2/5, 8 handed, $600 effective. Villain is a so-so TAG reg. We've only played together about 5 hours post covid, but I remember before covid we played 20-30 hours and he was in the room every time I played. Hero has a TAG image.

OTTH

Loose passive limps HJ, villain raises $20 CO, hero calls BB J T, HJ calls.

Flop ($62): T 3 2. X-x-$30-c-f.

Turn ($122): 8. Hero checks, villain bets $125. Hero?

Good bet by your opponent, he should be going even bigger here.

I think you gotta call and re-evaluate river or else we're way over-folding. It's definitely not a fun spot though. You will likely be c/f to most of his river bets.

One nice thing about this board is that river should be generally straightforward to play since it can be tough for Villain to find bluffs. If the draws brick and Villain has a flush draw, he should often be checking it back due to blockers. If he has something like QJs (no heart), and the river comes a heart, he may be hesitant to bluff it since your range has a ton of hearts in it. I'm really only afraid of the river bricking and him bluffing QJs.

Edit: I just loaded a sim for a similar hand (J529), and villain should be using overbet as his only sizing on the turn. We also should not be folding any Jx in that spot, and we also hero call Jx on river often as well.

So yeah, def don't fold yet.

Tough spot. Good reason not to play OOP against an aggressive opponent who is also tight. Your hand is capped and pretty obvious. Villain could have over-pair, set, flush draw, or any two overcards like AK. His pot-sized bet is putting you to the test. He is letting you know he is prepared to play for stacks against you. He likely does not have a set. No reason he would want to scare you off top pair with a set. He could easily have Ax hearts like AJ+ or A5. Your turn check opened the door for him to bet. He sized it correctly, so you cannot really check-raise him without getting yourself pot committed.

I think I would be inclined to shove all-in here. I think his large bet size is an attempt to steal the pot with two overs, knowing he still has equity if you call and he may still be able to fire a third barrel on the river when you call turn and check river. If he had QQ, would he have bet full pot or slightly less? I think he would want to keep you in with a half-pot bet. He could certainly have the combination flush draw with at least one over. AK hearts has 15 outs for 32% equity and will likely call your all-in bet, but he will only hit one out of three times, so you want that call. Worse draws should fold but they often wont. If he has an overpair, you still have 6 outs to win.

Your only good options here are all-in or fold. Let him know you are not afraid to play for stacks and he will be more hesitant to pull this trick in the future. Remember, you actually have the range and nut advantage on this board. You could easily have a set or two pair or even AA. Does he really want to call all-in with AK when he may be drawing dead?

Go back to his general opening range. Does he limp mostly or OR mostly? Most opening ranges especially at a short-handed table are clearly weighted towards unpaired hands over paired hands. Let's say he would raise with AK, AQ, KQ and any pair 88+. That gives him 16x3 of unpaired hands = 48 and 6x7 paired hands = 42 (not accounting for any blockers). This is a total of 90 starting hands. Of these, he would make a continuation bet with almost his entire range - maybe not 88 and 99. So I think we can significantly discount the chance of him having any set on this board.

Of his opening range, how many pp's would bet the turn? Perhaps all - including 88, 99, and TT. But 88 and 99 would not have bet the flop, so scratch those off the list. So that leaves 4x6 (JJ-AA) + 1 (TT) = 25. But TT would likely check or bet small and I would guess AA and KK would also bet smaller at least half the time. So best way to handle this analysis is to discount AA and KK by 50% and remove TT all together. That leaves only 12+6 overpairs that make this bet = 18. But almost all his non-paired hands could be making this bet as could several other holdings we have completely ignored in his opening range such as Ax suited - maybe A5 or A8 or some smaller pairs like 55 or some suited broadway hands like KJ or QJ.

We excluded these because we mostly think he would limp call with those hands, but maybe not always. Maybe he would have OR with some middle suited connectors like 89. Point is, even if we narrow him down to exactly three combinations (AK, AQ, KQ) he still has 48 unpaired opening hands. Even if we think he would check these 50% of the time on the turn, we can reduce him to 24 combinations of unsuited hands. So, even then, he is bluffing more times then not (18 overpairs and 24 hands with 2 overcards). Now add in any random suited connectors or Ax hands that may have connected in some way with this board, such as A8 or 89 or Q9 and we only improve the odds that we are still ahead. So, I would shove all in and make him show his over-pair.

After you have looked him up once or twice, you can expect the next time he bets the turn, he will have it. Also, some players will never bet big as a bluff. They only bet big when they have the overpair and are scared of being drawn out on. Like lets say he had JJ. But a hand like JJ probably bets pot or more on the flop because it fears overcards. He only bet half pot. So that is probably another overpair we can remove or discount from our list.

