This hand occurred a week ago and I got conflicting advice from friends on the flop call, turn sizing, and river decision and want to get input from you guys.

Background: Late night $1/3NL game, second game broke and we've just combined tables.
Plays with a $6 straddle so we're actually about 550bbs effective with main opponent. He's in the 5 seat, and everyone is trying to get into pots with him.

Reads on main villain: a mid-50's white guy, dealers describe as a $4/8 limit player who lost about $800 there, then decided to buy in to the $1/3NL game for $2000 because "he's just like that" (aka has no regard for money).
Heard of two hands he's played tonight before we combined tables (6-8 handed):

• he called a $20 raise preflop with T9o and a small all-in (~$130) multiway, then called big bets on a 654r flop, and 7o turn and open jammed the 8o river.
• he stacked some guy for ~$800 with AK after raising preflop, betting a 754 flop and overbet jamming over a raise (turned a club and won vs. 77).

Hero's image/history:
Hero's image to villain and other players is a young unknown player who's loose pre and tricky/aggressive postflop. Played two hands vs. villain in one orbit after combining tables, one where I c/r him on the turn after raising pre and checking twice multiway (he folded), and the other where I raised pre and bet/chk/bet with A3 on AT3QQ and he paid me off. Very next hand,

HH:

Seat 2: BB ($220) mid 50s gambly asian guy
Seat 3: UTG ($520) 30s conservative semi-weak white guy
Seat 5: Villain ($4000) mid 50s white guy (see history)
Seat 7: HJ ($700) mid 50s LAGGY persian dude, cooled down after losing a bit
Seat 9: Button ($3300) hero mid 20s out of towner


Hero straddles for $6 on the button and is dealt 99
SB calls, BB calls, UTG calls, Villain calls, HJ calls, BTN raises to $41, SB folds, 4 calls.

Flop (~$205): AT9
BB open jams for ~$175, UTG calls with ~$300 behind, villain legitimately hesitates for a second and shrug calls, Hero overcalls.


Turn ($905): A
UTG checks, villain bets $300 in red, Hero raises to $950, UTG quickly calls all in for $300, villain takes 6 blacks and two greens, thinks for a second or two, and places them on his $300 bet.


River ($3.1k) 5
Villain goes all in (~$2.1k to call), Hero?




Villain almost immediately says "all in" to the dealer, stands up and crosses his arms. He counts out his stack and tells me he has me covered, so about $2100 to call. While Hero is debating, Villain is fist bumping the dealers watching the action, saying "he's not gonna call", and appears to generally be in a good mood.


Thoughts on all streets / post formatting appreciated, thanks guys

"You're right... I don't have ze spades (diamonds in this case)."

Obvious value raise otf. I don't care what your sizing is.

As played lol live poker

EDIT: the turn was the A, flush draw bricked.

Agree that flop was a raise to build a pot especially since we're mega deep/villain could be drawing.

Felt like overcalling+raising the turn would look FOS enough for him to get curious but there's too many action killing turn cards.

Agree I made a big mistake missing fat value on the flop. Would you raise flop with

1. AQ
2. A5
3. QJ?

What about the turn?

I would tend to raise (1) and call (2,3), but agree that with 99 its a clear raise

I probably call the river because I think he has a flush here enough of the time. I can't really see any full houses he could have...

It sounds like this guy could over value a flush and legitimately think he has the best hand, hence the antics.

Tough, big pot though


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the replies all, sorry about making a mistake in the OP: the turn was a A, so the flush doesn't come in on the turn or the river.

That said, do you still call the river? If he shows up with AT I would expect him to play differently / lay the acting on thicker perhaps

Snap call against this guy.

Gotta raise flop.

Mallin

Erp, hard to read any response since that Ac edit

This is important: "villain legitimately hesitates for a second and shrug calls"

But to answer the thread OP, from what you've seen, can V limp pre with AJ+?

Super high variance for a 1/3 game, but I can't find a fold against this guy. Pretty sure he shows up with a random overplayed Ax often enough to make calling +EV. Obv expect to see aces full a lot.

Definitely 100% need to be raising the flop here. I'd make pre a little larger too. Given most of the stack sizes involved, we don't want the entire table calling our raise.

Thanks for the responses all.

Honestly don't have much of a line on his preflop tendencies with strong hands as we just combined tables and played for less than an orbit. However, every time he was in a pot he'd be either limp calling a raise or calling a raise (that may be more due to game quality). Only hand I knew he raised was the AK hand.

Agree with you guys that not raising flop is terrible.

Even though this guy is playing almost every single hand, how often does a player like this open jam the river into the aggressor for 2k+ without being full? He's loose, but he's so passive... the only hand where he took the same line (call, call, call, donk jam) he was NUTTED.

Perhaps this is a bad hand to post since it's so read dependent, but I think you guys are overestimating how often even the craziest of crazy players take an instantaneous out-of-tempo line for a huge bet (700bbs or 350 straddle bbs) for thin value.

Isn't cramming the river with a non-boat Ax+ on the river is pretty thin?

Or is it a "gotta lose that money" scenario?

