V (MP) in this hand is MAWG, kind of a typical fish, raises big (e.g. $30) with KK/AA pre, but will call raises with all kinds of suited connectors, one-gappers, etc. He is aggressive when he has a TP-type hand, but he cannot size bets correctly. I have not seen him bluff. One hand he opened to $30 pre with KK, got one caller, then open shoved for $400 on a KJ5r flop.

Hero (HJ) is early 30's white guy, seen as aggressive and active. Table has not seen Hero show down anything but the goods (even though I have been opening/raising/betting much wider). Slight winning image as I have chipped up to about $400 from a starting stack of $300.

We are about $335 effective.

One limper, V raises to $6. I have seen this once from V before (although not over a limper), but never saw his hand that time. Hero looks down at Q Q and 3! to $22. (Probably could've gone slightly higher, but table was not calling PF bets of 25+ very often). All folds to V who calls.

Flop ($46 after rake) 3 4 9

V checks, Hero bets 27, V calls.

Turn ($100) 4

V checks, Hero bets 55, V calls.

River ($210) J

V leads $100, and he has $130 behind.

Obviously we are never folding, but can we profitably shove?

Only thing that gives me pause is your comment about his bet-sizing. To him a $100 is probably a "huge bet" even though it's < 1/2 pot. Additionally, fish like him will often c/c the turn with a big hand in an effort to slow-play but then get scared that you'll check behind on the river and so they donk the river instead. Given that combination I'd probably just call. Granted he'll probably have J9s or AcJc and we'll kick ourselves for not shoving.

The problem I have with the small 3bet preflop is that it gives Villain terrific 21+ implied odds to ~speculative handmine against what could be a face up hand (have we 3bet a lot?) in a small SPR pot (not quite 7, so Villain can easily play for stacks postflop by betting reasonable bets on 3 streets). I'd raise to $45 to prevent this, although admittedly we might lose our customer a lot. If table behind us was raisey, I'd consider flat/reraising.

So now on the flop we're in the place I described. SPR of 7, so stacks can easily go in with 3 postflop bets, but we possibly have a face up hand (is a worse hand really going to pay off 3 streets?). It's kinda a weird spot, imo, which is why I try not to put myself in them.

I actually think the river is closer to a fold than a raise, but I'd probably take the inbetween route and sigh call (but I think there are good arguments for folding). This guy never bluffs, so he's not bluffing here. He's simply betting what he thinks is the best hand. What hand gets to the river against a flop 3better who bets both the flop and turn and yet thinks they are best? Not a whole bunch, imo; TT, which bets the river when a overcard hits? How can a Jx even get here? The guy would have to be a ******ed monkey payoff station to payoff a raise with a worse hand.

ETA: The more I think about it, the only worse hand that gets to the river that thinks they are best is J9, and even that is pretty ******ed since they are missing the fact they are counterfeited. Does a nit fold have to be considered here?

Gnotinlovewithourpostflopsituation,imoG

Presumably we only have to worry about 99/43/33. 6 combos of 43 and 3 each of 99 and 33. So, 18 combos of hands we're beat by

JJ raises more pre IMO. Taking that combo out of the equation.

Meanwhile, he's got 8 combos of J9 (we can eliminate J3 IMO) we've got beat. Since we are assuming this guy doesn't bluff, it's a flat OTR. He could be spazzing here, so I don't think the villain is calling a river bluff unless we're smoked.

J9 is in his range, I see lots of people in my player pool doing all sorts of ******ed pot-builder opens with all sorts of marginal hands like one gappers and small pocket pairs.

I think hero should open to an amount that will keep this weak player in while putting in the most amount of $$$ in preflop.

SPR of 7 is fine in a 3 bet pot against a weak player. Focusing on raise sizing for the sake of a target SPR is fine, but IMO GG, you think that the SPR's should be lower for the average loose/passive player than they should be.

probably just call
i would bet a little more on each street to set up a river shove

I agree that J9 is in his range, but it's like the *only* hand we're targetting on the river *plus* Villain also has to be ******ed in not realizing it's counterfeited.

