5/5

~$500 effective

HJ - A young reg from Brazil.

BU - An annoying rec player who joined a few orbits ago and constantly tries to outplay me. Maybe he just gets lucky with the cards, I don’t know. A few hands ago, he won a pot against me and showed his cards as if he’s intentionally trying to irritate me.


HJ opens to $20, Hero(CO) KJ 3bet to $70, BU calls, HJ folds

Flop($170) K 9 2

Hero bets $80, BU calls

Turn($330) A

x x

River($330) 6

Hero checks, BU bets $300(~$50-60 left), Hero - ?

This is definitely a GTO decision with this opponent. Is KJs in the top 2/3 of hands that you would've 3-bet PF, bet this flop, and then checked the turn? If so, you probably have to call.

Unfortunately, your hand looks capped at a big suited K or QQ/JJ.

What did he show you?

Pre: I'll probably get reemed for this, but I don't mind a call here, not that the 3b is terrible

Flop I think c-bet is good, but don't hate on a check here either.

Turn: Check is good

River: We only beat a bluff at this point. The flush came in, and not inconceivable he slow played an Ace or 2p. Other possible hands TT-QQ that we beat would have likely checked behind since they have some showdown value when it appears you've given up. He could be ****ing around with something like JT. I'm folding

I like the way this hand is played including the river check. This makes sense as a check-fold. A lot of the time it goes check-check and you win (although sometimes it goes check-check and you lose; when you get shown KQ you'll kick yourself for not betting, but I still think checking is the right play)

There aren't many bluffs left (QJhh maybe, or more likely something like QQ-TT turned into a bluff). You might expect KXcc to raise flop sometimes, while AXcc might bet the turn. Depends on what you think he does with medium strength hands with a bit of SDV (KT, QQ-TT). If these get checked back then it's a fold.

As I type I'm starting to see a glimmer of an argument for betting river. Still think I'd check-fold

Curiously, between the two bolded statements you only focus on what your opponent might have, rather than thinking about if you are high enough in your range to bluff-catch.

Pre and flop sizing are too large imo as you’re pot committing yourself with a hand that really doesn’t want to be committed vs. a cold caller behind’s range. Unless you think he can turn TT into a bluff I’d let this one go.

KJs I lean towards a flop check unless you plan on shoving clean turns. You’ve got 21 combos of KK/AA/AK that can be betting this flop (plus semibluffs and airball bluffs) so you need some TPGK in your x range that can call him down when he tries to bluff you off your QQ/JJ that takes the same flop x line.

Well played. Unless I’ve seen V make a bluff on the river, I’m folding. Most players don’t make pot size river bluffs. AcXc or naked AcX makes sense.

BU - An annoying rec player who joined a few orbits ago and constantly tries to outplay me.


Certainly something to keep in mind on the river.

I agree with always fondling. If he is constantly trying to outplay you, this might be an easy call. We need a little more detail on how far he takes it. What is he showing down? Is he bluffing you or just playing with marginal hands and winning?

Think we can 3B smaller, to $60.

I mostly check flop OOP, but if I'm going to c-bet, it'd be smaller, like $65, give or take.

Turn is a tough one, after c-betting the flop. If we bet, it should be small again, I think, like a little less than half pot. I don't love giving up the betting lead with two flush draws on board.

There isn't much we beat that calls flop and bets river for value. Not sure I buy that this guy turned an ace and checked back, or that he's going to bet better Kx, but his line looks a lot like he made the flush.

Think we just need to fold.

Idk man, usually i call in spots like this against Vs trying to do wonky ****. But it really is dependent upon the type of **** youve seen. I dont think you can get advice from the forums on this one.

I think Tomark is right on this one, and how do you know he is a recreational? I also tried to annoy some other regulars when I started playing Live, especially if I knew they were full time grinders.. for you I would be a recreational..

How long was the check back OTT? How long was the CC preflop?

Hey OP, what were V's hole cards in the previous hand? The disagreement between javanewt and doc suggests the river decision depends all on the read. You describe V trying to "outplay" you. The best way to outplay him is to pay attention to his hole cards. In the previous hand, if V showed you a bluff with middle pair, then maybe I would call here.

They’ve literally played like 25 hands. How many hands could they possibly have played together to deviate from normal strategy vs. unknowns to an exploit? And if that info exists, why isn’t it in the OP?

More often than not when you think someone is playing back at you they just have the goods. That’s poker.

Yeah, that's why I folded. I didn't have enough information on him, maybe he was just getting lucky. He hadn’t talked to me at all. An orbit ago, he hit a flush OTT. I had raised preflop with TT, and he called with A5s. The flop was 952 or something, and the turn was a King that completed his flush, so I just gave up. There were also a few hands where he called me preflop but folded later with a chuckle. My image at the table was tight, so maybe he thought I was a nit that could be easily exploited. No idea.

I don't have strong evidence that he's trying to outplay me, only a suspicion.

Then it's a fold.

So he showed you a made flush after you check/folded the turn? I feel like maybe he wasnt trying to annoy you, he just won some hands lol.

Bear in mind that people can annoy us without necessarily trying to annoy us. V might be annoying because he's gotten lucky repeatedly when involved with hero.

In that scenario, we shouldn't assume V is going out of his way to get involved with us, or that he's going to attempt more bluffs than he should. If a frequent nemesis has been showing down strong hands, I tend to think he's less likely to be bluffing in spots like this.

Yeah, it really seems like that. He just happened to catch a good hand against me once and decided that he's lucky when playing against me, so he started calling me preflop all the time.

There are regs in my usual card room who seem to think I'm always FOS and call me down wide. The adjustment is to decrease our bluffing frequency and bluff sizes, and increase our value betting frequency and size.

I always think they'll eventually learn that I'm sometimes FOS, not always FOS, but they don't seem to get it. They definitely don't seem capable of recognizing that I'm quickly adjusting my play against them, dropping my FOS frequency way down, close to zero.

One guy in particular does seem to go out of his way to get involved with me. He's openly talked about wanting to jam on me in spots where I had a pretty nutted hand, unbeknownst to him. Don't get frustrated with guys like that. Thank the poker gods for seating them at your table.

It seems like a mandatory bet for most of his range, either value or bluff. You are capped and showed a ton of weakness. If I am V, betting almost everything except maybe Kx.

You are probably pretty close to neutral between call and fold. If early in the session, I lean to call - you don't have much better you are checking turn with. The information might be worth it if you lose.

Whenever you are talking about play exploitative poker, being high in your range or being capped don't really matter. We should be exploiting, and this is generally just going to be a fold.

That said, we shouldn't be that capped here. We can definitely check back KcXc, QcJc, QcT, JcTc, Ac5c, Ac4c, etc on the turn. We can just realize our equity with those hands.