Villian is young white guy wearing headphones. Bought in for 100BB (shortish in this game). Seems tightish. Generally nervous. Complaining about previous bad beats. Haven´t seen any of his cards yet. Been at table for under an hour.

Hero has tight image.

$1/2

Hero has AQ

Hero opens (covers) UTG+1 for $12, villain sitting beside him makes some weird disgusted face for a second and calls, BB calls.

Flop: A:73

Checked to hero (covers) who bets $25, Villian raises to $55 (with 55 or so behind) , hero talks to him a bit, hero folds.

Terrible? Genius at work?

That weird disgusted face is often a tell. The c/r kinda' confirms it.
However, getting ~$111 [raked]:$30 on a call; don't know if I can fold against a relatively unknown player.

meh. sorta good fold. I would range V heavily to Ax where he is semibluffing with strong equity. but with two hearts out there, I think we can call and see the turn. but, being OOP against a tightish player, I have no problem making this fold.

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In poker, a "hero fold" occurs when a person makes a VERY tough fold. A fold that would make everybody at the table raise their eyebrows in disbelief.
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For me this is more than an standard fold without read. If V doesnt looks fishy or proved he is fish broking with TPTK is not best option. Maybe he is overprotecting his Ax hand. Folding and getting a read / more information on that V should be the easiest money safing information. Maybe I am also too tight. But yeah weird spot to play for stacks.

You started the hand with ~$150 effective, flopped as well as you could hope to do, and have an SPR of just over 4. What more were you waiting for, two pair?

Deep, maybe it's a fold. Reads that the villain has AK or two pair or a set, it's a fold.

Terrible fold as the hand was described.

I know people are allergic to thinking about balance, but folding your entire range except for AA and Ahxh hands to a 1/3 pot raise seems a little exploitable.

Not folding. Might even jam for value tbh. Fish min raise the flop in position with top pair no kicker all the time for info

Sorry, but for less than 100bb, I'm never folding here. If you were worried about his disgusted face, you should have checked the flop.

Never ever ever folding in a 60BB effective pot with TPSK on a board like that with that kind of action.

Could be hearts, worse aces, etc. Yes, we could be up against a AK+, but we're too shallow to fold at this point.

Pretty much this.

Ill just add that it sounds like V might be on tilt. Which is another reason not to fold.

I'm not fist pump shoving (too small of a pot), but I think I'm going to call and plan to check/call the turn and shove the river if it's not in there yet.

Smells like a big pair. If it's AA trying (poorly) to protect against draws, so be it. I suspect we would have seen KK and heard "Ace magnets" at some point.

If we are deeper, then I'm still calling and re-evaluating as we go.

GII. If you were deeper this would be a closer question, but with 60bb effective stacks, b/f TP2K is not feasible.

Are you really arguing for not folding to balance our folding range when this is 1/2 and villain wouldn't be seeing our cards and we could have lots of hands as played that fold to a raise here, or are you just arguing for a call based on villain's range here? I'm not saying I hate a call here, I would just be interested in more about how balance has a place in this decision.

Ultimately, all unbalanced lines are either exploitive plays or leaks. If you make a play that's wildly unbalanced (as a fold here is), you ought to be able to articulate the opponent tendency that you're working to exploit. If you can't, you either have a leak, or you lucked into a profitable play.

Now of course, if you knew the villain's range for making this raise, it would be relatively simple to determine your EV against that range and select a strategy accordingly. In this case, we know almost nothing about how the villain plays other than that he sat in a 1/2 game. That means that constructing a range for him is going to be subject to a huge amount of uncertainty. Really he has a range of ranges depending on what strategy he's employing. As a practical matter, it's impossible to evaluate his range with any level of precision.

Sometimes, you can safely assume that LLSNL unknowns will have certain predictable patterns (like making big bets with ranges that are heavily unbalanced in favor of strong hands) and respond accordingly. But I don't have any population reads that say, for example, that a LLSNL player won't make a small raise with a flush draw or a weak made hand here.

So in the absence of any justification to the contrary, you should take the balanced line here, which is to GII given stack sizes.

As you say, you can arrive at the same conclusion by just figuring out that the opponent is likely to have a lot of hands that you beat. "Figure out what villain has and maximize EV against that range" always works. But while that approach is conceptually simple, it's actually quite difficult to apply in practice. Thinking about balance is more complicated conceptually, but it's frequently an easier approach to apply in practice:

-What am I calling with here?
-Answer: almost nothing.
-Is that balanced?
-Answer: definitely not.
-What am I trying to exploit with this line?
-Answer: I don't know.
-Maybe we have a problem here.

