2/5NL at Tampa Hardrock

Fish($1200) Is a massive fish, putting in huge raises with TPNK, stacking off with TPTK.

NP ($450) Just sat down, middle aged with glasses looks like the typical nitty player but no reads yet

Kid ($1500) Is a good TaG grinder, squeezes, clearly crushes the game.

Hero ($2000) Viewed as young and aggressive but fairly nitty. Kid probably views me as standard grinder, not making plays.

Fish straddles $10 from MP, NP calls, Kid Raises to $45, I flat in the CO with 76, Fish folds ????, NP calls.

I flat in position because Fish and Kid are deep, I'm in position, and my hand plays well with high sprs. I never expected Fish to fold here.

Flop ($130) 234

I flop a gutter to a 5 and backdoor spades. NP checks and looks uninterested in the hand. Kid leads $80. I opt to call here. Kid is going to cbet his entire range on this board and check many turns, so I can take the pot away as a float. More importantly, Kid is going to have a lot of Aces in his raising/cbetting range, which turn a wheel on a 5 and get crushed by my higher straight. I am also planning on raising him off hands when a spade peels of as I rep the sets very well.

Anyways, with an unkown player in this pot (appears dissinterested but he just sat down) Is this call to thin?

Kid will not cbet entire range here so floating sucks, I would raise flop and barrel almost every turn and river. Standard TAG folds all overpairs.

Value of hitting nut straight vs wheel isn't that high on a 4 straight board, he won't stack off.

Seems like a fine float to me so long as you plan on trying to take the pot away on some turns/rivers

I don't think raising the flop reps sets as well as raising the turn does. I agree the value of hitting the straight isn't a whole lot.

With deep stacked fish in hand, I'm seeing that flop also with 76s. Unfortunately, the fish folded and the flop only gives hero some marginal draw potential. I would mostly just fold here. Sometimes I would flat sometimes and raise sometimes, but less then 1 in 10, unless villain is the sort with a 100% c-bet frequency but gives up on turn a lot.

This is a situation where I would be a lot more happy calling if the fish was betting because hero is a lot more likely to get paid if hero gets there. A good TAG player is going to be hard to get money out of with anything except the back door flush.

FYP

no way is this call too thin, I wouldn't play it pre if this wasn't a flop I liked, and please, please don't raise

continue?

I like your plan for the hand. Raising flop and barrelling turn probably accomplishes the same as calling flop and barrelling turn and river, but this way you get to see all 5 cards, and while he may not stack off with a wheel, you will get some value if you do bink a 5.

Very nice thought process. Liking your line

I don't mind you floating flop with the intention of raising certain turns. The question you haven't really addressed, though, is what hand are you representing by calling, apart from a set? If the 'Kid' is a genuine TAG then he's not only going to be ranging you on a set, as it's too narrow. Nearly ALL pocket pairs are continuing on this flop, as do many Axs (which means a 5 isn't going to give you as much a value as you might hope, as others have suggested). The only other combo that continues, really, is the hand you actually have along with 56s and A5, of course.

While calling here is better than raising (raising is exploitable as it just looks like you've got a small overpair and a decent player will take advantage), I'm also accepting that you may need to give-up on many turns, especially broadways, as he's likely to barrel these cards. The question of how you play a A, K or Q of is a tricky one. If he bets these cards, as expected, are you still planning to raise? Bet-sizing will be crucial, insofar as if you do raise you really want to have a decent bet left (e.g. 1/2 pot) to bomb river. The problem is that your raise size on the turn is dependent on how much the 'Kid' bets. Also, if you raise a broadway on the turn, you have to remember you're only representing sets, 56 or A2/A3/A4/A5. Sure, it's a wide enough range to be convincing, so long as your table image is relatively conservative.

I like the set-up here, but it could result in you donking off your whole stack with virtually no showdown value. I guess that's why we sit down at the table, in the first place ...

I think of you peel 76s pre flop you should continue on this board, it's a good board for your hand. And position is ket

Not a thing float, I think you could even just try to pick it up there with a raise making it maybe $185 and just pick it up.

I really love this line actually. I would just be positive that kid sees you as tight. So you're line would be call 80. Pot is 190. Let's say villain checks what do you do? Or villain leads 175 for example are you bumping it up on all turn cards?

I don't know if it's +EV or not. But it's bad-ass. This is poker.

Sets/straights raise flop
Turn raise reps a draw
Flop raise does not look like an overpair (to whoever said that) when you barrel turn and river
I think you're all making the incorrect assumption that this is a board where villain will cbet and give up

I don't mind a call here, we are deep with room to maneuver. Folding is fine too.

raising flop applies the most pressure, this is a standard b/f for most thinking players, and I think he would expect you to raise flop with your entire value range.

Grunch

Raise flop and barrell all but the worst turns and rivers

Raising flop would be bad as we are basically repping draws and bluffs....most of the time we would flat flop and raise the turn of we had a set....i really like the float, in fact its about as good a spot as it gets to float.....i really like your plan for the hand....i think standard float/ or semi-bluff raise turn here is good, especially as this villan wont put us on a draw after we raise turn.

Love this thread, look at all the opinions on what a flop raise would mean. And none of them are necessarily wrong - different styles take different lines, and a flop raise might be any of these things.

My current favorite poker book (which I'm not sure I'm allowed to mention so I won't, PM me if interested) has at least two hand examples where the author asks the question out loud "so what are we repping when we take line xyz?". The answer he gives is "eh, who knows?". In both cases, he was describing a hand against a decent player who doesn't want to go broke on a pair, and lives by the bet/fold.

Kind of a "ding ding ding" moment for me, actually. If we're against a player who has already predetermined he's going to fold if raised, what difference does it make what our cards are? In this hand, the fact that we have a bit of equity is a nice bonus, but we don't need backup equity when our fold equity is 100%.

Not sure our fold equity is 100% here, but I like a flop raise based on your villain description. TAG grinder that sees us as tight and straightforward - he's going to give us credit. Good chance he's bet/folding. If we're wrong, we've got a gutter and plenty of barrel cards.

(I don't hate the float, either...)

I'm not raising here because I've been burned so often by the "disinterested" player. He's at a poker game where a huge pot is brewing. If he's got a heartbeat, he's interested whether he's in the pot or not. I'm on to this reverse tell. I'm not raising until I found out exactly how disinterested he is.

Also, you have a chance to win this pot for the cheapest price possible. No need to raise just yet. Very few cards are going to make him comfortable anyway.

Thanks for all of the excellent opinions on the best line guys. Glad to see everyone on here seems inclined to continue continue in the hand. I think that the balance between raise flop and raise turn suggestions exists because the lines run very close in EV. We are trying to rep as strong as possible here, thus taking whichever line that particular kid thought indicated sets/ big OP'S. Really have to be in his head to know this.

The implied odds to a 5 are a smaller factor because there is a small chance of both him having an A and turning the gutter, but if he can handread my range looks like all sets when i start applying pressure, its going to be hard for him to release the wheel. The 3rd player in the hand changes this a little bit. He usually wiffs this board pretty hard Doesent have any draws and can't continue for $80, but if he did flop a monster we risk more by raising flop. (Result below)

Nailed it. The 3rd player check/shipped $450, kid folds, I fold. Pulled the old disinterested reverse tell on his 3rd hand at the table.