Villain- LAG who never folds to 3 bets. I have been playing with this villain for about 6 hours and have seen him 3 bet about 8-10 times. I am card dead most of the session but another player at the table ( who is solid ) is taking advantage of this player and 3 betting him non stop. I finally start to get some good 3 bet spots and start isolating this villain. I have 3 bet him 3 times and cbet every time and he has always folded on flop. This villain has only folded to 1 3 bet all session. He will always call he is super sticky.

On to the hand.....

v1- mid position limps 3$

v2- btn limps 3$

v3-(main villain) makes it 20$ from sb which is his normal routine

hero- bb 3 bets to 70$ w AJ we are 575$ effective

v1 and v2 fold

v3- calls 70$

Pot= 143$

Flop- A1010

as flop comes out he says I'm thinking of a flop...

dealer puts flop out...

he says finally there it is....

v3- checks

Hero- checks back

this is the first time I have checked to him in a 3 bet pot

Turn- 7

v3- bets a nice 100$ stack

Hero- calls $100

Pot= 343$

River- 5

v3- jams all in he has us covered

hero- we have 400$ roughly infront of us...do you call?

What was your thought process in checking the flop?
We’re you trying to underrep your hand and entice a bluff on the turn?

Seems like that’s what exactly what you got. Not sure any other reason checking the flop with that player makes sense and it makes it tougher to define where our hand stands since we “gave up” initiative.

However, As you described the player, I’m liking a call, but not loving it.

it was definitely to under rep my hand

plus I didn't feel like it was going to be a 3 street hand anyway

we could also pot control this board

Standard call.

Flop is a standard check behind. What worse hands are calling? Also, you can’t stand a checkraise.

This is an extremely difficult spot that’s very common. Basically, he has Tx or nothing. Do you have any reads on his bluffing tendencies? Without much of a read, I’m just tossing a coin.. heads I call, tails I fold.

other previous 3 bet pots vs this villain

villain - makes it 15

hero- make its 50 AsQs

blinds fold

he calls 50

flop Kd 5d 2s

he checks

we c bet

he folds

he gave up pretty easy on most boards but he was calling super light I saw him call a 3 bet with A rag

how ever like I said this is also the first time I have check the flop to him

he hasn't shown aggression like this at me yet ( no over bets atleast )

Tough spot. You underrepped your hand to make the river call but not for such a big shove. If you think he is capable of bluffing I would call.

Sigh fold. As described, villain is very loose passive and call happy but hasn't shown any signs of aggression, folding to most cbets, so I would not classify him as a LAG. Don't think this is the type of player I am going to call a river overbet.

Not sure what to do here, but for the future, I think it's better to cbet 1/3 pot OTF to avoid this spot against capable opponents.

I cant see any good reason to check this flop. This guy calls with any two...do we think he is folding a worse Ace to our c-bet? OR a flush draw or most pairs? Or KQ/KJ? Maybe, but why not get value on a semi we board while we can? There are a ton of really bad turns for us as well where V can rep hands that beat our somewhat capped one pair range.

I bet at least $100 on this flop and if he folds fine and he if shoves, then we have a relatively easy fold. Checking this board only leads to problems later in the hand as we can see.

AP, well you described him in terms of how he has reacted to flop pressure, but have you observed shoving missed draws or overplaying weak Aces OTR in this way? His range is polarized here to nutted hands and bluffs almost certainly (as at this level virtually no one is capable of merging a hand like 88/99 into a bluff). I probably dump your hand unless I have evidence of the above, but I am not going to be in this spot because I bet this flop close to 100% of the time.

+1
unless you checked flop to set this exact scenario up

Agreed. But then don't Vag out.

Didn’t you just call-in to Bart for this hand on Crush Live Call-Ins?

Very well explained by him.

Is the villain even a rudimentary handreader? If he is a lag who knows that people play JJ-KK this way somewhat often here I’m snapping this so fast. Not only does villain have very many flushdraws here, he also has prolly all 87 combos too that would plausibly play this way. Add a small but important amount of overvaluing worse Ax and just a pinch of pot odds and you got yourself a tasty call.

