Table 1 MGM Springfield by the cage. Villain looks like a young/mid 30s year old Spanish background bro. Lots of them at this casino. I may have played 1 session with him in the past as his face looks familiar or maybe it was his railbird friend who was familiar I'm not 100% sure. Anyways no real huge reads on this guy he's only just sat down at the table 5-10 min ago. He bought in for the max, 5 stacks of red, and I did too ($500). I've been bouncing around tables all day and have a stack of approx. 700 to start the hand and playing solid straight forward poker as I always do at this place cuz in my opinion there's no reason to try to run any fancy plays and bluffs versus the average 1/2 NL lineups at this place. It's New England; everybody is relatively well off and not afraid to put in some money to keep you honest if they have a decent holding. He won a medium/average size pot in his first orbit with good cards if I recall correctly; sorry I honestly don't remember exact hand he won but it seemed pretty standard/semi coolery and his stack is closer to the $600 range at this point I cover slightly. He has (at least) a little booze in the system, showing up with either a corona or a mix drink. I don't remember exactly as it was many months ago and this is just from memory. I believe I'd seen him tank tank tank and fold to a big bet last orbit so he didn't seen like complete 100% drooler with no fold button but he seems like the type of guy who isn't anything close to a nit either.

Villain opens to $20 UTG. This is a significantly larger open than average at this table and mostly any 1/2 table in the world. He seemed semi steamed from a recent hand so I'm not exactly putting him on the range of the average 70 year old nit-tag-reg opening 10x BB UTG of JJ+, I'd say he's a bit more like AJ+/88+ if I had to guess, but who knows. Anyways I look down at AKo no diamond in MP and decide to bump it up to $69. Folds back to villain and he calls quite quick.

K75

He checks rather quick and I fire about half pot $74 or so with plans of value betting all 3 streets for smallish sizes, just enough to charge a raw flush draw slightly improper odds and just enough to keep a worse hand (QQ w/ a diamond...KQ....etc) in hopefully and get 70-90% of stacks in by the river but I doubt I'm good enough and he's bad enough to get that entire 100% of stack in TBH. Well I guess my plan blew up in my face as he quickly ships the five red stacks in the middle for a total of $505 if I recall correctly.

I tank for a minute, maybe two and table gets all upset and someone calls clock. In the mean time I'm trying to pry some info from villain asking typical questions like "what do you want me to do? do you want action? do you have a good hand? etc." He seems indifferent about whether I call or not I suppose and almost trying to goad a call from his body language/reaction.

I hate these spots against relatively unknown. There's a certain player or two at this casino that come to mind I would happily snap off with in this spot without any thought 90% of the time, but doing it against almost anybody else seems like very high risk and will be heavily behind most of the time.

1) New England isn't all wealthy and definitely not Springfield.

2) I think you are creating too much of a story to get real good feedback. Lots of irrelevant details.

3) Don't ever raise to $69. $70 or $65. you are just wasting everyones time and creating more work for the dealer.

Now good hand to 3bet but I might raise a bit more given he raised to an odd size but $60-$80 is okay in my book. Generally I 3x for most 3bets.

I don't like betting this flop texture. Too much out there and we still have position and a good hand. We can target hands like Adx, and QdQx, JdJx but I don't think we want to go for three streets here and we also get to see the turn and what villain does on the turn. Generally, I'm thinking one or two streets of value in this spot and checking back the flop lets villain feel a little better with certains parts of his range that we can target for value.

That is all.

Richy rich

All important stuff


thats why they get a tip

if you're ahead why not bet for value? give free card costs entire pot which at this point is 71.5bb roughly and worth fighting for

the beauty if 1-2 nl is you can make those 69 dollar, 72 dollar, or 27 dollars etc bets legally to rep the 27o bounty or rep 69 etc etc etc. legendary 1-2 NL foxwoods playa baseball mike with the baseball cap if ya know who im talkin about he introduced it playa bet the piano keys $88 bet and got called by a fish with worse hand. gotta always take advantage of the wacky #s to rep certain hands and thoughts etc to subconsiously convince your opponent that the $72 bet means you're repping 72o etc

sounds like you got it figured out my man!

No. I don’t have this spot figured out at all. That’s why I posted it. I’ll wait a bit more for results but I will spoil this much. I folded.

I think the preflop 3bet is marginal. We don't get to just ignore open sizes even if we decide he might be tilted (and if he is it's not that great anyway unless he tilt raise/folds). What is your plan if he 4bets?
MGM Springfield is the only place where I've been 3bet with 33 at 1-2 and got snap shoved on when I 4bet AK on a 500 effective stack.
Your sizing isn't great either, 3.5x raise size MP vs. UTG is pretty damn big and is a very annoying call by even JJ/TT where it's borderline for set value. Also difficult to believe you have nothing.

Monotone flops don't play the same as two tone, one pair hands with no draw shouldn't be putting a lot of money in.
Are you trying to bluff him off of 99d? You understand that hand is like 44% vs. your hand? Even KxQd, which you are normally crushing, is 46%. Even AdJc is doing okay at 37%.
Then he's allowed to have JdTd which is more than a little in front.
Your bet mostly gets 9c9s to fold ... which is worth very little.
Also it's a 3bet pot with A or K high, everyone with 88-QQ can see that AK got there.

If it wasn't a huge 3bet pot I wouldn't even think about betting.
As played I probably still check flop, yes it looks weak but you can balance it with AdQd type hands and you are allowed to call down if he bets turn.

AP after your bet you are in a pit of despair, you've put 75bb in and he can fairly easily be shoving a balanced range of made flushes and big one pair hands with a diamond. Calling and folding both suck. Note that he can also have AAd and AdK, because it's not like he needs to pile 300bb in pre. with those hands given the action.
I would probably try to get a read on how tilted I still think he is, leaning call if I still think he's tilted/wild. He needs to be shoving a lot of bad hands to make it a call, and I'd assume any normal GTO/etc. analysis would be to only call with Ad.

