1/3 nl. Hero stack 300 v stack about 350. Not much of a read on V. Standard 1/3 type. A little too loose pre. Likely a long term losing player. He's been at the table about two hours but havent heard much from him yet.

Hero has 10h Jh OTB

V raises from MP to 15. H calls.
Flop ( 30) Qh 10s 4c. V bets 25, H decides to call with a pair and some backdoor options.

Turn (80) 7d. V checks. H checks

River (80) 3c. V bets 125. H?

He probably has AK but we are too far down in range to call I suppose.

I think we would need a lot more time with/read on V to hero down with second pair here even against a weird, polar line like this.

I would want more information before calling this. This bet easily could be a bluff but it could also be AQ+ that is confident they have the best hand. The flop is reasonably dry and the run out are bricks. Villain likely figures if you had the best hand you would have bet turn.
If villain was too bluffy this could be an easy call. If villain doesn't bluff enough this could be an easy fold. Hero doesn't know where they stand yet and the bet is big.

I'm never going to hate too much on playing a hand for relatively cheap on the Button. But I think folding preflop is also perfectly fine (and the less expert we are the better).

Flop call of a ~PSB is a little dicey thanks to our two pair outs possibly giving him the nut straight.

I think when Villain checks the turn I feel there is a very good chance my hand is best and I'd probably put in a 1/2 PSB to protect it as my last bet. Against a tricky bluffer I might lean to checking back to bluffcatch the river.

Weird river spot. I know we weakly checked turn to setup the river bluffcatch, and his line makes little sense (33? tarping QQ?), but I honestly don't see enough overbet bluffs in my game to be very comfortable in calling these.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Think I prefer a 3B pre, but flatting is fine.

Think I'd bet turn for value and protection.

First thought on river is just fold and find a better spot. But I'm struggling to put him on a range for value or for bluffs. The run-out is so bricky, I'm not sure what he's repping. And we somewhat under-repped our hand when we checked back turn.

His most likely bluff would be J9, which we block. He could also have 98s. Maybe he turns AK into a bluff.

Maybe he'd check turn with AA/KK/AQ. Maybe he checks JJ because he's scared we have QX, but we block that, and JJ doesn't need to be turned into a bluff with a big over-bet. Maybe 99 plays this way, but it would be strange.

The way we played this, we could have 65s for a straight sometimes, but usually we'll just have QX or TX, or air. To V, it should look like a way ahead / way behind spot, if he has value, or a mandatory bluff spot if he doesn't. His sizing doesn't make sense for either, unless he's putting us squarely on TX.

I dunno. Absent any reads, and with V otherwise being quiet the past two hours, I'd lean towards making a disciplined fold here.

I might say something like, "your straight is good, sir," or "I think you're bluffing but I can't call," as I'm folding, just to see if he'll show his cards to prove me wrong.

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We can simply never call this with a Jack in our hand.

For an aggressive player to be quiet for two hours wouldn't really be enough for me to call off a hero call here, but that's just me. It really depends on how well you know him and if you've seen him try to steal pots away in the past in similar hands. Otherwise just fold. I like the flat pre and the float.

FWIW, blockers should be like the last thing we consider in LLSNL regarding making calls (and should mostly be used just for close tie breaking decisions at that). The first and foremost thing we should consider is how often this guy / the pool in general overbets big streets without nuttish hands (the answer typically being ~almost never, unless we've seen some good evidence to suggest otherwise).

GimoG

good check on the turn won you the max.

pf is better as a 3b but i dont hate cold calling.

So why’d you call, and what would you have folded?

Honestly, if that's a bluff from him, good on him. It's one of those bad bet or good bluff situations. If he's got an actual hand here, he's been stupid and is making you fold instead of paying him. If he's got a bluff, then good on him. It was well done. It's 1/3. He's not great. This is probably a scared AQ who finally found his balls.

Saw the spoiler. Nice play on his part.

Well played. Interested to hear your reasoning for finding the call.

