2/5 game that has been mandatory straddle 2-5-10 for the past ~2hrs.

Villain, younger guy. Havent played with him before. Pretty competant, a little FPSy. Good hand reader, but hangs himself a fair amount.

A couple notable hands leading up, he is in HJ, raises to $15, I raise to $40 with AQ in CO, BTN calls, BB calls. Flop 8910 V checks, I bet $70, BTN quickly calls, V check raises to $210, I fold. SB calls. Turn blank, V bets $250, BTN calls. River blank, V checks, BTN bets $350, V crai for ~$300 more, BTN tank calls. V wins with QJ for flopped nut straight.

Later, V raises to $30 in MP, BB (TAGish) calls. Flop of 39Jr BB checks, V bets $40, BB calls. Turn A and second club, BB checks, V bets $120, BB CRAI for ~600 total. Villain insta-snaps with AK and wins against BB's turned st/fl draw that bricks.

Since then, villain has been consistently shipping money back to the player he beat in Hand #1 by pushing action with medium hands and passive-chasing draws.

Effective stacks ~$1200

EP+1 limps, Villain limps from MP, Hero raises to $40 in HJ with AA SB calls, EP+1 folds, Villain calls.
(Pot: $143)
Flop: QJ8r
Checks to Hero who bets $90, SB folds, Villain raises to $200
[Question as to call/raise(fold...?) here, and to sizing if raising]
Hero flats (?)
(Pot:$531)
Turn 4 (second heart)
Villain quickly leads $300.

Hero...?

I almost folded to the flop minCR, esp given his play with the QJ hand from earlier. Should I be pitching aces OTF in this spot with this board? 910/QJ/88 is definitely in his range here. I peel basically because I feel like I should since I can eval turn in position. Then his turn bet looks a little value-y to me. 2/5/10 is a little bigger than I usually play, as I usually split time between 1/3 and 2/5, so I apologize if there are some noob issues with my questions here. Thanks very much in advance.

Not a fun board to be c/r'ed on, but I think based on villians recent play you are going to have to put your hero cape on. If you are not prepared to do this folding flop is probably your next best play because I doubt villian will check back turn.

Agree with Time Bomb but might this also be a good spot to check flop when in position? Seems like that flop is not one you will get three streets of value from AA unless we are beat. Given it is rainbow, we might be abble to let one peel and evaluate turn after villain either bets or checks.

Not saying that I am fully confident in this line, but given this villain has the potential for FPS type play, that board doesn't look all that great to get 110 more blinds in by the river.

In deciding what to do OTF, I did consider checking behind. At the time I decided against it since 1/2 the deck hits his range OTT, I felt like I would get put in tough spots with any card 8 or above.

However, given that he likely bets his entire range OTT after it checks through, perhaps thats a perferable line since it allows him to spend some chips on his bluffs as well as pot controling when I'm behind. (or am I way off on that line of thinking?).

Villain opened from MP with {QJ} earlier, so that affects the range we can give him. It seems very narrow, here is one possible range: {88,Q8s,J9s-J8s,T8s+}. Against this you are only 33%.

Looking over the various possible ranges, it is hard to find a range you crush, or have better than 50% equity, since villain likely opens PF with {KQ, ect}.

Fold.

PF, I would raise to $60.

The c-bet OTF is fine/standard. Checking is fine too.

Raise more pre.

I have a very similar style to villain here. Esp the FPSy part. So I'm going to comment assuming I am your villain.

The good part:
I think not 3betting the flop is critical. Villains should push thin value to its absolute possible ends, mainly b/c we generate a big FOS image b/t being loose and pushing the action with our draws. If you 3bet flop, its likely RIO, villain, unless on tilt, will be HIGHLY likely to fold all 1 pair hands, as almost nobody bet/3bets less than the goods (you said you don't normally play these stakes, so I'm guessing you aren't playing lag). By smoothing flop, you set up the chance to smooth all three streets.
If he's on tilt, or the board were drawier, 3betting flop would be a distinct possibility, as a distinct part of villains ship range will be draws and TPTK.

The Bad (pre):
DGAF says raise more pre. 40 pre set you up for a multi-way disaster.

