Villain in this hand is a 30ish good looking white male. I have seen him play before but can't remember specific hands and we had a few minor exchange over the session. He seems loose pre-flop and quite aggressive post-flop.

There are a few players like him at the table which looks better than what I have seen in my previous session, no OMC or loose passive player. From previous session I noticed how I am uncomfortable playing with more aggro players and that is something I am trying to improve, so I have strapped in for a tougher session than usual.

My image is tight, my early raises are getting tons of respect and I have in my mind that people are seeing me for what I am, a fairly new player/somewhat scared money, but I made a (possibly crazy) hero call on the river one or two orbit ago, though I didn't factor this while playing this hand because ...

Game is 1/2.

OTTH

Villain (covers hero) straddles. A short player who posted a blind in HJ open folds his blind.

Hero (250) in CO opens 7d8s for 10.
Straddle calls.

Flop is 664dd (25)

Straddle x, Hero cbets 8, straddle raises 25.

Turn (75) is 8h

V bets 55, call.

River (185) Td

While waiting for him to decide I review the hand and ponder whether he might have been semibluffing with a flush draw (if indeed there's no 6 or 44 here). I raise my eyes to look at his reaction and he notices it and that seems to prompt him to bet.

V shoves, hero checks that he has the 7d and decides to hero call.

Input on all streets welcome.

Flop

This flop seems unlikely to hit my opponent and I am blocking 6s combos and have some gutshot/over cards to the board so I am not completely naked.

This looks very suspicious to me. I think he's aggressive, unlikely to have a 6 and I am not sure he'd raise one if he had it or that he'd raise an overpair to the board of which I don't think there are many in his range having just flatted from the straddle.

I also think that at this table if I just fold the flop everytime this is done I will end up only waiting for the nuts.

Turn

I hit an overcard and I feel an aggressive player is likely to carry on with a second barrel here if they were bluffing in the first place.

River
Key to my call is the little exchange in looking at each other and how that seems to prompt his bet, hold the 7d and blocking some 67 combos and how I perceive villains and how I think he perceives me (weak/tight/scared).

You didn’t mention stack sizes here, but assuming the River shove is for less than the size of the pot, I’m fine calling here, and I think you played the hand well. I like using the suit of your cards as a randomizer (only calling when you have a Diamond).

That river polarizes ranges, and your hand LOOKS like a flush, so Villain should only be value shoving with boats or flushes here—we should remove most trips from his range (unless it’s something like exactly Ad4x.) So yeah, with only boats/flushes for value, there are a lot of bluffs in his shoving range. If you’re getting at least 2:1, this is a nice spot to bluff-catch.

Unsuited connectors should be folded from every position but the Button, but that’s just a very small mistake. And indeed, by raising you did get HU with position, so can’t be upset with the result.

Fold preflop. Check flop. Fold flop as played. If you get to the turn you have a diamond so discount diamond draws more and fold turn. Fold river. What do you beat on the river but complete air?

Wait, are you saying he most likely (or at least often enough) has a whole bunch of completely random airballs with which he just decides to empty the clip on a paired board while both the open-ender and the flush get there on the turn and river? Why would you think that? Don't get me wrong, we all know there are people who do random things at the poker table, but why do you assume this guy is one of them? Why not assume villain was bluffing with a draw that got there by the river or value raising with a 6 that he's shoving the river with, because it turned into a boat or he's putting hero on an overpair after they called the turn? Why assume randomness? Or can you name some bluffs that make sense? Because I can’t. AdXx? I'd say that's a stretch.

He just needs to be bluffing 1 out of every 3 times for our call to be profitable. (Assuming it’s not an over-bet shove. We still don’t know stack sizes.)
AdXx is a mandatory River bluff. A lot of hands with a 5 or 7 (that flopped backdoor flush draws) should be shoving. He should often turn random 4xXx and 5d5x hands into bluffs on this river.

Ranges are polarized on this River, he should never turn up with trips or a Ten here. We’d need him to have a Flush or a boat more than 2/3 of the time here to fold. I think that’s playing WAY too tight. We have the perfect hand to bluff-catch here (with both a 7 and a Diamond).

