2/5 game at the Palm Beach Kennel Club during the WSOP circuit event. Lots of action and inflated pots. Hero is running good at the table in the last hour. I've chipped up from 400 to 1200. I'm viewed as a tightish player who will make a move in position. Shown down mostly strong hands. I was caught on a bluff once earlier, but its been 3 hours.
V(2600): Mid 50s African American. I've only played with him a couple times, but I've seen him play a wide range from any position. He seems very comfortable post flop and has made some good reads, while also hitting huge hands. He's infuego right now.
Pre: 2 limps to Hero in the CO with 7h8h and I raise to 20. V calls in on the BB and it folds around. Heads up.
Flop: Kh,6s,4h. V leads out 40 and I make it 95. V snap calls.
I would just call flop. I usually like raising donk bets but a pot-sized one from this sort of player kinda worries me. I'd also worry that this particular villain is aware your value raising range postflop is probably extremely narrow. If he has a hand he's probably not folding it. And if he doesn't we can bluff on the turn.
If you are going to raise it needs to be bigger, like 140, and you need to fire again on the turn. But I'm not sure this is a good spot for it.
F: Pot is $50. SPR is 24. We've got a flush draw and a gut shot (13 outs). I'm fine raising, but if we had AK or KQ we'd raise more. The min raise (close to) is a bit weird. Not sure what it does for us except make a bigger pot when we have nothing right now.
What kind of hands have you seen this guy defend his BB? Does he have AK, KQ, KJ, or KT here?
T: This is almost like a limit hand. You raised the flop to get a free card on the river. I'd take it. If you did bet, I really don't think he's going to fold a King because I think your flop raise says you don't have a big king.
If you fire the turn, you will very likely have to fire the river. His range has a lot of Ks and flush draws that beat us.
He likely isn't going anywhere, I take the free card.
If we whiff, and he donks the river, we have to fold. If he checks again, we have to make a read how often he has a busted draw or a weak K he can fold before we fire.
But against a decent player, a raise flop, check turn, fire river bet line when nothing hits looks FOS, so I'm probably done with the hand.
I don't like the pf raise when there is lots of action and inflated pots. You want to raise pf with 87s when the table is dead and nobody wants to contest a pot without a monster.
On the flop, the villain makes a PS donk bet. Since many villains will put you on AK, he's saying he can beat TPTK. He isn't folding to a raise from you. Therefore, your raise is spew. He's only going to stop if the flush comes. He's afraid of giving a free card away which is why he bet so big. The problem is that he won't fold unless you make your hand. Once you make your hand, he'll fold just at the time you don't want him to fold unless it is one of the three fives that won't make a flush.
The raise pre-flop is questionable IMO. I think in general, you would want to either raise bigger pre-flop (like $30ish) or limp behind. Which one I chose would probably be a game flow type of decision based on the hands/action recently.
As played OTF, I would likely flat, although raising is also fine some of the time. Against players that are somewhat unpredictable (this guy sounds that way), I like to keep things simple for myself and use my position to my advantage. Against players who I thought would play mostly straight forward and would fold a lot to my raise, then I would prefer raising. With that said, If you are going to raise, you should make it bigger. The size you chose is going to get called by like everything. You want some FE here, make it like $140. Just curious... did you have a plan for if this guy 3bet the flop?
Come turn, you brick and he checks. I would definitely check back against this player. I'm not really sure that Villain will fold much of his range if you bet OTT. Kx is calling and flush draws are calling. Lets realize our equity and see what he does OTR.
Be careful, when a tough player donks out it means something totally different than when a weak player does it. Call is good if there is a good possibility turn will help your hand, plus, to a tough player, a call looks stronger than a raise and if anything is more likely to earn you a free card OTT. Don't bluff if you lack fold equity, don't charge draws if you have nothing to show down: do not bet this turn.
Well, thanks for the input fellas. I bet out 150 and he folded quickly. A couple minutes later he said nice hand. He was stewing over this one for a while. I was 95% sure he held Kx and oop he would let go unless he improved
i wouldn't have done that based on the info. my experience is when they call so fast they get real sticky on later streets, and this guy is a good postflop player
meh, mid 50's guy that plays a wide range from any position probably isn't very good and, barring reads to the contrary, isn't necessarily always nutted when he leads out a psb HU
i mean he will have Kx+ a lot but our hand is strong enough to put his weak range to the test being IP and deep
$150-160 flop raise should grab his attention. $95 is terrible
meh, mid 50's guy that plays a wide range from any position probably isn't very good and, barring reads to the contrary, isn't necessarily always nutted when he leads out a psb HU
i mean he will have Kx+ a lot but our hand is strong enough to put his weak range to the test being IP and deep
$150-160 flop raise should grab his attention. $95 is terrible
So you bluff all of the people who are not necessarily nutted?
Two questions:
1. Do you think everyone who isn't necessarily nutted folds?
2. What's your strategy for determining who is necessarily nutted?
