Hero: Tight image, playing around 17% of hands. Haven't shown down any hands in about 2 hours of play.

Villain: Loose passive; will limp and call raises with hands such as K9, A6 off-suit out of position. Will also call large raises with top pair and also draws.

Effective stack is $465, Hero covers.

UTG+1 limps, villain is in MP2 and limps, Hero is dealt 810 on the button and limps. Blinds complete and it's 5 to the flop.

Pot: $15

Flop: J 74

UTG+1 checks, villain bets $15, Hero smooth calls, blinds and UTG+1 fold.

Pot: $45

Turn: 9

Villain bets out $25, Hero raises to $100. Villain calls.

Pot: $245

River: Q

Villain checks. Hero should?

Bet $195, he has 2P or a set the vast majority of the time here, with the only other hands in his range being JT or J8 given that he bet AND called. $195 is just under the psychological threshold of $200, and will seem a lot smaller to him than $200+.

Of course, if you've seen him call the large raises with TP-2P on 3-flush boards on the river when the raise was >$200, then we can probably get away with an over-bet shove for value.

Value bet $150 ish. We can fold to a shove by loose passive villain.

Villain checks. Hero should focus on choosing the perfect valuebet size. He should bet the maximum amount that he thinks villain will call with TP/2P/Straight, however not losing sight of the fact that since this villain is virtually incapable of bluff check-raising on the river, sizing should be considered to allow hero to easily fold once he does get check/raised because villain will almost always have AhXh. I.E. Don't bet an amount that will allow you to get thoughts of "having to call" since you've invested so much of your stack on the river.

I say the perfect size here is $165.

Bet for value, something between $150-$200 based on what you think he calls. If the flush had not come in on river I would suggest shoving but enough got there that villain would have to be really stationary. Being raised here is an odd situation and if villain is prone to spazz bluffs or is terrible at reading boards I might call just because him having a flush would be so odd. Against most, bet/fold river.

I probs just jam

$150 seems about right.
Hard to say without knowing more about his calling range. There are a lot of straights, sets, two pairs possible here al of which will call a big river bet. But if he's got one pair, he's going to fold most of them.

Now that I think about it, I think $200 is better. It's very easy for him to have backed into a solid two pair, could have flopped a set that he can't get away from, could have rivered a higher straight that doens't put you on a flush since you raised the turn.

Yeah $200 here seems good.

If we had made the turn even just a bit bigger I could get behind this. If the turn was $125, then the pot would be $300 with $320 going in insteast of the pot being $250 with $345 going in. Makes a difference imo.

Hero bets $150. Villain check-raises all-in for $200 more. Pot is $745.

Hero?

Should we really be bet/folding on the river since the bet totally commits us? Or can we still find a fold? This sounds too nitty, but I just check it down on the river.

As played, getting 3.75:1 odds, I call but I definitely don't feel good about it.

You played the hand well, no criticisms from me. Call it off, people saying that they'd fold to a ship is FARRRR too nitty in my opinion. People who give possible flushes too much respect are going to kill their win-rate.

you get more than 3.5-1 on your money with 3rd nut flush. There is no way folding here can be +EV in the long run. He has straight/small flush enough times to make the call correct.

With your image and this villain description, this is a clear fold. B/folding vs B/calling in these spots is the difference between a player who crushes and a player who is break even. Playing hands based on their absolute value instead of their relative value is a big leak.

Would you fold 2nd nuts (KhTh for instance) here as well?

I'm probably b/c around half pot. We will get value from 2p+. May even induce a spazz jam from villain as this river gives him a lot of straights and 2p. If he jams, its not like we are folding.

So yeah, I bet $140 and call it off to a raise and feel good about it.

Villain is loose/passive and likes to call with his draws. I think we have enough BPE (bad player equity) to call here, even though I expect to see Ah4h decently often, I think we'll see something stupid or the occasional 5h6h to make it +ev, only needing ~20% equity OTR

I'd probably check back the river. If I found a value bet, we have to follow through on our plan and fold. There are probably no flushes that we beat where V takes this action.

