1/3 NLHE 8 handed.

Game has been going awhile, early morning on Tuesday. Hero is tired and been card dead and not much has happened. Been at the table about 6 hours without much going on. Up and down on his original BI for 400. Slightly up right now at 450. Game *was* easy but V just sat down and Hero needs to leave.

V - Goes by the nickname big papa. Fat Hawaiian guy. Plays 25/50 private, 5/10, 2/5 and rarely comes down to 1/3. He runs his own home games and plays full time. I have almost zero history with him because A. he never comes down to 1/3 and B. If he does he somehow never gets seated at my table. What I do know is that he's a LAG. He is very very much a LAG. Good or bad I don't know but the other guys that play with him at 5/10 say he's an "action player". I know his favourite hand is 42s and he will play this regardless of the action pre. The money at 1/3 is meaningless to him so I don't know how he will adjust/not adjust to our game which will be viewed by him as ridiculously weak. He buys in for 500$ max and has lost one BI to a fish on a heater who called pre with J6s and stacked V when it went AI OTF where V had AJ and the board was A-J-6-6-X. I will note big papa has been playing quieter than I would have expected this session. He's called a bit behind. Unusually passive and seems disinterested. Straddles every chance he gets. I should add..he's not a maniac. He is VPIPing around 20% so far but has only been at the table an hour or so.

Table is all loose passives except for V.

HH: Hero on 330$ stack opens A T to 10 from UTG, V 3-bets to 35 from CO, folds to H who 4-bets to 110, V calls. Flop 220 - A 9 9, H shoves for pot, V folds. Wouldn't mind thoughts here (keep in mind this guy is very good and probably doesn't know me at all).

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Hero opens 10 UTG with A K off 450$ stack, V calls in HJ (unusual for him to just call) and covers, BTN LP calls (about 300$). 3-ways OOP.

Flop 30 - A Q 2

Hero c-bets 25, V calls, BTN folds. HU.

Turn 80 - K

Hero checks (planning to x/r?), V checks back

River 80 - 2

Hero?

Preflop standard. Flop maybe I'd bet slightly smaller mw.

Just play straightforwardly and bet the turn. It's H's range card so I cannot see why H expects V to bet turn.

River: 42s again lol. H has all top boats. I'd make a 1/2 psb bet here for thin value, targeting V's Ax and KQ. It's going to be hard for him to raise his 42s given the board.

Villain sounds like a whale. If higher stakes players call him an action player and his favorite hand is 42s, he is probably a whale. If he runs his own home games, he can stack his lineup, might have action on players there, and obviously gets to win on rake. "Action player," is a badge of honor, because you want to give these players badges of honor for their playstyle. But it is usually code for whale.

As played on the river, I think betting $60-100 make sense. I think vs this player going $70 is okay.

As played on the turn, I would barrel. The K completes JT, but you have all the AA, QQ, AK, AQ, and you can have JTs. Because the turn brings in JT, maybe $40-60. If villain is a thinking lag he isn't going to bet this a ton without a strong hand knowing you can be checking an ace here and aren't folding.

On the flop, my play is to downbet OOP and multiway. $10 seems good (my default size is 1/4 multiway, but pot is $30, let's make it easy). I guess I don't hate sizing up since villains should not have AA, QQ, and likely don't have AQ either. We have 2 other streets to get value on though, and we could always overbet turn and/or river.

On hand history:

Open raising ATo UTG is borderline at best. Fold to 3 bet, never 4bet. You're playing really, really bad. On a number of hands it seems like you are just spewing with a way out of line range. Nowadays, LAG is mostly synonymous with bad. Certainly the hands you have been showcasing this playstyle are bad. There are people I used to think were good lags that occasionally play at lower stakes, but after playing with them at higher stakes long enough, I have realized a lot of them are just whales. The ones that aren't but occasionally have very out of line hands typically are advertising and aren't getting out of line as often as they want everyone to think.

On the flop, as played, bet 10% - 25% pot. You want to get called by worse.

Fat Hawaiian, likes to be called Big Papa, and his favorite hand is 42s. Has to be a whale. Has to be. As well as an *******.

I would play ATo HH hand differently at every single point (fold preflop / fold preflop / check flop), imo.

I obviously limp in but that's me.

Against ABC straightforward face-up players who aren't thinking much about what I have, I'm fine with a bet/fold line postflop. But against anyone else, I'm probably just attempting to get to showdown / underrep / induce / etc. a lot. So I probably lean to a check on the flop.

As played I don't mind getting tricky on the turn.

