2/5, both H and V have 200bb. Not much history, we met for brief periods of time at the same table, so far he seems like a decent reg

H (HJ) open to 15 w AsJs, V (SB) raise to 60, H call.
Flop: 6s6cJd, V bet 40, H call - would we ever raise here? And if yes, with what and why?

Turn: 4d, V bet 120, H call;

River:2c, V bet 500, H fold;

I feel like sometimes we have to call, other times we have to fold. I’m interested in what arguments would you choose for this exact scenario for when you call and when you fold. Tnx!

I don't call AJ against a 3-bet pre without some history that suggests differently. AJ is easily dominated by much of "a decent reg's" 3-betting range. You didn't mention stack sizes, but maybe if you're super deep and you think villain will stack off if you hit a monster, maybe you can call.

You'll flop a pair 1 out of 3 times. Every time you flop a pair, you can't feel too confident. If the jack hits (like this hand), you could easily be up against QQ, KK, AA. If the ace hits, you could easily be up against AK/AQ.

Take my $15 this hand.....just don't make a habit of 3-betting me.

This is a clear call preflop. AJs is too strong to fold without some solid info on V that we are always crushed. Especially being in position.

Assuming he's a decent reg as described, he will be playing more of a 3bet or fold strategy from the SB.


Flop, mostly call. Could c/r at a small frequency like 20%. Pure calling isn't terrible though.

Turn is just a call.


River, for this sizing....it's mostly a call. Sometimes a fold. There's no easy way to sort out folds like folding when we have the Xd or whatnot. Just have to call mostly.

This sizing is a little odd. It's closer to pot size than an overbet. But still a small overbet. This could possibly push it closer to 50/50. Likely somewhere around calling more than half the time. You could probably flip a coin or look at watch and fold/call 50% against an unknown or player who doesn't have to have better here......and be just fine.


Of course, this is all absent any specific info on V that would sway us one way or another. When we call 3bets and flop TPTK, sometimes we just have to call down reasonable bets/runouts.

Feels like a standard call down. If he's a decent player he should be at least somewhat balanced with some unpaired hands. If he only does this with overpairs and nothing else then so be it you can adjust, but if the read is "decent reg" then this should be a fairly standard bet-bet-bet line with unpaired hands as well. As for the sizing, it might be weighted towards thick value or it might be deliberately chosen to look that way. Do you think you appear reasonably competent yourself? Absent any other info, it's a very benign board so if we are folding TPTK then we're folding everything.

The counter argument is that folding is 0EV and calling probably only marginally +EV on average, and if your read is wrong it's an expensive way of finding out. I would still call river by default. But I doubt folding is bad. You could call AJ here and fold KJ or worse maybe?

From SB perspective, how do people think he should play AJ himself here?

As for folding preflop, never. I'd fold AJo 100% of the time and call AJs 100% of the time here, unless there seemed to be a good reason to 4bet or fold which would be situation specific

Pre, flop, and turn can’t do anything but call. River is an overbet, probably heavily weighted to value in a live setting. I find a snug exploit fold.

That was also my thought, ofc in general folding top of my range here is exploitable, but then again I think vs the field tendencies that I noticed where I play, I’ll see bluffs or Jx here less.

From SB perspective, how do people think he should play AJ himself here? - being in a live setting, I think I would go for bet/bet/bet, vs another reg probably choosing some smaller sizes

PF and without reads, I just go with table norms. How frequently are people 3betting? If it is less than twice an hour, I just let it go. If more, then I'll call.

As for the betting, I tend to look at the size of bet to size of pot ratio. If the ratio is going up like this situation, it means the villain is getting more confident they will win the pot. That's bad news for TP. Sure, the villain can be bluffing, but how many people in your player pool are laying down 2PTK? If the villain is a decent reg, then they know they don't make money by trying to get LLSNL players to fold 2 pair. Therefore I'd let it go after the flop.

I don't get the majority of responses wanting to fold. Yes, he is mainly repping overpairs, but we might still at least chop with value and this spot is just incredibly easy to overbluff for a reg. He could arrive to the river with all AK AQ KQ, QTs, 78s, suited aces and the occasional random stuff. He's repping QQ-AA, random 6x and maybe AJ, we get close to 2:1, I'd basically snap vs random reg. Folding before the river is madness.

I'm not a big fan of thinking about mdf and balance at live 2/5, but if we fold here people can literally 3b/b/b/b atc on dry boards and crush hero. He's not anywhere near going for stacks and you want to fold near range vs a line that contains the most bluffs of a reg. Fwiw I'd rather shove river than fold.

I would 4bet pre or fold before calling but that's just me. This hand is a classic reason why I don't flat in these spots pre, are we hoping to flop a FD because even if we flop a jack, every hand in his range crushes us, even AK which a lot of regs won't even 3bet from the blinds.

