So I have a good amount of history with villian. We are both regs in our early 20's, both respect each other as players and both play a winning lag style the majority of the time, although he tends to play looser than I do and I believe him to be a better player than me.

V often talks to his oppenents when theyre HU and it works for him. One of the first times I played with him, he leveled me into a call on an A 7 6 A 5 r board. I had flatted KK on the button pre against a spewy post flop player who had raised in MP and V 3! from the SB. MP folded I just flatted again. We checked down till the river when he checked to me for a third time, I bet just over 1/2 pot (I think it was something like 300ish into about 550) and he jammed on me with about 2k behind. After tanking for a minute i told him how confused i was. He asked me what I had and I gave him an honest answer. He calmly says "oh wow, yeah thats good." I called and he tabled AK. Ever since then, I have seen him over bet against other players OTR in big spots quite a few times and once in a while he tables a bluff after they fold. Other times he'll table a nutty hand regarless of whether or not he's called. But to the best of my memory I have never seen him get called on a bluff in these spots.

Anyways, here's the hand.

We're 7 handed. I have about 4.5k and V covers.

I open from the HJ to 40 with 910hh. V flats the button. BB (nit) calls.

Flop (120) 10s 2h 5h

BB checks. I bet 85. V raises to 275. BB folds. I call.

Turn (670) 7h

Check. Check.

River (670) Kd

I bet 520. V jams.

I tankkkkk. After a few minutes V says, "You look like you're havin a tough time, want to see a card?"
"Of course I do."
"Ok I'll show you the obvious one."
He turns over the Ah.

Now what do we do?

Reading both HH1 & this HH it seems that you love to cap your range vs good thinking LAGS which is simply a recipe for disaster... In regards to your first hand with KK I believe this is a 100% bet/call OTR he is ripping super thin and you've essentially got one the best hands you can have excluding 55.

As for the hand in question pre & flop are totally standard imo. I think i would like to see a 1/3 PSB OTT both for value and to protect our equity in the pot. As for the river its a super tough spot especially vs a capable player 450BB deep. The fact he shows you the Ah, brings a whole new dynamic into the hand which I'm neither familiar with nor am I sure I'm qualified to answer. I will say that your hand is considerable disguised after checking back turn, and I could see him interrupting your river bet as AK,AA,KK which id assume he thinks your almost always bet/folding.

River lead is pretty bad vs a thinking player (not because you ended up getting raised but because you shouldn't really have any bluffs in your range so you're better off checking even though he likely won't bluff at it very often, at least you'll be able to get a valuebet from his sets that might fold river if you lead).

As played this hand is an easy fold since villain is someone who clearly is willing to take very dumb lines in order to under-rep hands that really don't ever need to be under-repped when this deep (yeah the AK hand he owned you in looks pretty cool when it works but it's pretty atrocious in the grand scheme of things in terms of missing out on piles of value).

Yea don't lead River. Heck x/r would even be better.

How many offsuit Ax combos does he call with pre? Does he call with like A4o otb here?

All of them excluding AA, AKo and AQo. AJo and A10o are never folding and are probably 3! some smaller percentage of the time. And I'd very roughly estimate A9o-A2o is calling 40% of the time, 3! 20% of the time and folding 40% of the time.

I mean we already knew he had the nut blocker. I'm more inclined to fold here. I feel like he's more likely not bluffing enough in this spot compared to bluffing too often in this spot.

Also I think hes more likely to check the nut flush on the turn rather than check the naked A. Also very often people will have the speech, talking etc. to level into a call rather than a fold. As you said yourself you've never actually seen him bluff in one of these spots.

Also don't lead river.

what is the offsuite A calling pre and raising the flop?

I can't see much of them.

Fold as played

why did you bet river???

FOLD.

Why is betting the river bad? Are you guys insinuating that he's more likely to have air and thus want to give him a chance to bluff or do you really think he's not going to call a bet with Tx / sets? If you're checking and he bets 3/4 pot are you calling or check-raising?

In terms of how to respond to the shove as played, I think it really comes down to how many offsuit Ax hands he can get to the river with in this fashion. Will he raise AhTx on the flop? Can he get here with A3o/A4o type hands that had a gs on the flop? Even for a lag that's asking a lot. I'm leaning toward a fold simply because he's shoving almost 400bb's and seems like he's trying to talk you into a call.

