Sunday afternoon at Red Rock. Aside from hero and villain, average age at table is > 65. Those other players are all tight passives or loose passives (bet/calling with chips behind after hitting the nuts on the river, etc).

Villain in this hand is an hispanic man in his late twenties. He sat down five hands ago. In those hands he raised two pots and folded the other three. He made raises to $6; he might be transitioning from online play. When I make a raise to $13 in this hand he makes a comment like, "Oh, that's how you get heads up at this table." He starts with $300.

Hero is a white guy in his late twenties. I have folded in each of the previous five hands that villain observed. I start with $300.

Hero raises to $13 UTG with A K. Folds to villain in BB who calls. $24 in pot after drop.

Flop comes K Q 9. Villain checks, hero bets $16, villain quickly raises to $40. Hero ???

Feels like I'm either somewhat ahead of combo draws or way behind (is SA/WB a term?); seems like I'm wb more often. Hands like KJ/J9/QT are effectively 9 out combo draws against my hand, while TT/JJ have six outs to beat me. KQ/JT/99 have me crushed; not sure if he 3b QQ pre, so discount that to one combo. Chopping with nine AK combos (which I can see flatting a UTG raise). As far as my perceived range goes, if he thinks I'm relatively tight than this flop should hit my UTG raise range pretty hard...so not sure how often he would want to build a big pot out of position with a draw/bluff when I can often hold a set or overpair and there are a lot of bad players at the table that he can pick on. So in general I tend to discount him holding weak draws/air.

Two main questions I have:

a) What is my flop action/plan for future streets?

b) Against a villain like this (young, aggressive, possible internet experience), should I have been willing to forego the flop value bet on such a dry board to control the pot and avoid facing a c/r? Or is it relatively safe for me to assume he has a big hand when he c/r in this spot and that b/f TPTK will still be profitable?

I probably fold here... if I call, I am folding to a turn bet from V until we have more information that he could be light.

OTF.. it is a fine spot to bet most of the time, occasionally check behind and get your two streets of value on turn/river. This flop is a bad one for your hand to get value, because a lot of his range either 2pair+ or whiffed... this there is not a lot of value to be had - Except TT / KT / KJ / QJ...

Villain seems kind of competent, so he should know this flop smashes your UTG range. You could easily have sets here, yet he c/r...I'm folding without better reads. People rarely do this with KJ/QT anyway.

Yeah, against a typical 1/2 drooler I think I can get value from a fairly wide range OTF if they call pre with hands like K5s, Q8s, 97, etc. Against this guy I think it's going to be a bit tighter.

B/c can be very problematic if he c/r a very high percentage of the time with JT/99/KQ. B/f can't be too bad if we assume he very rarely c/r with a worse hand. On a rainbow flop it doesn't seem like he can c/r with worse very often, but if it was two toned then I think it might become pretty tricky.

3b to $95, shove all turns if called. I'm not believing his c/r without a live read. Two pair and sets are probably making a larger raise OOP on a semi connected board. I would expect to see pair plus draw hands more often than hands that have you beat. If he 4b shoves the flop I probably give it up since hardly anyone does that with KJ/QJ type hands here.

If you lose at least it's good for your image.

I'm hesitant to disagree with wj94, but I'd be B/Fing here.

At this table there were three or four players who were already giving me waaay more action than they should have based on my nitty VPIP. But I think I get what you're saying. So many regs at this casino will pay off your big hands forever after seeing a play like this.

In terms of EV...I just wasn't that confident that he has a semi-bluff pair + gutshot THAT often. While the board is connected, there are no OESDs possible for either of us. My perceived UTG raise range shouldn't have many combo draws that threaten his KQ/99 (really only six out draws like JJ). Doesn't seem like there are that many cards that will freeze action OTT. So I don't think it's too unreasonable for him to make a 2.5x x/r while holding 2 pair + and hoping to string me along with a medium strength hand. Only physical observation I made was that he made the raise to $40 very quickly; he knew what he wanted to do immediately after I put out the c-bet.

Do understand that this sort of play is part of an overall gameplan. So sacrificing a bit of EV here can be made up later. Seeing this kind of play repeatedly causes his opponents to regard him as super crazy, which allows him to get really good value when he does smash the flop. I'd be willing to bet that most of wj94's opponents do not realize that he is capable of making good laydowns and generally overestimate their favorability when they get money in against him.

This would be a tough spot with 2 pair, with ak it's an easy fold.

Looks like a fold tbh. Wouldnt blame you to call the flop once tho

I wouldn't hate it if you called the check-raise in position to see what develops on the turn, but I prefer to fold. Your hand isn't likely to get better, but even if you're ahead, he is likely to have a hand that could easily improve.

If this happens later in the session, and you have evidence that this guy will spazz, then that's a different story. For now, I'd just fold and move on.

I like bet/folding the flop.

Except that this is Live 1/2 and you can pretty much wait for the nuts and still get paid off. Also, nobody will see AK here as "super crazy." They will just see you as someone who falls in love with TPTK. Anyway, your hand is good and has value (which is why the bet here is good), but Live 1/2 players are not bluffing / raising with worse value hands enough to make calls/reshoves profitable. I don't think a flop call is terrible, but we need to be folding to any more action here.

I think it just comes down to live reads in this spot. Most 1/2 players don't even consider that the PFR was UTG so they must have a strong hand, they just think "$12, I guess I can call that, let's see a flop."

People do this near-min-raise flop bet all the time with Kx to "see where they're at" and then have no idea what to do the rest of the hand, and pair + draws aren't folding to a small flop 3b. If your read is that he's more likely to have a made hand then folding isn't bad, I just don't think it's optimal. K9o and Q9o seem unlikely, and two pair and set combos often lead the flop here or c/r bigger. So that leaves combo draws, Kx, and TJ.



When people see you play your one-pair hands so aggressively, they tend to pay you off more when you have a monster.

Most 1/2 players have mastered the art of limp/calling weak hands OOP so they win the minimum when they have the best hand and lose the maximum when I have them crushed....plus almost all of them has massive bet sizing tells.

Jesus Christ no

This

Yes! I would fist-pump get it in with two pair here, even bottom two.

But his hand isn't two pair. You're advocating 3b! here and then shoving turns with TPTK. This has to be spew at 1/2.

That is correct. AK TPTK is a good hand heads up, not like this went 5 ways.

Results:

I think for six seconds and fold to the raise.

V immediately asks, "Did you fold ace king?" I say I can't tell him what I have, but that I probably didn't have jack ten. He shrugs his shoulders a bit and says that AK was good there.

Not sure if his table talk is best translated as
a) I had JT/KQ/99, wtf at not getting paid off.
b) I was just trying to figure out if my KT was good. Nice result!
c) I was intentionally semi-bluffing with a combo draw. Thought it would take two barrels; didn't expect the flop c/r to do it.

Not be being results oriented or trying to further toot my own horn, but that 100% confirms you were dead. It was option A in your list.

Lol live reads aside it's a very easy fold. If you build history with villains who do indeed c/r alot etc you can adjust, (for example by checking flop), otherwise very easy fold.

If he showed you QJ you would still know that you made a good fold.

Also, my canned response when making big folds (which this was not) is "7 high"