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My rationale for the hand:

- I didn't raise preflop as I saw no value in raising from EP as I would likely fold out most weak ranges

- It was a foregone conclusion someone would raise the BTN straddle anyway so I like the prospect of playing this hand mostly for set value in EP and not having to worry about having "initiative" throughout, let the other players do the heavy lifting

- This is a pretty bone dry flop. V1 is donking for $80 into $120 and I still have the PF raiser to act after me so I want to give her a chance to raise so I just flat

- When she flats I'm guessing she has a something like JJ-88. I'm not really worried about 98 or 65 as those are only 32 combos out of the nearly 1300+ ATC combos these people can have.

- Same thing on the turn. Now we effectively have the nuts and V1 wants to keep leading. His same bet of $80 was annoying, and I thought about raising here, but even $80*3 twice starts to organically build a large pot.

- In some of my recent posts I have mentioned that I am experimenting with overbet value bets on the river with a nutted range. I don't know how inelastic V1's calling range was on the river, but based on how long he tanked I'm not sure if he would have called a shove (~$300 more on top).

I usually try to pull this line vs. villains I think are terrible and likely to level themself into a call. Versus someone whose game I respect I would probably just go for a standard 2/3 PSB value bet (but I also wouldn't get to the river in this manner, I would raise the turn).

It seems like a decent number of people thought I was bluffing which bodes well for getting paid in these spots. That's kind of why I didn't play any hands this session as my game is predicated around c-bet bluffing, barreling, semi-bluffing etc. but at this table you need a value hand and I never had one.

I'll continue doing field reports on river overbets for value. I think they are pretty underrated and higher EV vs. bad opponents then standard value bets. Kinda wishing I shoved but that's just being greedy.

Pretty funny, I texted cAmmAndo about 45 minutes before this hand:

"Playing late night 2/5. Game is a joke. Just waiting for my time to strike."

Well played - I never doubted you. This is pretty much the only way I make money in my spazfest 1/2 game.

This is where I don't like playing medium pocket pairs this way. If we're in good position that's one thing but it is tough to get value OOP. We need great direct odds to make up for our lowered implied odds and it's hard to predict we'll get that when we limp.

Also, that we're sure we're going to get raised is less of a reason to set-mine. Because that implies we are against a weaker range. The ideal scenario for set-mining is when our opponent raises so rarely that he is very likely to have a monster hand to lose a lot of money with.

That we're throwing our limp away some of the time, that we're check/folding flop a lot of the time, and that we're not always getting a lot of value when we hit, makes me wonder if l/c'ing pre here is a good play.

Postflop is good. Maybe in this particular game preflop is good, but I'd be raising or folding usually.

Upon further thought however, if I could redo the hand I think I would min-raise the turn and jam the river. Min-raising turn would create a pot of $600 before V2 calls and $840 on the river after they both call, making for an easy $950 jam.

The only problem with that line is I think it will decrease the % of the time I end up getting called by V1 on the river. By waiting until the river to make my first aggressive action, it's a lot easier for V1 to level himself into a call whereas I think he can find a fold a good % of the time when I min-raise turn and shove a blank river.

Eh I dunno. Limp/calling keeps the spotlight off me and by the time it gets back to me I am getting ~7.5:1 odds on the call. At the end of the day, it was just a wacky table that required non-standard play. I wouldn't normally play any of the 3 hands the way Ii played them, but table dynamic dictates my play style.

I don't normally play at this casino and the fact that you can straddle from anywhere and 4-6 hands per orbit are straddled by somebody creates for some unique circumstances. Absolute/relative position go out the window with all the straddles-from-anywhere dynamic.

I tried getting aggressive in a prior session with straddling and raising things like Ax IP but it just creates unnecessary swings that I don't really see being +EV in the long-run. My normal game really suffers when the rest of the table is playing showdown poker.

Pre is fine, folding would be insane.

Not raising the turn is a pretty big mistake which is why it was reasonable for people to think you were bluffing river (~all hands you rep should have raised turn).

Sounds like you're advocating against a turn raise by advocating for it...

No, I am saying that the ev gained by raising turn outweighs the ev gained on the river by repping nothing and being called lighter. Also keep in mind the format the question was presented to us in: you take over on the river after some fishy calling station has played all the prior streets. The fact we know he reps thin and will call him lighter does not impact his turn decision, because at that point he believes he is playing against a fish for the rest of the hand who isn't going to think "well he actually should have raised all sets on the turn so his value range is super thin here."

Maybe you could have got an extra $300 if you raised the turn but I don't think it is clearly greater EV because fish are weird. You can't think about how they will respond to your lines in normal ways.

Fish want to see your hand and they think you bluff more than you do but at the same time they are aware of the idea of "tight players". You don't want to get labelled as tight or fish will refuse to play pots with you.

