Hero ($250) - TAG.

V1 ($950+) - Late 20s asian (chinese?) american who has currently been transferred to Europe. He works in a Big4. I just sat recently on the table, but villain has been for about an hour. Everyone at the table is hating him because he is running super hot, even though he initially lost $600.

He has been playing poker as a hobbie for years in Washington DC, he said was on a $12k downswing last year and it took him about a year to get break even.

He is very aggressive, straddles a lot, raises his straddle from button, will bet HUGE and he is not afraid of bluffing. And obviously in a 1/3 mostly everyone gets intimidated by his aggressiveness.

V2 ($300) - Quite loose preflop, plays fit or fold when someone is very aggressive post-flop as well as pre-flop, he usually never bluffs and likes to play loose postflop by betting average hands like middle pairs, top pair weak kicker...etc. He will bet big and instantly when he has monsters.

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OTTH


HJ raises to $10, V1 at CO calls, V2 on BTN calls, Hero calls on the blind with KT

Maybe I should've squeezed here?


Flop: K3Q ($41)

All check to V2 BTN who bets $18, Hero calls, HJ folds, V1 at CO calls

Turn: 8 ($95)

All check to V2 BTN who bets $24, Hero calls, V1 calls

River: T ($167)

Hero tanks and checks, V1 shoves, V2 folds angrily by throwing his cards, Hero ?????

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Thoughts? How would you play this differently?

I’m trying to understand V1’s play here. Knowing something about the HJ would help. Why didn’t V1 3-bet pre? Does he have a mediocre suited (hearts) hand? Sounds like V1 wouldn’t be too worried about V2 and you’re so under-repped maybe he bluffs this river. I guess he could have Q10 here too.

V1’s read on HJ is important here. V1’s 3-bet range/frequencies are important as well.

Call.

I’m not sure why we didn’t raise the turn. We’re blocking straights and KQs and we need to deny the FD. V1 has shown passivity the whole way. V2’s turn blocker is weak and looks like he’s trying to set his price for a combo draw.

AP I’m calling this V getting nearly 2-1. I’m not loving it though.

i would fold pre. theres no need to defend here imo. you got an aggro guy in LP,and its a 4-way pot if you come along too. KTs is too much of a RIO hand here. no point to get tangled in a sketchy situation with an RIO hand with 80bbs. Just play abc and gii with good hands. Anyway if i were to defend, im gonna need ATs instead of KT.

lmk what yall think...am i too nitty??

anyway AP, im calling here. your hand is quite underrepped. furthermore for V to have the flush here he has to have a very specific range of hands. probably only Kx of hearts. it just seems unlikely for V to call the flop with any other suited hearts hands.


Maybe V is bluffing a busted oesd?

given V aggro nature and very few value hands its a call though im not liking it.

Folding pre is poor advice. Effective stacks are 24:1, we have a hand that makes the nuts and we get paid often enough when we get a good flop.

I'm ok with preflop. I'm not really a fan of squeezing if squeezing is highly unlikely to take down the pot preflop (and I get the feeling that's the case here). I'm not in love with being OOP, especially with the aggro guy in the hand. And I'm not in love that we won't have the nut draw. I actually think that if the price hadda been much steeper that we should probably fold. However, for this price I'm ok with seeing a flop. But we have to be very cautious with mediocre hands, and might have to lean to just check/folding and moving on with life; otherwise we end up getting far too much of our stack in play with mediocre hands against difficult players simply for "cheap price" preflop.

I'm ok with check/calling to this action / sizing on the flop.

Tricky spot on the turn. Mostly against yet another bet into 2 opponents I would be aiming to check/fold here and not get myself into too deep of water, especially with the impending risk of facing another bet OOP on the river. The only thing that has me wavering slightly here is that we're getting a great price. But ironically enough, it's been 3 great prices that are kinda just sucking us along a this point. We also have to be slightly concerned about V1 who might just be slowplaying a monster and enticing V2 to do his thing. In spite of the price, I mostly lean to a fold here.