Agree; definitely not folding and would shove for value.

Calling and going to the turn with a pot of around 150 and around 50 behind is not the best play.

Also, we started the hand with 55+55+12 = 61BB and got to the flop with an SPR of around 3 exactly (110/37), and then we led out for 25. I'm not putting in 30% of stacks and then folding TP2K on Ax7h4h.

Anyway, all of the above are just ways of saying that stacks are very short; odds are very good; our hand is very strong; it's very tough to have a set and two pair exactly; villain's range will include worse Ax, flush draws, gut shot straight draws, and more; we even have 20%+ equity against [A7,A3]; and yes, you really can't fold here.

OP, you said you talked to villain a bit.

What did you talk about? What did he say? How did he say it?

Thanks for the reply. I guess my argument is that unbalanced play (perhaps exploitative) is the most profitable in many situations. For instance barreling big value hands against a loose passive table near 100%, and checking draws against villains that don't have a fold button, etc.

Agreed.

Kookie are you ranging the Villain on AA and nothing else?

I asked him how much he had behind and he pushed his chips out so I could see them. I wanted him to talk so I asked him ''how much is that'', and he didn´t reply. He looked excited, not nervous. He looked comfortable. Then I said ''so you don´t want to talk'', then I laughed out loud and told him what I saw preflop and asked him why he didn´t raise, and now his eyes flashed and he looked uncomfortable. Then I said, ''I can´t believe I am going to lay this down'', and he did not look happy.

To be honest, it's a call, and this actually makes me want to call even more.

There's a lot going on here.

You made it clear you were planning to fold, and he didn't do anything to try to get you to change course... he didn't start talking, finally decide to verbalize his chip count, use body language, etc. He can definitely be acting when he seems "uncomfortable" and "unhappy" when you explain your tell that he was strong pre-flop and when you say you're probably folding.

I would be far more concerned if he suddenly started talking "oh yeah, OK, well I guess I have.. yeah, just 55 behind" or "you saw me do WHAT pre-flop? that's funny, I'm so in your head!"

I'm not seeing anything that suggests he really wants a call or that he's upset you're folding. He's being quiet and staying quiet and you're giving him every chance to say or do something to try to get you to change course from very likely folding. I also have no reason to think any of those things you are picking up are real vs. acting.

So yeah, still a call, possibly even moreso, though either way, the discussion / banter does not suggest strength (though it's of course possible he is strong... I just would not glean that from this interaction, and if anything, and there's really no strong tell either way, I might lean towards weakness).

More likely AK given the pf tell.

I agree about typically being pot committed, but I felt I was behind an overwhelming percentage of the time. AJ or AT doesn´t seem likely to raise this flop. A flush draw is not making it 55 (with chips behind). He flopped a set, or he has AQ or AK. If I trust the pf tell he has AK. My gut told me AK. I need 33% equity to call, and I don´t think I have it here.

Edit: 33% assuming I am committed to call whatever he has behind

TAG´s have read books, and mostly these books will say that you should keep your mouth shut when someone is trying to engage you to get a read. No?

OP, what do you think is the ideal response you can get from this thread?

A simple approval to fold and bunch of people essentially giving thumb up?

A discussion of why this was a good fold?

I am always kind of curious what people expect from posting these HH's that provide basically nothing for discussion.

And I love it when people start agonizing over 3:1 odds with a 15bb raise...

I think initially OP thought it might be a good discussion on whether or not it was a good fold. However, given his defense of "LOLLive reads" and "ya had to be there", I'm guessing he also expected a few pats on the back and "attaboys".

I actually like threads like this, although I don't contribute to them much. Most people replying tend to say what I would say (and think is obvious). However, to people just starting out, I think they can be a good trigger to start on the road to advanced thinking. Gets them thinking about the "whys" of a play. "Gosh, I always fold here, why are so many people saying call?", "Are my folds really the right move?", "why do I always fold here"...etc.

Good post, OP.

Not looking for a pat on the back btw. If you think it's a terrible fold I want to hear that. I just posted my thoughts so you know what I was thinking. Maybe my thinking is incorrect.