There are commonly two reasons to bet: for bluff or value. I'm may be discovering another for a very specific and rare situation.

Let's say you're OOP postflop vs an ultra-aggro who loves to bet into any check, very capable of floating, bluff raising and multi-street bluffs (incl river). He's not only capable but does so at a high frequency. He also sees you as a prime target because you're a tight, thinking player very capable of folding medium strength hands.

Let's say you have a medium strength hand such as TPTK or TPGK, you bet flop and he called. We're on the turn. Vs any other competent V with this particular board, you would always check for pot control. There's no reason to bet (bluff or value). But with this guy.. if you don't bet he will very likely fire turn and likely river. He will also likely fire BIG (something you don't fancy with a medium strength hand). But if you bet and he wants to bluff - he will have to bluff raise which is much more expensive to him than firing into a check AND because u bet turn he'll likely abandon the bluffing idea altogether. I know some of you will say that's a good thing - induce, let him fire and just call. Well, I did just that recently and that's cool OTT but OTR I checked and the guy put me to a huge decision in a big pot where I could only beat a bluff. I'm thinking maybe just fire turn small and avoid the hero-call river spot?

What do you think?

P.S. Do NOT assume this is a bad maniac. This is not a maniac. He's ultra-aggro but actually a pro grinder.

Disagree with there's no reason to bet vs a standard player with tptk. Is that really a middle strength hand? Stopped reading there

there are 3 reasons to bet. to get a better hand to fold, a worse hand to call, or to end a hand.

you can not check when you are first to act for pot control. If he checked after you checked, he would be the one controlling the pot.

Why would you want to induce with TPGK?

isn't that why you checked?



ibl

A smart player like this will sometimes slow down if you establish that you can check a strong hand three times against him.

You can also try to confuse him with lines such as c/c flop lead turn or c/c flop/turn lead river.

Essentially you just discovered another use for a blocking bet. Usually a blocking bet is made on the river, but against very aggressive players they can be used at other steps in the process. Be warned that a good LAG will recognize what your doing and raise you some of the time anyways. Good LAGs tend to be good at sniffing out these blocking bets and coming over the top.

Also, with TP you should be betting turn a lot anyways. Not always, but most of the time. Not only can you bet for value, but there is a certain amount of balance in this play. If you always have two pair+ or a semibluff when you bet turn, villains will be able to read your play very quickly.

There are only 2 reasons to bet. To get a hand with enough equity to call to fold, and to get a hand without enough equity to call. If someone is going to barrel off light to your checks... You want to be checking, not betting. You should also be check/raising them frequently on drawy boards when you can deny them odds to call with a draw, or when there is not a significant amount of money left to bet. This prevents them from realizing their equity with their semibluffs.

Do some range anlysis.

Call if his range is wide enough for it to be profitable.
Fold if it isn't.

if he is only betting with TP+ then how many combos of better hands does he have, and how many worse does he have?
If he's only betting with nuts or air when you check, and he's checking back middle strength hands, then how many hands does he have that are ahead/behind you?

What does his range look like pre flop, and how does that affect his range post flop?
Does he only do this sometimes, or 100% of the time when you check?

There's a strong chance that if he's making money playing like this then people are folding hands that are too strong given his barreling tendencies, as people hate to put in big money without close to the nuts. So, check/call him down and profit. It comes down to frequency of his betting/bluffing and board texture.

Get position on him with a seat change!!

Otherwise I like to use the c/c then lead (whether Turn or River) against these guys for good value. Yes, they love to 'see' weakness and take control of the betting but until you show them that they cant 'get away' with it they will continue to do it .. with sucess. Nothing like taking pots down without showdowns, eh?

These players play very wide when IP, take it away from them by being on their left. GL

Huh? Why would he see me as a prime target because of that? I'll have a stronger range against him than the other players, and the other players will be far more clueless on average. Also, just because I might fold medium strength hands against others, that doesn't mean I'll make those folds against him.

If villain is playing like this, then I will be checking with my strong hands and letting him bet. If he is that likely to bet big on the river, then he will be making big bets against the top of my range. The worst case scenario is he checks the river, sees my strong hand, and realizes that he needs to slow down against me when I'm "showing weakness."

We're not always going to have medium strength hands against this guy. Sometimes we will have strong hands and we have a betting pattern that we can easily exploit.

And he is not likely to see you as a prime target if you can exploit him this way. His prime targets are going to be players that call his raises pf OOP and then constantly fold after the flop.


This is risky because he might see the bet for what it is and raise it. That would make it even easier to steal if he sees the bet for what it is.

I do agree with OP that TAGs tend to bet the flop too much and the turn too little. Easy for LAG to exploit that with a bet on the turn, and one way to undo that is to bet the flop a little less and the turn a little more (ie, cbet with hands that will likely be worth betting on the turn as well). I think that works well against the average 2/5 grinder, but a fearless LAG can happily bulldoze over you anyway.

Last time I took a shellacking from a LAG, I realized (on the way home) that he was forcing me into low SPR situations with hands that weren't optimal for that. Well, I was allowing him to do that.