If we can't find a fold, then we should have jammed the river.

I can't see any straights in V's range. KT, he doesn't even have a draw on the flop. If he hits a straight with us on the turn or flopped a set, this type of V will sweat the hell out of the flush draw and jam the turn. We are so beat here. Fold.

Checking back the river is massive MUBS and seriously terrible. It is the only unacceptable play (other than open fold I guess)

V could also have 56hh and not put you on a flush since you raised the turn. I would easily make the call getting almost 4:1 on my money.

After 2 limps I'm fine with overlimping, especially if there's a guy in the hand that could stack off with mediocre hands postflop. I don't hate a raise if we think we'll iso the loose guy and take it down postflop with a cbet.

I wouldn't hate a flop raise. The main benefit is that if he just calls and checks the turn, then we've gotten money in with decent equity and now have turn options (where we could actually just check behind to realize our equity, or *perhaps* think of bluffing a scare card). Although, there's not a lot of money in the pot, we have 0 FE, and it would suck if he sticks in a huge 3bet.

I would raise more on the turn. Our hand is super disguised and this guys a fish who doesn't like to fold. It also gets us closer to playing for stacks by the river. If we made it $120, that would create a $285 pot with $330 stacks left (so not a huge overshove left for the river).

Even though we didn't want to make the flush (as there is a slight chance he has a bigger one, plus it could scare off strong hands such as sets from calling), I would still shove the river.

ETA: Stacks are too small (although I wish we would have made them smaller on the turn) and our hand is too strong to bet/fold the river, imo.

GimoG

Id bet anywhere between $150 to $180.

Hero should v-bet the river (thats kind of obvious duh) and also call this raise.

getting some 3.7:1 we are expecting to see lower flushes, higher flushes, some idiots who believed their two pair or set or straight or anything thats not one pair is the nuts.

while obviously higher flushes are likely to appear more often, with a T high flush, I would happily call. May be raise the turn a bit higher next time since you haz the nuts on the turn

Hero thinks for a bit and calls off. Villain shows A9 for the nuts.

Before my bet of $150, I think that he has a set or any combo of two pair and was expecting just a call. When he crai, my thinking was, he calls the turn with combo draws of K10 of hearts, 56 of hearts, and 69 of hearts. He would do this with all flush draws because with the way the hand played I look like I have a set or a straight without redraws. So I called off feeling like I'm getting the right odds.

How's my thinking here? I'm really torn between just checking back vs as played.

You have to think about the range of hands a poor player would smooth call a 100 dollar raise with J 7 9 showing. A good player smooth calling would send off alarms, but a player like this I think its safe to value bet another 100 maybe 125 150 to entice him to call with two pair, straight, Jack, or lower flush he could possibly have. If he shoves I think you call off. But unfortunately, this is also a very possible way a bad play would play A X

Honestly, the more I get into these spots, the more I'm thinking that we need to be more careful with combinatorics when flush draws come in.

For example, this hand. Really think about it for a second: how many worse flushes can your Villain have? He can't have anything with the 8 since that's in your hand (and by the way, for the same reason, he can't have KT). So OK:

-How can he have a 9-high flush? There's really only one way, 96.
-How can he have a 6-high flush? Maybe 3 ways?
-How can he have a 5-high flush? Maybe 3 ways?
-Can he ever have a 4-high flush? Maybe 2 ways?

By contrast, if we exclude AK for lack of a preflop raise, but include all other suited aces, he can have an ace-high flush 6 ways. So before we have counted suited kings, there are 9 combos of flushes you beat and 6 combos that beat you. If we include K9, that's 9 combos you beat and 7 combos that beat you.

That assumes, however, that Villain plays all suited 2-gappers but will not play suited kings K6 or below, AND that he check/shoves the river with all flushes. Are these fair assumptions? And would he call the river with less than a flush? I don't know, since I don't know the villain. All I'm saying is that you ought to have these reads, or at least educated guesses about them, before you pick your line for the river. And this means it's less than obvious that we have to value bet the river.