Your hand is so under-repped. Yes, he might have a T, but he could so easily have a weaker A, pair, missed draw, etc. I think I call and re-load if he has me.

I don't mind the flop check. I really don't think he's calling with much, and I want him to stick around, but I think that leads to a call on the river.

Come on dude, really? For $400 into $343? With a weaker ace?


This guy called this hand in yesterday to our live streamed show yesterday. We are cutting it up and it will be on our youtube channel (CrushLivePoker) tomorrow at 1PM. I will link to it here when it goes up.

First, I'm not a dude. Second, I've seen it, so, yes, he could have a weaker A or a ton of hands he's bluffing with. He must know H rarely has a T and can't/shouldn't be calling on the river. His little speech seems so full of it, but I've never played with him. I try to pay attention to what people say and how they say it (or if they stay quiet) in hands so the next time I'll have a better idea of what they have. Not sure if everyone does that, but I recommend it.

Did not catch Bart commentary but my thoughts on this are:

I don't know how loose this V raises from sb but I would assume it is mostly big cards to start: QJs+, KQo+, 99-AA. I think lack of 4bet removes KK, QQ, probably AA. Given description I think most broadways are still there and do not fold to the 3b.

Flop I think a cbet is standard play with pretty much all of your range. I don't see how a flop check is going to fit in well with overall strategy since presumably you fire with your own broadways, KK-JJ, Tx.

Turn as played mandatory call.

River you are not representing much, basically exactly what you have or KK-JJ. I don't think he's bluffing thinking you have one of these hands and will get you off it. In my experience people don't try that stuff on A high board in 3b pot. I probably let this one go because few people have the balls to do this as a bluff or value with worse (and he has been passive in 3b pots in the past).

Surprised no comments about the verbal tell of strong means weak. Does villain really say "I'm thinking of a flop... and there it is" if he has a ten? I don't think so. Much more likely he has a draw.

I like the flop check as it seems standard (momo, are you being a bit schiztso saying flop check is standard and then saying hero should have bet?) as I'm not sure what it accomplishes.

Because of initial verbal tell, I lean toward calling river.

I mentioned it

This is really just speculation and should take a backseat to fundamental poker - what is his range and what does he think our range is.

This doesn't follow your previous logic that he probably has a draw. We should bet if he has that not check.

When did I say flop check is standard??

Although I do check in these spots almost 100% of the time because pot control, worse won’t call, we’re not afraid of any turn, give him an opportunity to bluff, blah blah.

I also like checking flop because I hate when they check/call a flop bet, then turn goes check/check and then they bomb river with their KJo and I don’t know what to do.

So for all these reasons, I just prefer checking.

The only downside to that is this exact situation where V bombs 2 streets into us and makes life miserable. But I guess it doesn’t happen often enough so we can make explofolds in these spots against many villains.

I don't agree with the bolded at all. Sure you are going to find some V's that will fold KK-JJ on this board to your c-bet, but the guy described aint one of them. I am betting this flop for value versus this player close to 100% of my range (I will check AA and TT some % of the time but not always). The flop is where most people will call light so we need to take advantage of that, especially versus a player that has a ton of worse made hands in his range and a ton of flush draws too.

Seems like a lot of threads lately have been those where Hero flops relatively well, decides to check for any number of reasons, and then can't figure out what to do on later streets when V becomes the aggressor. I guess my broad comment would be that it is rarely correct to slowplay in NL unless you can't be caught or are against (1) huge nits who will never call worse OR (2) spewtards who will take any sign of weakness to get aggro on the turn and river but may fold to your initial bet. Agianst the lions share of players $5-$10 and below, taking a more straightforward line on the flop is way better not only for getting max value, but being able to make more educated decisions later when the $$ becomes bigger.

Just my 2 cents.

This is where you said flop check was standard.... and I agreed with this momo. But I disagreed with momo after that who wanted to bet.