Hero: MAWG Playing TAG for a couple hours. $400

Game is $1-2 NL with $400 max.

V1: OWG loose-passive fish. Rarely shows aggression. $300
V2: MAWG loose-passive. Younger clone of V1. $250.
V3: Main Villian - Young, aggro mid 20's. I've played with him several times before. He is very aggressive and will bluff frequently, and value bet really light. Typically folds to aggression, and applies max pressure with draws. $250

OTTH

UTG+1 (V1) limps $2
MP (V2) limps $2
MP+1 limps $2
CO (V3) raises to $15
BTN (doesn't matter) calls $15

Hero on SB K Q

Thought process: This is an attractive squeeze spot. I range CO with {AJ+, KJ+, 88+, 109s+, A10s+, possibly some suited gappers as well}. Pro's to squeeze: We are OOP, there is decent money already in the pot. Hand is likely to go very multiway if we call. Cons: We have a very good multiway hand with nut/near nut potential. If we squeeze we will likely get called fairly wide by V3, and will be playing OOP against the higher portion of his range a fair bit.

I decide the Con's outweigh and elect to flat the raise.

Hero on SB Calls $15.
BB folds
UTG +1 Calls $15
MP Calls $15
MP+1 folds

Flop ($75) - K 9 8 -

Hero (SB) checks
UTG+1 checks (V1)
MP checks (V2)
CO (V3) bets $35
BTN calls $35
Hero calls $35
UTG + 1 calls $35
MP folds

Turn ($215) - K 9 8 10 -

Checks to V3.
V3 jams ~$200
BTN folds
Hero?

Thoughts: Flop check is standard. The c-bet from Villain 3 is small. We have TPGK with backdoor spades, and straight draws. Loose-passive villains are likely to announce strength with a check raise, or just flat with a wide range... which would be bad. However, a flop x/r seems way to strong for this hand. (Oh, the problems of OOP play!) It also seems way too nitty to fold to a 1/2 pot bet with what is quite possibly the best hand.

Once the flop bet gets called and we are 4 handed on the turn in a huge pot, our options suck. QJ made the nuts if anyone floated that. However, we block QJ, and AK. V3's jam seems polarizing. He either is fast playing AA/AK (unlikely given our history, 4-way he would slow down I think), flopped a set and is getting it in before the board gets worse, or is on a draw of some kind. Hands containing a J just picked up a lot of outs, and Villain certainly has KJ/AJ/JJ in his range.

I tank for a minute and V1 loads his cards to fold. V2 starts chatting with neighbor, showing disinterest in the hand.

Hero? Conservative fold, or variance train call?

Critique of my thought process and all decisions are welcomed.

Why in the blue hell do you think villain can show up with a bluff here

Because I have played with Villian before, and know that he is super aggro. So I'm thinking that means its a fold to you?

Normally this is a fold multiway. The only likely turn shoving hand you beat is KJ, with top pair and OESD. Against a aggro one some combo flush+straight draws are possible also. But you have to get into super aggro range that has some weak pair+draw, some hands weak enough to count as pure bluffs (ATs for example) and possibly some air bluffs (AQ) before you counter all of his legitimate value hands. He could be shoving some weaker two pairs and hands like AK as bluffs and still beat you.

Notice that this flop hits his range hard but also hits everybody's range. This is the sort of board that even 5 ways it's possible everybody has some part of this. Normally bluffing on this sort of board is suicide. Hands like QJ are likely to check and see if anybody else wants to bet and even two pair/sets are often happy to keep the pot small but won't just give up.

If villain is really super aggro and you are sure both villains after you will fold then a call isn't entirely out of the question. But if villain is really that aggro bluff you into meta-game range based on his history and hopefully some sort of live read.

Does super agro = super spewy? Does he do this with qt,jt,kj? Does he expect not to have callers after 3 players called flop?

This sounds like a fold given the circumstance.

Yes, in my experience he will jam bluffs. I expect him to have some semi bluffs, mostly J's, possibly a backdoors flush combo or two, and value.

I expect his value hands to be AK, AA and sets. Not many two pair hands. We are getting 2:1 on the call, and have 4 outs to the effective nuts, 9 against AA, 7 against AK.

He’d have to be a moron to be betting this flop multi-way with random garbage like that.

I can totally see a guy like this cbetting with stuff like JT, 87cc, 97cc, A8cc, A9cc and then shove this turn, so there are definitely bluffs in his range. This is typically the sort of hand where I manage to tell myself he has KJ or A9cc or whatever, call and then smack myself on the head for giving him my money, because there are probably just not enough bluffs to justify a call. My hindsight is often twenty-twenty.

Pretty much my thinking too. I find I get a little too station-ey at times.

Results: Hero tanks. Talks himself into the odds and semi-bluffs being fairly close, with not a lot of EV to be gained. But something about the Villain felt a little... off. Couldn't put my finger on it, his demeanor somehow. Hero got curious and fired in the call.

Others fold. River bricks.

Villain shows J J and we scoop! Sometimes being sheriff pays

Is this one of those "I made a soul read" brag posts?

Oh and as I am typing this I see the last line of the comment above me. You are going to Macau bro, sick and masterful play.

