Playing a deep, good, 2/5 table. Some splashy recs and everyone is super deep. The $10 straddle was happening most hands, but for some reason not this one.

V is a crusher pro. I used to play full time and have many many hours with V. He is very aggressive and loves to play for stacks. Consciously has a balanced approach to all spots and never spews. Floats in position with backdoor draws V knows my range is fairly tight here and will use his position accordingly.

$2k effective and I'm in SB with AK. Folds to V in cut off who raises to $20. He's very wide here. Button calls and I 3 bet to 75. V thinks and smooth calls. I think he will rarely 4bet here and I'd expect him to call 90% of the time with his whole range.

Flop K62 ($175)

I check and V checks behind.
My reasoning to check is this is a super dry board and I want to allow V to think I'm weak with an under pair or broadway cards without a K and allow him to bluff if needed. I know he won't let this hand go for free, it's just a matter of when he will start to show aggression.

(Turn) K62Q
I bet $100 and V calls. This is a good/dynamic card for his range so I can start getting some value from backdoor draws.

(River) K62Q5 ($375)
I take a beat and check. I'm going to snap call anything up to a pot sized bet and just live with it if he happens to have back door spades or small set.

V over bets pot and makes it $650.

This obviously gives me pause. Hero?

Your 3 bet is criminally small. I would 3 bet at least $120 here.

I would bet flop $60.

I'd probably size up sightly ott as played.

I don't understand checking the river. I generally hate x-c at LLSNL, but if I've ever seen a spot for it, this is it.

I think you have to call, disgusting spot though.

My thought for the river is he will always bet if checked to or raise me if I bet. And if it's a bluff I can be in a more reasonable spot. If I bet river and get raised I don't actually have more information. So it's a function of pot control on a balanced V.

Sorry guys. The board did not pair so it must have been the 5. Not sure if that changes anything, but can't edit it now.

What are stacks? Three bet way too small,$100 minimum. Probably more if 200 bb deep.

Range bet this flop. This is FPS. You have a three street value hand vs this opponent.

Could be a good situation to bluff raise TBH. Repping KK/QQ very hard when you do that. It’s easy to overdo it, though.

Edit: see board didn’t pair. You probably have to fold. I’d want a spade in my hand for hero calling.


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If your plan on the flop was to check to let Villain show aggression, why not stick with the plan and check turn as well?

As played, I think this is a fold. I think V puts us on a range that includes QQ and maybe KK too and doesn’t care.

Agree that the 3 bet preflop is too small. Definitely a mistake. $2k effective.

I think I checked flop to see if V would take control from the beginning. When he checked behind I was too far up in my value range to risk it checking through again. He's a good player and won't just spew if checked to every time. There has to be some balance to trapping him.

I can't stress enough that this is not a 3 street hand with this board vs a good player. What is he going to just call down with KJ?

I’m never three betting AK from the SB into the toughest player at the game who will have position throughout. Unless stacks are short and I can make an easy decision on the flop.

This is really bad. AK is a no brained 3 bet here.

On the right runouts, yes. How are you beat on this board? Is he raise/calling K2s/K6s pre? Maybe with your tiny preflop sizing, I guess. Otherwise just 66 and 22. If you get a clean runout he has to call down some top pairs. He can't just fold his entire range/only defend 2P+.

There's a huge difference between a K62Q5sss runout backdooring spades and K6277r. It's wrong to think of hands in terms of absolute strength (TPTK). Think about how the board interacts with both players' ranges and judge the strength of your hand based off that.

I think you should be checking some AK combos if you're not range betting this flop, but I'd just bet range for a small sizing. You have a pretty big range advantage on this board and considering villain's preflop range is just way wider than yours.

Hand is butchered. I think villain should raise all better made hands on turn and should be quite polar. And easily have enough bluffs here to justify a call.

Fortunately, I can fix the OP.

Your plan from the flop was to trap him with TP. You wanted to induce a bluff on the river. Mission accomplished.

