10-25 -- full ring. I have about $4500 behind. Villain has about $3000 behind. Game is playing a bit tighter than a typical 10-25 live game.

Villain is stuck maybe $5K. He's a young guy. We've never played together. In this particular home game, a young guy who I don't know usually is an internet player. But I'm not getting the internet player vibe from this guy. I have observed him making some hopeful calls and questionable bets.

I doubt that he has much of a feel for me. I have been completely in line this session. In the 90 minutes I have been playing, I have not show any bluffs or made any hero calls.

Preflop

Folded to me. I make it $100 to go in the cutoff with AJ. Folded to Villain, who calls in the big blind.

Flop ($210)

A K J

Villain checks. I bet $150. Villain calls.

Turn ($510)

6

Villain checks. I bet $330. Villain calls.

River ($1170)

T

Villain donks into me for $750.

Snap call, close call or close fold?

Would your opinion change if I held the A?

Umm, dunno, more like a fold

Well, close fold was one of the options. No way this is an obvious fold.

Imo, he has misplayed the hand pretty badly if he shows up on the river with a Q.

I posted the hand because I was very surprised when he bet on the river. Flatting pre and c/c two streets seemed unlikely from any hand that contained a Q. I didn't believe that he was value betting a hand without a Q in a spot where I very easily could have the nuts.

On the other hand, I also had a hard time believing that he was bluffing in a spot where I was more likely to have the nuts than him.

villain's pre 3bet tendencies?

I've seen him 3 bet only one or two times (never from the blinds), and the hands were not shown down. Unfortunately, this is live poker, so I'm only seen him play from the BB 5-6 times, which obviously isn't enough to tell me whether he is capable of flatting a hand like AK or AQ from the blind in a HU hand.

he deff has some hands like AQ, KQ, QJ in his range...the fact that he's stuck makes me want to call but at the same time it has me leaning towards a fold cuz when players are on tilt they chase stupid **** like gutterballs and he mgiht have gotten then with a Qx broadway hand

and physical tells?

yeah AK / AQ pre 3 bet % is kinda important. i don't see many people doing this without a Q though, no matter how unlikely the line seems.

Nothing remarkable. He checked called the first two streets in rhythm. He bet the river relatively quickly, which can mean different things from different people. In my experience, quick river donks are more often bluffs than deliberate river donks, but like I said, not everyone is the same.

Close fold. Even though it's about 2/3 pot, $750 is a big bet to most live players. It's easy to outlevel yourself in spots where players could be bluffing scare cards, and he could be. But he's leading into you after you've shown strength the whole way. And even inexperienced/bad players know you're going to check back this river most of the time so he'll want to get his extra $ w/ a bet of his own when he gets there.

I can't ever imagine being in a spot like this and not talking to him/asking questions. Surprised you didn't include any of that info in the details.

Whole hand seems like AQ, the only hand that makes any real sense.
I would say it's like:
AQ - 60%
random Q - 30%
bluff - 10%
value bet without Q - 0%

your reads seem way off, this is an easy fold

I think that there has to be a higher percentage of Ax is his range than you are giving him.

Villain definitely does not have a "random queen." If he has a Q, and it's not AQ, then he has QT, QJ or QK. I haven't given you any reason to believe that Villain was loose enough to show up with Q7 here.

If Villain shows up with AQ, his play is suboptimal, but not indefensible imo. If he shows up with QT, QK or QJ, he has played the hand terribly.

Saying that he "shouldn't" have taken this line to the river is different than saying he "didn't" take this line to the river. As Kwan said, however unlikely it may seem, here we are. He has now donked the river in a very poor bluffing spot, which means that I have to at least consider that he played the hand poorly and got to the river this way with a queen.

i deff agree with the bold part.
couple sessions ago at 2/5 stationy aggro asian in bigblind 125bb eff stax,i raise 4x pre in CO, villian b/c's flop and and c/c big turn bet.

board ran out 10c8d7c turn 8c river 3c and he like snap donk jammed river for like ~300 and irriated i folded 9s8s and villian snap flipped over JTo laughin at me from across table, no history and my 2nd orbit at table

Are you saying that is logical for him to have gotten to the river with a Q, or are you saying that it is logically inconsistent for me to conclude that he didn't get to the river with a Q based on what has happened on the river and my tentative read that he may not be so great a player.

