New game about 1 1/2 hours in. Many players at the table know eachother. I am the out of towner. Overall game is playing fit or fold, tight to the vest. Half the players bought in for less than the full buy-in of $500, some for 400 and a couple for 200. One player seems competent, capable of squeezing and not afraid of getting the chips in - but he is not involved in this hand.

Hero(~$760): The jury is probably still out on me. I have raised preflop as much as anyone at the table. Scooped about four pots without showdown. The only hand I showed I won with A high. Limped with A5 and 2 bet/called all-in on a board of 843. Cold 3-bet all-in otf had QJ and brick-brick.

Villain(~$675): He is white, 35ish, slight beard, quiet and observant. The other players have directed a little poker chatter his way, which leads me to believe he may be the most learned player in the game...mostly because he responded and the discussion pretty much faded each time. He bought in for $500(200 red, 200 green and one black).

We were involved in one hand previously. 6 handed. Villain is BB. Hero is CO. I raised one limper to $25 with QT. Villain calls, other folds. Flop: JT6. Check, bet $30, call. Turn: 8. Check, bet $75, villain check-raises big...oops. Hero folds?

On to the hand...

Hero has T9 on button. 9 handed.

Preflop: UTG(villain) limps, folds to hero on button raise to $25, SB(fish) calls, BB(tight player in blinds and EP) folds, villain calls.

Flop(3 handed/$82-$7=$75): 954.
Check, check, hero bets $55, SB folds, villain calls quickly.

Turn(heads up/$185): 7.
Villain checks, hero checks.

River: Q.
Villain bets $135, hero calls.

I will post my thinking in this hand later.
Comments on all streets welcome.

As played preflop and flop, I like it. Pretty standard and fine. Turn is ok too. River I generally dislike your play. Here's why: Villain bets $135 into $185 which is a generally big bet and you really can only beat three hands (those being 67 suited / 36 suited / and 23 suited). Every other draw has gotten there, but moreover, you said yourself he's probably the most intelligent / thinking player at the table. As played, his range destroys you. Just give up IMO and focus on the fish.

Also, I guess a pertinent question that we both don't know the answer to is the following: Would he really limp with any of the three above mentioned hands?

Lastly, most people don't float in games under 5/10 NL. I really have a hard time believing he's bluffing here....especially betting $135 into $185.

My two cents.
-Jeff.

He's repping for value:

• Two Big Cards that floated and hit a Queen
• Hearts
• TT/JJ
• Two Pair from the flop
• Sets

What he actually could have:

• Anything from above
• Bluffing with T9/98/87
• Smaller PP's that he's bluffing with

I think the value list is bigger than the bluffing list combo wise, so I'd tend towards a fold, but if I plan on calling the river, I'd consider a bet the turn to set my own price. This makes a check back on the river much more likely, and I feel better about folding if he bets into me on the river after I've bet two streets.

Just my two cents.

Love me some 10 9 suited on the button.

I think I would have played exact same up to the river...where I would have folded. I feel like he was going for the c/r on turn (esp. given history). Great card for him to do it (with air and made hands). The follow up bet on a Q river tells me he's betting for value. Of course he could be a thinking player knowing thats exactly what it looks like hoping you're a thinking player who folds, but I tend to lean more so to the straightforward answer. You're pretty much putting him exactly on 98/87 by calling, right?

Why did you call the river?

I would've played it the same on all streets except river is a clear fold imo.

Could there be an argument to lead the turn? I think its criminal that we give a free card.

My argument for leading the turn (and by that I mean b/f) would be to fold out 9's that beat us, that hate the turned flush, and any of the gutter/straight/pair draws that are out there. Also by leading the turn we can easily check/fold some rivers rather than check/call.

Really don't like the check turn call river line.
I bet the turn and check back the river.

Don't think we have enough reads for me to call the river, even some of the hands he's "bluffing" with have us beat.
When we bet turn it's super hard for him to raise without a flush and sometimes will fold some hands like J9 Q9 etc that don't have a , and after betting flop and betting turn we get checked to otr a huge majority of the time, especially after we showed down the Ax hand

There are too many credible hands in the villain's range. I'm definitely folding the river.

