1/2 NL. I've played with villain a few times and he is pretty tough to nail down... one hand he plays trappy and shows up with a monster, other hands he floats with air and bombs a scare card. He won a big pot earlier in the night by shoving for 2x pot on river with board of J 10 6 9 K (no flushes) and his opponent laid down KQ.

Hero- villain has gotten the better of me the last few games. He is always floating me (prob pegs me as weakest player) and has hit some ugly gutshots/2 pairs and most likely bluffed me a few times too.

Hero ($350)
Villain covers

Villain raises to $12 in MP, Hero calls from late position with two red 4's. No other callers.

Flop: Ac 10c 5s ($27)
Villain checks, hero bets $20, Villain calls.

Turn: Ac, 10c, 5s, 4s ($67)
Villain checks, hero bets $50, villain calls.

River: Ac, 10c, 5s, 4s, Ks ($167)
Villain bets $85, hero?

I have about $270 left. Shove or do I just call? He is capable of showing up with JQ or spades and when he has bluffed scare cards he bet sizing is usually much larger. He has trapped with big hands before, so it isn't crazy for him to c/c with AK/A10 or bigger set. However, I feel like I am being a huge nit to just be calling with a set.

shove. if he has KKs or AAs then its a cooler.

Back door spades also beat u but I'm shoving here

Flop bet is interesting. Did you think he was going to fold? I'm at a loss as to what you were trying to accomplish.

Turn bet is way to small given your flop bet. $75 is way better.

Villain's river bet looks like a bluff to me. I'd raise to $175 (or shove) just for metagame with this guy. While I don't expect him to call, I'm happy to go broke if he actually has it.

But had you checked back the flop, my turn bet would have been about $30, and shoved over any raise.

So what exactly are we trying to get value from guys? Do you honestly expect to get a call from 2 pair on that board? No. Call an be good most of the time. Shoving is silly.

The way the action went down I would expect to get called by 2pr.

I don't see why we are betting the flop. Check it back, take the free chance at hitting gin on the turn. (And then hit gin on the turn!)

AP, I think the turn bet size is fine. He is not getting proper odds with any draw with one card to come and we don't want to blast him off medium-strength hands.

OTR, I think a raise gets snapped off by better much more often than it gets called by worse. Yes, KT and some other 2pr hands make sense here and could possibly call a shove but those hands make up a relatively small part of his shove calling range (AA?, KK, TT, 55, QJ, Axss).

I am just calling; if we are leaving any value behind, it is very, very thin.

The flop bet is a huge leak of mine. I don't think he folds pps to one bet, he floats a lot both in position and out of position, and even though he is loose pre he still has a lot of Ax as original raiser. Despite all that, I have a hard time checking it back!

I think you have to shove. I find it hard to believe he can c/c c/c bet with QJ I think if you're beat it's vs a set but your hand is too strong to just flat

You can definitely get a call from KT or other random 2 pairs, but I think those make up a small part of villain's range and I have to assume he will fold those some of the time.

Ship the river

flop bet is bad

I think it's really unlikely that he's going to c/c c/c bet out any two pair hand. I know he can be trappy sometimes, but nobody is going to be trappy on that board. If he was being stupid with 2 pair there is very little chance he's calling a shove. What he is calling with is back door flushes, gut shot straights and maaaaybe stupidly played sets (although I have a hard time believing those except for KK for the same reason as 2p). I can't see much value at all in shoving that river.

grunch: shove

you have a poor image and villain likes to bluff. he may even be value-betting worse. shove it.

why are we shoving? way more nutted hands make sense than two pairs.

kizzal. I'd like to see a range we're ahead of that calls our shove

The fact that he likes to bluff is not a good reason to shove. You gain nothing from raising his bluffs, and lose a lot if he happens to have a big hand.

There is a big difference between his thin value bet range and his shove calling range. You're giving good reasons to call the bet, not to shove over it.

Main thoughts:

i suspect he has zero shove calling range that we beat. Some argue there is some there but it is super thin. He has a significant shove calling range that beats us.

We have little FE. I guess maybe he could find a fold for better sets, but the only one that makes any sense at all is KK. Maaaaybe he folds a made gutterball, but even that is questionable.

Slim to nonexistent value range + slim to nonexistent FE= call and NOT shove.

I mean its 1/2 and there are a lot of 2 pair combos so I am shipping which is like the sum of my reasoning.

Obviously the shove is only for value, so it is just a question of whether this opponent would play tp trappy on this board. If not, then it's a call bc his range is pretty much exclusively KKs or AAs. I don't think he would c/c a gutterball as the pre flop aggressor.

If this opponent can get cute with tp otf, then we absolutely have to shove for value. Only 9 combos of better sets, and 27 combos of potential 2pr combos {AK,AT,KT}. I think we get a call from 2prs over 50% of the time making it profitable

Since we are never folding out better, our fe is meaningless.
This is such a marginal spot, I don't think shoving or calling is a huge mistake either way, but this opponent getting playing tricky and potentially having a bunch of 2pr combos in his range makes this a shove.

ya, but he doesn't call with 2p. I'd say he's a lot more likely to have a nutted hand or bluffing then have a worse hand and call. It just doesn't make any sense.

He's trappy and probably is capable of taking unorthodox lines when he flops tp or better.

Why don't you think he calls with 2pr the way the hand was played. If he's being trappy, then he's welcoming a shove with 2pr.

And I'd say there's zero bluffs in his range. What is he c/c two streets with then betting a 1/2psb otr that isn't for some sort of value?

look at that board. Do you really think he gets tothe river with 2p being trappy? do you think he calls a shove?

what two pair? the ak he checkcalled two streets with? the KT he checkcalled two streets with?

The list of two pair hands he gets here with then calls a shove has to be pretty damn small, while AsXs makes a lot of sense. I think we get called by worse some of the time, but it's nowhere near 50%.

This is about slowplaying two pair + half the time, and calling every time:


Board: Ac Tc 5s 4s Ks
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 48.387% 48.39% 00.00% 15 0.00 { 4d4h }
Hand 1: 51.613% 51.61% 00.00% 16 0.00 { AdAh, AdAs, AhAs, TcTh, TcTs, TdTs, 5d5h, 5d5s, 5h5s, AhKh, AsKs, AsQs, AsJs, AsTs, As9s, As8s, As7s, As6s, Ah5h, As5s, A4s, As3s, As2s, QcJc, QsJs, AcKd, AcKh, AcKs, AdKh, AdKs, AhKs, AdTc, AhTc, AhTd, AsTc, AsTd, AsTh, Ad5c, Ah5c, Ah5d, As5c, As5d, As5h, A4o }

It's definitely not an auto shove, and I'd lean towards calling.

When he calls he has to have 2pair >50% of the time. Which means 2pair actually has to be more than 50% of his value hands because he is going to fold 2pair some nonzero amount of time.

Check/call, check/call, lead river is usually a pretty strong hand. I would expect him to have TsXs, AsXs here most of the time. I don't expect him to check call QJ like ever on this flop. If he's check calling he has showdown value on the flop. I'm kind of surprised people think this is an auto ship.

While I normal agree with you here, Villain's bet sizing leads me to believe its a bluff or a weak hand wanting to set the price for showdown.

I'm still raising or shoving for metagame against this guy.