FYI I do believe he previously within the past orbit made a ten x open and showed down a small medium pocket pair or another medium/high but not nutted type of hand. Plus he was giving off quite the vibes of a “I don’t only have AA/KK/QQ when I do this” and wasn’t signaling he was gonna snap 4 bet or jam preflop when I eyed him down a bit before 3 bet. And again, I don’t wanna spoil the whole hand yet, but he did mention when he shoved on flop that he would show me and he did and guess what…I will spoil this much it was not AA KK QQ or even AK or JJ. It probably wasn’t even a top 9% starting hand.

Can’t always have your opponents drawing dead or less than 10%. As a gambler to make profits you gotta push every edge even if it’s 51%. If I knew I could get a 50.001% edge every hand I’d run that til the cows come home for stakes I can afford and generate infinite profits.

You mention possibility of opponent having 46% or 37% like it’s a bad thing when there’s already 70 something BB in the middle to fight for.

I mention it because those are hands you'd normally be way in front of, but are now slightly in front of. If villain has a flush you have 2.8%.

Assuming 500 each to start (to make the math easier), you can think of it like this:
When you have 60% you gain +$100.
When you fold you lose roughly -$150.
When you have 2.8% you lose roughly -$470

So if you are in front 3x as often as V is in front you lose $5 each hand by calling vs. just folding all the time. If your average goes down to 55% when in front then you need to be in front 6x as often and still lose ~$3 per. hand.
To be even clearer if V shows you the 9d and you know he has just the 8 combos of: 9d9,9d8d,Td9d ... it's a losing call, EVEN IF HE HAS 99 THIS TIME.

Having $600 starting stacks makes the math more annoying, and the result worse.

What’s up with the 9d9x obsession?

Also why bother doing a hypothetical where we have $100 less?

How many realistic combos of flush is someone really opening 10 x bb and calling a 35 bb retailer with? AQ. AJ. AT seem most likely and I only count three combos. I’d expect almost anything else to snap fold unless this is his 7th corona (very possible)

I wouldn't 3! an extra large UTG open with AK. You don't want to isolate against a strong range. There are better places to 3! with weaker hands.

Even versus someone drinking who has expressed tilt like vibes in the past 3-5 minutes and has a “I have money and something to prove” vibe going on and a rail bird friend? I mean this is live poker and all these things are relevant. It’s not an grouchy old man coffee who is playing 15 vpip 10 pfr for hours of history.

spoiler - I folded and he tabled KJ

Guess he thought he was ahead....or just drunk and turned his brain off (more likely)...or never had a brain in the first place (even more likely)

honestly most of the analysis in the thread is bad. 3b pre is very good, flop cbet is way too big, dont b/f your hand at spr 3.5? after making a very large cbet.

+1 to whoever said dont post so many useless details in the op, literally none of it matters

Generally good points, but I don't agree that half pot is way too big on this type of board. Either bet big and be ready to gii or check back and usually call down if bet into and a 4-flush doesn't hit. I know it is the trend to cbet small and solvers sometimes recommend it, but I don't care for it at all with a monochrome K-high flop in a 3! pot.

The check/shove could definitely be a worse or the same king. It could also be a nut flush draw or a high pair with a flush draw. It could be a smallish flush or a set. I would discount heavily a high flush.

Who cares what it could be. I care about exactly what it is only. That’s live poker. It’s not a fuggin simulation ran 1 million times of what could he have versus what could run out

It’s what he has and what runs out. Simple. He has KJ and a death wish for his $500. I just couldn’t read between the lines.

You can't assume because he had a worse king, he always has one when he does this. That is results oriented. I agree it was a bad fold though.

It’s not an always or sometimes or most of the time or anything like that. It’s this time and this time only. There’s no other times to judge. Just this one. Welcome to live poker where you must play absolutely perfect every hand to beat the rake and make a profit.

He could have anything. Do you want to throw away a large buyin that easily. He definitely fits the bill for a macho guy who'll be betting this to oblivion. He also could have anything. Aces? Yup. Flush already? Yup. Al sets. Random garbage.

Against maniac type players your call is your ammunition. The bet was probably a mistake. You' want him bluffing off here. You want to more cheaply see if another diamond comes.

The pot is $140. You check tot he turn and your whole stack isn't at risk, he thinks you don't have a king, he might think you have a flush.

Really though you need to know your tolerance for risk. You are ok wtih getting your whole stack in with this hand? This is very much how maniacs get paid.

apparently my risk tolerance was high enough to bet but not high enough to call. my thought was if I bet he won't try to bluff with worse....some change he semibluffs a naked NFD or NFD+pair. Really just didn't expect the KJ no diamond to be possible til he proved me otherwise.

You will see it mentioned on this forum: The best strategy for monotone boards is usually to bet small or check. You will see that manifest in live play as well.
The thing is not to be so obsessed with extracting marginal edges when you have to protect against getting trapped or bluffed off the best hand. When the spr is very low then of course you go with your tptk hand or gamble with the nfd.

I’m not very studied on the monotone board stuff. Found myself in no man’s land guessing game this hand. Seemed most rational value heavy opponents have ako no diamond completely smashed and kinda just praying I’m against the rare semibluff.

Results oriented fish logic. Why ask for advice if you’re not willing to expand your horizons and understand poker theory? You’re all hung up on playing the exact hand perfectly but how can you know his exact hand? You can’t. Plain and simple. You can make well educated guesses at ranges and narrow it down from there. Good luck beating the 6+3 drop with your 2005 poker logic.