Notice in this session hero plays almost no hands but that doesn't register with his opponents. They don't notice what he is not doing. They only notice big things that players do. Like only enter pots by raising and betting very large postflop. If a player does that and shows down winning hands he is "tight" or "lucky" and worth avoiding. If a player does this and shows the losing hand he is "a bluffer" or "unlucky" and should be safe to get in a pot with. Trying to pressure fish out of hands early (before showdown) annoys them and makes them remember you whatever the outcome of the hand. Doing it repeatedly will get you a reputation that you have to work with whether you like it or not.

Avoid getting labelled as different and you will be welcomed into the fishes' big gambly family pots over and over again.

By limping and calling preflop and just calling small bets postflop hero blends in perfectly and then his big river bet raises few alarm bells. That's a fishy line so it doesn't get you noticed. It is also a river bet so this one call gets villain a look at your cards. It is also not "allin" which is (stupidly) perceived as more intimidating. Villain may have no idea how much you have behind or how much is in the pot, he just knows allin is super serious and thus bet of $650 is big but at least it isn't allin.

Perhaps most importantly the river bet or raise is only one warning to the fish that you have a strong hand. Fish are like unruly children - they need telling more than once before they do the right thing.

Another thing is fish will frequently take weird lines like betting small on flop and turn and then shoving rivers. They do it for value with hands that can only get called by better when vs a competent player. They do it with nothing as a bluff. They do it with all sorts for reasons I just don't understand. What I am loathe to do is to interrupt a fish in his weird betting line when he may very well be about to do something really ******ed with no help from me at all. That is doubly the case when there is a second fish happily calling their bets behind me. I've built some truly enormous multiway pots with nutted hands by being patient and letting the fish bet as much money as possible entirely of their own accord before I gave them the bad news - once and as quietly as possible.

I'm not saying raising turn is bad or even that it isn't the highest EV line in this particular hand. I'm not saying I like taking weird lines myself which run counter to good poker theory. I am saying it is worth taking a look at what alternative lines can get the same or close to the same value from fish while enabling you to blend in and look like a friendly gambling type who fish are happy to play pots with.

I don't necessarily think you should have raised the turn as others are saying, but I do think you left value on the table by not shoving the river.

Think about it: you bet $650, and effective stacks were $965. Do you actually think the $650 bet gets called 50% more often than a shove does? If the calling percentages are closer than that, shoving is the correct play. And since both are absolutely ridiculous bets given the fact that $80 was the size of the turn bet, I tend to think both bets would have been targeting an inelastic calling range.

In fact, if your opponent was telling the truth that he had a worse boat, your non-shove overbet may have hurt you because a smaller bet might have induced a shove.

Overbetting $650 in this spot is not going for the gold; it's going for the silver. That's the main reason why earlier in the thread I said that I would not play any hand this way. The river sizing is either too small or too big but is never just right. (I probably would have raised the flop with your hand as well.)

Questions:

1. Do you think Hero has a value hand or a bluff?
I'd lean a lot closer to value. Based on your discipline I would expect you to get too out of line. If you are bluffing I think the sizing is interesting. I suppose your range is very polarized assuming villans are even aware. When you just call turn I feel like it's hard for you to rep a ton of value hands.

2. What do you think Hero's hand is?
Well you called pre flop so is assume I have very few 4s. Maybe A4s K4s 44 77 1010. Maybe even some 45s and 46s etc. I'd say your hand is always trips plus. Maybe you are just making a sick play with A10 K10 or even JJ assuming you don't 3 bet those hands.

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

This is hard. Am I just pretending to be this villans. I think all 10x hands call all maybe some 7 x hands call. I imagine we only get pairs lower than 10 to fold given these guys want to hero call.

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

I'd call with 10x depending on reads. Hard to say. I think it's a big difference assuming what a bad player and a competent player would do.

Villain didn't have a boat - he would have shown it if he did and he wouldn't have tanked so long before calling. He also missed the opportunity to make the Jaws joke which certainly accompanies all my hero calls with small boats

Villain thought he was catching a bluff with a 1-pair hand like KT IMO.

What do you think this villain's range is to call this bet? If he actually had a 4, it's a bit of a cooler for him, but it doesn't necessarily prove that the overbet is the best sizing since he really shouldn't have a lot of 4s.

Wow, there was still another $300 left behind after you made this river overbet?

Yeah, flatting turn was a massive mistake.

I think his range is incredibly Tx heavy. Limp/call pre, donk T high flop for 2/3 PSB, donk turn after two callers (like wtf?) screams ATs or something similar to me.

If he's claiming to have a boat then he needs to be limp/calling T4 (6 combos), 74 (2 combos) or 42 (6 combos). It's hard to call any of those situations a cooler when they are all self-inflicted. But I think it's inconsistent for this V to check dark with trip-4's. Trip-4's are basically the nuts to this guy.

So from a purely combos standpoint there are 48 combos of AT-JT that would make more sense to me. Whether he calls a turn raise --> river shove with Tx is debatable (to surviva's point).