Pretty easy river fold given our read on V1.

ETA: My bad, I got my villains mixed up (I thought it was aggrotard V1 betting the Button, not the ABC MUBSy V2). I would more consider perhaps a nitty fold on the flop as this Button is never bluffing 4ways and there is little we actually beat that he's probably betting. But this goes back to my preflop reasoning, in that I'm ok with taking a cheap flyer but then think we should be exitting quickly if things don't go great, and the simple fact that it is this guy betting might be enough for me. And I'm much more for folding the turn against a second bet from him in spite of the sizing. I'm still ok with a river fold as there ain't a lotta busted draws that have zero showdown value (I mean, aggrotard would basically have to be doing this with JT).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Pre is fine. I'm raising the flop, and if not, I'm definitely raising that tiny turn bet.

As played, I can go either way. I really hate how we got here.

Raise turn against this weak sizing. River is a really gross spot. I typed "Call" then deleted it, then "Fold" then deleted it. I think if this guy had called flop with something that picked up the flush draw on the turn, then he'd have bet it. I think he's probably a type of player that I call an "opportunist", who frequently has the plan of calling loose until the river and then smashing out a big bet on a scare card. So I think I want to call, but I'm far from happy about it.

You're talking about this guy here?

Fold flop. It hit you but not hard. Your kicker is mediocre. You put in 42 bucks WONDERING ifyou were good. Thats bad poker. Then you are asking if you should chase the 52 total by calling 167? Wow.

What do you think BTN and COs ranges are here? Doesn’t CO bet almost every hand that beats KT when checked to?

Seems like worse poker to fold near the top of your range against a single bet. What better hands does hero have? 33/KQ/MAYBE K3s/Q3s (of which there’s two combos each)/KJ? That’s 28 combos. And that might be out of like 400 combos that get to the flop this way.

So a top 10% hand in his distribution isn’t good enough to continue against a loose preflop BTN functioning as a field bettor? This is closer to a raise than a fold.


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V2 is aggressive. It's been checked to him on the turn. You know he's going to take a stab at it with his entire range. KT is ahead of a ton of it. He's betting $24 into $95. That looks weak. Is V balanced in that he can have big hands as well as bluffs when he bets this small? Find it hard to believe.

I like a raise on the turn. Pot is $119 and it costs $24 to call, to bring the pot up to $143, Raise $75-100 on top. That puts Hero at a stacksize of about $100-125 behind. Easy call if V shoves. Also, it becomes a super easy call on the river.

As played, you're getting about 2-1 on a call and you have 2 pair. Against this player, I think you have to close your eyes, swallow hard and call. You're good more than 1/3 of the time here. You fold here if you know he likes to make a blocking bet with a draw to set a cheap price. But real aggressive players generally don't do that. They bet their draws really aggressively to get players to fold.

On every single street, your hand is as weak as piss.

Fold ASAP.

why on earth would you ever fold this hand preflop..... Hero can have KXhh, some QXhh, and J9hh here to call off with so we are not totally capped to KT (I imagine H raises KQ/33 on a previous street).

If V is a true maniac it probably depends on your read of him, but X/C X/C lead river into a guy who has bet twice when checked two is quite value heavy, so I'd feel ok folding especially w/o a heart

Spots like this one is exactly why I play a LAG style. Making good decisions in spots like these can print money for us, but how often are we really fist pumping when bluffcatching?

Call, of course. Folding at any point in this hand doesn’t make sense to me, especially after improving otr.

For anyone who missed it, this is V1’s description: He is very aggressive, straddles a lot, raises his straddle from button, will bet HUGE and he is not afraid of bluffing. And obviously in a 1/3 mostly everyone gets intimidated by his aggressiveness.

Your calling the flop gives AJ(s), JT(s), QJs, and T9s profitable drawing odds.

And, another call on the flop gives QJo and J9s profitable drawing odds.

