Villain - Station preflop. Seen him call raises with hands like J4s and 25s. Tricky postflop. Likes to c/r very large (4x-7x) with both draws and made hands.

Hero - Only shown strong hands so far. Recently took a decent pot off of villain with trips, better kicker.

Effective stack - 1050

Preflop
Hero raises to 25 (standard) utg, MP calls, Villain calls in BB

Flop (pot 82)
56J
Villain checks his cards then donks 35, Hero raises to 100, MP folds, Villain calls

Turn (282)
8
Villain checks, Hero checks

River (282)
9
Villain checks, Hero checks


Was there a more optimal line to take? Did I miss value by not betting the turn or b/f the river as planned?

played super scared & weak-tightish imo. i think flatting flop is fine and maybe put in a thin value raise on a later street. flop raise is okay, i'd probably bet turn too though.

you got 2 streets worth of value so whatever right!

Two checks to you, I think I find value bet otr

Raising flop is fine imo, but you missed a lot of value on the turn. River is an easy check and if he donk bets river then a fold is probably right, even if he's a tricky fish.

On the turn a lot of the hands he bet/calls with on the flop probably turned a straight draw (gutterball or OE) and he's definitely not folding a jack yet. Flop is well played and I think people tend to miss value a lot in this spot but turn thinking is very weak-tightish. Against most fish you should valuebet overpairs unless the board gets really ugly (see board on river) or until they show aggression. If he check raises the turn then it's a pretty easy fold imo since you already look pretty strong to him after 3x'ing the flop donkbet.

I don't mind this line...if villain is capable of a tricky checkraise you don't want to call on the river than don't bet it.... a tricky fish is a bit of an oxymoron though

You did fine, especially considering the board texture and how concerned you are about Villain's propensity to c/r.

He is not a calling station. He is an aggro who chooses c/r overbets as his means to spew. Knowing this and the fact that we are deepstacked you still feel our plan should be to bomb our overpair like we are 100bb deep against a drunk tourist? It seems spewy to take a default line of b/f against someone who raises a wide range.

How so? A fish is anyone who is underskilled for the game he is currently in. Take a winning 5/10 player and put him in a 300/600 game and he will be a fish. He will also remain capable of thinking past level 1.

The fish in this game is an overconfident LAG who can't size his raises, but he isn't a drooler. I would guess he is a winning 1/2 player.

the 8 doesn't hit his range that hard. i think i make a $150 turn bet. your flop raise should serve as somewhat of a deterrent to him c/r'ing you light OTT.

you can't let cards peel in tough spots against villains like this because the hand degenerates into a cluster ****. we can range them much better if we maintain the betting lead in spots like this and respond to their action based on their range that instant.

if he's aware of your ability to fold and truly balancing his c/r range that well then there won't be any easy way to go about playing your TP and OPs. you'll have to make tough calls all the time.

checking back turn is the mistake in this hand though IMO. i think flat calling flop is missing value, as i assume his donking range is mostly composed of a wide variety of drawing hands.

I agree about his range, and if I made a mistake I agree it was probably on the turn for reasons you stated. I was torn between your line of thinking and the line I chose while in the hand. I think what made me choose caution was seeing him c/r a $40 bet to $300 and a $135 bet to $900 in previous hands. Playing for over 200bb with 1 pair is not usually where you want to be.

well you can certainly prevent those things from happening when you have position, as you did here, but i think you're sacrificing profit for easier decisions and lower variance.

and even then villains like this will often make our life hell regardless by, for example, potting river here. the betting lead is important against these villains.

just my opinion and i'd love to hear some of the better posters' comments on this. looking back i see masaraksh also said bet turn as-played, so maybe i'm on the right track