I've been running pretty bad this session and have not shown down any winners in about 4 hours of play. Villain has only been at the table for about and hour and has been relatively tight / ABC so far.

Effective stacks $700

Hero in CO with A2

HJ limps, Hero raises to $25, BTN calls, SB calls, BB calls, limper calls. 5-ways to the flop.

Flop ($125) 684

Checks to Villain in HJ who bets $60. Hero calls, BTN folds, SB folds, BB folds.

Turn ($245) K

Villain checks, Hero bets $180, Villain calls.

River ($605) 4

Villain jams for $420, Hero ??

On the one hand, it's pretty hard for Villain to have anything but a full house here after calling my very big turn bet and donk-jamming river. On the other hand, I have the best hand *I* could possibly have in this situation, given the action on the flop and turn. Do we just call it off and chalk it up to a cooler? Or can we ever fold in this spot?

Fold or overlimp pre, especially given your table image.

AP, gross spot. Is V HJ who limp/called? So lots of small PPs in his range? If so, I probably fold, as his line screams "I hope he hit the NF!"

Forget theory, I think this is just always a full house in live poker. I think you can find a hero fold here. It'd be much weirder for villain to show up with anything except a boat here. And Garick, I hope that's a troll to over limp or fold pre. He's in CO at 2/5 lol. Definitely don't limp with the rake and folding is just well, get up and leave if you fold this.

I would call

He's jamming his last 420 into 605 otr after betting the flop (only 60 into 125 with a FD on the board and 5 ways, wouldn't he bet alil more with a set/2pair?), then he c/c'd 180 into 245 when the 3rd diamond came. Maybe he's also got a flush. If I'm wrong, nh then. He wasn't described as a nit or OMG who would never do this w/o a FH anyway.

I probably pay it off at the table. I think a river call is pretty close to 0EV based on V’s range. Tough spot because when he rolls over 66 you’re an idiot but 57s, QTdd and such are probably half his range.

Grunch

Limp-callers often have it in these situations so it's tempting to get on board with the big fold, but after thinking about the worse value hands possible from villain I'm for a call with our wheel Ace nut flushes.

Agree that nutflushes are likely your best hands here. I don't really have eights full or quads here because I'd like to raise those on this dynamic flop.

Villain donks into a big field on the flop. That could be the goods and also could be a combo draw looking to get AK to fold. Completed draws he could donk then play trappy with on turn and bet river worrying you check back cuz it's too scary: QdJd, JdTd, Td9d, QdTd, 9d7d, Qd9d. So I think it's good you unblock those, so AdQd or Ad9d or AdTd are worse calls. I don't see much AdXx bluffs in this line so I think your other nut flushes are still the best to call with because unblocking nut blocker bluffs feels unimportant here. Eights and sixes and quads are all over this line. So that's 7 combos winning value, 6 combos of losing value that you might want to discount, and then X combos of ?? screw plays that I'm going to say for ease is enough to offset the worse flush combo discounting.

You need over 28% equity and random screw play + discounted worse flushes get you to 40%-ish. So as long as you unblock the worse value I think you're good to call and sleep at night.

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Thanks for this. What does Grunch mean?

I don’t know how you could ever fold here absent some strong reads on the opponent. You lose to 6 combos of boats and 1 combo of quads, assuming he doesn’t limp UTG with 64 (probably fair). Should be possible to find 3 combos of worse value or some random spaz play to justify the call.

Grunch means that the poster only read the OP, and not any replies, before replying himself. There was a famous poster named Grunch who always did that, because he wanted to respond with his first thoughts, uninfluenced by other people's opinions.

From the HJ I would assume 64s is in his range, but that’s only one combo.

FWIW, I remember a relatively similar spot where I called off on the river and villain proudly tabled KK.

Analyzing hands like this one is hard because we already know that hero lost.

I probably call it off because the price is good but highly doubt we’re good much more often than the 30% we need. The line of l/c pre, lead flop into the field, c/c flush turn, shove FH river just looks like textbook small PP and I don’t give people credit for playing creative lines until they show me one.

If he shows me the FH here, I’m folding next time.

Getting 2.5 to 1 we need to win around 30% of the time.

There are enough weird diamonds to make this a call, or just weird play that people sometimes do, Td9d has a gutter on the flop, 2 overs and a FD so may lead the flop for example.

7 combos of sets beat us.
Not many diamonds lead the flop but it is possible he has QJdd, QTdd, JTdd, J9dd, T9dd. Let's call this 2 combos given the action.
Random factor - people do weird stuff with AA or maybe he does have the straight or something weird - made up hands 2 combos.

So I think we win 4 and lose 7. That's enough equity, I call.

The river jam seems odd for the non nut diamonds but he may have "put you on" Aces or Queens or something. People do odd stuff. So from his point of view it is checked to him on the flop with only 1 person behind him and he has 2 overs and a FD, the flop is low so you may have missed AK, he takes a punt and bets. Bingo the turn is an diamond, his lucky day! And it has given your AK top pair, time to milk this sucker!

I agree with a lot of this, limp callers are basically bingo players after all. However, I had a thought on following the read after showdown. If a call is winning because villain has worse 40%ish of the time then our call is right but 60% of the time we'll then say to ourselves "of course he always has it" then over adjust. That's a pretty bad false positive rate on our test for whether to make a big adjustment.

IMO this is not a spot where exploit changes will make a huge difference so I'm on board with "whatever helps you sleep/prevents the tilt" especially if it's a modest adjustment and not a fold everything adjustment. I think the exploit winrate to be had in these games is value betting the stations thinly and finding good spots to punish weak TAG/LAG ranges.

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So, what...we're hoping he has a worse flush here? And he flat called a big turn bet with it--he didn't raise? And now he's jamming when the river card made his hand objectively worse?

Or we're hoping he has something even worse and not only called that turn bet when the flush card hit, but is now jamming into a paired board?

Occam's Pawn Shop tells me that he has what his line suggests he has. I doubt that he's a Level 3 thinker to the extent that he's constructed an uber-clever way to get you to fold the (no longer) nut flush.

Interesting points about reads.

Ideally, to find an exploit fold in this spot, I would want to see the opponent play a flush passively on a paired board, or play a straight passively on a paired non-flush board, to be able to discount him overplaying a non-nut hand.

This line does look exactly like a boat, so if he turns over a boat, I’m not sure what information can be drawn from that.

Anyway, it’s a close spot. It does look an awful lot like a boat. Just a matter of whether he can take this line with a flush like 20-30% of the time. I’m not sure if we can discount that quite yet without stronger reads.

Just a reminder, if the top of your range loses always to the bottom of Vs range than you fold always. There is no "I'm at my top, call, cooler".

Also, if you're raising A2s you likely have 66 and 88 as a raise pre also (maybe 44 as well sometimes). Those hands do very well as a CALL facing a donked flop by the way, so A2s really shouldn't be your best hand here.

Very interesting hand

Never folding pre. Turn I would bet 40%, our range doesn’t really want to polarize here.

River is a call vs the average player but prolly not vs this profile. Does he have any bluffs? Overwhelmingly no. Does he have worse flushes that donk jam when the board pairs? Unlikely…
Calling can’t be a big mistake regardless