Calling is the worse thing you can do because you will have to act first on the river. What will you do if the river is an Ace or a Queen, or a King? Are you going to then check and fold to his all-in bet when that card may have missed him. You are just giving him money if you do that. But do you want to bet into him on the river when an overcard comes? If it helped him, he will surely call and if it missed him, he will surely fold. Likewise, if a small card falls on the river and you bet, he can simply fold his bluffs and call with his overpairs. So, you loose the same when he has it, but win less and let him save money when he does not. Calling the turn will only allow him to realize the full equity of his hand as he now gets to see if his draws or his overcard hit. And, when the flush card or overcard hits, he may still be able to bluff you off the best hand. Do not give him the opportunity to do this. If stacks were deeper, then all this changes.

If you had a better made hand or a strong draw, you might choose to call this bet but mostly the villains bet is forcing you to commit your entire stack one way or the other. It is a good play by him in that he can safely fold his bluffs when you shove and he only looses his one bet. His bet only has to work 50% of the time to be successful and if you will call then check fold on the river, it is a huge positive EV for him. So do not fall for this trick. Even when you know what he is doing, it is scary to re-raise all in knowing he may have the overpair around 1/3 of the time and may still hit his overcard another 13% of the time he doesn't have it. But he really should not be calling your all in with just two overs. It is a bad call. A call you want all day. He will quickly learn to check behind on the turn with his two overcards when he is against you as he does not want to get check-raised off his equity in the hand. That will make him much easier to play against in the future. So even when you check-raise him all-in and he does have it, he will remember that and he will be less likely to try and raise you on the turn the next time he does have AK and missed.

Insane analysis

Turn is pure call. Shoving is horrible. Yes it sucks that we have to call such a huge bet and get bluffed off some rivers. But that’s the game.

The hard part of the hand is occasionally we have to call it off river on like non heart. And it’s tough to find the right frequency to call down river. Turn is a pure call.

One of the more reliable tells I've seen over the years is the size the bet over various streets. If people are getting concerned that you might have them beat, they start reducing the size of the bet as a % of the pot. If they figure they have a winner and you're on a draw, they start increasing the size of the bet. Since he is a meh regular, I'd put him on a TP better kicker to over pair hand. Unless you know he can make a hero fold in this situation, raising is just going to get him to call. He's signaled that he worried you are drawing to the flush and/or overcards. He's not offering you odds to even represent you have the FD.

Pretty easy fold on the turn at these stakes.

HUH
see bolded
A TAG is not going to flat AA or 1010 pre

also his sizing tips you off he is aware of stack sizes and sets up an easy All-in river

here's some outside the box thinking
we should have Donk bet the turn $125

Agreed. Until proven otherwise through seeing showdowns, default line vs a meh reg should be folding turn.

Guys, I am aware my analysis tends to run long. I apologize and will try to keep it a little shorter. But, anyone who comes up with a one line answer is never going to be right because there are always multiple factors one needs to consider when making a decision.

Yes, agreed - if your opponent is a straightforward regular who never bluffs and always bets his top pair hands aggressively and rarely raises pre-flop without a big pair, then we can fold. No discussion. But I have not found all regulars to be that straight forward. On the contrary, I have seen many who will three barrel bluff with AK. They think they just picked up AA and they play it the same way. They way over value AK. Anyway, if the one who posted the hand was confident he was beat, there would be no reason to post the question. If you never call these players, you are probably donking off money to them and don't even know it.

By the way, you do not have to post my entire dissertation just to quote one line. There is a delete button. You can shorten it. But glad you all think we need three copies of my overly long hand analysis on this one thread. By the way, I was in the process of editing my reply when the server cut me off. It said my edit time was limited to thirty minutes! LOL.

Also, as to josofo's critique of my "insane analysis", I wish to respond. You say we have an easy call on turn, yet say we may have to fold to a river bet. I already explained how bad a choice this is. Make up your mind. Does he have an overpair or a draw? He cannot have both.

His large bet size polarizes his hand. He should not have a draw, but still many players try to run a semi-bluff every time they have a draw. If you are going to bet big with a draw as a semi-bluff, it is best done on the flop with 2 cards to come and an all-in bet where you are getting at least 2:1 on your all-in. If he has a draw and missed the turn, he should be taking the free card on the turn. But why check-raise the flop with his draw at all? He could have just called and maybe still gotten a free turn card. So I seriously discount him having a draw and I would not fold on the river when a heart fell. Once we call his turn bet, the pot will be 372 and we will only have 425 left behind. If we check the river, he would be an idiot if he did not shove all-in every time. And, we would be letting him keep his last 425 when we hit or he missed the river.

