1/3, $600 effective
BU (other relevant player here) is a good, aggressive-but-not-insane MAWG who’s been running great (he has about $2000 in this $500 cap game)

Preflop:
1 limp
I raise to $15 with AJhh in CO
BU calls, limpers folds

Flop ($37): Td4d3s
I check, BU checks back.
I’d cbet this in position, but he’s relatively sticky and I can’t see him folding many hands to a $15-20 cbet, especially when he’s been running so good.

Turn ($37): Td4d3sAs
I bet $20, BU calls

River ($77): Td4d3sAsJc (about $550 behind)
I bet $45, BU raises to $125.

What’s everyone’s standard play here? I’ll mention that when I talked to a friend about this, one of us thought it was a snap fold, and the other thought it was a snap call.

I pretty much just call here. Live river raises are typically quite underbluffed, but he could be raising some JT and some AT, or some other Ax 2p. He should be bluffing some QT and some KT as well as his flopped open ends that unblock flush draws, but I doubt he is, still your hand is still crazy strong and he could just as easily be raising it. Would be a stupid fold.

Are we sitting in the worst seat at the table?

I'm fine with preflop, but pre-preflop is really important here, imo. We should do our best to avoid playing OOP deep to good aggressive players, and sitting in this seat ain't gonna help that.

On the flop I'd probably mostly cbet a 1/2 PSB and hope that just ends the hand ASAP in this spot.

I'd probably mostly lean to checking the turn against this guy. Against morons, sure, whatever, bet our face up hand and get paid off over two more streets. But is this guy going to do that? He's more likely to put money in the pot by bluffing if we check this card than he is paying off with worse based on how the hand has played out so far, imo.

Again most, I'm pretty cool with folding to a river raise. And I think I am against this guy too. Yeah, the flush draw busted but you'd think he woulda bet the flop when checked to him if he had that. Our hand is being played face up as a big Ax. We're ahead of AT, but would he check back the flop with that? We're chopping with AJ. But KQ and 65 got there and he could have been slow playing a monster all along. ETA: I forgot to factor in other two pair hands that we're ahead of so that does change things. Still, a lotta two pair hands are just called down here for fear or running into bigger two pair / sets against a preflop raiser, so I still think a fold is fine, but I fold incredibly easy.

GcluelessNLnoobwhonolongerplayspokerG

Never folding here. Would like to raise but don’t think that’s a good move into a likely small set. But too high up to fold.

@GG - you’re still quite a bit ahead of 65....

I would fold this and call with a set.

Lol, have no idea why I thought 65 got there. 52 does but pretty unlikely he started with that.

Still, in my experience very few people raise two pear on the river against the preflop raiser when lottsa cards on board could also smash the preflop raiser. The most common attribute of most players is MUBSYness and passiveness, so when someone raises the river I typically give it a lot of respect.

ETA: The other thing to keep in mind is that he has also re-opened the betting with large stacks behind; again, most people are MUBSy and hate doing that with non-nuttish hands.

GyourexperiencemaydifferG

I completely agree. I would still call as my V’s are often terrible at discerning what hands are nutted ie relative vs absolute hand strength. Too many sets in V’s range to raise, too many A3\A4/AT/Spazz to fold. It’s $80 to win $340. Has to be +EV against any non OMC villain.

Call, if villain slow-played a big hand on turn or has kqxx he gets paid. But this hand is way too high in our range to justify a fold - especially since xr is not large.

Our hand has the same relative strength as 33 and is pretty close to 44. Don't think this makes sense.

It's not. AJ blocks the hand we want him to have (AJ).

So you're putting him on AJ, KQdd and sets?

Thats too tight.

I think I'm calling top two to a small raise. I am a station though so whatever.

You're getting a little worse than 3-1 on a call...I'd call expecting him to show a set or KQ quite often. But you'll win against worse aces or the rare bluff...A10 or J10 will pop up too, but I think it's less likely as most players would bet top pair in position on the flop.

