5/5 NL

Villain - 40+ white, my impression he is an arrogrant prick, full of himself, thinks he's a poker god, decent weak live player, probably below average if he plays online. i've seen him re-raise in MP with 67suited pre flop.
He lost his first buy-in of $500. Re-buy $600 and went on a heater.

Hero - asian, young, perceived as playing weird, aggressive, LAGtard

Villain and I have never played before.

Hero - UTG - JhJs - $1500
Villain - Middle Position - $2000+

Pre-flop
Hero raised $25
Villain called
everyone fold

Flop
7h10h3s

Hero checked
Villain bet $60
Hero raised $210
Villain called

Turn
4h

Hero bets $250
Villain shoves all in

Hero folds
Villain showed 88 no heart.

I could see in his face a look of satisfaction like he fed his ego full. He then sit-out and left. LOL

I guess the question would anyone of you have seen this huge bluff if villain hasnt done this before. of course next time i play him, i will remember this.

bet a real amount on the turn. That way if you get raised you will almost certainly be beat. Smallish bets look weak to certain players and they may try to bluff you. This could also be value too of course. Id probably lead out of the flop here too, checkraising here isnt ideal. Building a big pot with one pair 300bbs deep is a recipe for disaster. Dont post results either.

ok thanks. as i said i was trying to play weird (i'm doing it bad obviously) to confuse players as some here are regulars that i often play with. i always cbet this on the flop before. but you got a point that i'm missing as a newbie. "dont build the pot too big with top pair only specially if we are too deep". i better go back to my standard TAG/ABC poker.

Of course. The guy probably has 88

You outplayed yourself with the c/r otf on a draw heavy board. Plenty of value in a cbet and we are super deep.

bet/3b the flop.

and i'd check the turn. What is the point of the turn bet? Nothing weaker calls, nothing stronger folds. And I'd call turn if I thought he was capable of bluffing but not capable of firing another barrel, and I'd fold otherwise. (i'd probably call.)

Trying to play "weird" is stupid. There is nothing wrong with taking different lines, but taking a "weird" line means you are just taking a stupid line.

I'd have just bet the flop normally. Turn is fine and a pretty standard bet/fold, IMO. "Oh, well".

Now for some responses to replies. 250 into 470 on the turn is perfectly fine. This is live poker. That is a big bet. I think the flop is where he may have induced a play from villain. Agree with rest of your assessment.

Why would you 3bet the flop with one pair this deep? A serious question.

There are plenty of reasons to bet the turn. The main one is that check/calling/soul reading is a lot worse than just bet/folding.

with a T73 2 tone board with those reads, I am putting villan on a pretty wide raising range.

the board is a board that gets Cbet 100%, so it is more likely to be raised with a draw even by a typical reg. I would personally be raising here with ANY drawing hand even something like J9 (not saying I think J9 is in his preflop hand range) or 76. and I would also be raising if I have a value hand like AT or T9 . If V thinks he is a poker god, he is even more likely to raise with even more marginal holdings like two overs.

The only hands that beat you here are are TT 77 33 which is a pretty small number of combinations. If you dont 3b the flop, you will be shutting down on the turn/river on all but 2 cards in the deck (and even a J you will proceed with caution because of 98). You should 3B or fold the flop.

If you 3B the flop and get a call, it is much easier to play postflop. overcards are far less scary, and you can ship everything but a 6 or a heart. If they ship on you, you gotta decide whether or not he ships with a draw, and if he does you snap call it.

In fact, if you arent going to 3B this flop, you should just check/call, because you will get raised off your hand with everything other than total air, so your bet turns your hand into essentially a pure bluff.

having the Jh, i will take CB flop, x/c, x/c line...
or
will b/c if the turn is not a heart and will x/c non-heart, non-A-K-Q river

so if a 6h hits the turn and he bets you are calling a $400 bet?

If the turn is an Ax you are betting and calling?

Nh by villain lol

By c/r the flop, you take a lot of flushes out of your range ott cause most people do not take the initiative pre then C/r the flop with a flush draw unless they are shallow enough to ship it so you allow him to play perfectly against you.

Just bet the flop and re-evaluate turn, the pot won't be as big so you can call down a bit lighter if you think he's FOS and you will keep your range wider so he can't do anything nuts like this as you would still have nut hands in your range.

As played, you had to fold and good hand by villain but keep him close and play with him often.

if you CB around 35-40 in the flop and he raises.. its not bad to fold here because he may have 2pairs+ and is protecting his hand vs draw. very unlkely for FD to raise here maybe combo draw.

by CBetting we are in a way controlling the pot, its not a good habit to fatten the pot with a pair... then we can x/c turn since we have Jh as blocker for pot control as well. im more than happy to check up to he river.

if the turn is non heart, its still ok to double barrel here but not 100%

you are right i quick glanced at it and thought it was 40ish percent of the pot. One thing i will say though is against a spazzy player, betting the turn at all probably isnt good. Its good to take bet fold lines against predictable players but not so much this guy. Bet fold lines go down in value big time against people capable of bluffing with mediocre hands with some show down value (worse than your hand). And check call, pot control lines go way up in value.

you played the hand really bad. you deserve to lose there.

Tomark, have you played low stakes live? I'm serious.

CLIFFNOTES: If you went to Level III, you probably could have made this call, but it feels like you were on Level II and not adjusting to villain's adjustment to your image

GRUNCH (grunch means i'm posting without reading anyone's replies)

If you search threads started by me in this forum you will see that I make these sorts of calls all the time. Incidentally, don't post results

The hand starts right here imo. Now, there are two interpretations of your comments.

