Villain (MP)($350) V is a bad LAG. I don't have a ton of history with him (Maybe 2-3 hours in total). We've clashed in a few small pots in the past that he's come out ahead on. he's raised ~10 times or so in the 3 orbits that I've been at the table so far. Hands shown down were: 22, 66, K5s, 34o, TT. sizing has been $12-15 regardless of limpers. 66 and TT were $15 opens, the others were $12. Probably not enough of a sample to determine a legit sizing tell, but worth noting. Nobody has 3-bet him yet so I have no idea how he responds to 3-bets. He's not a complete dummy post flop. Not a maniac, but I just get the sense that he is clicking buttons for the most part.

Hero(Button)(Covers) likely an aggro image in Vs eyes, but I haven't been playing a ton of hands yet in this session.


V opens to $12. Folds to Hero. Hero 3-bet to $42 with Q9. V calls.

I know, I know. honestly mostly a boredom raise. I only come to the casino to play a couple of times a month and the field is usually really straight forward and easy to play against. I play a lot of hands, play them aggressively, and usually come out on top. I was getting bored of having to fold so much because of this guy raising 4 times an orbit. This is my night out away from the wife and 2 young kids. I had already decided I was going to start 3-betting him to see how he would respond, and I decided this was the hand I was going to start the dick waving contest.

Flop ($85) 9TJ
V leads $50 with about $250 behind.

Hero?

Since we are here I shove. Decent FE, decent chance we are ahead anyways, good equity if behind, and not a lot of playability with non shove actions

Preflop you need to find out how he reacts to 3 bets at some point. I would rather have a better hand or a worse hand. Q9o is the sort of not value but not really a bluff hand that can easily get you in a lot of trouble when you flop one pair.

As played shove flop, it's hard for you to be in terrible shape and villain can call with hands you are ahead of. It's just agony when you don't know if you want to hit your flush or dodge it.

Virtually all the Villains in my games would shove a SF draw even without a pair.

Doesn't make it +EV but with this Villain's description, outs, and fold equity, I would too.

Yes the made hand plus draw aspect of your hand, combined w/ FE makes me comfortable shoving here. Hands we really hate would be AhTx / KhJx type hands or obviously made big flushes, but that should be a sufficiently small part of his range.

I'd rather call in position. If you shove, he folds his garbage and calls with hands that beat you. I don't think you've got much FE. I'd rather call and evaluate turn.

I prefer larger sizing or overbet on flop to set up for turn shove

Yup +1, especially to the pre-flop play. However given your comments about "night out, wife and kids, once a month blah blah" I get it and understand (can even sympathize) as long as you know that this play is -EV and more an entertainment cost than a solid decision and are fine with lighting ~$20 of your $42 on fire.

I'm most interested in things you haven't told us ...
1) How often does he Donk bet?
2) What does this bet size mean, whether Donk or C-bet?

Being an (overly) modest 'bad' LAG myself I can tell you that we (think we) know more about poker than you give us credit for, which plays exactly into how we want the game flow to go.

There is no worse than the Ax/Kx flush in play and please, please, please consider your 9 a 'made' hand here. (Although that is how you will probably win the hand, with trip 9s).

How to play? The only wrong answer is folding. More chips are going in the pot one way or another. You have position, so if V checks Turn you can bet anyway. If you just call you might miss value on a bad (good for you) Turn, but in most cases not if you keep it small.

Flip a coin IMO, just don't consider this a 'golden' spot ... You are very likely behind and sharing cards AND outs. GL

3! bigger. make it 55 or 60. something that will get him to possibly fold pre. for 42, he is always going to come along.

when he donks into you, he could have anything, 2p, an over and a gutter, just the A, flopped the joint. So, since that flop is about as good as we can hope for in this spot, I would just go with it.

Make it 140. Call all shoves. shove all turns.

this.

LAGs hate to be played back at because we are dictating the size of the pot.

Honestly, he played very few hands where he wasn't the preflop aggressor, and my history with this V is pretty limited. I don't really have any past examples to indicate what this donk-bet means

Nice post. And yeah, I definitely didn't consider this a golden spot, or even a particularly good one at any point

I can't criticize preflop too much because I'll occasionally do stuff like this too. Q9o is not the best choice of hand, but plays like this in moderation aren't terrible against this player type.

Shoving flop is probably fine. Sometimes we get it through, sometimes we have the best hand, sometimes we have the best draw. Rarely are all three of the above false.

If we jam V will have to call $250 to win $435. He's obviously not getting the 2:1 odds he actually needs to call with a naked Ah, but he might also think (rightfully so) that an Ace is a clean out for him, since if he holds the Ah he knows you can't have it, and it's just so unlikely you jam AA no heart here. He also would know Hero wouldn't jam KQhh in this spot, so Hero can have like no flushes if Villain holds the Ah. So V can probably correctly call our flop jam with a naked Ah or better.

Basically I don't think we have the FE the posters think we do ITT.

Would that be good news? So V could call with 88x for example...

V seems to have a tendency toward playing speculative holdings loosely, so shoving gives him the opportunity to make a costly mistake with a weaker hand. It also gives him the opportunity to fold his 10-x with no draw that was making a blocking bet "to see where he's at."

If you shove here Villain probably makes the right decision a lot. You have position on a bad LAG, a made hand, plus a decent draw. You have no idea what you are shoving into. I call, see a turn, and see how much he still likes his hand ott.

I'm not following you. If Villain has 8h8x he likely cannot profitably call because Hero has a lot of AhXx in his range. My post was premised on how perfectly V can play here holding the Ah, knowing that Hero's range has like zero made flushes.

If V is donk blocking with Tx no draw, then god bless him, I guess. I just don't see that being likely.

I think Q9o is pretty terrible. How much worse of a hand do you want him to bluff with?

Seriously, though, given range info, what kinds of hands do we want to call with in position and which do we want to be 3-betting? Especially with his raise sizing. OOP, I'm not eager to get into big pots with much.

Thanks for the responses.

Perhaps I misunderstood but I was addressing the claim that hero has little fold equity. I'd agree that villain probably won't fold AX, but would they fold any hands that have a good amount of equity against hero's holding?

If not, what makes us think villain will play perfectly and find the line where they should call? 88x was an example of how the mistake could be calling too much. You're right that villain "cannot" profitably call with that hand against our likely shove range, but it's a question of would villain call

Go all-in. The next card could kill the action or cause you to fold the winning hand.