Another thing to keep in mind is that Villain should be making a lot of bluff check-raises on this Flop, since it’s so unlikely to hit Hero’s range—a common mistake at LLSNL is c-betting too often, so if V is a thinking player, a this is a perfect board to punish the over-C-better by check-raise bluffing. And the perfect hand to check-raise bluff is one with back-door draws: eg, AdXx, or anything with a 5 in it. So I actually do think V has a fair amount of naked Ad bluffs on the River.

And I’ve said, I don’t think this is a call EVERY time. I think only calling when we have a Diamond is enough. That just requires him to be bluffing 1 in ~6 times for our call to be profitable.

I'm a little confused on the betting amounts.

Pre flop I'm guessing its a $5 straddle. With 78o I'm just folding but if I did decide to make a play I think $10 is too small. I would raise to $15-20.

On the flop you bet $8 which is smaller than your pre flop raise. I think your c-bet needs to be bigger as well. Once he raises me I'm folding.

funky math to get to 1 in 6. It is 1 in 3.

We’re only calling 1 in 6 times though—only when we have a Diamond.

It doesn’t matter how often you call, you are never good when you fold. You need to be good 1 out of 3 when you call.
Saying he only has to be bluffing 1/6 infers that you know he never bluffs when you fold 1/2 the time but bluffs 1/3 the time or more when you call. Which is impossible to differentiate.

Unrelated, but if you are picking a diamond you will have a diamond 1/2 the time if you have two different suits. Not 1/6 the time.

There are a lot of shoulds in your posts, as if live 1/2 players are playing like GTO wizards. Let me break it to you, they're not. They're mostly playing their hands, it's as simple as that.

By the way, we do know stacksizes, since hero started the hand with 250 and villain covers.

Fold pf. 87o is a not a hand you should be playing unless you've decided you're just going to bluff this hand You might think you're playing tight, but if this is a "standard" raise for you, you're not. On the flop you've got air. You make a small bet and get raised. That's a huge sign that you're beat. Even his air is better than yours. Fold to the raise.

By the river, you're playing a one card hand (your 7 is counterfeited) with 2nd pair, no kicker. You're going to lose a lot of money in the long term hero calling shoves in this situation at 1/2.

Ah, thanks. Then yep, this is a call.

Thank you all for the input, guys.

Going through this in order, it seems the mistakes compound and are made early on.

I got my EP ranges down with more precision that my late ones, so noted that I am not opening 78o. I think I am used to much softer and passive fields than the other night, where usually raise and a bet where people missed seems to make some money. I need to tailor my ranges better to the current table, too.

I am unsure how often I should c-bet this kind of flop. C-betting then is probably a gaping leak to look into.



Overall, it seems my mistakes are pre and flop and have a hard time faulting the rest of my play on the turn and river based on my read.

What hand does actually xR flop, bets on turn and shoves river on 6648Tdxdxd? Say you want to attack a player c-betting too much, what are good candidates?



I am also thinking that I have seen the younger players being very aggressive here and have seen this kind of three barrel sequence show up a few times at this casino with the aggressor eventually mucking his hand after a river all-in. Is there a fraction of modern day population playing 1/2 that is maybe unbalanced toward bluffs (against the grain that 1/2 pop big river bets are geared value heavy)?


Asking this question for real from the start of my journey. All of this is maybe result orientedness as I called the shove and V said he had A high (I guess with the Ad, but he didn't show).

Yes there are certain demographics and ages of players that bluff more frequently. People age 20-40 bluff more frequently at low stakes. Within an orbit or two you should start to have an idea of what most people are playing preflop and how they enter pots. Then what they do postflop. How often they raise. How offen they donk lead. What are they donk leading with.

Once you get to 2-5 and higher the population reads are still valuable, but not with 80%+ certainty like in 1/2 and 1/3

Nice! Yeah, if you’re calling this with EVERY 78, you’re calling too often. But if you wait until you have a Diamond in your hand, you should be in good shape.

Going back: I think C-betting 100% of the time *is* fine on this board. And you’re perfectly fine to call the CR with your specific hand.

I think you both played the hand really well, you just happened to wind up with a perfect bluff-catching hand and made a tough call.

It would be fun to plug this one into a Solver, because I *suspect* we should call on the River more often with 7d8s than we should with JcJs.

Now that you are here, the call on the river is fine. The raise pre is too small (I just fold this hand), and the flop bet is too small -- I probably check/call vs. this guy.