I'm hero, villain is 30-35 year old reg at the game, not necessarily the best. He's a bit lag/loose passive spewy at times, and just bets to bet in some cases I feel and gets lucky value and looks good. Honestly he seems loose-passive-bad but this is only the second session I've played with him.

He can put you in some really tough spots just out of taking weird lines and making big bets, which I have sniffed out and picked off a couple times in the first session we played (AQ high on a 2236 two spade board and he check raised me, I called and he shut down on river with AJ).

Okay the hand:

We're 8 handed, I have about $360 to start hand. 1/3 NL. I cover everyone except HJ at this point.

MP3, HJ, CO all limp. V is button and makes it $15. Hero has AKo. Hero calls.
MP3 folds, HJ calls, CO folds. There's $48 in pot.

Flop: Kx 9x 5x
HJ checks, V bets $15. Hero Calls. HJ calls.

Turn: 5x
Pot: $93. HJ checks, V bets $75. Hero Calls. HJ Folds.

River: Ax
V checks. Hero???
Pot: $243. Hero has about $265 left.


I will tell you guys what I did and what he had after I hear some thoughts.

I have reasoning in my head what I think is right now that I think about it even more than I did at the moment. I thought about 45 seconds before making a decision on what to do here. I think I made one big mistake in this hand, and it's actually what I did on the river.

Also, some will say 3bet PRE 3bet PRE, but decidedly this game is very loose, passive and play so loosely vs a single raise and so tight vs a 3bet, I want to keep the limpers in there, because they play any ace, any king normally. Flatting accomplishes that the best. It's a good chance I'm dominating two people out of the three with money in thus far.

You can debate a 3bet, but blowing the pot up OOP, even with AKo, vs a good opponent, is a good recipe to get stacked.

Thoughts?

It says V is button (doesn't mention your position I just figured you were in the blinds).

How can you be acting after the button? There must be some mistakes in the hh.

Yeah you're right. I must have been the button. In fact, I was. This hand happened last night at 3 AM and I just got up and posted it.

I still stand by my flatting philosophy even more now that I am on the button - and I can play my hand nearly perfect vs the people in this game.

We're 8 handed, I have about $360 to start hand. 1/3 NL. I cover everyone except HJ at this point.

MP2, MP3, HJ all limp. V is CO and makes it $15. Hero has AKo on button. Hero calls.
MP3 folds HJ calls. There's $48 in pot.

Flop: Kx 9x 5x
HJ checks, V bets $15. Hero Calls. HJ calls.

Turn: 5x
Pot: $93. HJ checks, V bets $75. Hero Calls. HJ Folds.

River: Ax
V checks. Hero tanks for 45 seconds and???
Pot: $243. Hero has about $265 left.


Ahhhh.... much better.

It really depends 100% on villains call down tendancies and your image. Do you have any sizing tells on villain?

It's hard because earlier this session we were on the turn in a hand where the board was rainbow

AJ97 and I had J10, he led 60 into 75, I call, river 3. He checks I check back, he says king high and I show and he mucks.

So his pot size bet on the turn could be a bluff, but he could also be doing this with exactly my hand, but also all Ks. He doesn't bet a 9 I don't think.

My image, I have a looser aggressive image, just in general. People don't believe me ever, because I'm kind of talkative, but I play really tight for the most part. I've won at showdown with a few big hands that were called down and also lost one where I snap called a $80 bet to be shown the nuts. So. I don't know. Not seeing my cards, I could look like anything. He's mis-interpreted me before and made odd plays I sniffed out, but I got an odd suspicion for his line when he checked the river.

Why? I can't tell you, but it felt off on this board that he would have a value hand and just suddenly check it? Like which hands is he bluffcatching that he expects me to bet worse with? Was my exact thought. Maybe he's just trying to get to showdown?

Bet/folding seems exploitable, but it honestly seems like one of my best options. This table isn't prone to seeking out that type of leak in my game, and I doubt even a 5/10 player would take advantage of you in a spot like this.
Bet/calling seems bad. In fact, like the worst option.
Checking back seems bad but will instantly give me information on what he was doing. If I bet, I may not get to see his hand.

I probably lean towards a 3bet preflop. The pros is that we'll have position against a loose/spewy guy and a 3bet should also get this HU (whereas a flat will often see us in a bloated multiway pot with a TP hand, something we'd rather avoid). Plus we might just pick up all the dead money with A high preflop / flop cbet. Also, it's unclear how big of a stack the Villain has; the shorter he is, the cooler we are with 3betting; the deeper he is, the cooler we are with flatting (imo).