The way I'd approach it is looking what he wants you to do. Does he think you're a calling station? Has he seen you fold TP before? Once you answer those questions, then follow Mike Caro's advice. When a villain wants you to do something, disappoint them.

Whelp I guess this HH analysis was a flop by me.

Anyways, the super over bet caused me to rethink my snap call. He is obviously polarized with backdoor spades or complete air here.

To Venice's post, I truly think he makes me indifferent in this spot. When I've called him down in the past he has snapped me off or turbo mucked 50/50.

In game I decide I need at least the A or K of spades to profitably call. I fold.

My guess is your b/b/b range here is unbalanced toward value and this V knows it. If he's wide and wouldn't c/c/c with KJ on most runouts, triple barrel air sometimes. He usually doesn't have a hand.

Regardless, range betting this flop should be printing money; we have a huge range advantage. I'd save the "check to let V hang himself" lines for maniacs, not for good opponents who understand ranges, bet sizing, and balance.

That’s where you’re wrong. If you aren’t 3 street value betting AK, your value range will be so narrow that he should call you down with any K in his range. Are you even three street VB AA given that assessment?


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+1. We should have a lot of AQ/AJ stuff that can make for triple barrels if our opponent is going to be folding so much.

But I can’t imagine our strategy has much semblance of balance at all if AK is a knee jerk “not a three street hand” when the flop comes K62r in 3 bet pot


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3bet is way too small. We need to go at least 6x here, especially bigger since we are deeper + squeezing.

Flop is a range bet - can size up since SPR is higher. K high boards are amazing for us.

As played - fold.

Just saw results. Nice bluff by Villain - but if he has hands like JTo here then we need to adjust.

Once you start putting a bunch of offsuit hands into his 3bet preflop calling range - he is going to be unbalanced on his OBs so we need to call down lighter in the future.

I don’t see how the last part of the last sentence follows from the first. It’s possible he calls too wide and then gives up way too much on later streets, but chose this hand for a bluff since he blocks some of our flushes.

Blocking flushes doesn't matter much here for Villain.

It's unlikely OP ever takes the x flop - bet turn - x river line with a flush.

It's more likely that Villain is over bluffing the river and he just happened to have a hand that blocked a flush. But the blocker isn't relevant if OP never has a flush. It's impossible to say but I'd bet money on Villain bluffing all JTo regardless if they have a spade or not.

Also JTo isn't just too wide - it is ridiculously wide, especially versus a squeeze.

You are supposed to be tighter not looser at deeper stack depths.

I'd rethink my opinion of villain's skills if he calls with JTo here. Reminds me of a guy I played with a few times, definitely a crusher but here's the thing, because he calls 3bets way too wide, I have made his life absolutely miserable in several hands. I'd say he's better at poker than me, definitely a better hand reader, but there's no way to really leverage his skill gap when my range is crushing his, in a bloated pot. You can have all the skills in the world but if I can just own you by giving you the kicker lesson, how good are you?

A couple of additional comments:

Villain overbet on river is really to put pressure on weaker hands in your range like qx and middle pairs, and as it turns out ax, so we don't even need to think much about calling this one down. Villain could even be betting big with kj, kt and turn some qx into bluffs.

OP may have overestimated villain skill level. Flatting jto on button for 4x open is meh both initially and vs undersized 3!- he would have probably folded to a bigger 3!

But the main thing is that if OP did overestimate villain skill level he will be even more unbalanced with river overbet to bluffs, making this an even easier, near-automatic call.

Also, if villain defends JTo, he probably has all broadways, junky offsuit connectors like 76o, hands like 64s, any pocket pair, etc.

If he’s folding enough of this range on this texture to where we can’t bet for value 3 times, then there seems to be a simple solution: bluff relentlessly. Like he might have 200 combos to start on this flop and he’s only going to show down 12 KQ (from his POV not knowing we have a K) and 6 sets?


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