2/5 NLHE game at the local cardroom. 9 handed.

V1 (UTG, $250) - African American guy, looks to be in his late 20's. I don’t have much of a read on the guy other than he is generally tight-passive. He had been playing a $100 shortstack most of the day but was deeper for this hand following a recent double up. (Unfortunately, I don’t remember the exact details of that hand, but I believe he got it in with TPTK on the flop and held against some sort of draw.)

V2 (BB, $100) - African American woman, probably early to mid 20's. Very quiet, wearing big sunglasses and not playing many hands. Also plays passively (don’t think I’ve seen a raise from her all day).

Hero (SB, $500) - White guy, early 30's. Playing a super nitty range preflop (only hands shown down so far today have been AA and TT). Image should be of a tight, winning player.

On to the hand:
V1 opens for a raise to $20, it folds around to Hero who flats in the SB with JJ, and V2 calls from the BB.

Flop ($55): J32
Hero checks, V2 checks and V1 checks it back.

Turn ($55): K
Hero leads out for $30, BB calls and the villain calls.

River ($145): K
Hero ???

I chose not to bet out on the flop because it’s hard for anybody to have much on this board. I’m obviously hoping villain would fire out a cbet here, but with these stack sizes I’m not too worried about being able to get the money in on future streets if it gets checked through.

I considered checking the turn to try and go for a check-raise, but with two passive villains in the hand I was worried they would want to get to showdown with their one-pair Kx hands and might let it get checked through again, so I decided to bet out. My sizing was probably too small here, but I didn’t want to blow anybody off of their hand.

When I get called in two spots on the turn I think one or both villains is going to show up with a K just about 100% of the time. On the river V2 has just $50 behind, while V1 has almost $200. What’s the best play to get the maximum amount of money in at this point?

bet

How much?

Sent from my mobile device using 2 + 2 forums.

200 (all in)
very likely one has a king and will not fold, also if you bet 80-120 it is very likely that bc they are weak and passive they will not shove k9 k10 kq ak and just flat bc they are passive so i go all in for max value

Is a male in his late 20s, that is "generally tight-passive" playing a short stack, have some kind of race dependency to it?

I can honestly say that I've never played with a woman in her mid 20s, who once I peg her as "tight-passive" added to the formula "and her race is....."

Why is he a winning playa'? What did this super nitty white boy buy in for? I mean, you been playing "all day" with the "African-American in his mid 20's" and if you bought in for $300, you're only up $200.00.
How long has the white boy been playing? Is he dressed like a nit? I.E., decent clothes, no sunglasses,
How much does your avg "super-nitty white boys" buy in for?
I take it you're not an aggressive type player? Just good at adding race into your formula when pegging an opponent's playing style but not letting the readers know what that is.

I bet enough to put V1 all in. I think he opened with AKs and ck'd the flop when he missed. He may have Qs.
V2 called the turn, so he should at least call if he has a K, no?

Or, do we need to factor in the races more? Maybe consider the darkness of their skin?

I'm split between a shove and betting about 100. V2 prob has to call here, line is super weird if she folds with 50 behind. Given both called turn, someone has to have a K, so a shove should be fine. If you've seen them make crying calls before then this is def a tank and over bet, if you don't know then over bet is still more liey but I don't hate a 100

Difficult for most short stacks to fold trips, so go for max value - $200. NH.

I'm debating $100 and all in.
I think I like all in.

Wow, looks like I may have touched a nerve with someone by mentioning the racial background of the villains. Not exactly sure why anyone would get upset over that, but for the record I always try to include villains' age, ethnicity and gender if I'm posting a hand history for advice. I wasn't going out of my way to point out "hey guys, I'm white and this hand was played against black people, make sure to take that into account".

lol I gii on the river. Don't think there folding any K but will surely just call if there passive

If no one is ever checking behind with a king and never value-betting anything other than Kx or better, it would make sense to check if hands like A5/AQ/AT/QT might fire out a bluff.

