Situation: Pretty standard loose passive Saturday night 1-2 game at a local casino. I'm usually a pretty boring ABC TAG who doesn't do anything all that imaginative, but this was one of the rare spots where an idea came to me on the river and I debated whether to make what could seem like a strange bet.

Villain: 40ish WG, her just sat down and I don't have many reads but he seems loose passive rec player as he has limped in half of the 12-15 hands he's been dealt.

Hero: 30ish WG, youngest player at table, I think I've open raised once or twice with no showdown since this guys been at table.

OTTH... 2 MP limps, V limps in CU, Hero overlimps with T9 OTB, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop ($10): 97 3 checks to V, V bets $8, hero calls, rest fold

Turn ($25): 97 3 2 V bets $15, hero calls

River ($55): 97 3 2 A V checks, hero??

My live read and the game flow of situation made me very confident this guy had one pair and likely the 9 (possibly 88 or some big 7s?). I would normally just auto check this back, but I'm trying to get better at turning made hands into bluffs or when the situation calls considering a merged bet.

Is this a spot for it? At the time, it felt like 50/50 on whether I was good but I thought he might sometime fold a better hand to a 3/4 pot bet and sometimes he might hero down with a worse hand since all draws missed.

You're going to lose a ton of money playing like this and limping T9o is anything but a TAG move. Its not tight and its not aggressive.

Id never be in this spot, but Id probably fire $80 here. I think you'll get called way too often if you bet 3/4 pot ($40)

Plenty of loose Vs at low stakes will double-barrel draws on low boards like this. He might have a pair that he thinks he’s protecting but his turn bet is optimistic after you’ve called the flop. You have sdv so I’d rather bluff repping Ax with my 7x hands In this spot. But it’s close and I guess he can show up with plenty of 9x outkicking you that you could get him to fold with a Bet.

He can have loads of missed FDs of which only 5h4h gets there and that one combo would surely bet the river hoping you have an Ace. So our bets target his T9/J9/Q9 for a fold and he’s probably cry-calling some Q9 and all his K9. Were ahead of everything else he’d check on river. It’s a close call. I’m betting against a V who has demonstrated he can find his fold button but checking behind against stationer.

As Mike says, I would try to avoid being in this spot but ymmv.

T9o too weak to iso here are you suggesting just fold pre even assuming loose passive opponents? If you don’t expect to get squeezed light from the blinds this seems like a reasonable overlimp hand to me

Yeah this exactly. I hate when threads get bogged down on pre but I'll maintain that I'm a TAG who never open limps and probably raises 85% of the time when limped too and I will overlimp the other 15% of hands I play, mostly from button or completing SB. To me, this table/position/hand makes it reasonable to limp.

More curious on the river play... I see it as a potential good merged bet.

Hmm well that's sort of my question. Is betting here a pure bluff or do you think that sometimes people can hero down here with worse?

Its a bluff, but every once in a blue moon someone might call you with worse putting you on a busted FD

If river is a bluff, turn isn't a profitable call. Check.

Who the hell cares if limping isn't TAG? It's the best play here.

Nothing wrong with overlimping here.

Just check the river. You're often good and you're not getting anything better to fold. (You shouldn't, since you're repping way too thin for value.) And I'm not willing to overbet to try and force that to happen anyway, not when my hand has so much showdown value.

Not if this is how you're going to play this hand. T9o is trash but if you're going to limp it, do something creative somewhere. Dont just call down and hope your kicker is good because it rarely will be.

fold preflop

Sorry made a post before I'd carefully read the action. Since V is betting out from the CO it's possible he could have a lot of 7x here, protecting against a flush draw, I think. We're good often enough to simply check back the river, but I do like the idea of turning our hand into a bluff on the river. It's a "value bluff" as we could get Villain to fold better or call with worse.

I agree we should never be in this spot. But I don’t see a point in bluffing. We win here a fair amount; villain is likely checking the ace because he doesn’t like the ace, and TT-KK we’d assume mostly raises.

Now if we decide “they’ll never call $80” then by all means go nuts with bluffing here and turn hands like this into bluffs. I know I’ve shipped it with SDV hands against capped ranges before. Fine the right opponent and it works like a charm.

But we definitely should not bet here with no idea of what we want to happen. When I think a good merge, I think the dude who bets $400 into $460 with QQ on like AT9-A-5 because he correctly assumes his opponent is Tx heavy and will call too often as people tend to not value bet thin enough.


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When you limp pf in this situation you're playing bingo poker. Whoever hits the flop, wins the pot. The only winner in bingo poker is the house, since it collects the rake. Everyone else basically distributes the pots evenly.

Playing this hand is more a matter of your post flop skills compared to the villains. If you are a Mike Starr, you're going to raise this since with an initiative, position and skill advantage, the cards aren't going to matter very much. If your post flop skills in your mind are just above average (which means they are likely weak), then folding makes the most sense. You're 25:1 against flopping a strong hand. If you do flop one, it is unlikely anyone else will have a strong enough hand to call. With this many villains in the hand, you can't bluff them all out on the flop.

Calling is the worst option because after missing the flop, then next greatest result on the flop is a TPWK hand. Not a good place to be MW.

As for the river, a big bet will get folds enough to to make this profitable. "Yeah, I was on a FD but looky here, I just got lucky and rivered TP."

Thanks
now I got to wipe the Coffee off my screen

Hmmm well if I always have position because I'm not making the same play even from the HJ or CU then I think it's a weighted game of bingo that combined with what I perceive to be my above average post flop skills means I can beat the rake.

So again to focus on the river spot, would you guys be value betting K9s that got to the river here?

I guess we can rep some AxHH but I think better 9x mostly calls a 3/4 pot bet.

Yea I would value bet K9 against described villain. K9 is almost always the best hand here unless he had AxHH and decided to check river.

Against droolers left to act and acting otb I see no reason to fold here at all. Calling is fine imo.
AP I'd check river, since I don't see the reward in overbetting river when we could be good at showdown anyway