Playing at Aria. I'd been fortunate enough to show some winners over the previous few hours and am sitting on ~$900. Opponent in the hand is a 30ish guy, been here probably under an hour. Not a tough opponent but not a total fish, and he has a bit over $500 to start.

V opens UTG+1 to $9, folds to me in the sb holding 7h7c, I call, and bb folds.

$21 pot, flop is A2dd4h. I check, he checks back.

Turn is gin, 7s. I check, he bets $10, I raise to $40. He thinks a good 15 seconds or so and calls.

$96 pot after rake; river is the As. I bet $120, aware I'll have to fold to a ship. He makes it $300.

Ugly situation. I guess make the call against the near min raise. The board is so dry there just are not many hands in play that beat you but there just shouldn't be that many hands at all.

AA is terminally unlikely but obviously plays this way, 35 could play it this way but is no more likely then AA. A4s and A2s are the hands that potentially beat you but are not likely opens and a villain with those can be over playing a lot of AX. AK/AQ could check flop on such a dry board. 44/22 are unlikely opens and probably bet flop. Note that every hand is unlikely and you beat some hands that can be playing for value.

Bluffs are very unlikely but could happen if villain thinks you are bluffing. A missed diamond draw might play it this way and a pair KK-TT or so might think they are good if you are bluffing a missed diamond draw.

I would expect to be losing more then winning but $180 to win $696 doesn't have to be good very often.

Assuming he's not total garbage, he shouldn't be opening off suit Aces from EP so the only hands he should have that beat you are:
A2cc, A2hh, A4cc, (there are no A7 combos), and AA.
For hands that we beat we've got 3x 44 and 3x 22. I can't imagine ever folding here given that there should only be 4 combos of hands weee losing to.

If we think he plays the offsuit Aces, it gets a bit worse of course.

This all assuming that he doesn't ever play AKs/AQs this was just being dumb.

The first three seem really light from UTG1, don't they? And then to check back on A24 with 2 diamonds? At 1/3, I'm expecting this instead to be somebody way overplaying AK-AQ. I'm wondering if V will call a 3b-shove, not questioning whether I should call V's raise.

On the other hand, H made a thread about it...so yeah, you know. LOL Quad Aces.

I'm balanced in my threads. Sometimes I drag the pot, sometimes I don't.

Yup. Probably just calling river cause I’m bad but never folding and probably 3b’ing some of the time.

I forgot in my initial post, but why aren't we betting out on A24dd with 77?

Yeah, check to the raiser, but there's a lot of AXs gunk we can have, calling in the blinds, that can make a heads-up, IP V hate life. And not have to rely on turning a 2-outer.

EDIT: Oh, and thanks OP, for not solely posting, "How did I get coolered?," hands. It's appreciated. Sick turn; I mean, I wouldn't have suspected 77 as V.

How's this anything other than a snap call?

If you don't think we can get value from this V when they overplay AK/AQ/AJ/4s or call his spazzy river bet when we turn middle set, why even take this line?

Just bet/ck-call/ck-call for pot control.

Maybe I'm rusty at live poker, but if this isn't a massive +EV spot, we need to find a better table.

Well, you can't fold. It would be a lot more plausible that you were beaten here if the 2 and/or the 4 on the flop were K/Q/J/10, making V's possible rivered full house more likely.

You're probably no good a majority of the time here, but not so seldom that there still isn't value in a call. He could very easily have just trip Aces.

I think it's a routine call tbh. We only really should lose to 4 combos as iraisetoomuch rightly pointed out but many players won't have 22 or 44 in their ep opening range either. Not saying it's right or wrong, just an observation. If he does though, I think you could make a case for shipping.

I think just calling and making a mental note on what the guy had is prob the best idea.

Ok, it seems like everyone thinks its a call. I called in about two seconds.

Do we agree a ship is a fold? How about the river overbet?


Don't know how to spoiler, so result in next hand.

He did indeed have the A2cc.

It's not a snap when flop checks and then your pot+ bet gets 3xed OTR. I do like the fact that hero sized up if betting but I think hero betting is pretty terrible here, it's a check (and raise ... and then tough spot if jammed on). V has worse boats too if AA is a flop check. It's real close, but cannot fold given action.

It's a 2.5x raise over your big river 1.3x pot bet...and I get why you did it.

Yeah, still calling, but not thrilled.

There's a bunch of non A2-A4-A7 stuff V can be getting stupid with. Be glad he didn't rip it in.

Edit: Ship's a 150 more? Yeah, I'm probably calling that too.
Wonder what V'd done if we'd donked flop?

Well if he did rip I would have folded. Seems like that would take any AK type stuff out, and maybe the bottom sets.

Just a weird flop to slop play aces up or middle/bottom set.

Just call idk

Reraise is interesting since villain really should not be checking 2 pairs OTF, so we really only lose to either AA or villain being bad.

But of course, villain could easily just be bad. So I call.

Bring your galaxy brain back down to Earth.

Flop is a check. River is a check (raise depending on sizing)

AP river is a puke call without info - never ever a raise

How would you have played the turn if you didn’t hit your 7?

Say turn 8 of spades? Check, maybe call a 10-15bet. Likely check/fold river.

If villain ships it's a real judgement call because pot odds will be worse. I would probably find a fold to the over sized ship at that point but it wouldn't be a sure thing. If I though villain was bad enough to be over playing AK/AQ that badly then there would be some calls.

I like the over bet in this situation. On the river villain's hands mostly fall into two groups. AX hands that didn't bet flop and are now very good hands in theory. The other possibility is that villain has a missed draw or pair they might sometimes bluff catch with. The first group is mostly going to call the over bet and the second is unlikely to put any money in.

Even if villain has an AX hand after you check/raise turn villain is not likely to get too aggressive on river. The board pairing on the river either killed your two pair hands, gave you a boat or didn't actually change things. So villain has no reason to get aggressive betting themselves.

C/shove river

River SPR is like 5

He means check raise

This is a very clear call, you are beating 22, 44, some Ax and it's only 100bb... If you lose then it's a cooler, not a big deal. You can fold 22 here and maybe 44 but definitely not 77.

Edit: definitely not raising. That is suicidal.

I think I'm ~ok with preflop. Unlike some smaller pairs at least we begin having a little more showdown value UI on some boards. And raise size is very small (at least compared to the games I play in). And we're also fine inviting BB along to perhaps lean more towards setmining. Still, I'm not exactly convinced that ending up HU OOP without initiative against a non-moron in a raked game is very profitable.

I'm also checking flop.

I think I prefer donking the turn as I'm a little scared he checks behind. Although if he's not the passive type and will start betting his non-Ace pairs or start bluffing (although why wouldn't he bluff the flop?) then I'm ok with a check/raise.

I'm fine with our river plan and sizing. An Ax can easily be checked back on the flop HU and yet they're going to have a hard time folding so I love our big overbet (repping busted draws where we can also get called by sticky big pairs which think it is now less likely we actually have an Ax). But when he raises, we're beat, regardless of the sizing, imo; non-morons realize Ax (even AK) is mostly just a bluffcatcher at this point, especially to an overbet, and simply don't want to re-open the betting to cooler situations.

ETA: I actually completely forgot to consider 22/44. Yikes, that might make it closer for this price.

GcluelessNLnoobG