If the former, I disagree. If the latter, fair enough.

i got half way through writing a really long post but basically he has showdown value here very close to 100% of the time, you think he's a bad player so assuming he can turn a made hand into a bluff here is a terrible read imo.
AQ frequently gets to the river like this and why you think it is sub optimal to take this line with AQ is beyond my comprehension, add in that he can turn up with a hand like Q9ss or something similar some % of the time and the fact that you have few bluffs and plenty of two pairs in your range here that will chk back river but can hero call, and this is an easy fold.

I completely agree that Villain rarely, if ever, has a total airball here. I'm not sure why you believe that my description of him as perhaps a bad player is necessarily inconsistent with him turning Ax into a bluff on the river (at least some of the time). Turning one pair into a bluff here when the flush misses isn't inconsistent with being a losing player. Rather, I think that it is consistent with being a losing player because I don't think that this is great spot for bluffing.

As for him having AQ -- it's definitely possible and probably more likely than I thought it was in the moment. That being said, I would not play AQ this way if I were him unless I thought my opponent had serious LAGtard tendencies. This guy had no reason to think that I was prone to reckless barreling. I mean, what is the plan if you play AQ this way against a non-LAG? If the turn goes check call, you probably are behind and likely have no plan for the river other than check fold on a blank (and nearly the entire deck is a blank). That seems suboptimal, but in any case, you probably are correct that a decent number of people play AQ this way.

Bottom line, I thought that he would have Ax often enough here to make this a close call.

FWIW, he had neither AQ, nor Ax. Go figure.

for what its worth, the sizing is kinda scary for the sole reason that it makes me think twice about level/tendencies of villain as previously described.

i mean normally a subpar/possibly tilted villain would not make a polarizing donk on the river on this this board w/ths size (3/4 pot). If he decided "to make a play" he'd just bet like 400-500 cuz "I wanna make it seem like I have it and make sure I get paid" kinda deal.

Mayb Im just coming up w/reasons to fold in-theory tho. Ingame I hate folding and just grunchcall

haha did he value cut himself with like J10ss or something ******ed like that?

I think your over weighting AXss it's a relatively small part of his range, i think your just being too optimistic with that one. you really think he should check/fold AQ on turn?? I mean no offense but lol, he has top pair a draw to the nuts and can have the best hand, folding AQ on the turn would be pretty terrible if he has little knowledge of how you play.

answer this - if he has a Q in his hand what do you expect him to do with it on the river?
if he has one pair/two pair what doyou expect him to do with it on the river?

lawl

he says he has nuts, You : call/fold?
he says he has airball, You: call/fold?
he says he has 1pair/2pair/ace/whatever, You: ?

lot to accomplish with talking.

as for the hand; i`m folding. No reason for him or Hero not to have a Q (AQ, some KQ, Qx ss etc). I don`t really know whats bad about playing AQ or QTs this way?

If if if if he got the river with a queen, then I would expect him to donk it 90% of the time, at least. But I also thought that he would check call the portion of his non-Q range that had the most showdown value (i.e. two pairs, turned sets, etc.) and bluff a decent enough percentage of the rest of his non-Q range. I don't see that a hand like A5 has much showdown value in a nine handed live game with the action described.

I'm not suggesting that folding the turn (after playing PF and flop passively) necessarily would be correct, but I think that there is an excellent argument to be made for Villain not playing the hand nearly so passively overall if he has AQ. Because even if he calls with AQ on the turn there, it's not a fun call, and certainly not a fun call if I barrel the river with a blank.

In any case, he showed up with AJ (without the A) for the chop. I guess he was going for thin value, but really, I have no idea because he seemed a little despondent when I called and happy to see that we had chopped.

Check calling the flop with a hand like Q9 is pretty terrible imo unless you are virtually certain that you will get two more streets of value if you make your flush or st8 on the turn, and how likely is that?

I also think that it would be terrible to play QT this way. It potentially leaves way too much money on the table.

AQ, whatever. I wouldn't play it this way, but you guys are right that it is not LOL bad. I probably should have weighted AQ more heavily in his range.

Chk call flop and chk call turn with AJ then donk lead big on river 4 to a straight. Typical fish play. Before I know how he plays, this is a fold on river. Now I know he is a fish, you have to call down. He could have weaker holdings than AJ.

Pretty easy snapfold unless you have a read that he can turn made hands into bluffs in which case it's probably still a fold but closer.

A stuck villain is definitely calling with a pair plus gutter. Your range could definitely include a Queen. I'm folding unless I have some better reads.