1/3 NLHE 9 handed

V - Asian kid tries to play TAG. Has a reasonable winning game. He gets bored of folding sometimes and opens wide sometimes. He tries to bleff post in huge spots sometimes. Usually the bleff makes no sense. Basically he is at that level right after you learn ABC TAG play where he's exploring. CO. Covers.

H - SB 715$. Cozy.

Table is all loose passives except V and me.

---

V opens 15 when folded to in CO, BTN LP calls, I go 65 with J J, BB LP calls, V calls, BTN folds, 3 ways OOP.


Flop 210 - Q Q 6


H checks, BB checks, V bets 70, H calls, BB folds.


Turn 350 - 2


H checks, what are we doing here? If you're calling how much?

Against a guy that likes making huge bluffs i dont like it but i feel like we have to call down most runouts.

Especially when we check flop he is probably the type that will just blast off full range it sounds like.

PRE - I think 3B'ing pre with JJ in the SB is fairly standard. I might debate the 3B sizing, depending on how many people are in the hand, our stack depth, what the BB has been doing, etc. Might go a little larger, to $75, but $65 seems okay, too.

FLOP - checking this flop when we're OOP and multi-way seems pretty standard. I wouldn't hate a very small c-bet for value and protection though, if only because it lets us keep the betting lead, and forces V to figure out an optimal response.

Hard for us to have QX here. Probably easier for our opponents to have QX. When this V opens pre in the CO, I'm giving him a range of almost ATC. C-betting 1/3 pot or check-calling a 1/3 pot bet with JJ seems fine. Can't be terrible to have some big pocket pairs in our check-calling range.

TURN - kind of a tricky spot now. I don't love checking and giving his BDFD's a free card. I also don't love donking out, because what are we repping when we donk-lead on the 2d, other than some FD's that don't want to get raised, or some PP's, or perhaps some QX?

If we donk out, I think our bet should be big, and in that scenario, V is going to fold almost everything we beat, and just continue with QX, maybe some AKo with a diamond, and maybe some of his FD's. We're not going to know where we are on the river, no matter what it is. Do we turn our hand into a bluff on a diamond? Do we barrel on a brick, and pray he was calling turn with AKo?

I think check-calling again is probably better, in that he may continue to just barrel here, with everything, including a lot of pure air. We're at less than 2 SPR. No need to blast off with 2nd pair. Just check here, with a plan to check-call again on almost any river card.

TL;DR - don't over-think it. We have 2nd pair on a fairly dry / paired board. Just play some rope-a-dope defense, by letting V bluff at it. Don't tip our hand strength by over-playing JJ.

Ok I dont know much about these high paired boards. Result was I called flop and it checked all the way down on a brick runout and I won. He said he was about to blast after the hand though.

good info for population tendency - c/c with pairs on paired boards one street and fold to further significant action.

It's a logic and range thing.

Our 3B'ing range in the SB is going to be weighted towards better PP's, and the better over-card combos. There isn't going to be a ton of QX in that range, mostly just QQ, AQ, and KQ. The CO will have a lot more QX in his opening range, and some of those QX combos will call a 3B when IP, like QJs, maybe even QTs or Q9s.

So, think about how we'd play our range here. We're pretty much checking everything on this flop. V can't call a c-bet with too much of his range, but he can bet some of that range for value, and some more of it as a bluff if we check. But when we c-bet, he's only continuing with QX, and some non-believing PP's.

We check to let V bluff and bet worse hands for value. We're basically playing our big PP's as bluff catchers, and checking to induce bluffs.

That's why, if we were to bet the turn, we'd bet bigger, the way we would with QX, when the BDFD appears. But just check-calling is probably the better line, with AA, KK, and JJ, on this board, where there are no draws that come in on the turn, and not too many flush draws we need to worry about.

If the board was Q66r, we could play it more aggressively because V will have a lot of QX, but very little 6x, and rarely if ever QQ.