Apologies for the alliterative title it just kinda slipped off the tongue. Every now and then I like to post a hand history where I keep my cards hidden because I think it generates a different type of discussion that is unbiased due to the incomplete information. I think PAHWM's, line checks and hidden hands each provide their own unique value to the forum and so this one will be hidden.

The game: 2/5 NL $1000 max buy-in (straddle from anywhere)

The time: 6am

The players: A motley crew mod squad of terrible loose degen players that likely couldn't beat a 1/2 table if their life depended on it. Raises are being called with damn near ATC, no price is too much for a draw, 3rd pair is being bet small on the river and being called by 3rd pair worse kicker; just a generally bad group of players. 3-4 hands every orbit are being straddled with maybe half of those leading to a raise.

The stacks: $1150+ effective for almost everyone at the table

Hero's image: Diamond - aka a massive rock^3 as I have voluntarily played two hands over a 4 hour period due to one of the most epic card dead sessions of my life.

OTTH,

Effective stacks: $1150+

Fast forward another 3 hours and I have not played a single hand where I voluntarily put money in the pot. It's 6am and I am starting to feel tired/bored and think I have about another 20-30 minutes left in me. Nobody at the table has said anything about my tightness as they are too busy shuffling big pots all around the table to everyone but me.

I am content (and proud) to just not get involved in the table dynamic that requires having SDV hands as most bluffs are being called. It's a non-stop session of hands like T3o, 85o, J2o, A4o. Pretty much completely unplayable offsuit 7 gappers, but it's whatever. Money saved is money earned.

V1 in this hand is a late 20's Indian that is stuck about $1000 from what I can gather. He bluffed the river earlier repping the flush and got called by the Q7 flush. Plays garbage Axo hands in raised pots. Calling-stationesque, just a losing player that slowly bleeds chips as the session drags on.

V2 in this hand is a late-30's Asian woman that has been straddling 2-3 hands every orbit for 4 straight hours. She doesn't even wait until she is in LP to straddle she straddles from UTG every orbit (first option). I don't recall seeing her win a hand but she has a similar stack size to me so Idk. I think she sucks like everyone else. She cannot help herself from raising if there are limpers or straddles in front of her.

V1 (UTG) limps for $5
Hero (UTG+1) limps for $5
V2 (MP) raises to $25
CO calls $25
BTN calls $25
SB, BB fold
V1 calls $25
Hero calls $25

Flop ($120): T 7 4

V1 bets $80 (very quickly)
Hero calls $80 (fairly quickly)
V2 calls $80 (very quickly)
CO folds
BTN folds

Turn ($360): 4

V1 bets $80 (very quickly)
Hero calls $80 (fairly quickly)
V2 calls $80 (very quickly)

River ($600): 2

V1 checks dark
Hero thinks for 20 seconds and bets $650

Questions:

1. Do you think Hero has a value hand or a bluff?

2. What do you think Hero's hand is?

3. What is the strongest hand you would fold to this river bet if you were V1 or V2?

4. What is the weakest hand you would call this river bet with?

1) hero has a value hand

2) hero has 77. Possibly 44 but there are 3x as many 77 combos in your range.

3) I'd fold most everything in my range. Your line throughout the hand screams strength.

4) I'd call with TT.

value

77

A4

22

89 makes sense too and so does 44. Given the info, I'm really not sure what else you could have.

Still given those bets from a V, if I were in this situation I'd call it off with any full house.

Ha I'll the the opposite line for kicks.
Bluff
Hero has 56suited or 89suited
I'd fold any two pair and weak trip fours.
Calling A4 and any boat.

Hero has fat value, no bluffs at this table, but also doesn't have TT because: Raises preflop, can't bet so big for value since cripples board.

DeathCabForTootie has it pretty spot on. I'd say the huge river bet makes 44 present more than 1/4 of time in range of [77 44] because it allows more combos of two pair, second pair and 7s full to pay it off.

I'm never folding TT. Personally I would struggle to fold 77 here but that's because I'm bad and I like moaning about losing with full houses.

Some possibility of strangely played AA given table's ability to call weak pairs on river. However, I think this is a really dangerous play and hero action with AQ in previous hand kind of mitigates against this weird line.