Raising turn gets more from V1 when he has T7, a weird boat or a straight draw, more from V2 when she has JJ+, forces Tx to decisions for more money from both of them and ensures we get stacks in whenever anyone somehow has a 4.

Yeah, obviously he should never have a full house other than TT/44, but you could imagine him have A4s or 54s (or maybe A4o since he sucks). I guess my question was whether you expect him to have called with most of his tens. I would have expected most players like this to chicken out for a bet of this size with anything less than an overpair. But you will know better than I.

Maybe I'm overdoing how fishy these villains are but OP states they are terribad. On that basis I'm not worried about how we stack the fish when he has trips+ because he will help us build the pot by shoving when we look strong enough to gii.

I respect your posts surviva but I think it is unfair to point to the chips behind and say that automatically indicates bad play. Effective stacks were 230bb at start of hand so it is going to be difficult getting all that in against fishy players who bet small with their 1-pair hands.

For arguments sake: what are we raising to on the turn and what does that leave us behind on the river?

First, I'll agree that the results don't automatically indicate bad play. I wasn't swayed by results beyond the fact that I hadn't previously done the math on stack sizes to notice that we left 3/2 of a PSB for the river (since this wasn't really a traditional HH where we were advising the best line).

Even if we make it a measly 240 on the turn and V2 folds, that gives us a PSB to shove on the river. I would probably make it a bit more than that, but the point is that we don't need to blow them away to get stacks in; we just need to get them to commit more than $185 out of his $1150 before the final street of betting.

His small bet is often a blocking bet to keep the pot under control (eg: with a weak T or 98/65) or him inducing action. If the former, we don't want him to keep the pot under control when we have the effective nuts; if the latter, we're best off giving him the action on the turn.

Surviva,

I appreciate your posts and think you are one of the most technically sound posters around. I guess at the end of the day it comes down to which line looks more bluffy and will be looked up by Tx more often (since I don't think V1 was donking with 4x):

1. Flat turn and shove river for $925 into $600

2. Raise turn to $200 (I think $250+ is just way too strong) and shove river for $800ish

Personally, I wasn't expecting to be able to get stacks in with this hand versus a range consisting of {Wet napkin, wet napkin} so when he blind checked river (with V2 still involved), I wanted to go for max value. Admittedly, as Vernon mentioned, $650 was going for the silver, while shoving $950 would have been the grand prize -- but I underestimated the terribleness of these guys and didn't think they would call a shove with Tx.

Respect the fact your responses aren't just "this is terrible non-standard blah blah blah."

This is actually one part where I slightly disagree. Once we make a boat, and we see this small bet, I think there's a serious question of how best to extract at this point from weak ranges. I think the way to go is to call turn and hope that someone stays in and hits a straight on the river, or else calls a river value bet. I don't hate the turn call. My two least favorite parts of this hand are the river sizing and the fact that we didn't raise the flop (but not the turn).

Don't you think raising flop prevents a terrible villain from overvaluing AA-JJ? If V1 donks flop and I raise, V2 has the easiest exit in the world for her overpair. I feel like we have to give her a chance at least to make a horrific blunder in raising the flop. Flatting a donk is generally considered an unforgivable offense because we open ourself up to being raised out of the pot by the PFR. That way - when we do it with a value hand we can actually get paid.

And thus that kind of carried into my turn: since they both called and V1 bet again, might as will give V2 a chance to tag along since I think I am up against Tx (V1) and an overpair (V2).

Maybe, maybe not. But more importantly:

1) V2 is very unlikely to actually have AA-JJ. The way you described her, her range is super wide. With the bad relative position I have after V1's lead, I'd be more concerned about letting live straight draws in behind me than I would be about making sure V2 doesn't fold an overpair she's not likely to have.

2) Both of those concerns pale in comparison to missing a chance to play for stacks. V1 just led into a large field and you have middle set. You're at a table that you've described as super loose. Don't rely on someone else to build a pot for you--do it yourself!

I appreciate the compliment I will likely take this newfound overconfidence and go spew 3 BIs at my next session

I think you're being a bit MUBSy with maxing value. If you'll forgive the cliche, would you feel comfortable raising turn -> shoving river as a bluff? Probably not, because you probably expect at least one of these two players to do something stupid with a single pair hand.

It's hard for me to speak to the exact folding frequencies for different parts of his range given different lines, so I won't be able to prove this with any sort of math or airtight logic or anything, but I think you gotta figure out how to get all $1150 with the effective nuts and give the terrible fish the opportunity to do something incomprehensible.

Raise flop, raise turn, overshove river are all options. I tend to think raising the turn same-bet is the least likely to look suspiciously strong because **** that puny little bet, but again, this is more opinion and feel than maths and theory.

I'm still quite happy with hand as played but, of all the other options, I prefer raising flop.

Of all the streets it is the least threatening because it is the smallest raise and many V's do it as a bluff pr with 1-pair hands. They muck about on the flop and then get serious later. My question is can hero keep getting action from the majority of V ranges once he takes the betting lead early in the hand?