Obviously, apart from the unlikely KK, QQ, and 33, you're absolutely crushed by AK(s), KQ(s), and KJ(s). Based on how you've described their play, I don't know if you could put past one of them even having K3s.

A call on the flop is a bad idea. And, being out of position, against 3 other players, with a hand as weak as yours, makes raising the flop completely out of the question. And, leading with a bet on the flop is a bad idea, for the same reason.

Bottom line: your hand is too weak to continue after the flop.

You can't fold top pair getting over 3-1 pot odds on the flop.
BTW, read the player profiles. Both are aggressive, and V1 is crazy aggressive. KT rates to the be best hand most of the time on the flop against super wide ranges. Have to call and take a turn card. Now if V1 bets like $50-60 on turn, now you can consider letting your hand go.

If you can't call a less than 1/2 pot bet on the flop against an aggressive player with KT and having top pair, you need to fold KTss preflop out of the BB. That will make you become a really tight player, one that a good LAG can really exploit.

I'm not being an ass; I'm genuinely curious--how is that working out for you?

preflop is good. i don't mind reraising, but seeing a flop getting 4.5-1 with a good hand closing the action must be good. folding flop would be insane. river is general tough spot, i kind of belief him, that he has a flush or straight. but the thing is we like never have flush or straight here unless we have like a-j of hearts and decided to be really sticky on the flop. and plus your read on him that he is bluffy i am fine with taking a stand and calling him down.

ok so i missed that 2nd flatter is the one that shoved the river. so he is saying he has like a-j of hearts or j-9 hearts and he was just being really sticky. hmm this is much harder to believe.


turn, i like the idea of raising targeting his small sizing. if he had a set of threes or k-q he is betting bigger. the thing, is i am a little afraid of k-j so how loses is he preflop? if he if his vpip is above like 60 here then of course raise, turn (heck maybe even raise flop). if his vpip is like 30, then its closer. like we beat, k-9, and weak kings (that he is playing because he is an idiot), i don't know if i believe he is that insane that he is betting a queen here for value, but maybe he is. but i am a little scared of k-j. its hard to know how good raising turn is without an exact read, but vs population its probally plus ev.


so river, now that we are here, its a pretty tough spot. i still kind of believe him that he was being sticky with a-j or j-9 of hearts. but if you think he is that maniacal then i am fine with calling down.

what happened?

I'm not particularly sure why it's relevant but since you asked, alright. Turned down six figures to play poker for a living and doing solid in the meantime.

Think about how easy this hand would have played if Hero 3 bet pf. Prefer 3!, fold, call in that order. Don't like a raise on the flop because all you are repping is TPMK, which is exactly what you have.

Instead this was played exactly the same way all your bad regs in your room would have played it. Given the read on the villain, got to call it, but expect to lose a lot.

If you can navigate post relatively well, I like a 3b pre, say $60-65, vs a 3x open at $1/$3 NL.

Flop as played is ok.

Turn – I think we need to get some value as we have the best hand here most of the time. I’d lead for value vs. QX, SD/BDFD with some frequency. Checking is ok but raise opponent sizing multi-way for value.

River – Getting 1.8-1, so we need to find about ~1 legit bluff for every 2 value hands.

Given V descript, I’d expect him to 3b AhXh/KhXh pre-flop a decent amount of the time. Other common flushes (QT/JT/T9/98/87) are blocked by Th and 8h.

I’d call.

Preflop is close between flatting and squeezing. I lean towards squeezing to $55 though.

As played, I like the x/c on the flop, but I prefer to just x/jam turn and end the hand there. You only have $222 on the turn, facing a $24 bet into a $95 pot, so it can't be too bad to just rip it in here, especially when both players have shown so much weakness by their bet sizes and actions. I'd be surprised if anyone has better than KJ at best. But the majority of the time, you'll have the best hand.

As played, river is a bit disgusting. You lose to AJ, J9 and backdoor hearts. The only thing you beat which might take this line is QT, so I think you're beat here more often than not. It's pretty close, but I lean towards a fold.