Hero, semi-reg/rec player, not a fish, but still working greatly to improve overall play.


Again this hand is completely void of any table history or reads. We were 7 hands into the game and neither preflop player had actually played past flop.

Stacks are ~($200 effective, Hero bought in full $300)


Pre:
Hero is in SB.
Villain is UTG+3
Six limpers including Villain when Hero looks down at AQo and makes it $15 to go.

Villain and Cutoff both call.

Pot is $50 after rake.

Flop is A 3 5

Hero C-bets to $35.
Villain tanks for roughly 3 minutes, makes the call, villain looks uncomfortable and unsure as he does so, but in a genuine manner.
Cutoff folds.

Turn ($120)
9

Hero leads for $55 and again villain tanks for roughly 3-5 minutes and calls. Still looks uncomfortable.

River ($230)
2

Final Board:
A 3 5 9 2


Hero checks, Villain tanks again, and eventually goes all in for ~$95


Anything wrong with this line at a new table?

Will post results and why I checked river and what I did after his jam later.

Tough spot. It's either a bluff at a whiffed flush draw, or he has you destroyed. I think we can seriously discount the very few aces you beat as he is going to check back AJ,AT,A8,A7,A6. So we are faced with two-pair or a wheel or a bluff.

While racial and class profiles don't mean much once you get a read on how a player plays, but in a vacuum, I think they are all you have to go on here. What's V's description?

Ugh the excessive tanking annoys me just reading about it.

Pre is fine. I'd bet slightly more on flop, like $40-$45. Sets up roughly a psb for the turn, and if you're confident in your read that our villain has a hand he's not particularly confident about then I probably set him in then.

As played, kind of gross. He doesn't really have a value range that we beat here as I'd expect his one pair ace hands to check back. If you think he has whiffed spades or is value cutting himself with AJ here once every 3 and a half times then call but that seems a little ambitious.

I agree with everyone above. Also want to take your image into consideration too. Have the dealer and other players been talking to you? I don't have any issues with bet sizing in the flop but I think the turn bet seemed a little small. Maybe he puts you on a flush draw betting on the come? With the next little card coming suited As with little kickers and combo draws come to mind. The villain seems passive so far so I probably crying call here, mainly for the info early in a session, even though I doubt I should be doing that.

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Villain was mid 20's, kinda frat boy look. Hoodie, ear buds, no glasses though. Probably played some poker live before.

Villain looked genuinely unhappy to call (this wasn't a feigned sense of weakness) the c-bet. It seemed like he was uncomfortable calling that much money with his holding. I narrowed his range to weaker aces, under pairs and flush draws, but discounted AXss hands because of how he looked when making the call.

Maybe V had 46sooted and got there? That's the only tank draw that would make sense.

I would probably shove the turn and take down the pot. He didn't seem to like his hand until the river.

Gross spot. I think the hand is played pretty perfectly so far, assuming you were going for the classic "b/f every street since he'll call with worse aces and raise when he has better" line. And then I'm okay with the check on the scary-ish river.

The only issue I have with your post is saying that you've only played 7 hands, so no reads. That is just enough to start to get a read. How many times has he VPIP in those 7 hands? If it's, say, 5, then there's a decent chance he has a straight here. If it's 2, the chance is reduced. For my analysis I'm assuming he was playing less than half of the hands.

I probably make the crying call here given the villain is in his 20s. I think he shows up here with busted flush draws and ace-pair flush draws turned into bluffs more often than fours. What fours are in a reasonable range? Just 64ss and A4ss. I'm not giving him 64o, 54o, or A4o because of the preflop action. Also we should discount 64ss for the same reason. I don't think he calls the flop with 54 of the wrong suit given his outs are dirty, which is something he probably knows about. I'm also not worried about sets because they will almost always raise this drawy ace board.

So yeah, I'm giving our villain some ABC credit and calling, since there are approximately 2 hands that have us beat. If the river were a 2 I'd fold it.

I have no reads because villain hadn't seen a flop other then his blinds and one other limp. Each of those hands he immediately released his hands to any action.

It was standard limp fest start to a 1/2 table.

