Red Rock Casino, late Sunday night. Table is eight handed and the action has gotten fairly aggressive.

Villain in this hand just sat down in the game about 5 hands ago. He is young and has played every pot so far. Over the course of the session his VPIP/PFR will end up being 63/24. He begins the hand with $400 and covers hero.

On to the hand:

Hero decides to limp/3bet K K from UTG. Four players limp and villain raises to $12 from the SB. BB folds, hero makes it $50 to go, folds back around to villain who calls. Flop comes A T 7 and villain quickly bets our $75. As soon as hero hesitates, villain calls out to his friend to say, "Hey, they're finally going to let me win a ****ing pot."

I found this to be a bit of an odd spot. I know that my hand is supposed to be AA/KK, so I tend to wonder if villain will often have a hand like A9/AJ and wants to bet to "find out where he's at," i.e. whether or not I have top set. There's also the possibility that he binked a set with TT or 77. On the other hand I can also see him doing this with decent equity draws like Q J or even QJo if he thinks he can get a good amount of fold equity.

I think this is a fold.

In a 3-bet pot, on an ace-high/two-flush board, it would be hard for him to lead out without at least some equity. Most of the time, his range will probably be hands that are way ahead of you and hands that are drawing. Against that range, you should fold.

ugh flop.

his talking is suspicious tbh, but not enough to use as a tell yet after only 5 hands.

what was your starting stack size?

You had mentioned the guy was loose pf, but the guy called a pretty big raise pf from you so you'd have to think Ax is a good part of his range. The only thing you're ahead of that he donks with here is QQ/JJ (and this is a stretch w/ the A out there), some draws and air. The problem with calling here is that your pretty much pot committed going forward, if not AI otf. I'd probably puke fold here and count on his loose pf play going forward to net us some good future returns.

Is V a reg? Name?

Idk I think folding is fine you got him to call a large 3 bet with an infior hand. Now unfortunately this is a terrible flop with KK. You sometimes just have to give a potential maniac credit for a hand here. Just be glad you are ip and saved some $.

Appeared to be, but I never heard his name. Brunette, bearded, tan, probably 6 foot 1 and thin.

Tough spot man.

How many bbs do we have left when he donks...like if we ship what are we shipping?

I ship $150 and under. Fold if I have $151 or more.

Definitely will be paying attention to what he donks in the future.

I think I started with a little over $350.

Fold.

Also do not l/rr premiums UTG.

There is a time and a place for the l/rr and this is not it.

A MUCH better spot would have been if CO limped KK here for example. Though again you need to be 100% certain villain is bumping it up.

I agree his flat/donk line is suspicious/******ed but his range is still highly weighted towards Ax unless he ends up being just a total spew box, which you don't know 5 hands in, and is still thin regardless.

Do people usually say brunette when it's a man?


I'd keep l/rr to when a guy has 25-40ish BB and won't add on 200, he'll wait until he loses with a KQo shove pf.

AP, fold. What makes it thinner than we think is we don't have the Kd, so we have 1 out a lot of the time. I keep my turn set mines to when hitting both of our 2 outs won't put a flush on the board. If a guy is deep and horrible a turn mine isn't too bad, as long as both outs aren't completing straights or flushes.

We l/rr'd pf being UTG, in V's eyes, our range should be AA-QQ/AK at worst.. so why would he lead out if he had the A? Isn't he more likely to check-call with A and play more cautiously?

Ugly situation, but easy fold without a good read on villains chance of bluffing/drawing here or how likely it is you can raise him off a an ace. Most villains are either going to be betting with an ace to see where they are or have a draw with decent equity. Villain would have to be a total maniac to be on a real bluff here because the chance you have AK/AA has to be very high.

This would not be smart for V to do this with eff stacks of only $400. He should know he is prob up againsts KK+ or AK. so, he'd have to call $35 to win max $400. Not enough implied odds.

V is much more likely to have a made AX hand and we are behind.

Fold.

Expand on this, please.

I think the l/rr is fine myself. Sure it polarizes our holdings to QQ+. Otoh, as shown in Op, you can a)build a big pot pre; b)iso and get HU; then c)take it down with a c-bet on most flops.

I think Op played it fine (assuming he folded). Had he led with say $12 or $15, he would likely have gotten 3-4 callers and seen a multi-way flop (ugh).

You can't really say he's smart enough to fold QJ to a limp/rr but then say he'd raise-call, then donk with a random AX.

IMO i'd say villain is dumb enough to have both but i'm still folding.

OP don't let his comment about winning a hand level yourself into a call or bluff raise.

Results: I end up mucking after tanking for about 20 seconds. Villain mucks his hand.

The more I think about it the more I see it as an Ax hand trying to make a strange "blocking bet" to prevent a large losing pot against AA/AK...though if I really did have AA I probably can gii against his hand by the river or even the turn since he probably makes crying calls with Ax in that situation.

I would have folded too. I think the only and very thin way for me to call is if I had the K
At least I would have a backdoor flush draw.
Plus if he had say Ace with a flush draw, your K is dead leaving you with one out.

Easy fold technically, hard fold emotionally...