I'll side with this. Any set should raise the flop there

grunch

Questions:

1. Do you think Hero has a value hand or a bluff?

I can't ever see Hero bluffing here with his image and this board. I think Hero has 77 here a lot of the time and on a table full of stations and with the action, bluffing would really be a bad spot as V2 doesn't seem like they feel like folding. I would range V1 on 98 or TPGK, and V2 on something like 99/88 and possibly JJ but I think that's the top of the range.

2. What do you think Hero's hand is?

I think Hero can never have a draw here, as the only draws are 65 and 98, and if I saw Hero not playing a hand for hours I would think he's not limp/calling from EP with either of these hands. I ranged Hero's l/c on a small-mid PP to start, so this screams 77.

3. What is the strongest hand you would fold to this river bet if you were V1 or V2?

V1 should fold his entire range, he never has a hand strong enough to call in this spot, as he either has a hand like JT or a missed draw. Would definitely fold 99/88 if I was V2. If the have an overpair they are never folding, and if it was me and I played JJ+ this way I would make a crying call.

4. What is the weakest hand you would call this river bet with?

JJ. It's just suicide to be waiting for hours for a hand and then decide to bluff two stations on a relatively draw-free board.

Meh, I like commenting on HHs.

I'm sure the biggest leak is not finding a way to play a hand against these donkasaurus rexes, as I would be limping HJ-BU very wide. Top-two mining for 1bb is pretty similar price-wise to bottom set mining for 5bbs, and you have all the added advantages of having position on bad players, many many more opportunities to vbet when you hit a single pair, etc.

Of course, it's not totally impossible that you'd planned to do that, but your hands still sucked too bad. It's also possible that the ISO monkey to your direct left is cramping your style, but this is why it's mandatory to get a seat change and sit 3-5 seats to her left (you still want to squeeze some poor saps between you two).

HH1:

You get in so many spots in the BB with a BU straddle where you're priced into a complete but want to protect yourself against an iso that wasting this play with a hand that is actually good enough to open the pot with is bad. Just open AQo.

HH2:

And would you look at that, we got dealt one of those hands. I would prefer to flip your hand selection in these two hands, though this hand is strong enough that both l/deciding (calling when the price is good and we have relative position, and rr'ing otherwise) and setting a cheaper price both have merit as well.

As played, I would cbet flop against described player as there are a lot of good runouts for us. I'm more cool with taking the free card if we were IP.

As played, I would vbet turn as it's our only chance to get value against draws and it also protects against KT type stuff.

River bet goot, obviously.

Main HH:

I think it's good to do this with 22-77 to steal relative position on the iso monkey. I also like it with a lot of suited broadways, but I don't think that's how you would play them, and I know no one here will agree with me. I would not do this with small SCs (if I limp them at all, I'd probably l/rr), but I'm undecided about how to play higher SCs and Axs here.

OTR: 77/44 are the most obvious hands to put you on. I think it also makes perfect sense to do this with ATs, but again, I know I'll be alone on that. Again, I would not have 65s in this spot, and if I had 98s, I would post-oak (if I bet at all, which I probably wouldn't).

You're not bluffing unless you feel the nice warming sensation of money burning in front of your eyes.

Boat/Quads makes the most sense. T7, AT or A4 could be plausible but weird because you wouldn't fold for 4 hours and then limp call them.

1. Value

2. TT 77 or 44, almost exactly.

3. Pretty much everything.

4. A4, I guess. Even that I'd hate.

Did they pay off with 88 or 99?

I am going to guess that you were bluffing. I do think it's also possible that you flopped a set and now have a boat or quads, but it looks like you just decided that no one had a hand that they could call a serious bet with and you blasted it with a missed straight draw like 98/86/65. If you had a real hand, I'm not sure why you'd bet as much as $650. You'd have to be concerned that a jump from $80 to $650 would lose your customers. Or alternatively, if you were not concerned about that, you could have just jammed instead of making an overbet for roughly 2/3 of the stacks but leaving something behind.

For what it's worth, I don't think I would take this line with any hand, value or bluff.

hero has a 10

I think these villain's are happily calling this river bet with TX

Bluff. You had 98s exactly.

Villain 1 called with JT.

You posted the hand because you were disgusted with how Villain 1 could call you down so light given your image.