SPR of 7 against a weak player *might* be ok in a single raised pot (although I'd still probably pot control this SPR against most, but that's me). But it's a totally different animal in a 3bet pot unless we've been doing a crapload of 3betting (which I assume we haven't been). We really have to ask ourselves "What does this guy think we have, when we've 3bet preflop and bet both the flop and turn to setup a PSB shove for the river?". Villain has to be uber ******ed not to be thinking about this, imo.

Gmorereadson******ationlevelofVillainisneeded,imoG

Most $1/2 or $1/3 players are functionally ******ed and are not thinking about what we have. They are thinking about their hand. Thus, we have to think about their range.

Personally, I think v is pocket pair heavy and I won't be surprised to see V roll 3's full. J9 is a small part of his range, and I'm factoring in a small spazz amount/overvaluing of hands.

I think jamming here is a mistake given how narrow a range this guy is going to have. Folding is out of the question IMO.

He calls lots of raises, overplays top pair and probably thinks you're over aggressive because you raise a lot. This is a great board for your hand and there's very little that beats you. Get the rest of his chips.

Maybe I misunderstood the description of V, but I think he has a much wider range on the turn/river than most people think. Someone that calls lots of raises could easily call the small flop bet with a hand like AJ KJ QJ JT A9 K9 Q9 J9 T9 98 97 especially if he has a backdoor flush draw (like clubs). With the river bet I think it's less likely he has the non-jack hands but that still leaves AJcc KJcc QJcc JTcc J8cc J9xx hands. He overbet jammed top set earlier in a tiny pot, you think he's going to check/call 2 streets with a flopped set now? Maybe a raise is too optimistic, but you'd really fold this hand? I suppose if I'm in the game and I've seen him bet like this before and I could reliably say he would only do this if he had me crushed I might fold, but OP's description of V doesn't really lead me to that conclusion.

Maybe it's because my 1/3 NL game is absolutely reg filled and contains very few leisurely totally clueless random one-offs, but I simply don't believe this at all.

Gthemajorityofouropponentsarethinkingaboutwhatpeop lecanhave,imoG

V is a reg in this game, and I don't think he's clueless, but I certainly can't call him a good player. I just haven't played enough with him personally to have more developed reads. He was pretty inactive in the few hours I was at the table prior to this hand - by inactive I mean I only saw his hand once or twice, even though he was calling a lot of raises pre. In previous sessions I've seen him overvalue SC and suited one-gappers, but I don't recall any of those hands (they weren't against me) in sufficient detail.

Hero has 3bet once before in this session, and showed AA to double up. However, I think the relatively small 3! sizing in this hand might dissuade V from thinking that Hero has exclusively QQ+ here.

Helps that my room usually has 8-10 or more $1/2 tables running...YMMV

How does he overvalue SC/etc. postflop? I mean, does he hit medium pair and go nutso? Overall, to me this reads that he's a loose fish preflop just trying to hit a hand, and typically gives up pretty easy if he doesn't.

The only time we've 3bet prior in this session, we showed up with AA. We don't think our hand is face up the way we've played it? And yet he's still donking into us on the river.

Gquadsaregoodsir,nicehand,imoG

I agree with this. I'm going to be considering fold vs call not raise vs call.

By overvalue, I mean that he will call with connectors or suited one-gappers for pretty much any price PF (not sure if he does to a 3bet), and if he gets a piece postflop, he will continue no matter how he much he is charged to draw.

If this were a normal open/3bet dynamic, I would agree that our hand is more or less face up. However, there are 3 things that alter that conclusion: 1) I'm not sure this V pays enough attention to know what my 3! range really is; 2) V's love to put us on AK, especially when we 3bet; and 3) his insanely small open size means that this is not a normal 3! pot dynamic. V may or may not know this but given the $6 open, Hero would've 3! almost his entire opening range PF.

