1/3 Saturday afternoon, amazing table with people having a good time and throwing chips around left and right. Table is still buzzing over a previous hand when a guy allegedly mucked the winning hand at showdown to Villain in a huge pot.

Villain: Middle-aged black gentleman who looks like he's there to have fun. Smiling and talkative, playing most hands. Has only sat down recently so not a ton of history besides the hand where the other guy mucked (think villain got it in with two pair or similar on river).

Hero: Mid thirties, up and down so far this session. Made a few small bluffs that didn't work, image probably somewhat tight but not excessively so. Folded KK correctly pre earlier to a huge 4-bet, told table I had JJ but I think some of them knew I was lying based on my reaction.

OTTH

Hero ($600) UTG looks down at AdKc and makes it $30.

Villain (~$900) Calls in middle position. BB calls.

Flop: Kh 2s 3s

BB checks, Hero bets $75. Villain calls pretty quickly, BB folds.

Turn: 8d

Hero bets $125. Villain again calls fairly quickly.

River: Qh

Hero checks. Villain thinks for a moment and bets $300. Hero????



Wondering what y'all would do here. Appreciate any input. Thanks!

I don’t think you can play the hand this way and not call now. The only hands you need to worry about are slowplayed sets and KQ (or Q8ss or something like that). At action tables like these you just can’t discount someone launching a suicidal bluff because they know it’s their only way to win.

In most cases I'm not a big fan of calling off huge river donks with just one pair, but this sounds like a missed flush draw. In my experience when folks call quickly like this its usually a draw. So I think in this hand I call.

Well played, assuming you call. V should have more busted draws (which will bluff) than weaker Kings (which will call a third value bet), so check-call gets the most value. If he shows up with a set or 2-pair, just rebuy—we can never fold, especially with no Spades in our hand.

Snap call. Guy playing every hand having fun. He might have k4o. He might have q3o. You are good 1 out of 3.

Call. Main question is whether to bet or check river and checking seems best unless you're ever getting called by QXss or a pair worse than a Queen. Probably close. If you check then calling seems absolutely standard for this size, there are plenty of draws and once in a while a worse King might bet

Holy mother of god. You open 30 straight and got two callers? And then bet nearly pot on a K32r and one guy still called? I would size down on every street and I would bet the river small. Calling most raises. AP its a fairly easy call I think.

It was that kind of table, lol

I limp in but that's me. If we must raise, then I think I actually raise a lot smaller just to play a much more reasonable SPR. A large raise here is going to create an awkward / uncomfortable SPR OOP and meanwhile stacks are deep so people are getting good IO.

SPR is 6 so anyone can make us play for stacks by the river, which is something I don't want to do having given awesum 20+:1 IO preflop. So with that in mind I would either check the flop or bet very small (and I would mostly lean to a tarp check with my image). Our bet is hugenormous and quickly building far too big a pot for our hand (which would be fine if we felt comfortably committed, but not if we don't, imo).

Ditto for the run. We're leaving ourselves with just a 3/4 PSB for the river and all we have is one pair. When we don't want to be committed, be less worried about the draws (which they have to have as well as hit in order to hurt us, something that will all told rarely happen) and more worried about building a massive pot with a very mediocre hand.

Ug, craptastic river as KQ gets there (which is mostly the only TP type hand we were targetting). But all the draws busted and we've shown some river weakness. The key consideration for me at this point is how many people in your game are willing to slide out 3 whole stacks of red chips as a bluff in your 1/3 NL game. Honestly, there ain't that many in my game (or I avoid the ones that do). Doing the rare bluff for $50 or $75 is one thing, but a huge percentage of the population simply don't have the stones to do it for a huge $300. Do they in your game? Does this guy?

ETA: Also, be very wary of what "looking to have fun, smiling and talkative, playing most hands" actually means. Just cuz the guy is playing 90% of hands preflop for $3 or even $30 doesn't necessarily means he's putting in a huge $300 on a later street with cheese. If he's shown he's doing that, then easy call. But if not, it's a stoopid spot, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

You kinda have to call here.

But don't be surprised when your much too large bets start making big hands show up by the river.

Pretty much everything GG said is incorrect. If you're getting called by worse hands the open sizing pre is very good. The flop sizing is also very good. The turn is where I actually don't like your sizing. I'm bombing the turn with an over bet. KQ, KJ, KT and draws aren't folding. This is a very standard over bet turn spot. It does make your stack size weird on the river but it doesn't really matter. You need to maximize your value now while the gettin is good. As played, snap call river.

Call river. Love that we don't have a spade.

Preflop your raise size is waaay too big. I like $10. $15 is defensible, but bigger than that and it starts to be questionable. And you really should be using the same raise size with all your hands, not sizing up AK or any other hand.

I think you are focusing too much on the dollar size of your bets and not so much on the pot odds. Multiway, I am generally going smaller, like 1/4 pot OOP on the flop on a board that favors your range.

Why are we betting almost pot on the flop and then on the turn when it is heads up, you are betting about half pot? You should be downbetting more on the flop and betting larger on brick turns.

On the river, all the draws missed, so now you are mainly checking to induce from missed draws and bluff catching.

Interesting, I didn't consider overbetting here but it makes a lot of sense. I like the idea

At an action table like this why not raise bigger with premiums? It's not like anyone is paying attention to my raise sizes, and I'm getting called probably up to maybe even $40, $50 pre. I'm not really worried about being exploited, if the flop whiffs I'll just give up.

Anyway, here are the results:

This is why I said we can't play the hand this way and not call. If we know we are not prepared to call here, we have to do something else so we don't reach the river this way. Not playing the hand this way is an option, and I'm sure it's your preferred option, but if we reach the river this way we absolutely cannot fold. One of the biggest mistakes it's possible to make in no limit is folding the best hand in a big pot. We have built a big pot, so we can't fold this hand now. It is better to call and be wrong than to fold.

NH. A lot of really bad advice to bet small in here.

You have a point. You're basically isolating tighter players to the top of their range, but making it less multiway with whales who are still wide. Despite that, most people are folding more often ahen you raise larger. Aside from the whales, there are some weaker ace and king type hands that you could get value from that you won't get value from because some people won't call a raise to 30.

Think KJo, KTo, AJo, ATo, A7s type hands. A few players might call a raise to $15 but not $30 with those hands. You are isolating villain's range to be stronger like pocket pairs. A lot of times if you have those hands beat, they aren't shoveling tons of money whereas weaker kicker As and Ks will. If they hit a set while you hit top pair, you are more likely to lose a lot of money vs them, whereas they aren't going to shovel tons of money against you when there is an K or A on the board.

So it's a tradeoff.

I would have insisted he show first in those circumstances

It was strange, I called and the dealer looked at me and was like "all right turn 'em over" and I'm like, huh? I called him? Villain didn't budge so I just tabled my hand. Was a big pot so I didn't press the issue

Stopped reading there.

I woulda called a clock on him to show first.

Unless I think I might be getting slow rolled (if guy has done it in the past), I just show. Yeah, it's your right, yeah it's information you get to see. But it's a friendly handshake among poker players. I want to make friends and not enemies and create a friendly atmosphere. I don't want to drive away players, especially recs. Twice as true if you want to get spots at private/semi private games. But I can get why these factors aren't at the top of everyone's list.

Huge -1 to this.

And big +1 to this.

GcluelesssocialgamenoobG