H is betting for value. Hs range is ATo, ATs, KTs, QTs, JTs, TT, T9s, 77, 44, 22.
Opponents are calling way too wide. If I'd observed you playing two hands in four hours, strongest hand I'd fold would probably be QQ. I'd probably call KK, AA, any trips and all boats.
With caveat that I would have played the over pairs differently on all streets and of course, depending on whether I am V2 or V1 and any live reads available.

Nah - villain folded and he's mad he got no value - he is never bluffing when he is tired and about to leave.

I'll go off the board and say I hate your line no matter what you had

No clue what you'd have and I'm folding my entire range (presumably I'm in the hand and limp/call/called too) on the river.

I agree. The OP played this pretty badly. I also have no clue what I'd call with because I'd never play a hand like the villains did.

It's hard to give advice w/a hand history where you have to assess hero + villain ranges. Based on your reads, dynamic, etc., I wouldn't bluff here. You've been tight, but no one has noticed. People can call you with all sorts of junk despite your bet size (will these guys really fold top pair?! It's top pair!). You've stayed out of everyone's way all night long, so you've been incredibly patient, and after that many hours, anyone's patience can wane and you could make some sort of overbet bluff thinking it has to work, that no one will call with a marginal hand... and they likely have marginal hands.

So for fun, I'll say

1. Bluff.
2. 86s.
3. I never fold. Calling or bluff shoving 100% since you have 8-high.
4. I would call with 9-high.

But seriously, sure, I'd probably fold the entire range I'd have at this point. But I'm not playing this way, these villains don't have my ranges, and you're not playing against me.

Given how deep effective stacks are, if hero is the sort who would try to build the pot after flopping a set in an attempt to get it in, then I wouldn't put him on a strong hand. If the latter is the case, he probably has a hand that he was prepared to call a river bet with, but decided to turn into a value bet. Tx hands are obvious and I could also see JJ being played this way. Given the description of the table, I could imagine hands like 99, 88, and A7 being possible thin value bets, especially if V1 would have bet bigger on the turn or V2 would have raised if either held Tx or 4x hands.

Basically, it depends, but I could see conditions where I call with JT and conditions where I fold AA-JJ.

Given the description of V2, I can see you limping every hand you play. I think your l/c range consists of hands that play well multiway: PPs, good SCs, suited broadway hands (maybe?) and suited aces.

On the flop, obviously a lot of those hands get folded. Your range:
44, 77
TT - maybe, but I think you would bomb it preflop frequently, so discount by 50%
ATs, QTs, JTs - maybe. I don't think these hands play better with a raise for value/protection, but you might disagree
98s- definitely
65s - pretty weak hand to l/c with OOP. Call it 50%
weaker made hands - trapped between a bettor and the huge field, definitely folding a hand as good as A7s here.

On the turn, I don't think our action changes much. We would probably raise with sets sometimes, but his small bet size freezes up a lot of our range.

On the river, clearly all our FH+ hands are in our betting range. (At this size though?) 98s is obviously a great hand to bluff with, but do we bluff with this sizing? I guess the reason to do so is that we think these people are calling stations with weak hands and we need to bet big to do the job. OK. Are we betting tens here? Here I definitely think we would bet smaller with a hand like ATs.

Going back to sizing with FH+ hands, I also tend to think we would bet smaller. Nothing came in on the river, and it's somewhat unlikely anyone else has a 4. So what hand are we targeting for value at this size? AA?

So, this is probably a bluff. Call with any paired hand (as V1, V2 is in a tough spot). I lack the courage to call with A-high if I somehow got to the river with it.

Bluff.
89 or 86.
I dont fold any T, maybe 88,99 is top of my folding range

Hero is bluffing

Hero has 89

strongest hand I would fold is A7
Would call with Tx

obviously, that is why hero is most likely on a draw, trying to get there as cheap as possible, and the river is most likely a bluff.

only value hand that makes sense is 22

I just don't think this is ever a bluff when we are in the middle of 2 stations and hero should know this.
These are the type of players who will think they are beat but say "fk it i call, its 6am and time to go home".

Not sure what you have, but it needs to be A4 or better, honestly. As you described the table, using your nitty image only helps if the barely conscious degens are aware of your image which per your description they are not.

So if you pull this move at this table w/ 89 it's really not a good play.

To answer your questions.

#1. Don't know.
#2 Don't know. See above.
#3-#4 If I were actually V1 or V2 (i.e. degen), I'm calling with KT+. If I were me, I'd need 7's full or better.