I agree with this, for the most part. Bet turn check river is definitely better than check turn call river. The question is to me is, is bet turn check river preferable to check turn fold river? I want to say yes, but my concern is that given how villain c/r'd hero on the turn in an incredibly similar situation in the other hand OP, he may be inclined to do so again and blow us off our hand, especially because most hands we were ahead of just picked up some sort or pair or combo draw (98, 87, 76, 65), and that's not even taking into account the value hands villain can now rep like flushes/77/97s. It's a pretty gross spot all things considered.

I think the turn on the "history" hand is interesting to discuss for pretty much the same reasons. While here we have slightly less concern that he'll c/r us because we don't yet know he's capable, we're also behind any Jx.

i felt that on turn of the previous hand hero should have checked back. he has show down value and a competent/aggro villain is likely to c/r that turn with any number of draws knowing that hero is betting a lot of better hands he can fold to a c/r - especially if villain has picked up that hero has a fold button unlike most 1/2 fish

on this hand, i think the same thing applies. we have a weak top pair. what are we getting value from ott? what better hands are we ever folding? especially now that we have history, i feel villain is again likely to c/r here with his draws and we have to fold. so check back turn/call safe rivers i think would be the best line to take since villain will likely bluff missed draws.

Yeah if we have a read that villain is both competent and aggro I think you're right about checking turn in both hands, Duke. Still don't think I like a river call in hand 2 because from villain's perspective hero either has air or a hand he is playing for pot control. Since villain likely has showdown value (either a pair OTF or a draw OTF that paired OTT) he may not feel the need to bluff much. And the heart draw hit so he can't bluff that either.

Just because a guy c/r'ed us once on a drawy board doesn't mean he was or will in the future be c/r as a bluff.
At llnsl people are guilty until proven innocent(bad and non-thinking players, until proven otherwise, maybe not necessarily bad-but not "good")

The reason to be the turn - We have SD value, we want to get to show down as cheaply as possible. Betting the turn imo accomplishes that. Like I said earlier we sometimes get folds from better 9's that don't have a spade. Also our hand is not strong enough to bluff catch so checking to call the river is bad. When we bet the turn we can be pretty sure he's not raising us without a flush(see beginning of my post) and when he's not raising unless he has a flush then he's checking to us otr a huge majority of the time.
by checking the turn he can bet almost his whole range, whether it's for value or as a bluff, and we can't (shouldn't be at least lol) call.

it does show that he is capable of c/r and also capable of being aggressive

we dont know what he had but a lot of competent villains will c/r the nuts or with big draws

i dont want to give him too much credit but i also dont want to get c/r here with a hand that has showdown value.

Well OP did suspect villain was competent for reasons other than that one specific hand. Pony you and I agree that you have to fold to a river bet but I don't think that logically necessitates betting the turn, although I admit that the line I am leaning towards feels pretty weak/tight. This is a tough hand.

^^^this

Im curious to hear what you thought you could beat OTR given how the hand played out.

He might turn 6-6 into a bluff, but in all honesty, he's probably thinking hes got pretty good SDV with hands like 6-6 or 7-6, and idk if hes thinking about turning medium pairs into a bluff to try to get a rivered Q to fold since players at low-stakes games cant fold TP and to him youre just another unknown villain. Granted, you pretty much never have a flush when you check the turn, but until ive seen that a player can think on this level, id typically fold in this spot.

Im assuming your thought process was that you appear to be weak and he still bet ~2/3 pot, which he probably wouldnt do with a value hand, right? The problem is that we really dont know if V is creative enough to turn hands that have SDV into bluffs, and its doubtful that V c/c you OTF with A-high assuming hes competent.

If we had a hand like Ace high or something then yeah check and c/f river like np.
But we have the best hand here sometimes, not to mention we sometimes get him to fold better. Do you not thing he folds like J9 K9 A9x 67 or some random broadways(we want him to fold these ott because our hand isn't strong enough to bluff catch otr) etc etc? If you guys don't think he folds these type of hands ott then just check give up

This is actually a really tough spot in my opinion.