#1 We recognize the traits that Villain has and we are actively going to try to exploit his arrogance and get him to make as many mistakes as possible

#2 Who the F*** does he think he is? He thinks he's better than me? I'll show him who is the best player. He doesn't know who he's F***ing with.

I don't mean to be condescending but most poker players (especially young players in their 20s) can help but revert to #2. Its important that you don't lie to yourself here. Your mistake began with your mindset about V. Your mindset was based on EGO. Pure and simple. A part of you was just "itching" to show this guy who's boss. Hence your willingness to take a "weird line" instead of a line that was for max value. but we'll get to that.

Okay, going for a c/r here vs this villain for the amount that you did isn't bad per say. You guys are deep. But I'm not sensing a lot of thought behind the c/r. With this c/r you are repping a semi-bluff, AQhh or AKhh type but unfortunately, you don't have A to serve as a blocker meaning that Ax type hands can be in V's range.

Now, here is where the higher principles of poker need to come in. If V has AX then his best odds for drawing to the flush are on the flop and he should 4bet flop. So since he doesn't 4bet I don't think he has the nut flush draw.

Another point is what he thinks you have. Since you c/r flop he's got to put the Flush draw in your range, perhaps AQ type hands. But wait!!!!! According to you, your image is "weird, aggressive, and LAG". So, this means V can put a lot of air in your range and not worry so much about you having AQ type hands... In fact, V should be expecting you to be "weird, aggressive, and LAG" which a c/r on this flop to the amount you raised certainly is. So the impact of all this is that if V is a thinking player and has a hand that has value he can call and reevaluate turn.


Not a bad value bet on turn. UNfortunately, V thinks of you as "weird, aggressive, and LAG".

here is where you failed to go to Level III.

What does V think your bet is trying to do? Given that V sees you as "weird, aggressive, and LAG", V thinks that you are trying to take control of the pot, possibly even draw with AK type hands, or maybe pot control with JJ-AA type hands with no heart or maybe you are firing a probe bet to see where you are at.

Going back to what V has.

If V had the nuts here would he really shove all-in??? If V had AX or KQ type hand he's probably just raising you to $600 because he WANTS a call or flatting your bet so you can continue your aggression on the river (and I think he does the same with a baby flush). So then, what is V trying to do?

V is trying to fold you out.

And why not???

The problem I see in this hand is that you didn't incorporate what villain thinks about you into your decisions. You were more Level II with "What does villain have" instead of being Level III which is "what does villain think that I think he has" and "what does villain think I think..."

Villain thinks you are "wierd, aggressive, and LAG" so how is he going to read you and adjust to you? One way is by blowing you off the hand because given your image it is rare you have the nuts here, a set, or AA type hand where you have to call.

Then there is villain's arrogant tendency right?

Looking at this mathematically, you need villain to be bluffing here roughly 35% of the time to be able to call him here.

So now lets look at your read

Do you think this is the sort of player that "can" bluff in this spot 35% of the time?

If the answer is yes, then this is a call.

So, if you add everything up, this river isn't only a call, its actually a SNAP call vs this villain.

You should never take a "weird" line without thinking it through and understanding exactly what the effects of the "weird line" is going to have on the hand. You need to have a plan for every action, every street.

And lastly, don't let your ego mess up your thinking or your hand. Its hard, but we have to learn to keep our ego out of our decisions...

Good Luck

dgi,

first, I disagree that live players are likely b/3bing with their nut FDs on the flop. when this deep in my experience many players bet/call in single raised pots.

second, even if we c/r (which I don't like) and get flatted. i'd probably check/call turn with JJ with Jh.

lastly.... dude, level 2 level 3..... c'mon, you're reading too deep into it and trying to overanalyze it. we played a hand in a weird manner and dude showed up with a bluff. I think overall, snapping this off for 300BBs vs. almost any live player is bad.

You know I post all the time and RARELY ever mention Level II and Level III... But I actually think it applies in this case. Basically, whenever you have two ego maniac type players who are actually thinking players as well, then you are more prone to get into Level II vs Level III dynamics.

And I do agree that there are different ways to interpret the betting and raising etc between these two players...

but imo opinion, however you want to analyze this hand, you've got to take into account that you have thinking players with ego involved and that means you have to get into the "what is he thinking and what is he thinking that i'm thinking..." dynamics...

I think some of you are going way too deep in thinking for a 2/5 game. The Turn is a standard bet/fold. The guy made a play, congrats to him. I don't see how check/calling/soul reading is better. Next time you just have the nuts and he gets stacked.

So there is no differentiation in your game when dealing with ego maniacs or hands in which ego is a significant factor?

Serious question no snark.

ok my reason why i checked raised on the flop was to protect. he will most likely call if i cbet flop. i thought my $250 bet on the turn was enough for him to fold if he has Ace but i was wrong.

i guess this check-raise flop is a sh.it and spew play and cbet is the play then re-evaluate if get raised.

i'm still a newbie. when i said "young" i just look young as asian but actually i'm in my early 30s and just a recreational player.

i actually thought villain play is very bad as i had already shown strenght on the flop. i could easily have a set and may not fold.

This looks like a spot where you're check/raising but when your check/raise gets called you start feeling a little uncertain - that is bad. you don't want to put yourself in those spots.

if I did play flop like you did (my standard would be to cbet, but c/r is still not horrible) I would be chk/calling turn - I think there would be more value in it than betting since guys are much more likely to bet as a bluff than to bluff-raise for big money.

lol. please disregard my original opinion OP. I misread and thought he was a reg who thought he was god's gift to poker (thus aggro and wants to prove his penis size by running a big semi bluff vs the other reg at the table.)

I see now "decent weak live player". If the guy isnt aggro or particularly good, I bet/fold the flop.