You're essentially describing this guy as a clueless calling station. And a reg that doesn't bluff? Your read tells you what to do here, if you think he is a calling station that won't fold even a small pair, then go ahead and shove. If you think he won't bluff here with AK type hands or won't donk with hands that can't beat the board, then fold cause he has the nuts.

I like the hand as played and the sizing. Raising the river would be very bad IMO.


Edit: As well as J9, V can have JcXc here IMO

Against a good player all of this makes sense, but this guy is a fish. When he flops top pair with his ''speculative hand'' he's going to pay us off on two or three streets. He´s never going to utilize fold equity with his draws, and we can charge him the maximum, fold cheerfully when he makes a big bet. Even small/medium PP's he´s going to get sticky with UI on low flops and paired boards, and will give us one or two streets of value drawing to 2 outs.

I think Value greatly exceeds all other considerations with QQ here.

I was thinking this at first, but thinking about it more, raising may not be horrible.

J9 is possible, and villain may not realize the paired board means he loses to a big pocket pair, and he could snap a raise with the board top two. And yes, ~JcTc is possible but probably unlikely imo given his line.

Looking at the most likely hands

J9 is 9 combos.

33,44,99,JJ are 10 combos.

Still, it would be barely -EV with the above combos. And V's line of c/c, c/c, lead 100 (which is no doubt large for him) is quite strong. I also think we could discount J9 a bit, as V won't always raise that pre-flop. So yes, I wouldn't raise.

So I think the river is a somewhat clear call and that you have the 25% equity you need to make it a +EV call. I don't think it's a slam dunk, and I'm not at all happy with V's line or river lead. Folding, calling or raising should all be considerations, but I think calling is really the only option.

Also, OP, I wouldn't put stuff like ^ that in your OPs.

It a leading statement, and it's seems to make it clear you won the hand.

But when a "typical fish" who seems to bet his hand strength (the last relatively large bet you saw him make was top set) and may never bluff takes a line of raise/call pre, c/c flop, c/c turn, lead river for $100 (generally a very large bet for said villain), the last thing I would think is "obviously we are never folding." That's not obvious at all. I would take my time and very strongly consider folding here. I would probably tend towards a call, but I'd have to think we might at best be something like a 3:1 dog, though that's good enough given we're getting 4:1.

That all said, your post definitely skews responses.

I think you'd have gotten a lot more "fold river" if you didn't word it the way you worded it.

And certainly you would have gotten more "fold rivers" if you wrote instead "can I ever get away from this?!"

Next time, I'd encourage just the facts.

Fair enough, and good points, Willy. I didn't mean to skew responses, I suppose I worded it that way because folding never entered my mind at the table. The line seemed wonky to me, and if I called I didn't necessarily expect to win every time, but I don't think that "fold river" is good advice here when we're getting 3:1.

I think you laid out the range/combos very well above to show that folding would be a bad option--this was my thought process as well. My "shot from the hip" range for V was 33/99/45s/34s/A4s/discounted 46s/heavily discounted JJ/96s+/97o/98o/T9o/J9o. I didn't run math but I can't see how we can fold versus that range.

Are those saying fold river ranging V differently?

To be fair, I don't think (???) anyone has actually said fold (even I'm sigh calling, mainly due to people doing enough stupid stuff at this level for it to be profitable), but I'm with Willy: it's closer to part of the discussion than originally laid out in the OP.

GI'mnotusuallycuriousastoresults,butamhereG

Results:

Hero called, Villain showed 88 and Hero removes "never seen him bluff" from his read on V for future sessions.

Grunch

Bigger on every street to set up river shove.

Best Line IMO:

Villain ($335): Raises to $6
Hero ($335): Raises to $35 with QQ
Villain ($329): Calls

Flop ($72): 349

Villain ($300): Checks
Hero ($300): Bets $50
Villain: Calls

Turn ($170): 4

Villain ($250): Checks
Hero ($250): Bets $100
Villain: Calls

River ($370): J

Villain ($150): Shoves
Hero ($150): Call

or

Villain ($150): Checks
Hero ($150): Shoves

What do you guys think about turn sizing?