Yeah, but that is a read. The more he limps, the more 4s are in his range, so if he only limped once, that leans me more towards a call. If he had limped 4 times I'd be more inclined to fold. The read is really crude but it's still there.

If you said villain was a cartoon taco pooping ice cream, I might could believe it. But if you say AQ is good here, I wouldn't even try to believe that.

Hero calls fairly quickly.

I really thought my hand was good. I checked the river with the hope that he would bet. While I've never played with this specific villain, I thought his mannerisms and everything told me he just wasn't really happy with his hand.

I called and villain tabled AKo with no spades and villain scoops the pot.

I posted this because I was curious if I overplayed the hand or not.

So you don't believe my description and made assumptions that this was a brag post?

I'm not a terrible player by any means, but I have a lot of work so I'm posting for constructive help and criticism, not troll posts, so I'm not going to trolling myself.

If V actually tanked for 3 minutes on the flop and 5 minutes on the turn I would call the clock on him twice. Who does that facing a $35 and $55 bet? lol. 3 minutes is an extremely long time to make one decision at a poker table.

I don't mean to troll. Its just that when your average villain (ie absent reads) bombs the river like this, it's because he thinks he has the nuts.

There's some wiggle room here. What the villain thinks is the nuts isn't always the "the" nuts. Mpethy discusses this at length in one if the stickies. But I think it would be good to remember that the average winning hand is 2p and it's probably wise to assume villain has that at least.

I usually do but he displayed many signs of actual weakness. I really think he was "bluffing" with the best hand on the river jam.

I'm admittedly putting a lot of stock into fluid, during the hand, physical reads here.

Probably, maybe obviously too much.

It just felt and seemed more like a "I can only win by jamming" bet, than a value jam.

My goal of posting was to see where others would differ on how they would play this spot (on each street) to learn what I could do better/differently.

In the moment and when I posted I felt that I did pretty well.

I'm not necessarily feeling the same now.

As for the duration of his tanks, yes they were roughly 3 minutes each (turn felt longer), river was closer to 2.

To be honest, tanking for 2 minutes it forever.
Like long enough that the dealer will be shuffling chips, players will be shifting in their chairs.
And people will start side conversations. And if it happened two times in one hand, I'd likely call a clock. 2 minutes is a long time at a poker table.

Take your stop watch and time out two minutes, just sitting there. And see how long it is.

Just food for thought.

Just bet bet bet for value. He can have plenty of worse Ax.

This hand took 10 minutes?

I understand that perception of time and reality of time are often very different.

I can't say for certain it was as long as I said but yes, he was very deliberate in his actions on each street and yes the table got quiet and was obviously itching to move along. I know I counted down rougly the last 90 seconds of the turn tank in my head.

In retrospect it was more about being uncomfortable with the amount of money in the pot and bets. My guess is he didn't want to go busto so early.

So I wish I had made a bigger bet on the turn. Might have got a fold. But at the time I really thought I wanted a call.

You did want a call.

Why?

x/c river makes sense theoretically, but since the majority of players at this level rarely bluff the river, or value bet thinly, I feel that folding river if we check is correct. I do think that we can shove the river for value, though I think it's borderline. AJ I is a x/f and AK is a value jam, imo. AQ is right in the middle.

Because V doesn't "have AK."

He has a range of hands.

AK is very unlikely.

In this limp fest, worse Ax and especially AJ, AT is very likely.

So we want a call.

First things first, with 6 limpers you HAVE to make your PF raise bigger. I would make it 20-25. Trust me, you'll still get callers.

I like the bet, bet line but I think you should just go ahead and make your raises bigger so you can play for stacks on the turn. On the flop you need to go for the throat and get max value from Ax and FDs. I would just bet pot.

If you make it bigger PF and bet close to pot on the flop you'll have a perfect ship here against villain. As played fold river yeah.

If you think villain is weak, then why not bet the river? Checking to induce a bluff against someone you don't have a read on doesn't make sense to me. You don't know if villain likes to bluff. If villain has a worse ace he will often check, and he will more likely bet the hands that beat us.

I'd also raise more PF being OOP with all those limpers. AQo isn't even that great of a hand, especially OOP, so I wouldn't be too worried about everyone possibly folding (although I'd much rather have a caller or two).