Reasonably new table, Strong aggressive v somewhere in between tag and lag raises HJ to $20
Hero first hand he played (but has played with this V a while ago, and is LAG) BTN 3 bet to $75 with AJo
V calls

Effective stacks $1k


Flop ($150) Q22r
V check
Hero bets $50 (i figure im way ahead here so should bet small)
V calls

Turn ($250) 4
V checks
Hero bets $85 (same theory as above, but couldve maybe done half pot or 2/3rds pot?)
V calls

River ($420)
V bets $120

I figured im facing mid pocket pair here, and should probably just give up river, but her betting out small just seems weird and weak, and a value bet against AK. is there a raise opportunity here?

I folded.

Ehm... what is the river card?

Sorry, turn was third 2, river was a 4.

Edited Op would be:

Q22-2-4

I'm not even entertaining the possible thought of a call otr...we don't even have a bluff catcher, just fold. These lines are strong when stacks are shallow but could be weak blocker bets sometimes when deep.

PF and flop are standard, OTT you've gotta make a decision, are you planning on giving up or your do you want to move him off his hand? If you plan on moving him off a hand like Qx you've gotta bet bigger, ~$200 and possibly fire the river. As played I hate this turn bet b/c it just makes villain's life too easy. If he folds, you had the best hand the whole time. Against this type of player I'd probably just check back the turn and give up just b/c I think it's lower variance and this is a good board for villain to hero call given your lag image

I agree with Ssmallz about the turn.

That said, it might be better taking polar line through the whole hand, including flop. H can be very wide from BTN. V probably knows this and can level himself into calling his entire HJ raising range on flop against a small bet. H and V have pretty similar amount of Q and 2 here in range based on preflop action.

So H would probably bet all his 88-JJ for equity denial (and possibly even KK in a polar sizing for value in the full knowledge V cannot fold his Qx). Our check behind might only be our A2, QQ, AA and JTs. A small bet accomplishes nothing, seems fishy (what is our value here that doesn't need equity denial and doesn't block V's value?) and doesn't compress V's range, so it makes the turn harder to play. If V calls a polar flop bet, he has 2x, AQ or KK+ and we can confidently shut it down.

Turn changes nothing and I still don't see what our value is here that bets small AP and which V can actually call down. Check or polar bet I think.

River donk is almost always Qx+. EZ fold. We are still uncapped, have all the KK+ and V bets. He can have the case 2x here easily.

if they can fold 77 sure

You’re just asking to get snapped off by anything that beats you on the river with your flop and turn sizing so small, now you wanna go for a big raise vs what obviously appears to be a block-bet.. cause for suspicion from a thinking player.

Bet turn bigger, threaten stacks if you want to maximize your fold equity and rep the value part of your range. With AA, KK, AQ, are you really betting just $85 on the turn? If so you shouldn’t be.

Pre: Fine to 3! most of the time. If players in the blinds are weak I would just flat.

Flop: 1/3 range bet is good.

Turn: Main decision point in the hand. Either give up or blast off. If blasting off, you need to bet $200+ to set up PSB river shove. You are repping pretty thin: KK+ and AQ. Also QQ but no one will give you credit for that. V can also have AQ often enough AND QQ+ once in a blue moon, along with all the underpairs. I don't see it as a great spot to bluff. AP, <1/3 bet does absolutely nothing here. It puts no pressure on any marginal hands. Even AK will call you again. It feels like you bet because you didn't want to give up the betting lead but didn't want to commit too much, which is not a good reason to bet. The bet should be for value or as a bluff and the bet size should be consistent as such.

River: V is block betting. Nothing to do but give up as our turn bet doesn't fall in line with our value hands.

The TLDR cliff notes: Probably check turn a lot with AJo. When betting turn, don't use 1/3 pot. Otherwise, standard stuff. Hand is fine overall.





Preflop is standard

- Flop is pretty standard. Mixing 33/50/75% pot is all acceptable. Its a paired board, so you should cbet basically 100% (and he should be checking 100%)

His calls a very heavy with hands that have our actual hand beat. We can have QQ/AQ/KQ. He can have all those (depending if he has a live 4bet range....some just don't in live play). He can have 44 and we likely don't. 22....maybe he can have that, but one combo....so moot. (just noticed the change in the runout, but leaving this as is cause why not)

Depending if he 4bets in live, he likely can't have AA/KK and we definitely can. If he has no 4bet range in live, then he can have these. But probably not. Most players at least have KK+ as a 4bet live.

- Turn: we now have to have some check backs in our range. If we fire with everything, we will just start getting called down (assuming some are paying attention).
I think we can probably use AJo as a check back and AJs to continue with. This keeps us from having too many AJ in our barreling range.

As far as sizing, this is far too small for a turn bet. In a 4bet pot you can use 1/3 on turn. But SRP and 3bet needs larger sizing.
50/75/125% mixes.

