Main villain is a pro who got stuck early on in session and has been straddling to $200 every hand. Villain is extremely aggressive with value and bluffs, loves overbetting.
Villain covers.

Folds to hero in small blind, raises to $500 with KsQc. $25 straddle calls with $5,000 stack, villain calls in $200 straddle.

Flop $1,515: Qh8h4d, check, check, villain bets $1,000. Hero calls, $25 straddle folds.

Turn $3,515: (Qh8h4d)3d, check, villain bets $2,700. If hero calls, pot will be $8,915 and effective stack will be $6,100. Hero?

Pretty easy shove, unless he's on monkey tilt. If he was bluffing everything when checked to I guess you should let him hang himself, but I'd give a bit more credit to a pro than that, even if he's clearly not playing his best game lol.

He has a bunch of high equity draws that are in a very bad spot vs shove, and you don't want to let him xb QT type stuff otr, so shove is best vs any reasonable strategy.

I don't have any experience of a 5-blind structure but I would have thought that KQo would be a fold preflop from SB regardless of game dynamics?

Folding pre would be a mistake - as it's like getting KQo in the HJ now - i'm assuming it's Triple straddled?

You are essentially 50BB deep at this point but I don't think making it $500 or 2.5x will isolate any one especially from the worst position. If they are super over aggressive and raising all sorts of nonsense you can just limp/raise this hand pre. It's good enough to get in for 50bb vs aggro maniacs.

That said the flop check is fine or leading 33% pot, but i'm check raising flop trying to play for stacks if I play to check. Top pair K kicker is more than good to play for 50bb and you aren't sure which turn cards are bad for you so it's unlikely you can ever fold. You also just let him check back most turn cards which is a disaster if he has a flush draw.

If leading 33% pot i'm over-betting turn on that 4d. 125-175% pot.

This is more of a tournament type hand because the blinds are so shallow- and I don't have a ton of experience playing short stacked - but seems to me you pretty much can't fold this. You are at the top of your range, and the runout looks pretty safe so far especially unblocking hearts and diamonds.

AP check jamming turn might be the right play on the long run.
If hero jams V is getting 2.5:1 to call. Of course V will be calling with better hands like sets and two pair.
But it appears that he will also be calling with worst hands; single pair, combo and flush draws.
Lots of combos in his range that can call the way this spot has presented. V calling H turn shove with these combos makes him a 4:1 at best, ie. V holds Jh9h, 6d5d, etc.
The way you described villain makes me think he will mistakenly call with worse and thus I think shoving beats calling/folding turn.

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Slam dunk crai vs this villain.

Raise to 700 pre. The rest of the hand looks fine.

I think played fine. Could be a case for larger raise pre, but meh....it's fine.


While higher variance, it's also viable play to call and then plan check/calling most any river. Since there's a fair chance he shoves most rivers.

this is obviously fine to me from ev standpoint. v description makes me think calling down on dangerous rivers at least is going to be printing. id call bricks too but much less excited about that oddly. its a weird board bc if we xjam all our tpgk+ we dont really have much of a protected c/c range but im not sure how much that matters. would really want to let the guy blind straddling 40bb get the last bet in though bc he should have ton of air in this line (he gets checked to in position and bets after defending his straddle - likely near 75% minus the top 12% or w/e) since he never gets funneled down by facing a bet.

AP, the obvious play to me is to just continue check calling, and make it look like we are trying to hang on with an 8 or TT or something. It will be really tempting for him to shove the river with about a 3/4 bet left and put those hands to the test.

It seems like he has a TON of gutters 9t, jt, 67. He could have 56 and some of those gutters turned diamonds. I'm not sure that's enough that we need protection.

I know he's a pro but if he is throwing out 200 blind and loves to overbet even when not on tilt, I think you just have to let him bluff.

What happens with worse queens? I've never played for these stakes or with this blind structure. But, if you check a blank river, I assume he still bets QJ? QT, Q9s? Can he fold these to a check jam? Of course, it would be quite bad if he was prepared to bet a worse Q on the river, but folds it here.

I know GTO Wizard in a straddled game with a 2bb straddle and 0.1 ante from 6 players has SB betting 6.5 bb, which is gives straddle 2.24:1. In this blind structure, the equivalent bet would be $550 since the blinds and 5/5/10/25 is so small compared to the $200 straddle and there is no ante. I could see that sizing.

So, the straddle is a tough pro, the $5 blind directly to my left is also a tough pro, the $10 straddle is a mega whale, and the $25 is a good reg. I could see sizing up if the straddle was the mega whale, but I don't think I want to size up huge in this line up and configuration. If I was in position, I actually like $500, but sizing up a little makes some sense being OOP.

I would check this flop a ton OOP multiway. The problem with check calling the turn is that so much on the river is going to be a scare card. Villain is very wide in straddle, so he can have all sorts of pair + flush draw, flush draw + straight draw type holdings. And diamond or heart completes a flush, and a bunch of cards could give him potential straights, two pair, trips, since he could have hearts and a pair or diamonds and a pair. An A can give the nutflush draw top pair even.

As far as protecting my C/C range on turn, I have some thoughts. I think hands like top pair or overpairs that block flush draws might be good C/C candidates on turn. Maybe top set. QJ, QT. AdKd, AhKh, 6h5h, 6d5d. But I think my KQ, AQ, KK, AA that unblock flush draws and lower sets are probably wanting to get it in on the turn. I might balance my jam range with some combo draws as well. Even AKs with a flush draw has 15 outs of both overs are good, but I feel like those hands generally like calling in these sorts of spots.

Not sure what he does with weaker Qx here, and I am not sure that even goes for 3 streets anyways. My hope is obviously that he calls. At the same time, I don't think villain had seen me show down many if any big bluffs yet, and I know he had seen my check raise turns all in for value after checking flop, so he probably gives me a ton of credit. Will definitely be looking for some spots to fit in some C/R all in on the turn after checking the flop with bluffs vs this villain in the future. But if I had to guess, he probably calls weaker Qx on turn and likely folded a weaker holding/bluff.

You have to be a borderline omc to not have bluffs here. There are just tons of big draws that can't fold because of their equity but also can't call turn oop because they have no sdv, so you end up shoving them even if you're a bit nitty overall. There's no chance a pro bet/folds top pair here, especially in the state of mind you described. He probably had some low equity garbage.

I missed the fact that there were two hearts on the flop. I think that does make it an all-in on the turn. WP imho.

lol. i think very few people are perceived to be taking c/c flop multiways and xjam turn in a 5/5/10 game for 10k as a bluff regardless of what the straddle is

This game is different. It was $25 straddle every hand and mostly the $50 restraddle was on, most of the table was 10-20k deep. The $200 straddle almost every hand was pretty disgusting though.

Texas is on another planet lol.

I did run a huge bluff in this game that I posted a while back though. I don't think villain was aware of that hand though.

Yeah I can see a c/c on turn if you think he might be blasting off here and on river far too often, which is really easy to do on this board and given your ranges, but otherwise agree with c/r push. wp.