I'm assuming the flop/turn/river are rainbow suits (i.e. no flush draw). I would also just enter in calldown mode like you did, which I think is the best method against a guy who can spew.

It's unclear how much Villain has left on the river. But at this point I'd probably shove as we only have a little over a ~PSB and most likely have the best hand unless he took a weird river line with a monster (risking a check thru). It's possible he bet the flop/turn as bluffs with Ax and then on the river realized he no longer needs to bluff anymore. Let him make the tough decision as to whether we are bluffing, weak, etc.

ETA: With just a little over a ~PSB left, I don't think we should even be bet/folding weakish TP hands the majority of the time, let alone top two on a dry board. So I hate any plan that involves folding the river. I have an inkling your thinking regarding this hand might end up being a little results oriented after the fact, but I could be wrong...


GcluelessNLnoobG

I am wondering what bets 75 onto a 93$ pot and calls a river v-bet? That sizing makes him polarized to 5x, air, but possibly air that improved to an A on the river.

I actually honestly don't think a competent villain is calling with a bare A on the river because he is not expecting us to turn our KQ into a bluff or something.

check-back is good?

GG, given that his most likely holding is Kx, don't you think a shove is never calling whereas a 1/3 or 1/4 PSB might look you up? Infact, he might even fold Ax to a shove by putting you on 5x which is very well in your BTN calling range.

I don't think Ax is unreasonable given this guy can bluff the first two streets and perhaps chicken out with a showdownable hand on the river, so I go for max value against that.

Plus, even if Kx looks us up 50% of the time to a 1/4 PSB, they'd simply have to look us up ~12% of the time for a PSB for the same profit, and I think they do much more than that over time.

But overall I'm of the opinion that if we have ~PSB left then the only bet size to ever make at the river is a shove, but that's me.

GshoveyG

Honestly, that line of thought entered my head though on the river that if he is check raising such a dry board, there is almost no bluffs in his range, and there is certainly VERY FEW value hands that I beat. He has 9's full a ton, and random A5 that filled up when he's doing it for value, and he's got like QJ? and random K's that he turns into bluffs when he's bluffing.

I think the portion of that range when he check raises me is going to be weighted towards me losing money in the long run getting it in vs this guy in this spot.

This also went through my head. The other thing is that this guy has almost never really two barreled complete air. He almost ALWAYS has a pair of SOME sort or a really strong draw, and the lack of a flush draw on the board, kind of also concerned me.

I also think my hand has more 5's than his, which is even more reason if he check raises me on the river, no matter the amount I bet, I always almost lose.

I think he very rarely has like AQ and was trying to barrel me off a 9. Even that hand though is going to probably fold if I just jam the whole stack. 1/3 is pretty nitty, and AQ is one of his least likely holdings, imo here.

He much more often has Kx, and he's not calling off with that.

So then we arrive once again at, if we shove, what does he call with? What does he jam with? What does he fold that is better than us?

He calls with AQ. He calls with AJ, he calls with KX 1/100 times when he's on tilt, and shoves 9's full, any 5.

He folds any King probably, and folds pairs QQ-1010 and below.

It almost smells more and more like a check back to me, the more I think about it, and especially considering I always get the information.

I'd like a couple other thoughts maybe on the hand before I say what I did and what happened. I think a couple of you will be surprised.

depending on what i think of the guy i either check back or try to get another $50 or so out of it. i definitely put myself on the best hand though, i just don't think it's such a stone cold lock that i need to risk getting re-raised when i can take down $240 totally risk-free. if i run into 99, then that's my fault for not 3-betting pre.

Didn't he check/raise you with A high on the turn in a previous hand? Definitely sounds like a guy who can barrel a bare A, imo. And now after putting all this money into the pot we're expecting him to fold TP when he finally catches it?

If he has air, whatever, he's folding to a shove.

If he has Ax, I doubt he's folding.

If he has a mediocre hand, he'll have a tough decision (one which he'll screw up often enough).

GimoG

I guess one thing I left out is that preflop, he was constantly isolating limps. So two, or three would limp, he'd make it 15 or 20 and I'd be folding behind him with some hands I'd normally play, just because I don't like inflated spots vs decent players.

So that weights his hand a bit less to the AQ side. If he does have AQ, sure he's going to call me.

The fact of the matter is, I think here, with the preflop iso, the small cbet and the big ol bomb on the turn, he doesn't have AQ. I think on the flop he's going to bet much more with AQ. But that's just my take.

Anyway.

Here's what happened:



Good ending to the thread though, I worked that $160 to $400 real quick in a few orbits and made a boat with 44 on J94-J board and won a pretty large pot vs KJ and J10, and won $500+ for the session.

3b pre, raise flop. As played $135 river.