V (SB) in the hand is an absolute, absolute whale.. playing every hand, calling station, raises pre a lot, cbets a lot, calls down medium sized bets with middle pair, chases everything, just awful in general.. sitting on $500

Hero (CO) just sat down couple of minutes ago, $300-350 deep

5way limped pot, Hero has 66 in CO

Flop ($15): 862r
V donks $10, 1 call, Hero raises to $30, V calls

Turn ($85): Ar
V checks, Hero bets $30, V raises to $60, Hero ??

I usually go larger on turn but the A is such an awful card and the board is so dry; I want him to call down with 8x. I figured $30 is getting called 100% of the time, but $45-50 would get called maybe 60% of the time so the EV of a $30 bet is marginally higher. It could also induce some spazz like here.

CIB to $90, or more, or call and let him hang himself OTR?

A couple of things to start with. In a limped pot, nobody can "donk" bet. By using the term, you're in your own mind discounting the player. Second, the EV on the turn might slightly weigh towards a smaller bet, but you'll more than make that up on the river with the pot bigger. Betting smaller overall is going to be a lower EV.

As for the rest, I'm sorry you lost the hand. However, you have 3rd best set against someone who will play 2 napkins. If you aren't going broke with a set in this situation, you need to stop set mining with 66. He has lots of 2 pair hands in his range after the turn. If you played it cautiously after the raise, you lost a lot of value against his range.

You clearly didn't read the last line in OP. Not in the slightest sense am I considering that I'm behind here. It's just a question of how do I get maximum value in this situation. CIB or just call and let him bet river and then shove?

The only problem I see with CIB is if he's spazzing with 8x here because my "same" bet induced him to do so, he might go away. If I just call, he will almost always bet $100 OTR and I can shove then. But then, how many people min c/r as a bluff/semi-bluff OTT? If we CIB to $90, 8x will be priced in to call anyway. But if we do that, he may check river instead of betting.

set + whale + dry board = we should only be thinking about how to get AI by the river

flatting here creates a pot of ~$200, and you'll have about ~$225 left. slightly more than a PSB might be a little awkward for the river

i like click it back to $90 the best. i really doubt he's spazzing with 8x here. damn near 100% of his minraise range is calling another $30, and it makes it significantly easier to get all in on the river, you'll be putting ~$200 into ~$260 or so

We don't want to lose this guy, and we can still play for stacks on the river.

Flat turn; shove river.

I'm cool setmining preflop.

I'd raise more on the flop, upwards of $55 to offer poor 2:1 odds to chase plus make it easier to play for stacks by the river. If these guys have junk, they might fold to any raise. But if the have an OESD, they'll call pretty much any raise, so lets make it big. Plus the whale is in the hand, so he's very unlikely to fold.

Unless the whale is very aggro against weak looking bets, I'd bomb the turn. Our goal is to play for stacks, and the only way to do that without intentionally trying to induce a raise is to ~PSB the turn in order to setup a reasonable shove on the river. So I'd bet $85 on the turn. Yes, the Ace is a bad card *if* he doesn't have one; if he doesn't have one, we're going to have trouble playing for stacks. But if he has something that he might consider playing for stacks with, or a draw, we've got to get the big money in now.

As played, I probably do a minish type raise to like $100 - $120 just to setup an easier shove on the river. Flatting probably ain't horrible on this fairly dry board in position, but I'm worried that his river bet will be so small that our shove will be too large in comparison to get called.

GcluelessNLnoobG

GG, I think $10 to $55 on such a dry flop is too big and scares 8x away. If we're targeting OESDs, we can always evaluate scary turns in position. I'd go $55 if there was a FD.

Raise. You describe V as a "calling station," who "calls down medium sized bets," and "chases everything." Not sure we can be confident he leads out on the river. So while he seems inclined to put more $$ in, raise. I like $110-120 here to set up river shove. He will call that with OESDs, and will call river with A8, A2, etc.

Someone suggested raising upwards of $55 on flop. That is too much, and gives this whale a chance to play correctly. OP says he "calls down medium sized bets..." So let's stay in the medium zone.

An interesting thought dawned upon me:

OTT, we can dissect this V's range into two parts: bluffs/semi-bluffs and strong value hands (2p, etc.). Both of those are 100% betting the river in the range of $100 where we can then shove for $150 more and get called by the value part of that range.

However, by CIB to $90 or $110-$120, we are: a) folding out his bluffs which would otherwise bet river (yeah, sometimes he may still call/chase anyway, infact he probably does a lot), but more importantly, b) looking super-strong and giving him a chance to go slow with his value hands and just c/c river thereby losing the opportunity to stack him. Yeah, we can bet all-in OTR but this V has a tendency to call medium sized bets with pairs, so not really sure he's going to call our shove.

I think, even in general, against Vs who have a strong range 100% of the time OTT, we can still just call the c/r IP letting them keep the initiative, because it is almost guaranted that they will bet huge on the river, especially if we have a tight image. However, I'd be more inclined to CIB in that situation because of potential straightening cards that can kill action OTR if Vs are capable of folding. But against a whale like this, I don't think he's EVER folding once he bets $100 OTR after we just call his turn c/r.