As played, with all the draws busting I think I mostly check the river again and hope to induce. He'll valuetown himself with an Ace, possibly bluff the busted draws, and is fairly unlikely to pay off with an underpair with 3 overs on board. Could also possibly bet stupid small to make it look like a blocking bet to induce as well, like lol $15 or whatever (although right now this guy doesn't seem like he's in the mood to fight for pots, so possibly better checking).

GcluelessNLnoobG

the ATo hand. i dont think you should open utg esp at a table its super unlikely people are going to fold behind u but ok. 4b is also way too light but "ok" i can kind of see why you'd do it vs a guy who usually plays 20x the stakes (i just question if you have any real fe pre esp given v description). postflop though sizing is fairly large disaster. this is a board we prob want to bet 10-20% pot w range and all you're doing is filtering him down to call with hands that beat you for the most part when you have very good sdv. you had a couple other threads where you seemed to kind of blow up vs people you thought played higher and were good and seems like a trend tbh.

this hand flop looks too big but whatever, turn though id expect him to just so rarely bet that i think checking is an error, and our hand isn't some immortal lock that can hand out free cards. your hand just looks like AQ or a2 when u do this. i also think if you xr and all the money goes in, you're going to be overplaying your hand. for turn check to work out you need him to decide to run it with like QJ QT KT type hands vs unknown at 1/2 that just potted into 2 from utg or not pot control with one pair. river idk probably bet like 3/4-pot and hope to get looked up by Ax. there aren't really that many draws without sdv that just call pre and peel a huge bet otf, and its not that clear to me that he should bet Ax otr when u nearly pot the flop into 2 and kicker wont play and none of the broadway gutters bricked. i guess the 42ss thing makes him more likely to rep this card? but i think people are not going to put in large bluffs vs the utg opener on AKQ22 esp when the fd bricks. i think if you overbet the river he mostly just shrugs and folds w Ax whereas in solverland hes supposed to get here with good amount of AQ and then mix with his Ax with non playing kickers. in practice i think its probably a good bluff spot with something like QT if you somehow get here w it

Yea I thought this too after. I was impatient. I thought "well its only a PSB back and I has TP...ALL IN". And then after I thought how he's probably calling with AQ AK ..maybe even AJ and I'm folding out TT-KK. I feel committed though. So I assume a 20% bet, if he shoves...I'm calling off? And if he calls and turn is a brick...?

Result:

I've played with guys like this - higher-stakes players who come down to 1/3 and like to mix it up. They get involved with some weird hands you don't expect to see, and they don't mind putting money in as a dog. They'll use big raises to apply max pressure on non-nutted hands. They'll call down pretty wide.

Your AK hand...

Pre-flop, - if $10 is the "standard" UTG open size in the game, it's fine. The 1/3 games I play in, it's not unusual to see the opens get over $15.

Flop is fine. I might bet bigger, because it's only a single-raised pot pre, so the pot is smaller. If they're gonna call a $25 bet, they'll call a $30 bet. You don't mind if one V folds so you can get this heads-up.

Turn - I'd keep betting. You can get value from AQ/KQ, worse Ax and Kx hands, and V's draws. If this guy is a whale, I'd size up, and bet at least 2/3 pot, if not full pot.

River - Notwithstanding his proclaimed affection for 42, the second 2 is a brick. If he had 42, he might have stabbed at the pot when you checked turn, to take control of the pot. Okay to v-bet. He's probably not raising, but if he does, I'd expect him to have a lot more bluffs, including total air. I think we have to call if he raises, and hope he wasn't slow-playing JT on the turn.

I don't like the line of raise pre, c-bet flop, check turn on a "scare" card, and check river again after V checks back turn, unless you've pegged the opponent as someone who can't resist bluffing when the action gets checked to him twice. You could have some JT in your range, so betting the turn or river, or both, makes it less likely he's going to raise as a bluff, to rep JT.

My experience with this player type is that while they will enter pots with speculative hands, and call flop or turn even when they're not getting the right odds, they rarely take wild stabs on the river when they miss whatever they were hoping to see and we check to them, but they will make big raises when they know they're beat.

So I think this one should be raise pre, c-bet flop, barrel turn, and then check river to induce a bluff, or continue to bet river, knowing that we may need to call light if V raises. Alternatively, check turn, and bet again on river after V checks-back turn.

Why are you opening to 10 in 1/3? Why are you trying to x/r an AKQ board that favors the UTG raiser? You could have AA/KK/QQ/AK and he probably would have 3!ed them. Plus it is a wet board and you have far from the nuts.