Oh it'd be f***ing terrible. But why would you think this guy can't do stupid things?

yes, he can do stupid things. but players like this rarely jam their entire stack into an obviously strong opponent.

sounds like he can have all AK-AJ, A8-A6, A4-A2, 55, busted fd's and other effective air, plus ofc better than 99

you flatted flop for deception and this is why you did it. i'm 100% against that line readless, but you're playing a poor opponent who has a large stack and roping him in. that's fine. very hard to fold after you've set it up like this. wouldn't underestimate V's ability to misread or even stone cold forget your turn raise, once he's seen your flop action.

however i get an awful awful feeling when some derp say 'he's not going to call', the most classic no-brainer level one speech-induce that every mouth-breathing OMC knows. oh and he stood up and fist pumped the dealer too. great...

but the final factor is that can come back over the top of your turn raise with AT, A9, TT, AA but doesn't. given that you have some Adxd in your range that calls off on the turn but folds to a river jam, he's got every reason to call/raise. so on that level we can discount better yet again.

for me those last two paragraphs roughly cancel each other out and i'm calling. we're behind quite often here, but not enough to fold. if he wins, smile and say 'well done, you just paid for the holiday'. then measure your tilt level and leave

Urrrrgh hideous spot for 2k. Obv raising the flop would mean that by this point you're not left in such a crappy position but as played I think you just have to call and pay him off the times he's got it. You were trying to trap and made a boat, pretty tough to fold once you end up in this spot. Having said that, for 2k it would be understood if you fold if you have a strong read. How'd it play out?

Villain is obviously not bluffing missed diamonds or some nonsense. The question really is whether or not villain overvalues hands. He might have AK/Q/J and think it's golden to jam the river with.

But, I'm afraid that it seems villain fluked the river with A5 and had you on a big ace.

Rough, but you could have gotten away from it.

+1. FWIW I think it's a fairly easy fold

Thank you all for your discussion -- it's this particular opponent (and playing this deep live) that made this hand tough to play.

I opted to call flop precisely to trap him into overplaying his hand, but I expected the turn/river action to go he bets/I raise/he calls, then he check/calls river.

Since the way pots grow, raising flop is the best way to get stacks in. Perhaps overcalling on the flop with AJo+ with one/no diamond is better since it's not crushing main villain's hand range as much and is harder to continue on certain turns.

Agree with you wholeheartedly -- however, I agree with oldsilver (below) that it's unlikely he's calling a turn raise and donk jamming the river with lone Ax (he's crazy but not stupid: if he believes he's ahead on the turn he knows he can charge me/get me off a draw, and if he jams I'd just fold river if I missed).

IMO it's more likely he'd overplay a non-boat Ax by re-raising the turn rather than taking his actual line.

Did you discount AT-A9 for your reasons below, and A5 for some reason? I 100% believe he's got all Ax here but there's only 4 combos of A9 / he'd likely play differently (or lay on the acting job more ) if he had AT.

His image and the fact I took a nonstandard line to induce made me think the river was an auto-call, but when he started opening his mouth and acting chummy with the dealer made it feel like he's genuinely happy -- because he knows he's about to win a big pot.

He might be loose -- however as DGAF said: "nobody has any heart, unless they're stuck"

Will post results in a second as discussion seems to have settled on:

1. Not raising flop is terrible
2. As played (tricky line + wacky opponent) gotta pay the man off
3. 99.9%+ of players at this level don't have the stones to pull the trigger on the river after getting raised on the turn

Hardball47, I agree that he wouldn't play missed diamonds this way and yes he likely overvalues hands. IME players would end up 3balling the turn with big draws/AK/AQ/AJ and aren't thinking that a call turn / donk jam river would up their "getting called"%.

RESULTS: I ended up folding after a couple minutes. BB mucks, UTG shows AJ, and villain rolls A5.

A regular player who knew the guy much better than me commented something along the lines of 'you know that money doesn't mean anything to him' and given that he'd never be able to get away from an underfull.
However, Villain played it too cool and collected to rip it in as an overplay or bluff, and coupled with his table talk it felt like an easy fold.




Thanks everyone for their responses

Raise the flop!!!

Fold river. Villain has no reason to bluff a protected pot with 2 players already in. You have the worst boat possible (minus a very unlikely 55)

Good fold.

Really felt like A5. Glad to see my reads in these threads are being vindicated. lol

Did you try to talk to this guy? I feel like these type of guys gives away a lot when you talk to them during tough decision. They either want a call or don't.

But there's a twist, sometimes they think they are value betting and try to goad you into a call when in fact they are over valuing their hands like a single ace in this case.

Here's a spot for reference. I was playing in a 1/3 game the other day, RFI AJo, BTN flats BB flats. Flop 6 A A with a flushdraw, check, check , BTN bets, BB folds, I raise 3x, he calls and says maybe I'll hit my spades. Turn off suit Q, I bet and he overbet (~70bb on top)jams. I get the feeling he is strong with a worse hand, I call, he confidently turns over A5.

In your case, I think folding 99 OTR is fine since you could have better hands here, personally I wouldn't play in a game more than 500bb deep but that's just me.

Yes, I asked him to count down his stack since it was unclear if he had me covered or not (his chips were not neatly stacked). He seemed pretty relaxed despite the large bet size.

As discussed earlier in the thread, if villain was value betting worse he'd likely play more aggressively when facing a raise on the turn: the turn raise could be a semi-bluff, the line of call raise - open jam river when flush draw bricks is a very unconventional line that doesn't really get value (many here said they'd fold 99, and those who said they'd call would snap call the turn)


As for playing 500bb+ deep, well, you don't win what you don't put in

Not raising flop is criminal. So many hands to get value from. Because you're so deep vs whale and the pot is so huge already it's a very, very costly mistake (think full $300 buy ins worth of EV).

Turn is fine I guess.

River is easy fold.