I disagree with Princess Azula here. If villain is similar to me at all, his raising or limping pre does not define his range that well, that style only works when your preflop is non-consistent. Basically, you don't play the same hand the same way twice preflop (unless it is top 5 or so, because you're raising enough to raise those every time). I'll agree we can take JJ/QQ/KK out of his range, but I think AQ, KQ, 9/10,888, and QJ are all still in his range here.


The Ugly:
You could be totally owned right here, to a very significant likelihood.
As you pointed out, his bet sizing seems absolutely consistent with getting a great part of your stack in the middle (after turn call, pot of 1100, with 700 behind). This is why you considered the flop fold to the mini-cr. Instead of figuring out his preflop range, I'd prefer going bayesian on his postflop play.

As the board is pretty dry, prob fold turn. Also given that his bet sizing seems perfect to keep you pot committed on every street. Your read on flop was to fold--i put some weight behind those, there is often a reason for these approaches.

If call turn, put on the 'hero cape' as timebomb put it, because the river bet IS coming.

I think my choices here are
Fold>Call Turn and River>Raising.

Fold, but its close. I take the bet-sizing to be a tell here and would lean towards a fold.

Raise more pre. As played I think call flop/evaluate turn is fine. The quick turn bet is important. Any info/tells there? Some villains do this with nutty hands. Often I see it from reg fish who decided bf turn that they have to continue to barrel w hands like pair plus straight draw. I prob find a fold on turn as played and as you describe villain as playing draws passively.

def raise more pre, flop looks good.....his flop sizing is pretty odd - Id think he'd raise larger with 2 pair/bluffs, especially when theres alot of nasty turns for him......I'd prob toss it on the turn, and wouldnt be shocked if he has T9 a decent % of the time.

+1

betting > checking on flop

raise to at least 60 pre. I think fold AA on flop for now. and pay attention to his c/r ranges on flops.

btw. really bad cbet in hand 1

for all of you advocating calling flop and reevaluating turn.

what young villains have you met that bluff check/raises the flop and then gives up on any turn by not betting?

I think he's firing 100% of turns. we just got the best turn ever and you guys are still advocating folding the turn. I think it's either call him down to river on blank cards or fold flop. I don't think call flop fold blank turn is a good idea.

I mean Im not thrilled to call here esp with this sizing, but we're getting 5 to 1 against someone who could potentially c/r kq/aq and decide to slow down on the turn, a random bluff that gives up OTT(very unlikely), and we have outs vs 2 pair combos.....although I think he has T9 here too often

meh, i dont think hes bluff c/r the flop but maybe c/r something like QT/JT/TT/99 cause he thinks it might be the best hand and to see where hes at.

young doesnt necessarily mean good and plenty of ppl will c/r the flop small like just over min w/ a good but not great hand to see where they are at. when he bets 300 on the turn tho i really rule most of those hands out unless hes pretty bad and just randomly doing stuff in which case u will have to call him down. if not tho i would just call flop and fold the turn. based on what OP wrote up im on the fence about which would be best vs this guy, would need to be at the table to decide prob which is best, but im def not folding flop for a min/r.

Folding the flop to his CR just seems very weak and exploitable, and I hate making my play so exploitable.

I prefer 3-betting flop (to something like 350) more than calling flop then folding to his $300 bet on the turn. If you call the flop bet, I think you gotta stick it out for at least another street. But seems like he has the goods or two pair much of the time.

I think 3-betting the flop should help you get a read on villain, and makes it much easier to get away from (if he 4-bets or shows major aggression on later streets). But it also prevents you from getting value from worse hands.

I'm split b/w 3-betting flop vs. calling cr, calling turn, and re-evaluating on river.

Notice that when V had the nuts on the first hand he 3x CR'd flop... His minnish raise and larger turn bet looks a little bit more bluffy, but 2 pair is a good possibility.

I think this is it.

Hero ends up tank folding the turn. I hadnt seen him go nuts yet and the sizing was definitely angling to get AIOTR.

One of those things where the gut said I was beat at the time (specifically to QJ), but now the back of my mind says that he likely would have done the CR with AQ/KQ and then followed through with a turn bet when I didnt 3b (my disdain at the raise may have been evident, who knows).

I agree with the posts to make it $60 preflop as it would have made the situation easier to deal with.

One continued question on that note, what other hands are we raising to $60 in that situation? This is for sure a noob question, so I appreciate any responses greatly.