If on the other hand, you think he has an overpair or top pair with better kicker - which I will confidently say he never has in this situation, then we should fold now as we only have 6 outs to improve. If he is denying the drawing hands the pot odds to draw to a flush which has 9 outs, how can we possibly justify calling with only six outs. Our call says we think we still have the best hand. If we feel our hand is best now, we should shove and not call. Do not let him draw to beat us. If we are wrong, we are wrong.

I still say, his turn bet is pot committing us now. So either shove all-in or fold now. But never call unless you plan on shoving the river no matter what. And that just lets the Villain see a free river before committing the rest of his chips. So even that play is quite questionable.

As to the AA comment. I was saying the Hero could have AA. I often choose to cold call with AA when out of position depending on how deep we are as I do not want to scare off my opponent or alert him to play more conservative after the flop. I suggest you try it sometime.

I’m Loose, it’s good that you’re passionate about the game, but your analysis is pretty far off the mark. I’d recommend putting more time into studying rather than writing these novels.

I fold here and distilling the above responses explains why. It's a call in correct poker and a fold vs. a meh reg who sized up OTT.

Also hard pass on raising.

1) you put in 1/3 of your stack you are not pot commuted. You still have 80 blinds left.

2) pot size bet even from back pack Bose head phones wearer are still value heavy. Solver just doesn’t think it’s close and is calling. It think a call is .7 profitable which is a lot for a close spot.

Shoving is -4.5 blinds. And basically no rivers besides Jack are we that happy to call a shove. River is just a hard spot for us to play. But that’s poker it’s a hard game.

I think river is very read based if we think he is out of line, call down more if we think he is more normal than over fold.

Is over folding turn vs population a mistake in this spot is probably the hardest question. That has come up. I kind of think it is. Just cuz if you look up these spots .7 ev is kind of a lot to be passing up to make a exploit vs population.

Fold turn is fine against tag regs at this level in general for this sizing. Btw, pf is a 3bet almost always.

I agree that I missed a 3 bet pre flop. I guess I didn't because I 3 bet this guy all the time and he probably 4 bets somewhat close to equilibrium. I know this isn't a good reason to not 3 bet though.

Anyways, I did end up folding the turn but I actually think this is a mistake. I think josofo's post is pretty spot on as to why.

Do not beat yourself up over it. I think your decision to fold is much better than giving him another large turn bet and then folding the river when you do not improve. Someone above said you were not pot committed and then followed that up with your turn bet was 1/3rd your stack. In my opinion, that is the exact definition of pot commitment. Had you been in position, this would have been an easy call because the other player would have to act first and would not know the strength of your hand. But being out of position you need to fold more.

As for the comment someone made about shoving is negative EV. It sounds like they plugged this into some sort of solver. Problem with those solvers is they really cannot adjust properly to the fact that you will still have to act first on the river.

If you just call and you do not improve, you will have to check or bet. This allows the villain to fold when you bet and check behind or shove with both his made hands and his bluffs. I guess if you plan to always check call or always shove the river, that may be slightly better than shoving the turn.

Point is, if you call, your river play really needs to be randomized in some way and not just bet when you improve and check when you miss. If that is your plan, just fold now. If you have a plan to bluff shove in some randomized way on the river then that is an OK plan. Perhaps shove on any heart or 9 on the river.

But would you also be willing to check 30% of the time when you improve? Personally, I would almost never do that and risk him checking behind me. If I improve, I want him to pay.

Anyway I think it is a reasonable fold.

I think a lot of these posts are reasonable, but ignore the fact that the flop is multi-way. The flop 1/2 pot sizing is small for a heads up pot, but really large for a 3-way pot. Also, you had to call the flop cbet with a player behind still to act. All of this means that Villain is going to be a little more value-heavy on the flop, plus Hero’s calling range should be way stronger.

Given all that, I don’t think JT is actually that high up in your range on the turn. Your Tx is mostly all just bluffcatchers, and I think it would be a mistake to call with all of them. I think JTcc should mostly fold because you block a lot of IP’s straight draws.

Your sim probably isn’t going to give accurate insights for OP’s hand because the sim is for a heads up configuration, not a multi-way one like OP’s. Also, I doubt that the equilibrium solution for this hand is going to have as many overbets as in your sim because the SPR is probably a lot higher in your sim.

SPR is close enough.

Very good point on the multiway aspect though. I missed that. We definitely want to tighten up multiway.

I'm still not folding the turn but it goes from a slam-dunk call to a legitimately tough (and probably 0EV) decision for me.