Check raise on turn seems like aces up a whole lot to me. I don't see what bluffs in his range take this line.

That said, if he has any bluffs at all in his range I guess flatting turn is better since aces up is always gonna bet / get it in on the river anyway.

Yeah, since this board isn't incredibly drawy I don't mind going smaller than my suggested $55 (noting that I did say "upwards" of that, so that would be my ceiling). I typically lean towards giving Villains terrible 2:1 odds, but the dryer the board the better odds we can give, especially targeting the single pair hands which are drawing virtually dead. Still, it is best to go bigger on the flop since this is the most likely street to get called plus we can much more easily build the pot towards playing for stacks; a standard 3x raise isn't always best, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

That's the first instinct obv in these spots, but something about this guy told me that my small bet OTT could have induced a brainless c/r from him with worse than aces up here. He didn't seem to know what he was doing. Also, with aces up, I would assume he would c/r slightly bigger. I think I had seen him bet big with big hands, but I'm not 100% sure I remembered that at that time.

Exactly. He's going to bet/gii with those value hands anyway. But also spazz out with bluffs OTR if we take this line.

Yeah, 3x after a bet/call is something I never do. Maybe $35-$45 would be slightly better given the single fishy caller in between. But the board was sooooooo dry and the guy was clueless enough to call with 2x/Ace highs in that spot if I kept it small all the way, so I didn't mind it too much at that time. Same for the turn.

I was going to reply but ten I noticed that OP is just arguing with everyone about why he didn't play it optimally so nvm. Venice and GG are spot on.

Note: my phone tried to autocorrect Venice to Eunice. I like it.

How does it feel to have a phone more clever than you are?

Concur. This appears to be a trend with the OP. That type of disposition will likely turn many other regular posters away from responding to his threads.

I think $30 is a little small on the turn. I'd bet a little more to set this pot up in a better spot for the river. As played, he min raised. I think CiB looks fishy. I'd either flat or put in a decent raise, possibly make it $130-160. At this point, pot is looking big and raising a little bigger looks more like scared money.

If V runs, he doesn't have enough of a hand for you to get much more value anyway. Min raises and tricky flats tend to look much stronger than betting and raising your hand. Give V a chance to make a big mistake here.

In your mind, kind of pretend you have middle two pair or just one pair, make that raise, see if he'll spaz. Even if he flat calls, you've set the pot for a river shove.

It really does seem that in many spots, competent Vs really sniff out your hand when you flat call on flop or turn and they wriggle off the hook and fold when you later rise up and bet. I think most of the time, we're better off playing it a little faster.

I'm trying to get all in in this spot. It seems to me like flatting leaves slightly too much behind OTR so I probably raise here planning on calling villain's AI bet.

Results:

Hero CIB to $90 OTT

River ($265): offsuit T
V checks, Hero bets $100, V snap-calls with 8To for rivered two pair.

So looking back, he was just spewing OTT and might have folded if I re-raised any bigger. Probably just calling turn would have been better against such a guy to let him fire river. He would have bombed that river himself anyway and snap-called my AI. So def lost a lot of value by taking this line.

Also, maybe I should just shove river? I just thought he might hero with 8x if I bet small-ish based on history. It's just co-incidental that he ran into two-pair.

im surprised he showed up with T8o there, put him on stronger

why not bet river a little more? 150? not giving him credit for 79 with that turn minraise and never folding obv

Yeah, I was amazed too. He was a bit drunk though so it made sense, lol.

I wasn't worried about 79 after he checked the river to me. I felt he was weak since he didn't ship over my CIB OTT. Based on that, I decided to go small and get him to call with middle pair. Just unlucky he ran into two pair OTR and lost only $100 more.

call turn, shove river

I'm actually fairly cool with how you played the hand up until the river (I would do *slightly* larger flop/turn bets, but whatever).

I think you made a massive mistake on the river. If we started with $350, we've got $227 left in a $265 pot; if we started with $300, we have $177. Even though slightly larger flop/turn would have made a river shove even easier, we've still done a nice job of leaving ourselves with respectable shove. We HAVE to shove here. We left somewhere between $77 - $127 on the table (depending on exactly what our starting stack was), this is upwards of 6 hours of work depending on what your winrate is. If he has an extremely mediocre hand, he might not call any bet. But he has shown strength by check/raising the turn, so two pair is a real possibility (even though he backed into it).

Bottom line: When we have monsters, always attempt to play for stacks. Just hope they have what they consider a monster (but is second best) or hope they make a massive mistake with a mediocre hand. Do not dumb down our betting in order to target air / weak hands cuz we are missing so much value doing so. Plus this guy check/raised/called a turn bet; he typically shows up with what he considers a strong hand here, I'm not sure why we would read otherwise.

Goh,andobviousrotaryphonejokeforVG

This whole thread is results oriented for OP. I can see it in your posts throughout. You didn't get stacks in when you should have. Period.

GG- didn't you go to elementary school with Alex G. Bell?

CIB to 130 or shove. You have to get max value you here and you are not going to get it all in by just smooth calling the turn.