, and even your pair outs will be good a decent amount of the time when he has hands like QT, T9, 99, etc.

The key street here is the flop.

Just my opinion...

I think I'm cool with preflop, especially since we're in position. If we just call, we know this is going to be an eleventeen way pot which might cause problems.

I also call the flop getting big odds and with all our backdoors / overcards, plus it looks like this guy might be a moron with his bet sizing (i.e. I really think a "same bet" is coming on the turn a lot here).

You forgot we also have the nut gutshut draw, which makes calling the turn super easy, IMO (ETA: Actually, I forgot the gutshot might not be good with the flush already on board, but I still think it adds an out or two enough to make calling ok). Raising against a villain who has shown a lotta strength is suicide, IMO.

Tricky part is how much to call on the river (if any) if we bink a A/K and villain still bets. My answer is probably "not much".

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yes I was editing OP as you typed.

Do we agree shoving the turn is spazzy spewy?

yes for sure; calling you with only better and you are a good amount behind

The reason we call the flop is to make a play on the turn. I shove turn here.

I hate these spots. I feel like I always make the wrong move.

I think the turn is a call. If you shove the turn you're getting called by so many hands. Any pair + fd is calling and any pair + straight draw is calling. If you could shove and expect your ace high to win at showdown some % of the time I'd shove here, but it's never going to happen on this board texture.

If you shove now it's possible you get called and river binks and villain shows down something like 10sqh which is never folding to a turn shove, but might fold if river bricks, he checks and you bluff shove.

Play is fine but your ranges for villain seem off on most streets. Why are you ruling out hands like AQ-A10 and KhQh. Don't assume a tight opening range = even tighter 3 bet calling range. In many cases people are calling a 3 bet with ANY hand they open.

Pre is a clear raise with so much money in the pot and no real sign of strength.

Flop is very read dependent and I think there are arguments for call, raise and fold.

When you get to the turn like this I would shove over a smaller bet or bet big if checked to but when he bets $50 I think your FE is really small. Calling is your only option.

You may be right.

I definatley had him on a very tight range pre. I tried to consider a wider range OTF and turn.... specifically KhQh. I just really didn't see this guy opening with anything less than AX or a pair though.

I just had an image of villain that he was not totally comfortable playing cash and was opening with a pretty tight range. When the hand began he asked the dealer how the straddle worked as far as the straddler being last to act. etc. He had already called PF on a prior straddled pot. I took this as him expressing a high level of interest in the pot preflop. He had previously opened for $10 with AJs also so you may be right that A-10s is a big part of his range. And yeah I guess I agree that once he opened, he may call the 3 bet out of stubbornness.

OTF I did re-consider A-10 as a small part of his range.

Yeah like GG said if the "same bet" came I would have read it as weak and jammed it for sure.