Thanks for the comments. I figured that with all of the possible worse two pairs this seemed like a call for this price, getting 3:1.

He had 52o for the turned straight, which was surprising since this was really the only time I saw him out of line this session. Results aside, I agree with GG’s comments about avoiding playing OOP deep to non-straightforward players though.

52... wow.

Your read about the button... is incorrect.

If the description of villain was 'loose passive LLSNL player' I don't know if you can find a fold because they do such weird things sometimes, but there are passive bad players out there who aren't raising anything better than AJ.

52o is admittedly pretty damn loose preflop. However, it's for only 2.5% of his stack (perhaps even less again others) plus he has the Button. It may not be great, but I don't think it's as horrible as you might think.

His flop passive check back is fine, imo. Most preflop raisers don't check the flop HU to fold, so he may think his FE at this point is small and be happy with taking a free card.

I think his biggest mistake is not raising the turn on a card that looks like it has hit Hero. He should be attempting to build a pot here.

His river raise is obvious (although I guess you can argue about his sizing).

GimoG

You're calling $80 to win a pot that has $257 for a little better than 3-1. I looks a lot like KQ, but I don't think that you can fold top two for that price. A lot of aggressive players would try and get 3 streets with a flopped set in the event Hero has an overpair. Likewise, say a flopped set checks the flop. They would raise the turn when the ace comes on the turn. There are two flush draws that so there are a lot of Ax/draws that will call a raise. V also could have a weaker aces up or some other weaker two pair.

I would call like Hero did. Sucks that V showed up with 52.

You can argue if it's a defendable play (I would disagree), but calling 52o and checking the flop here HU is not the mark a good aggressive player.

As to the hand, I think there's no way anyone is profitable with 52o in the long run. In addition, not betting when you have the nut low, 8 outs and HU to a passive opponent is bad.

I'm not going to defend preflop either; I'm just saying it's not as horrible as it may originally look.

I have zero clue what Villain is thinking, but he doesn't have to win the pot preflop or on the flop (which also happens to be the lowest FE streets). He's allowed to play passively here and setup later street steal attempts in position where stacks are deep and FE is high (especially as he gathers more information). Whether that was his actual plan or not we won't know.

GcluelessingeneralnoobG

LOL.

Ha, I actually put in an ETA that I scrubbed for some reason. I should not have said "it may not be great" and should have said more like "it's probably poor". Point is it isn't OMG this-is-the-worst-thing-ever horrible.

Gjustsayin'G

I mean, I agree that flatting with 52o is a probably losing play long-term, but I don't think it's much more of a losing play than things people do all the time, like (for example) opening hands like ATo UTG at a 9-handed table. I'd weigh position much more than absolute hand equity here, but I'm sure everyone is going to disagree and flip out over this statement.

I also don't think checking back the flop is bad by him, because (1) what hands do I open preflop that I'm folding on that specific flop? probably not many, and (2) even if he didn't make the straight on the turn, it seems like a semi-bluff turn raise is going to get a lot more folds than a flop bet.

In a vacuum, it's not much worse than opening ATo UTG, but hands are never played in a vacuum. I'd consider ATo a -EV open from UTG in a full game, but AJo and KQo are marginal to ok opens at passive tables, and ATo is only a little bit worse.

52o on the other hand is a bottom 10% hand and implies that you are flatting basically ATC on the button, which is much worse.

Right. I agree that if you're calling with 52o you're likely to be playing more losing hands long-term, but on a per-hand basis, I still think it's probably comparable to (or IMO probably less bad than) opening ATo UTG.

Another point: 52o is a "bottom 10%" hand, but it actually has 37% equity against any two cards, and while ATo is a "top 15%" hand, it only has 64% equity against any two cards. So while I agree that 52o is a poor choice of starting hand, I think it's not quite as bad as the phrase "bottom 10%" might suggest, since most hand equities are clustered around 50%.