Pre I like the call because if you squeeze you are probably pushing out a lot of the bad players you want in the hand. If it was all limps and no raise Id like a raise here.

Flop is a raise to get out all the gutshots and get value from KJ/KT and straight draws. Since you just called the turn is one of the worst cards in the deck and Id make an easy fold but in brag post land where you post a HH just to pat yourself on the back this is an ez call. GJ.

I could see it coming across that way. Not my intention.

Villain has values combos: 6 x AA, 8 x AK, 7 x sets, throw in suited QJ for another 3 combos. 24 total value Combos.
Semi Bluffs: 6 x JJ, 8x KJ, at least 3-4 AXcc, probably some AJ say 3 combos, probably J10s for another 3 combos. 20 combos.

So if Villain is playing that range, we have 24 combos we are losing to and 20 combos we are ahead of. We are getting 2:1 and the response is a clear and unequivocal fold??

Now don't misunderstand, I'm not saying fold is bad. Its safe and easy plays like folding these spots that keep us in the black. But to say that a call against a aggro and semi-bluffy range is bad doesn't seem so clear to me.

Why would villain jam KJ here? To maybe fold out exactly KQ? That makes absolutely no sense.

It’s pretty weird for a villain to bet JJ on the flop here. Of course, if villain can show up with hands like that, it’s obviously a call. But it’s rare to find a villain that engages in this kind of spew.

A few bluffs seems quite plausible; JTs and A9cc seem very reasonable. But AJ, random Axcc...pretty spewy stuff. Of course you know your villain better than we do and were right in this case.


Also, weird for you to say this isn’t a brag post, then assert unequivocally that you already knew this call was profitable. If you’re so sure of villain’s range, then yeah, the math is obvious, why did you need to waste everyone’s time with this post? And yeah, if villain has JJ here, then your call is good. But that’s specific to this villain.

Well, we have merged ranges so why can’t we have merged threads?

I call “merged threads” HHs wherein we start off hoping to learn something that has general application to typical scenarios we all face. But in the end, it merges disappointingly into a thread about how to play one specific Villain.

I think i must have done a poor job communicating. I'm not saying its a easy call. I'm saying that its closer than i thought, and am surprised that we are dismissing thia spot as an ez fold with no further analysis.

A fold still may be correct.

"See guys, theres this one hand against this one V type who I have all these soul reads on. So what I am going to do is post the HH and argue all your points with these soul reads only I know about. I know you have questions about my play but you really cant argue them because I know how to play this guy perfectly. Your points and opinions are irrelevant, just tell me how awesome I am and move along."

As the hand is described in OP, IMO you got extremely lucky.

I think the difference is that I, and likely others, interpreted villain from the OP as super aggro but a competent player... and based on your subsequent posts (and the hand results), he's clearly spewy. This is not the line a competent player would take.

Given villain is spew-y, I feel a call is perfectly good. If villain were aggro-competent, this is a really easy fold to me.

Why so douchey all the time?

If you come from reddit where your knees must be touching at all times I could see why you're saying that. In real life sometimes you have to verbally smack somebody around a bit if they are out of line and I would argue that OP and his really dumb brag post are 10x as "douchey" as I could ever be. I make several paragraph posts helping people all the time including one about.. 10 minutes ago so Im not a xenophobic drumpf supporting meaniehead "all the time".

Against a generic villain, even an aggressive one, this is an easy fold. An aggressive villain will be bluffing sometimes but you only have one pair and a gut shot draw. He can be bluffing better hands and he shoved in a multiway pot on a scary board. This would be an easy situation to be shoving into hands that are never folding and good lags avoid those.

If you give villain a super broad range like 77+,AK,KQ,Ac7c+,8x7x+ your still behind. Your priced in against that specific range but it includes a lot of weak draws and bad pairs. If you assume he doesn't always shove hands like JJ/JT/Ac7c and your quickly priced out.

All that is before accounting for the possibility that somebody else might be interested in the hand. If it wasn't obvious they where folding and you have to give even a small chance one of them has a set/straight/big draw then your easily crushed.

Thanks QuadJ. Your analysis makes sense. There was no way i was gonna call if i felt either two players were still interested, and as it was i think i just got lucky. Appreciate the thoughts.

The problem with a HH that puts so much on live tells is that there is no discussion. You should have folded on this board. You were trying to bluff catch 3 other people with not the right odds on a really bleh board, and only the guy shove spewing Jacks made it a win for you.

But if you didn't have the read that both players behind you were folding AND V was spewing with a hand that makes zero sense to spew (he really fired $35 into a K high board with his hand).

Maybe you aren't just hard core bragging, but folding there was correct. No one is saying you are going to lose money 100% of the time in that spot, but you will lose enough were calling is -EV. And because it has all the signs of you threading the needle, it really does look like a brag post.

But for a point of humor, what did you put V3 on when he raised pre, c-bet flop?

I thought villain would cbet with all his Kx, (KJ-AK), AA, 88,99 all for value. I also expected him to cbet a lot of his Ax, JT, likely his small pairs as bluffs.

I would expect him to fire with 80%+ of his flop raise range on a K high rainbow board. The fact that he has 4 callers, why wpuld that slow him down