Hey all,

Long time lurker, but now I finally made a 2p2 account. I intend to post regularly here, especially in the Live Low-stakes NL because I'm mainly a live cashgame player.

The game:
We are playing a 2/2 game in Amsterdam, the game is running for an hour or so. buy-in is 50-400.

Villain - €352:
Chatty Asian guy from San Francisco, 25-28yr. I suppose he's on vacation. He is kinda active, has limpfolded and limpcalled some hands and gave up easily on the flop. He opened some hands to 4,6 or 8, while the standard size at this table is 12-16, he folded two times when he opened to 6 and after some callers someone squeezed. He never opened to more then 8. Overall kinda ABC, obvious sizing tells. Level 1 thinker, sometimes maybe a little bit level 2 thinking.

Hero - €400:
21, white, active from LP, isolated some limpers a couple of times. Squeezed on the button when he opened to 6 followed by 2 callers, they all folded.
I lost 2 preflop all-ins with AK v 77 on J89J3 and with JJ v AK on K10A24 and i had to bet/fold the turn with QQ on J45ddx 3x when a nit raised me all-in. In all 3 hands I didn't show my cards so he might view me as a bit spewy/gambly. But overall I think he's not paying to much attention to it.

The hand contains 2 parts, I'll post the second part soon.

The hand:

Villain UTG+1 (stack €352): opens to €12 and says "this seems to be the standard raise size on this table, right?"
HJ, friend of me: calls €12
HERO in CO (stack €400): calls €12 with KQ

Flop (3 way, €40)
345

Villain bets €20, HJ folds.
Hero: ..

At this point I'm not sure if I want to call or raise. I think both options are fine, Im just not sure which one is the optimal.

I'd like to hear what you think is the best thing to do, and especially why. What are the pros and cons of raising or calling, and why?
I'll give my thoughts afterwards.

~Sorry if my English is a bit poor

The speech at the beginning is worrisome. I'm more inclined to 3-bet in the CO with KQs against a wide opener but with the speech, I don't know. The speech plus the more than $8 raise and small bet on the flop feels pretty massive. We have K and Q blockers so it could very well be AA here (I'm saying this with the speech and bet sizing in mind) - with that, I'd just call, I don't want to get raised out.

It depends. (that was easy/lol)

Welcome to posting.

Things to consider: Apparently he has got bet sizing tells, so let's say we range him at JJ+, AK/maybe AQ. We have blockers to a lot of that but that doesn't always mean anything(betting action means more).

We have a lots of outs. Maybe. If he has AA/KK/QQ maybe not. If has A in there it's worse.

How much fold equity do we have? He folded easily on the flop earlier but prob because he had no hand. He led out here, IMO fold equity is very low.

A lot of this points to just call here and see the turn. But that can turn our hand face up if we call and a hits the turn and we start putting in lots of monies.

It really does depend on players. Also consider our fold equity on turn if we miss but want to steal then.

The best part of our plan/decision is that we have position. What I do here against a standard rec player like this guy is min raise him on flop. He'll almost always call, sometimes reraise big, or fold out complete garbage(if we ranged him wrong for instance). When he calls he will almost always check turn to us and we get to see a free card on river with basically only a minimum invested. Also if we min raise flop and he calls and a hits turn it's much easier to get the monies in.

I am for sure just calling and hoping to hit a diamond on turn to hopefully get his stack. EVERY TIME some fish gives a stupid speech followed by a stronger bet than their usual, they are very strong. I highly doubt that your king or queen are clean outs. So like I said, calland hope for a shiny diamond.

Thanks for the responses.

So my thoughts; (let me know if this are good thoughts or not)

Reasons to raise:
Crsseyed pointed this out well. When I raise the flop and he calls he will most likely check every turn. This means I can check back bad turn cards and take a free river card. Or if the diamond hits I can continu betting with a sizing I can get stacks in on the river. I can also continu betting on scarecards on the turn, such as a A, 2, 6 or 7,although I'm not so sure this is effective against this type of player.

Reasons to call:
He obviously has a strong holding, this means we got little to no fold equity. If we raise and he reraises us we are in a awkward spot. If we just call and we hit a diamond we will get paid off 2 streets most likely. I also think when we miss the turn he will give us a good price to hit the river.

I lean towards a call, still not really sure. If we are deeper (like 250bb+) I think raising is the best option. (?)
------

In the hand I decided to raise to 58, expecting him to just call.
Instead he shipped it for €340 total.
I ended up calling, this was a mistake.

I think his range is JJ (6 combos) QQ KK (combined 6 combos) AA (6 combos) and AJdd (1 combo)

there is €40 + €58 + €340 -€10(rake) = €428 in the pot, I need to call €298.
So I need about 41%

Can someone stove this for me? How much money did I lose calling against his range?

I would raise this flop heads up like 95% of the time. Unless V has Axdd, QQ+ or a set/straight, you are going to have at least 50% equity with two overs and a flush draw, and you have position and deep stacks. V could also just be cbetting a low flop with any holding and fold to a raise when he has no pair/no draw.

If you raise and V calls, he's often going to check the turn regardless of what card it is and give you a free one. If he re-raises you, then you have to decide whether you want to get it in with a big draw or not. I probably raise flop to 65-70 here.

I don't really see the need to raise here against what is presumably a pretty narrow range that only our flush getting there is ahead of.

I also think if he is pretty ABC we can steal the pot with a lot of turn cards.

I just don't see the need to put a lot of chips in the pot here with villains image, opening position and thus presumed range.

So you think V never has 66-JJ or total air just because he cbet the flop? Is he going to fold 99-JJ on this wet flop facing a raise? Probably not. Yes, you could just call and see a turn, but that's a little too passive for me and if the flush or K or Q hits all of V's pocket pairs might just give up.

I doubt he is folding any overpair if he is a level 1 ABC. We can bet him off a lot of hands on turn even if we don't get there.

I don't think getting it in is the end of the world I'm just not sure it's the optimal line