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Concur. I was guessing OP the entire way, and would have prided myself on the good fold.

This post isn't a strategy question, it's a brag.

Given your reads, this is a very easy fold. This line is very value heavy, even more so at 1/3.

Kudos to sniffing something out though.

dont think the jack matters much at all (i get you want him to have kj, aj, j9 type hands but those seem reasonably likely to barrel the turn and if not he doesn't want to have jack in his hand to bluff the river with since he wants you have those combos)

If it was such an obvious fold to the OP they would have folded, no?

The turn is an interesting street. I don't agree with betting. He has a lot of hands with a Q, and basically every hand with a T from his range beats you, like KT and AT. Don't forget, he opened from MP, so his range is decent. Check/check, river Check/check.

On the river, it's a fold. What combinations of bluffs could he have? AJ, AK, KJ, and that's about it. For value: TT, QQ, 77, 44, 33, and even 56s and QT.

We make such calls if we think his value range is capped and narrow. But here, I don't see any reason why he can't do the same with any hand I mentioned. You need specific reads.

Even now, after he showed that hand, I still think it's a fold. If it's a suited A5, it changes nothing really. That hand is exactly in his MP range.

No. People make -EV decisions in poker all the time. And the principle of folding much more often against overbets is one of the easier concepts to understand.

Easy fold.

Flop possibly a fold as well, but I can see a call sometimes as well.

The reasoning for the call was much the same as most people said. His line didn't make sense. While most people said that this is a fold they all agreed that his play was weird and didn't make sense. Responding to posts on line is more difficult than being at the table in person. So I think most folks if they had been there would have made the call, for the exception of those who said this is a straight fold.

It's an interesting hand. His line does or doesn't make sense depending on our read and what range we give him when he raises pre from MP.

In your spot on the river, I'm thinking to myself, "okay, what hands am I losing to that play this way?"

Top pair and better would most likely continue betting the turn, unless it's a really weak top pair that's worried about kicker problems. So, maybe QJ or Q9 slows down on turn, unless he thinks we're raising pre with all our KQ combos on the BTN. So I could see him having QJ or Q9 on the turn, but the river over-bet doesn't really comport to a scared QX just trying to get to showdown.

65s is the nuts on the river. I could see 65s raising pre, c-betting flop, kind of large, just hoping to take the pot down, then getting scared when we call, picking up the OESD on the turn and deciding to just check for pot control, then making up for missed value by over-betting the river.

So on the river, the only hand that makes complete sense is 65s, unless V is doing weird / fancy stuff like checking turn to induce with a big hand, hoping to get in a check raise on turn or get a light call on the river. So, maybe this is QQ/TT/QT, or maybe T7 / Q7, but I don't think Q7 or T7 play this way pre or on flop.

If V bet $60, I might hero-call, because we took such a defensive line. JT is going to be one of the better hands in our range on the river, and we block QJ/QT and TT.

But when he over-bets river after we check back turn, it looks more like making up for missed value on the turn, not getting overly creative with air, because a bluff doesn't need to be that big to get through fairly often. A bigger bet may look more bluffy, and get called more often.

In his spot, with A5, I might just check and take my showdown value, but if I thought I needed to bluff, I'd probably just bet $60, when we're only starting out $350 deep. It's just too much to risk $125 on a bluff that isn't going to fold out many QX or TX combos if our opponents are sticky or think we're bluffy. We're really just hoping to fold out PP's like 88-99 that got sticky, and better AX, which is mostly just AJ or A9.

Kudos to you for finding the call, and being correct, but honestly, I think folding here would be fine. If we're not folding to some bluffs, we're just calling too often. I think we could get here with enough QX and better, often enough that we can fold JT.

This overbet makes no sense. Who checks back turn with a good hand on this run out, and over bets river?

any over pair or big queen is going to bet the turn and you are kinda capped to a medium strength hand by not betting turn, although I'd probably bet turn myself most of the time with the JT

I'd Probably pay this one off