I also would not open ATo UTG. Would not 4! light at 1/3 without a strong read. It may actually be good against this guy who plays higher, but I would want to see more of his play before doing it. A 3! at 1/3 is often KK/AA. You risk stacking off with an easily dominated hand. Easy for either top pair to be no good against a value 3! hand. Would rather 4! light a suited connector or something.

You've convinced most of the thread he's the whale ... but you say he's playing 20% of hands at 1-3, often raising when entering the pot, and you 4bet ATo UTG.


As to the AK hand, just keep betting. Probably big turn and shove river.
Even though the river hits his 42s, he has to know that you know he has 42s a lot (probably not) and that you'll consider folding AJ/AQ/AK (bad assumption vs. most), before he'll bluff at it enough. If he did bet river you should probably seriously consider folding.

Just bet. He's got an ace. On the turn, i'd not go too large in case has has Aj or A10 and is worried about the king. There's a good chance he has ace queen. 1/2 pot turn. 3/4 pot river.

If Villain has an Ax+, isn't he betting later streets for us? So if that's the case then we're better off checking to also allow him to bluff, no?

I dunno, maybe my read on Villain isn't the same as others. My read is that he's very loose preflop (so he could be in there with ATC, most of which have whiffed postflop) and that's he's very much a LAG, which to me is aggro, which means we should be doing our best to let him hang himself.

I guess if we're reading him as a hurp durp loose passive calling station with anything then obviously bet/bet/betting is fine, but that's not how I'm reading OP's take on him.

Gno?G

not sure what you are thinking betting so much with dominated hands and then putting in nothing when you have the effective nuts. seems like you are trying to be too clever for your own good.

i mean you get the money in way better if you bet tiny and he jams and you call as opposed to you jamming lol. id be shocked to see anyone you think is good jam over a cbet on a99r in a 4b pot, hes supposed to have a tiny raise range with some of his better ax and he balances that with some random pocket pairs he probably doesn't have, but i think in practice most people play this as call / fold as ip. like it would never occur to me to be afraid to cbet this flop because he might jam over my cbet. if he calls check the turn with most of your non AK ax and balance with AA and TT-KK. probably c/c turn and c/decide on brick river. you're going to do infinitely better here letting him put in the money, esp someone you have described as lag and too much action do the betting - you have an obvious medium stregnth hand on a drawless board, and if you go bet bet bet (or even more ridiculously, open shove) you are over repping your hand. you just don't need to fear that someone good is going to 3b your ep open readless from mp and decide to float a 4b to run some absurd bluff on you on a99r, that doesn't happen.

it does seem to be a trend in some of the hands you've posted imo where you got a guy you know plays higher and you think he's doing this weird crazy levelling stuff in all of your hands so you just overplay and jam in the money with your marginal made hands bc you're commited or dont want to get outplayed or whatever. i think the first hand i posted in on this forum you had like KQ on qj9tt or something and called a 3b ip vs the bb and raise / tanked with half your stack in the middle, and one of the history hands was you like calling q43tt and b/jamming a brick 7 turn over a xr with QJo? if people are good or used to playing higher, the last thing in the world they're going to do is go down to 1/2 and try to move some random donk off of a strong range for 100bb with some super elaborate bluff. they're probably just going to play mostly solid poker while taking the loose / aggressive option with mixes pre and overbluffing in obvious spots - ie flop a flush draw they will probably always bet as opposed to mix check and bet or overbluff "scare cards". they're not going to decide man i want to float him when he has an uncapped super strong range (open utg 9 handed and then 4b) with an spr of 1 so i can try to take it away from him. sorry if any of this is conjecture or those weren't your hhs

i think his vpip is probably like 5% here. he says hes playing 20 vpip overall and passive / disinterested although i admit he built him up quite a bit in the first half of they player description. usually people give way more action in their own game (more so directing this at OP)

Too FPSy. Turn is a pretty straight forward overbet I think as there's a ton of stuff he can call w/ that called this flop.

You just want to try to work stacks in.

Bomb the turn. 42s makes me want to slow down on the river but I might still bomb it for $110. I think he calls you light.


SB i love your write ups but these lag villains vpiping 20% leave me with more questions than answers

Yea thanks guys. I guess it was FPS. I just thought "if this guy smells weakness he'll bet and what a clever guy I'll be when I check raise him haha!"

There are times to trap. However, here it is bet from a GTO point of view and from a low stakes point of view that people even this guy tend to be loose passive. He likely has an ace and you can have a better ace, so easier to get money in by betting than checking.