It's kind of a mindless bet vs a good player, op as described hardly has bluffs here I don't think villain is ever gonna pow Tx(he hardly has any and op block his pair fd combos) and he's shown to be somewhat balanced and capable of putting op in tough spots so I like c/c to induce thinner value or cr if op thinks v thinks he's capable of turning some sd hands into bluffs

River lead is standard and probably mandatory when he checks turn
His x ott makes little sense and is just an awful choice ev wise vs betting
Assuming you are rolled for this game (doubtful) you need to call gto and it's a math problem from here
Pretty sure thi flush will make it into a calling range a non 0% of the time

^ by far the most sensible thing said in this thread

Betting river is good.....i'd expect to get raised almost never. Agree that in theory we should be calling with this hand some % but I'd be pretty comfortable just folding here and letting this guy exploit me (lol).

It all started with an MP open. I was on the button. I waited until it was on me to check my cards, of course. Nobody's getting any free reads on me, not until it's my turn anyway.

First card was the King of clubs. Oh yeah. I squeezed the second card like it was 7th street in a stud game in the hand of my life. First, I saw the suit: diamonds. I'm more of a suited cards kinda guy in these deepstacked games, so I was a little deflated. Even if it's another King, I can't get too excited. That is, until I looked and saw a big old capital “K” and a one-eyed majesty staring back at me. That's when I knew I wanted stacks in.

But not yet, young grasshopper. I eyed up my villain. I'm definitely ahead. So I call.

It folds to the Big Blind. This guy is good. You're always at risk of prison rape when he's in the room. He makes it 250 to go. MP folds.

I eye up my new villain. He is a more formidable foe. He might have the figure of a 14 year old, but he has the poker physique of Bane. I still wanna get stacks in, but here's the problem: how do I get stacks if the person I am playing against is good. I put on my Imaginary Flamingo Hat of Deep Contemplation (don't try to make it into an acronym; I've tried, and it just doesn't work). If I want to beat the good player, I'm going to have to play this hand like no mortal man would dare play it.

I call.

The flop is … well, don't worry about the flop. I have Kings and in this crazy cash game of no limit hold 'em poker, that's all that matters for the moment.

Villain knuckles it to me, I point it back to the dealer, the dealer pounds the table. He burns, he turns. My butthole almost clenches. It comes ever so close.

Villain checks to me again. Haha, nice try. I turn to the dealer. “I also check!”

The river comes. I'm pretty sure there isn't even a single overcard to my pair of kings. And what does that mother****er do? I'll tell ya what he does. He checks.

This is the moment we prepared for. This is the situation we manipulated. I won't go so far as to say that we manipulated it with our minds, but then again it is kind of like that. I bet just over ½ pot, something like 300ish into 550. Wish I remember exactly because the “ish” part was just the right amount of reds to look like a bluff. I think it was four. Four reds that is (so $20).

Villain gathers his black and green chips and goes all-in.

I wanna get stacks in. But this time when I play that phrase through my head, it comes out as "I wanted to get stacks in." Maybe the thing that I wanted before is different from the thing I currently want. Whoa, that's deep.

The dealer says, What?

Apparently I said that last part out loud. I say back gruffly, If only you knew.

And the dealer says, What?

I give a gravelly, Nevermind.

The dealer says, You know it's on you, right?

I ask for a count. The dealer says, $1960, and he tosses a couple of whites back to villain.

I say, Not $1962?

He says, The whites don't play.

I say, Even on an all-in?

And he says, Not unless they add up to at least $10.

I point out that they add up to 12. I hope that I won't have to explain that 12 is greater than 10.

I forget what the dealer says then, but none of that really matters because he has me covered.

There's nothing else the dealer can say or do that can help me. There are 27 cards left in the deck (I know because I counted them), but he won't be dealing any more of them.

So I turn to villain. I tell him how confused I am.

He asks what I have.

I tell him what I have.

He says two words I might never forget: Oh wow. Then, he tells me what he has.

The thing that I have is better than the thing he has, so I call. MHIG

I guess I wanted his stack after all

I wish I had 2 sets of hands so I could give that 4thumbs down

I agree that leading the river was not great...