The only problem here is an unknown reg who 3bets from the sb and then bet/bet/bets (especially in the turn sizing and river sizing) he does have an over pair like 88% of the time and these are rarely bluffs (at least in all the places I play in but maybe it's different in other areas where that's the norm for random regs to do this)

I am not calling the $60 pre w/o a very good reason, and AJs isn't a good enough reason. I mean, we flop top pair and still fold after calling two streets? If V is a decent reg, he probably knows exactly what we have and he played it perfectly regardless of his holding.

I mean, if you are going to call pre, flop, and turn, why fold river?

Because we're deep. V can cbet flop with air. V can double barrel maximizing FE. But how many live players ever bluff the river? Especially on a runnout like this where it's patently obvious we have a Jack. Thats why we can fold, because V knows what we have.

One thing nobody has touched on was OP's question as to whether or not we can raise flop. The answer is actually YES! A downbet like this really serves 2 purposes, it keeps us wide setting V up for future bluffing opportunities, or it gets max value with his TP+, quads, etc. A J66r flop doesnt really require that we raise to deny V any important equity, but it DOES charge him more to see a turn with whatever he might be stabbing with. Even if he has deuces he can still spike on the turn, so if given the opportunity to tax a fullhouse draw (lol) we can take it against this sizing and this stack depth. Our range is unlikely to develop such that we can ever call 3 streets hence the situation you just found yourself in.

Obviously this will make the hand easier to play since V is just going to fold all of his air to a raise, but thats also not the worst outcome for all of the weird backdoor hands he might get to slide in there with controlling the action. He's got a very wide range advantage here restealing the blinds where all we can ever really have are bluff catchers. It's basically one of the very few times we can legitimately 'pay to see where we're at'.

Anyway as played I'm folding.

The flip side is that if V knows what we have, it gives him carte blanche to bet this river if we are always folding.

Also, touched on the flop raise question. You should be raising here at a small, but not insignificant frequency.



But, it's a logical fallacy to say that we should be folding here because it's obvious we have a Jack.....and not calling sometimes for the exact same reason. Hence why we mix folding and calling.

Not to mention, we would take this same line with 66, JJ, 65s, 76s and QQ. As we are IP and don't have much of a reason to raise flop and turn with these holdings.

We can't have our calling range only basically QQ and our raising range as trips or better. Some Jx has to be sprinkled in. Aj is a call candidate obviously. KJ is iffy. QJs and JTs are where your folds definitely start happening at a high frequency. Hands like AQdd and A5dd would make decent bluffs. KQdd is an even better bluff. Obviously none of the bluffs at a high frequency.


So, if our hand is face up as AJ or a J only here.....you're playing way too tight and predictable. As we should have all of these holdings, plus other Jx in our HJ vs SB 3bet calling range.

I'd personally:

Raise: 66, JJ, 76s, 65s, some QQ, KQdd, AQdd, A5dd

Call: AJs, some KJs. Some QQ

Fold: everything else.


Over the long run, you'll get his AJs and KJs to call off sometimes vs your QQ raise. And you KQdd, AQdd, A5dd will get folds from the times he has better hands like AK/AQ that barreled.

And obviously your value bets of trips or better get paid by his AJ/KJ or better.

I'd also call pre IP. With some history, can mix-in a 4B, though I prefer to play this hand IP. Folding AJo.

Also calling through turn, folding river. Yes, the river is a blank, however $500 into $440 moves the story towards value.
Not many missed draws, perhaps big diamonds, which we unblock. Our line looks incredibly strong, blocking top FH, yet opponent continues to barrel.

Our line looks incredibly weak to me. It looks about like AJ. What strong hand would you play this way? JJ? 66? Maybe QQ that you didn't 4bet?

If you put your opponent on a J and you can beat a J, wouldn't $300/$350 be a better value bet? Why bet $500 and make it tough for AJ to call if you want to make more money on the river?

I mean, maybe he wants to look bluff-y so that AJ will call, but that's the only reason I can imagine. If that's the case, he should just shove the river and look really buff-y. It's not much more.

I think raising the flop has a lot of merit if you are going to call turn and fold river, but I would have folded pre.

Additional thought on pre ranges, which I didn't note above.

HJ vs SB ... a good player will also 3B 65s/76s at some lower frequency, so wouldn't be shocked if we saw a 6 at SD.

Wouldn't a 6 bet smaller on the river hoping for a call from worse? Why bet so big? How often does V call w/ AJ or worse?

theres no way qq is a value raise otr, hed either have to bf overpairs and call weak Jx that would need to take this line (seems extraordinarily unlikely to me) or be reraising a ton of offsuit broadways and still go for 3 including an overbet with marginal Jx and b/c them off. the river isnt even a minraise. in terms of better hands than QQ i see 6 combos of KK and 6 combos of AA, 3 combos of JJ, and ~2ish combos of trips. you can argue JJ does something different but im not seeing nearly enough b/cs from combos to justify that. even AJss is only 3 combos. without looking at the solve either id think your bluff raises come from Jx and not dd combos (in a scenario where they can actually b/f hands otr)