Hello People! This hand happened at a home game. My image there is very TAG. People respect my play a lot here.

Villain is not a regular at this home game, have never played with him before and he may have gotten to the table an hour before this hand.

Hero in late position with J8 has about $350, and Villain in the small blind has around $250.

Pre flop: There are a couple callers in front of Hero. Hero calls $2 with my J8. Another caller behind Hero. Villain in small blind raises to $10; all call. Pot is $52.

Flop comes Q9K. Villain bets $35. All fold except Hero who calls. Pot $127.

Turn is 10. Villain bets $75. Hero calls.

River is blank. Villain bets $135 ALLIN. Hero?

Thanks in advance for all your comments and suggestions!

Lol call

Fairly easy call. Calling 135 to win ~400? All...day...long.

Fold pre.

Raise flop.

LOL River snap call.

I think I raise on the flop may have been the best move. But maybe I am just being results oriented. I snapped called river and he had AJ.

GIVE ME ONE REASON WHY YOU SHOULDN'T CALL THIS PLZ!
Only hand beat you is AJ and why the **** should we think he's holding that?
And you should have either raise flop or turn

My stack is ussualy in the middle on this flop or turn, so it's hard to give you any advice for the river.

Seriously? Sorry you lost but shove turn FFS.

Do some hand reading. You only like to AJ but he can't have AJdd cause u have the Jd. For him to have AJ he'd have to donk flop with a naked gut shot.

Snap call

Would stick it in on the turn

The Villain is the pre-flop raiser. So he didn't donk bet. He made a continuation bet. I don't think there's any rule where you can't continuation bet with a gut shot.

For all your exciting capital letters most of the posts here are big pots where someone lost and they're hoping someone talks about hand ranges and gives them some good advice. They're often disappointed.

I don't think I'm good enough to lay this one down :-D

I probably open for like $9 pre to steal the button if I think there's a good chance anyone behind me's going to limp. Limping isn't too bad though.

As played, definitely raise flop. Our straight draw is going to be near impossible to extract value with once it hits, and it'll mostly take baby flushes for us to win flush > flush, and I don't much expect villain to lead here with a baby flush draw.

As played, don't you wish we raised the flop? Gonna be hard to get him to commit a ton of money with worse now. I probably just shove turn because we're just free-rolling to a chop the vast majority of the time. In fact, I more often think he has a nutty flush draw here than he does like 99 or whatever. So shoving makes villain commit to the chop now before he finds a fold on a diamond river, and it forces better FDs to pay a price.

And yes, as played, call. You're rarely doing better than chopping, but you're only losing to like AJdd exactly.

I certainly wasn't good enough to lay this one down haha. Raising the flop would've been the only way for me to have won this pot. I just felt that on the flop I was most likely behind, and if we count the fact the I have 9 outs for the flush, and 3 more tens, then I only have 12 outs, making me an underdog to go all-in right then and there. When we start taking into account fold equity, maybe we have a play here. My thoughts were that if he has AK instead of AJ, he probably would've re-raised me on the flop, but maybe that's partially me being scared money.

Raising the flop is a semi-bluff/buying a free card on the turn/setting up stacks to get it in ahead when our hand improves. Calling doesn't give him a chance to fold the better hand, and we're generally going to have to see the same price to get all the way to the river anyway.

Villain isn't super likely to have AK given preflop action, and anything less than that is hard-pressed to call a raise. You could also argue that KQ- is hard-pressed to bet in the first place, so if villain is enough of a station to call off with bottom two once a ten or diamond hits, then flatting won't be so bad.

Say he had 8 outs on the flop instead, would raising the flop or turn still be correct? If he had open ended straight draw instead...

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I don't believe we can see villain's cards when we decide to raise the flop.

The value of semi bluffing is derived from your villain's fold equity. If a raise will get villain to fold some hands that beat us, then it may be more +EV to raise. If villain never folds better then it is -EV to raise.

Also need to consider implied odds. A nut draw against a loose opponent is worth more then a low flush draw against a tight player. You said you didn't have much info on him tho.

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I don't like the limp call.

I'm not sure I am semi bluffing the flop here all that often after this guy has raised from the sb and then fires out a bet into 4 people on a board that smashes the range of A guy who is probably a complete station.

I'm getting it in on the turn.

To be honest, this is a pretty trivial raise on the flop given the dead money in the middle. We are only crushed by AKdd. It's hard for villain to continue without being very strong if we raise big.

I incorrectly assumed that we got it in on the turn...GET IT IN ON THE TURN. As for pre, I'm playing J8 suited all day for relatively cheap price from late position even without ultimate last position.

If we were deeper I would agree. But limp calling J8s especially when it's a raise from the sb who is almost certainly gonna take an aggresive line post only 125bb eff. Looks -ev to me.

It really depends on your post flop edge. We are only calling $8 more for a $50 pot. From position I'm probably going to win this pot with a bet on the flop enough times to justify the preflop call. Sometimes we will flop a draw and villain will bet we will call and villain will check give up on turn and we can take it down. Sometimes villains bet will look FOS and everyone will fold and we can raise. Position is really important.

Since villain is SB that means no one will be checking to the raiser so that's less villains we have to worry about. The only player we won't have information on is the button who is in the best position.