I thought I was playing in a deep 2/5 game, but effectively I was playing in a shallow 10/20 game. I would have done better if I had been playing my short stack range. Like every other nit at the table.

The concept of this bet is nothing new. Read up on "blocking bets".

I do this all the time when the PFR is stuck between several other players in a hand. Let's say we have A5s on a Q52 flop and we are first to act. PFR has made it $15 pre in a 1/2 game, two people call, hero calls out of BB. On the flop if we check, PFR is going to cbet this board like 90% of the time and we have no idea what he has, if we are good, and how to continue OOP especially if deep stacked. So if we just donk $20-30, PFR has to make a decision on whether to continue with other players behind. If they do, they probably have us beat, otherwise they're usually going to fold instead of floating overcards and backdoor draws with other players behind. It's also good to do on boards where everyone probably whiffed since leading out into 3-4 players first always looks pretty strong. Option B is checking and then PFR decides to pot the flop and now you just about have to fold your entire range that's less than top pair or a pocket pair bigger than the second pair, which sucks since we are often ahead. One of my friends plays ultra LAG and pretty much just pots it at every opportunity where he has some equity or total air until someone fights back (which they usually only do with nutted hands), or unless the board is super wet and there's a million combos that can continue, so being OOP to someone like him with a marginal hand is always going to suck.

On a side note, playing less hands OOP will help avoid these spots too.

I wonder if players who insist on always topping off when they drop below the maximum have problems in this scenario because many of their standard moves are less applicable.

Checking TPTK on most turns is horrible so the rest doesn't follow. Start betting instead of "pot controlling" for no good reason and the problem's mostly solved.

I don't understand why you want to curb the aggression from ultra-aggros. They're profitable to play against and generally don't last long. The good ones still aren't very good.

This.

OP, are your 5/T posts in USD? Seems more like they might be Kroner or some other currency.

Are you rolled for the game? If so, embrace the variance and call down aggros when you beat their range.

I like this

Yes, he would be but the problem is you will seldom be at the top of your range (2-pair +). Most of the time you will have TP or overpairs and those hands are not good for 3 streets / bloated pots. Also, if he trains you into calling off 3 huge barrels with TPGK for example, you will definitely pay him off when he hits the top of his range (while you would not pay off another player). Maybe it's not as bad as it seems because he'll hit the top of his range rarely.

Haven't read he responses so someone may have already said this but there's no such thing as a bluff/value bet until the river card is out.

Especially pre flop.

It's all about equity.

I would never donkbet to "slow someone down", that just sounds like playing sheriff. If you're worried about your equity when calling someone down OOP, then what you're really doing when you donkbet the turn is charging him for his draw, which is fine. Beyond that you would require some serious meta skills to be able to predict his every action and set him up for river bluffs and such. This is the power of position, he has it and you dont. You cant just magically whisk this advantage away from him by betting a certain way. If a good lag has position on you then you're pretty much screwed. Change seats, end of story.

He cant train you to pay off with TPGK since to do so would require him losing multiple stacks before he finally gets you. So for every poor river call you make you are still beating him in the long run if he's really this reckless. You arent going to win every hand against someone no matter who they are.

if you think that the ultra-aggros are making fundamental mistakes when they do super-LAG stuff like overbet bluffing river, then I think that checking is much better than block betting river.

If the ultra-aggro player is another Isildur poker genius who frequently overbet bluffs river and is capable of thin river value overbets (Caveat: 99.9% that he isn't a good super-LAG and is probably just an ultra-aggro fish...so I am not sure why I am bothering to post this), then your best counter-strategy is:

1. Slowplay strong hands on earlier streets to induce heavy action from him on later streets.

2. Sometimes Hero call him down with weak holdings when appropriate (advanced hand-reading and range analysis needed here)

Cliff Notes: If Villain is an ultra-aggro fish (99.9% likelihood), then checking river is better than block betting river. if Villain is an ultra-aggro genius (0.01% likelihood), then block betting river with medium strength hands is still bad.

Huh?

If I raise pre-flop with AA, I'm value betting. If I 3bet from the BTN with 45s, I'm most likely bluffing.

Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!

I think top pair hands and overpairs would be great on a lot of boards against this opponent. Even you said he will rarely be at the top of his range. He won't have 2 pair or better that often unless he runs well.

Top pairs and overpairs are not good for 3 streets in big pots because when that much money gets in, many opponents will have those hands beat. But this opponent is different. He is very aggressive and puts a lot of money in on bluffs on the turn and river. In other words, this opponent builds pots for a different reason than the typical opponent. Most players bloat the pot when they are strong. This person might do that too, but he also bloats the pot a lot when he is bluffing. As a result, top pair and overpairs will do better against this opponent when some money goes in on all 3 streets after the flop.

These types of players tend to be loose so they tend to have a lot more junk in their range than I would. If they have position on me in a hand, then my range will be even stronger.

If you haven't done it already, you should consider reading 'Playing the Player' by Ed Miller. There is a chapter on how to play against LAG players that's very interesting.

It is true that you will pay this player off more than you would pay off other types, but he will pay you off too, and you will win a lot from his bluffs.