But this V probably shoves the river even if checked to.

Fwiw, ask to choose one instead of just letting V choose the one to show. How he deals with the question helps.

IMO, he probably deduced that you wouldn't tank without a flush there. I think if you are rolled, call.

fml I thought hero had T9 no flush

I'd probably just shrug and fold kind of quickly. Probably doesn't raise AhTx which is really the only bluff that makes a lot of sense. Even if he bluffs the flop with AhQx, doubtful he gives up on this turn. Just seems way more likely he raised a nfd, checked it back to be tricky and is now jamming because what else is he going to do with the nuts.

My guess would be the table talk and card showing are a desperate attempt to distract you from the fact that his line is strong as ****.

Could be wrong though.

can you expand on this a little? it seems like you are envisioning a scenario where V will fold sets to leads, yet we shouldn't bluff with QQ/JJ (likely implying we x/f but win some at sd vs air not supported by his value bets). i guess im not really clear what you think Vs range looks like otr, and then also whether your use of 'should' vs 'will' is suggesting that this is a theory based analysis/recommendation (for lack of a better term) rather than what you believe V actually has/will do (based on population or specific reads or w/e).

well said.


also +1 to ebet and AAismyfriend

If V can read you so well to know that you can't call 4k ships on the river you should get up/have position.

I call based on his large flop raise and your large river lead. If he has nut flush you got destroyed.

*smaller river lead is better if we decide to bet

I was a bit hyperbolic there, I initially thought that our hand was kind of face up with a lead (we do have 43s combos in our range that whiffed but not that many other missed draws that aren't flush draws that would call a raise OOP on the flop), I preferred checking because leading might get sets/KT to hero fold to a big bet but if we check then those hands should almost always bet for us (his bare Tx hands should in theory be putting zero more dollars into the pot no matter what we do anyway).

After mulling it over though I completely take all that back though because like you alluded to if the above were true that would entail that we should be turning Tx type hands or even overpairs into bluffs at which point I remembered this is lollive poker where even seemingly decent regs click call on the river super light all the time in spots where you should have it a ton because they level themselves into thinking that since it's so obvious you have it you MUST be doing some sick bluff instead. So I change my mind and now agree with the others that river is a clear bet.

i guess he can have like ahtx here.... but other then that seems kinda spazzy to take this line w/o nfd otf. I mean a4os/a3os have to be discounted flatting pre right? I think more people float this flop w/ aj/aq here then raise it and stab turn but maybe I'm way off base on this particular player.

I prob raise flop to 700ish even this deep. but otherwise seems fine. Don't mind river lead at all really. Not like you're not playing the nuts w/ this line he just happened to block it but thats fine to lead here w/o it. otherwise your leading range is going to be really narrow and polar OTR

In a vacuum vs a good player, this is a call. Did you pick up anything the first time when he talked you into a call,Body language?How he threw his chips in?Any timing tells?.....How about what you did after he shoved?..Was your body language close to throwing in a call when he started talking?...Were you close to folding?. I guess what I'm saying is that there are lots of tells that even a good player will put off to lead you to the correct decision, if this hand was played online, vs. a good reg, you would have to call any flush.

How often are we 450bbs deep in this spot in online cash? Auto getting in any flush for a zillion bbs with any flush here vs a good player online isn't good either. The problem with this spot, and what makes it an easy fold is that he isn't flatting a ton of offsuit Ax pre, and he has all of the suited Ax. I suspect he 3bs AT-AKo here a reasonable percent and when he does flat he likely floats flop a fair bit instead of raising. He has already demonstrated that he has FPS and likes to take overly tricky lines. Decent players generally don't like to take nonsense lines without the goods. Even if he plays ATo-AQo with Ah here like 25pct of the time (unlikely) this would still be a fold.

I'm trying to remember the last time I showed a card. First of all I rarely do it, but the last time I showed a card....it was because I wanted a call and I only offered to show a card because I thought villain was leaning towards a fold.

If I was bluffing and I noticed villain was having a really hard decision and leaning towards a fold, why would I want to show him a card that could change his mind?

And finally, I don't see many overbets. And of the few overbets I do see, they are usually the nuts.