Hey everyone. New guy here. From outside of New Orleans. Play mostly live low stakes at harrahs and local games. Consider myself an average player. Play mostly weekends. And some weekdays at little local games. Ran into a tough spot against a tight nitty reg last night and looking for a few different opinions on this particular hand.

1/3 NL
Hero stack 800 Tag image
Villain on button covers hero.
Villain is a reg. He had been folding for the last hour calling and three betting strong holdings only. Typical nitty reg.

Villain on Button straddle.
Hero in small blind Ah Kc

Hero 1st to act raise to 16
Cut off calls and villian calls
Flop 9h7hKd
Hero bets 35
Cut off folds villain calls
Turn 2s
Hero bets 75
Villain calls
River 5c
Hero checks
Villain quickly bets 400.
Hero????

Villian is a reg. Played with him before. Certainly a thinking player. Seen him try to bully a couple times. But overall is a tight solid player. Was trying to avoid getting tangled up with him which wasn’t that hard cause he was so tight most of the night.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance guys and gals.

I’m folding. $400 is too much for to defend TPTK on the river. I believe you may actually have a +EV call but i’ll Never find out. If he runs this line again look him up but the first one gets through on me.

I probably would have led the river as well. $150 b/f.

$16 is way too small preflop. That's the first mistake.

Was thinking along this line as well. With me being in the small blind. I should have been in the 18-25 dollar area pre flop.

He is polarizing his hand so much here. I can see him doing this with a set being his hand is kind of disguised here. But I can also see him doing this with a missed flush draw. I was in the tank for a bit on this one.

Not good that we have Ah here. Vs such a large overbet i let it go.

I’d barrel river.

Preflop too small

does a true nit straddle????????

open raise $25 not $16

as played I fold with no other reads on him

In New Orleans absolutely. Lol. Jk. I believe he had missed his blind so it was either straddle or wait until his B.B. came back around.

I know it’s nearly impossible to get a read on him without playing but what are y’all thoughts on what he may have the way the hand was played? Flat flat then overbet river.

Easy Hand just fold

Preflop raise should be about 24. Oop raises preflop should be large to discourage calls in position. As played on flop and turn, looks fine. River is bet fold unless a dynamic exists where you've seen him raise bluff on river.

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Thanks everyone for the replies. I did fold. He told told me he had 86 for a rivered straight which to me is hard to believe. Why would he over be there with the nuts? During my tank session i tried getting something out of him and he says something to the effect of I know you have one pair and you can’t call this bet with only one pair. I folded. He wins but I still think I got played. Lol.

86s would makes a lot of sense for V to play this way. I’d say you played the river right. As others have said if there’s a $6 straddle then $16 is way too light preflop. I’d start around $25 with no callers and go to $55 or so in a family limp fest.

I should also say i’m Generally not planning a three street offensive with AKo. I raise big preflop and raise big on the flop when I connect. Trying commit as quickly as possible, or not but make that decision early and easy with ~150 BB effective or less.

Thanks for all the replies everyone!! Gonna be in vegas next week. Hope the games are as good as New Orleans.

Good luck with that. The 1/3 at Harrahs is the softest game Ive ever played.

Blocking the nut flush draw I think this is a good fold. However, when he says that bit about "you can only have 1 pair"... Yeah he definitely bluffed you.

*86o

It makes perfect sense just based on the hand history, but even more sense with his speech play. It's a huge tell of strength when someone says I know you have one pair and can't call. No one risks saying that and is bluffing. Just thank him he got really greedy.

Before I go to breakdown of my opinion on this hand, I wanted to say that I ♥️ Harrah’s N.O. The $1/3 game, same game that is mentioned, was where I got my start with playing the live NL games. Thanks for the memories.

You said that this hand was a Straddle because Villain missed his blinds and he is a NIT. There are 2 problems with this:

1. NITs don’t Straddle as someone mentioned above. I highly agree!
2. If this NIT is Straddling because he missed a blind. Then he shouldn’t have the Button (BU). According to common poker rules. No one can have the BU with paying for both SB & BB.

You failed to mention the amount of the Straddle (it’s been so long I forget how much it is exactly). I assume it’s double the natural BB amount, so $6 (This is not always the case in every casino, for example at my local $1/2 NL game the straddle is $5).

PreFlop: Given the looseness of games at Harrah’s N.O. and your position in this hand. Your open RAISE should be at least (4BB+) so $25, like what others have suggested.

Flop, Turn, and River: Your betting lines on all three streets, being Out of Position (OOP) should be to Bet/Fold. Which you did up until the River.

The River you should STILL be betting for Value. And be bet/folding, especially against NITs. So you’re trying to extract value from Hands like: KQ, KJ, KT. Perhaps reducing your bet sizing to 1/4 - 2/3 Pot depending on how the VI has been responding to previous bets.

Hopefully that helps!

V never showed, only said he had 86. No mentioned of suitedness. Either suited or not wouldn't surprise me.

Overall, I'm not looking to build big pots OOP with deepstacks to a competent player, especially if a preflop raise might narrow my range a lot (are we raising in EP a lot or is our hand face-up here?). So I limp in and evaluate, possibly reraising depending on stacks involved, who's opening, how much dead money, etc.

Just based on river play alone, it looks like this guy is perhaps capable of putting us in difficult spots. So postflop I'm less concerned about getting value / charging draws / etc. than I am about getting put in gross spots and not getting to showdown. Against ABC hurp durps, by all means, bet/fold x 3, nothing to see here. But it doesn't sound like this is that guy, so I aim more to get to showdown / underrep my hand.

As played, I fold the river and feel pretty gross that I wasn't able to see a showdown in a big pot after sticking in a bunch of chips.

GcluelessNLnoobG

You think an extra $2 - $9 preflop is going to make any difference in calling frequency whatsoever when your opponent has position on you and you're $800 deep?

I actually think our small raise might be better as it allows a much more playable SPR (17 vs 10), especially since no non-******ed raise is going to setup a trivially small SPR (where we'll be able to commit with TP).

GnopeG

OP, I fold as played.

This is a river spot where it feels like villain could (and probably should) be bluffing a fair amount of the time - it's going to be really hard for you to call off this bet with your one pair holdings (a majority of your range here) so it feels like we are being exploited massively. However, vs. the described reg, anecdotally I feel like you are shown the nuts here much much more than a bluff. In theory, villain could print money call/call/bombing the river on this runout with any two cards, as Hero is going to have a tough time calling with his likely range, but in practice I think most regs at LLSNL are only putting that much money in with the nuts against a player who is showing strength in a hand. It sucks, but I think a fold is in order here as he won't be bluffing enough to make a call profitable.