I'd probably check back almost all AJo here. Occasionally barrel. But most AJo would be in my check back range. As we have to have some A high in that range
and when he decides to continue with A high hands, it's going to be AK a lot.

- River: we are toast. He's block betting with a Q or pocket pair or has a monster like QQ and afraid you will check behind.

If we know him well enough to know he will b/f block bets on these types of boards/pots, we could shove here. But we get called with most AQ/KQ and even some PP's.

Fold river mostly

If you range bet you cannot be betting 50% and 75%. The bigger our bet size the smaller our betting frequency should be.

A line of bet small, bet small, overbet can work with both value and bluffs, but I am not sure that AJ is a good bluff candidate.

I had solve pulled up while I was typing out the response my man. I always do so I don't make too much a mistake helping people as well as it helps me find spots I didn't know existed the way they do.

.3% hands checking. The rest were almost all mixed 33/50/75. 75% was a bit smaller frequency, but is significantly used. This is a 3bet pot, so range betting up to 75% is fairly common.


Also FWIW, flop overbets aren't typically on paired boards. You usually see overbets on AKx type flops. Generally speaking, where you opponent shouldn't have top two or top set.

In live stakes, many times with 4 bets being so rare, overheating flops is going to be pretty risky as players routinely show up with much stronger hands that should have 3 or 4 bet pre flop.

I meant beat small flop, bet small turn, overbet river.

I am very surprised the solver bets 75% pot with 100% range.

You could use a more simplified solve and use 33/66% bets and no 50%.

You would still use about a 40% frequency of 66% across your range though.

Ah, that makes more sense.

But ya, solver always surprises me everyday.


It's basically a 40/40/20 mix on 33/50/75% across entire range. Some more or less than others. But that's the general sizing overall.

If you run this in a solver he is right. Generally you are right, frequent bets on flop are usually small bets. But certain boards favor us so heavily and we have both a huge range advantage and a nut advantage where we can bet range and have multiple sizes.

On this flop, we have all the AA, KK, QQ, AQ, all of which are the virtual nuts on the flop. V may not have QQ pure here depending on how wide they 4 bet. But basically they will have 3 combos of QQ and some amount of AQ, KQ on the flop as the top of their range, and a lot of middling hands in their range. V should never have a deuce on the flop. This is a spot where we can range bet with a mix of large and small sizes.

One thing about live poker vs solvers is that HJ should almost pure be 4betting AQo in this spot, and in a lot of spots in general, AQo is going to be a 4bet or fold or even pure fold, but AQo is frequently calling (not always though, this is player dependent). But they are also probably overpeeling with their middling and low pocket pairs too. I think this is an argument for using the small bet flop, big bet turn to get his middling hands to fold turn. And AA and KK in this spot will always be big betting turn and jamming river trying to stack a Q.

Turn is really a big bet or check spot, like most turns are. There is more value to be had with our nut hands and he is just not going fold his middling hands vs a bluff. If you are going to use a smaller sizing, you should be bluffing less unless for some reason you think they will exploitatively fold than they should vs small bets.

AJo can be a turn barrel, but it's not as good as AK because AK blocks AQ and KQ while he should fold QJ pre. Also, you want him to have a hand like JJ that at least maybe he would fold on the river. Plus AK gives you two overs to the Q. In theory, suits should matter, but then again, a lot of live players will call pre with KQo and AQo. AJo is more of a give up on the river, so I feel like barreling turn for small really accomplishes nothing.

Turn was played so weird, it almost looks like hero has JJ that wants to get to check river and get to showdown cheap and villain looks very Q heavy. Jam is the only sizing that makes sense against the small lead, but I strongly suspect that is going to be a negative EV play vs villain's true range here.

To me, flop is fine, turn should size up or check, river would be a give up, fold river as played.

This is a very good point. Live poker won't be taking the proper lines with AQ and a lot of times even AK. AQ is never in a 4 bet range for a lot (maybe most) LLSNL players.



Mlark, do you think most live players over peeling with middling pairs are doing so elastic or inelastically? As in, will you get more calls at 1/3 than you will at 1/2 (and possibly even 3/4) flop bets?

I think they are somewhat elastic, but not super elastic on a q high board. They will figure you whiffed with AK a big chunk of the time, so I think they may peel with low pocket pairs to 3/4 pot. They are more likely to be sticky with the 1/3 pot bet on the flop. I think betting 1/3 on turn they will likely still be fairly sticky, but folding kore to 3/4. I think for value and bluffs going 1/3 flop and then 3/4 turn is going to be a better line. When we have value, yes weaker hands will fold a little more often on turn, but at that point with our value we should be targeting weaker Qs when we have AQ, a Q, when we have over pairs, maybe JJ and TT might still call 3/4 pot on turn. Want to set up a river jam if possible.