Villian is competent and he could have been trying to set up an OOP float to rep the flush draw, sets, straights, etc and c/r the turn with ANY piece of that board or ANY two overcards.

I guarantee if hero bets turn, villian goes for the C/R on this heart/7 hitting in an effort to fold out most of hero's range. As hero would surely know an "all in" barrel was coming on the river.

Hero checking here sets up pot control and a spot in which he can now determine if he wants to "bluff catch" villian.

Which is all we have at this point, "a bluff catcher."

I am calling here to get a glimpse of villians limp/calling range and to find out just how sophisticated of an opponent he is going to be as the session just started and he's probably not going anywhere anytime soon.

We can find out a lot about him here.

"calling for information" is really bad.
The "info" we think we might be getting will not turn a -ev decision into a +ev one.

we seriously only beat complete airball bluffs.
because we've seen vil c/r once before(which was probably for value).....? come on now

Bet more otf.

While most of the time i think b/f'ing turn would be the best line here, you also have to take into account that the villain could perceive hero to be making a play after seeing the Ah5h hand.

Its thin, but b/f turn will save you the money when villain is ahead or catches up, and make you money when he is behind.

Hope this helps

Preflop: villain's utg limp was interesting. showing the markings of a player that chooses his starting range carefully I thought pocket pairs, suited connectors in the low to medium range and some fudge factor hands. i discount Ax and Kx hands here.

Flop: villain's check and then quick call tells me he has a plan for this hand. flush draws are a limited part of the range imo. when it comes to pocket pairs we can eliminate AA and KK, discount QQ, JJ, TT and 99. That leaves 88-22 of which 6 of 42 combos just made a set. 54s has two pair and 76s has oesd. Like I said very few of these combos make a flush draw.

Turn: villain's check does not narrow his range from the flop. If the 7 helped him it was not enough to put him ahead of me unless he has 77 - though it may have increased his equity. i can see the merits of betting here. folding to a check-raise irritates me. i also thought he might lead this turn with some non-flush hands.

River: the Q is far more likely to hit me than to hit him yet he still bets. so what hands is he betting for value? is this a merge? is there any hand better than mine he will fold to a raise?

If his hand is polarized when he bets then...

Losing to: JJ(6),TT(3),99(1),55(3),44(3),77(3),JT:hear t:,T8,65.
Beating:
88(6),66(6),76s(3),a few more pp hands(4),air.

I called because I was stuck on the preflop limp UTG from a player that seemed to have tight starting requirements. maybe i need to let that go?

This is a pretty tough one. On initial glance, I'm torn between two thoughts:

1.) When you check back the turn, villain can severely discount or eliminate 2p+ from your range. Therefore, he could be bluffing with 88, 66, 33, 22, 76, A3 or A2 here at a higher frequency.

2.) Villain knows your range is capped at Qx and could be going for thin value with something like 97/54.

Despite the previous example of him check/raising OTT, that board texture is significantly different than this one. It doesn't really weight my thoughts on this hand either way. However, I don't think a call here is as bad as some others think it is.

hate this line for this reason

Why would we bluff with TP?

If villain has a history of peeling your cbets lightly you could bet the turn for value, but doing it to fold out better is bad.

I like OP's line up to the river, I think that's a fold. We're only ever beating a pure bluff, and if we think villain called with a draw, a whole lot of draws came in on the turn. Even if bluffing a busted draw was in villain's repertoire, it'd be hard for him to have one here.

e: TripleH, I like that you've gone and ranged everything, but for villain to show up here with a small pocket pair means he called flop specifically to float -- if he thinks he's ahead otf, why would he need to bluff river? If anything he'd be hoping you bet the scare card. Purely floating is pretty fancy imo, I wouldn't expect that sort of play from this villain as described. 76 makes sense but not 88/66/33/22 imo.

What range does a fudge factor hand fall into?