• Hero good-ish image BB+1. Not doing great that night and clearly a bit impaired. Known to villain as a regular in the game, which he is not. 34K stack.
• UTG straddle is not a very good player. He has been repeating over and over how he does not get Holdem and is usually a 2-7 player (which as far as I know has literally no player base in Europe). About 15K stack
• CO is a very bad player I know from other HS games. He over plays very often pre/post and tends to play tons of hands. 25K stack
• BTN is a bad player with a lot of money and ego. We speak the same language, and before he knew I understood him, I heard him mock people and talk to his friends about how everybody else is so poor, how they have to work for their money unlike him etc... He is kind of a ****. We've played together a bit. He knows I am a regular and not scared money. He is not a regular, but comes/spend enough that he gets a bit of a special status. Just re-bought 10K. He is not stupid, and to be honest, we've never been in important pots together that much despite playing a low hundred of hands together.

• BB is very snug, not much to say about him, about 40K stack.

It folds to CO who limps, BTN overlimps, and BB follow suit, Hero discover QT and raises to 900. UTG and CO fold, BTN calls, BB folds.
Flop (2540) QT5
Hero bets 700, villain call quickly.

I've seen villain get sticky/spewy vs lower bets. But he's been quite respectful against me so far, so I elected to give him a chance to hang himself and chose for a low sizing.

Curious to have opinions about this sizing here. My standard would probably be about 1.7-1.9K but I chose to try and be exploitative. Thing is I might fool myself into thinking he is a bit more stupid than he really is, after all he never really acted out of line against me. Maybe I actually expose my strength by baiting that hard on what is obviously a wet board?


Turn (3940) 9
Hero checks with the plan of ripping on a bet or bomb a safe river facing a cb. Villains snap bet 2 800, just rips a pile of hundreds without counting.

Hero?

Maybe it's just the amounts that are getting to my head, but I am not quite sure if there is anyway I can/or if I should get away from this against this profile?

If that matters, this is the first time we played together at these stakes too, most of our action together was 10/10 or 10/20

Obviously way deeper than I play; I couldn't possibly give advice. But I will ask some hopefully clarifying questions.

This is the first hand bumped out to 80 and 160 straddles? The reason I ask is, for a guy seemingly not worried about money, he only rebought fairly shallow, if you all had been playing with 80 & 160 for awhile. I mean, 10K is less than 70 large straddles (and even worse, considering the four-blind structure), and guys like you're describing---egotistical, superiority complex over the player pool---don't seem to like optimal 'short-stack' play. Although maybe he's tired, pissed, wants to do something else, w/e.

Whereas if you'd mostly been playing 20/40, that's a more understandable buy-in.

His turn bet, if called, leaves him with a 2/3 pot shove for the river. What do you perceive his range to be here? What is your guess about his perception of you at this point?

He was in for 40, most of which was on credit. Since he does not live in this country, the host was reluctant to lend him more than 10 at that time.

The game is actually 20/40/80 mandatory, extra blind for the 80, does not play as a straddle. The 160 straddle was the regular play for utg, i’d say half the table was straddling 100%.

I was thinking he would stab very often, and the 9s connects well with his range, i am expecting a reasonable amount of Qx, Jx, Axs and Kxs to be betting here. However, the size of the bet and the way he did it was a bit surprising to me. I generally assume that people who bet fast and big don’t have much, but here I am not so sure...The issue when he bets that big I feel is that he polarizes himself, so my 2 pairs pretty much become a bluff catcher, I am not sure that he would play a medium strength hand that way. I am not beating any value hand that would play that way either.

Regarding his perception of me. He knows i have a job, so he probably considers me to be below him in some way. Other than that, its hard to tell what he thinks really tbh. Lag/winning player is the best I can come up with.

So he's stuck, but can't buy in enough to get back all at once. And this is because of a potentially perceived personal failing---his lack of creditworthiness---and he is therefore limited in the moves he reasonably should be making with a larger stack. I'd think all of those would combine to make him frustrated.

I interpret his turn bet as polarizing as well. Even though your bet could be perceived as both setting your desired odds while building a pot for your own spade draw. I'd think you underrepped with that flop bet but, as you note, even 2p is a bluff catcher vs his flush or KJ/J8 he decided to limp/call--float with. I would expect him to keep firing on the river, and for under 70 straddles, I'm ok with bluff-catching.

I don't see this turn bet, because of timing and casualness, from this player as described, as semi-bluffing one spade. Accordingly, I'm committing with a turn call, to also calling the vast majority of rivers, even spades. I might get out of the way of a J.

But again, I don't play these stakes. My perception of V's mental state and behavior could be way off.

I like the way you played the hand, though I might have bet a bit larger on the flop, like 60% pot. I think you’re locked into a calling the turn bet. Too high up in range. We have lots of worse hands to give up like AK no spade, AQ no spade , KQ no spade. If you fold top two here you’ll be overfolding.

He could be betting a hand like QJo or KsQx for merged value/protection (idk if he has the last hand given the preflop limp) and looking to check back river.

His most natural bluffs would be hands containing the As and/or J like AJ (do you think he limps this hand preflop, though? Unless he’s passive I think he opens it.)
He could have AsTx or JTo and be making a merged value/protection bet that he may consider turning into a bluff on the river. Though his sizing is a bit concerning and I would probably discount medium pairs given that.
High enough probability he’s betting with Qx one spade or hands containing the A spades that I’m not looking to fold to a 17BB (in units of big straddle) turn bet at this stage of the hand.

I also don’t play this high, so idk. Biggest I’ve ever played is 10/25/50 (two times), and 10/20 (more frequently).

He does have all of these hands, maybe a bit less AJo, but he is very passive/cs pre overall from what I saw.

It seems that we all agree that this is not a fold. Now, I see that most seem to be advocating for a call. If the plan is to call almost every river, what do you guys think of a c/r AI? We might loose a bit of value r, assuming he will bet all of his bluffs, but we get to protect our equity/value a little bit against draws.

Regarding the stakes. Don't worry about it guys, it's mostly about the hand tbh. It's not a whole different game, a good play is a good play regardless of the stakes. I would actually argue that it's a much better game than what you would find on a regular 5/5. There are a few pros, but most of the table is made of people who have money, they did not grind the stakes to be there. You will find their broke alter-ego playing NL5 online.

Oh and regarding the frustration, I don't know if that means anything, but the guy is frustrated 24/7. Just tonight, one of his friends when asking me if I knew off him described him as "the guy who complains all the time".