V1 is passive, though, so he might not be a likely bluffer, so betting seems right. If you think he is the type who will never raise because he fears KJ, then shoving the river is ok.

c/shove I think. One of them surely has Kx and they will bet it.

He has like 59 posts since 2009, I wouldn't worry very much about his opinion.

It's standard practice to include Hs and Vs race in description as well as age and clothing because LLSNL players play so little against the same players that many generalize when they answer based on population reads.

Pre, I'm ok not 3 betting, it's a crappy situation to fold to a 4 bet and you'll bloat the pot and be blind when the flop will has a A/K/Q on it.

Flop, again, I think is standard

Turn, could be a little bigger, but I don't think it's something you can really foresee.

River AP, I'd probably shove. The 50 should call regardless, maybe you get the 200. Shoving looks more bluffy. A K is never folding here anyway

I think shove is definitely the best option. Someone definitely has a king here and is going to call and will be more bluffy. I don't what the heck the race thing here is but just ignore it.

x2. If they don't have Kx or 22/33 they're probably folding anyway, and they will definitely bet Kx on this board, so c/shove it is.

Bet more on turn or x/r. Since I missed the flop x/r, I might just lead here for over pot (75). River is easy shove.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to respond.

Result:
River ($145): J32KK
Hero bets $125. V2 (who by the turn has committed $50 of her $100 starting stack) quickly folds. V1 goes into the tank. After a minute or two he starts talking: “Why’d you bet so much, man? You know I’ve got a king, huh?” I don’t respond. Villain tanks for another minute and then finally says “alright man I know you got a boat, you can have it,” and folds AK face up!!

I was putting V1 squarely on AK or KQs after he overcalled on the turn. In game I decided to bet $125 thinking there was a chance V1 might fold to a shove, but I never expected him to fold trip kings (especially with an ace kicker) for less than a pot-sized bet. I had played with V1 for just short of two hours when this hand went down, and in that time I hadn't seen anything from him to indicate that he was capable of making this kind of laydown.

So yeah, I was pretty shocked to see V1 get away from AK here. I'm still not sure if I could have gotten more value with a different line in this hand... I definitely could have bet bigger on the turn, but then I might not get the call out of V2, and V1 still may have folded when I bet again on the river. I could have gone for a check raise on the turn, but I would assume that would look even stronger than taking a bet/bet line and make it that much easier for V1 to find a fold. I don't think going for a check raise on the river would have worked either, because V1 may have checked it back to get to showdown.

I guess if I had known that V1 was capable of folding AK in this spot I could have bet smaller on the river (like $75), but against 95% of the player pool at 2/5 I feel like you're leaving money on the table by not betting big for value in this spot. So I don't know... maybe my play was fine and I just got unlucky to be up against one of the very few players at this level who isn't going to pay me off. In any case I'll obviously be keeping this hand in mind and adjusting accordingly if I happen to play with this villain again in the future.

Grunch:

Pre- ill often 3 bet pre but if he is indeed very passive them calling totally fine.


Flop- I think this is appropriate.

Turn- sizing is too small. Think about what will call. Pretty much Kx and the few draws out there. All of those will call more.

River- this is a great spot for a shove. Kx will always call and you have to think one of them has that. And maybe somebody levels themselves into a call.


Sizing- consider what will call you with varying be sizes. Learning to target their most likely range will immensely increase your win rate.

ETA: racial touchiness. Lulz. Shut up dude.
Results: pretty surprising. Shoving is surely the most +EV move based on the info you had. Anything else is just results oriented thinking. I hope that you used the new info to generate ridiculous folds later on though. That kind of weak play needs to be abused.

The result is unshocking to me. It looks like villain knew his hand looked like AK/KQ and thought hero was competent enough to know villain's hand looked like AK/KQ, so his perfectly acceptable read was that hero was value-betting while thinking his opponent has trip kings. (Turning his hand face-up is silly, though).

It'd be a mistake to treat this as a severe case of MUBS when it could be a case of logical hand reading (though it could still be MUBS).