You are not asking yourself the right question. In poker you wanna make the right decision with the information you have at that point...

Dont calculate your equity against his hand but against a range that you assign him and proceed from there...

Maybe it will look like, {sets, some 2 pairs, some NFD, some combodraws, maybe TT or JJ}

GL

No. You don't do that. The unknown cards are the unknown cards, whether they are in the stub, the muck, or someone's hand.

As for whether the fold is good if you'd seen his hand, remember that you don't have to be over 50% to be +EV if the pot is offering enough.

Let's imagine that his raise was the last money thAt would go in the pot. If you called, 56.3% if the time you'd lose the price of your call, or $115 (-$64.75) and 43.7% of the time you'd win what's already in the pot, or $235 (+$102.70). That means that even though you're behind, you overall EV is +$37.91.

Of course, in this exact instance, thread is money behind that almost always goes in. So let's imagine that you shove and he calls. Now your EV is -0.563*320 (-180.16) and +0.437*440 (192.28). So even in this case, your EV is positive by about $12.

Of course, all that assume that you know his exact hand. Against his range here (SF draws, sets, Pair+NFD, 78s) you are crushed with only 21% equity and it's a super clear fold.

Important question: did you have the A in your hand?

I'm not sure I see a flop but that's nitty me.

Looks like I'm way outvoted, but I actually don't hate a bet here. There's an ok chance we're best and simply protecting against a world of overs against a world of players. We can get called by worse (draws, where we can think of checking back turn hopefully in position and then decide if a bluffcatch is in order on the river depending on runout). Our flop showdown value is going to be of little use by the river, and often by half the deck on the turn if anyone decides to bet. I think we're much cooler with putting in our last bet right now (and hoping it ends things) rather than at any other point in the hand.

GvotedofftheislandG

I knew I should have mentioned that. NO, AA black

1/2 $300 effective.

V 1 opens UTG for 7, which is a bet sizing tell for him.

V2 makes it 30 in MP. More than his usual raise. He 3 bets light. Physical and timing tells suggest that he is doing so. It's obviously possible that we've misread one or both of them. But we're pretty sure of ourselves.

We are in the hijack.

What do you cold 4 bet here, if anything? Do you ever do so as a bluff or semibluff?

I’m not the best cash player but I feel 4 bet JJ+ AQsuited+ here. I wouldn’t bluff here at 1-2 unless there was an extreme table dynamic and people were drunk + playing super laggy or just playing super laggy. Maybe if you think 3 bet was super light maybe you can 4 bet but I’m avoiding

Alright, let's just go ahead and vote.

yeah, just don't 4 bet light at 1/2 imo. You can open up your value range slightly but don't start doing this with napkins

I would need to believe that a villain can fold to a three-bet before I attempted to four-bet-bluff them.

Suggest some actual ranges for V1 and V2, and I can come up with a 4-betting ranges.

I don't know if this has ever been talked about ITT but does it ever make sense to call it off with a nut flush draw if you are not getting the right price?

I play really well with a big stack (at least I think I do) and I like having an image of someone who is there to gamble.

Also if I lose a buy in or two I can still play my B game plus.

Still if a play is -EV it's -EV.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this?

Plus you have to figure in tilt-equity!

Seriously, these image and stack considerations are real, but not worth a whole lot. I might give it a 3-5% nudge in required equity sometimes, but never more.

This is a bit hard to say based on a few hours. The guy 3bet at a high rate for 1/2 but was not a maniac and was a winning player for sure.

A lot of players (incl me) will sometimes 3 bet a little bigger when bluffing, when say, a weak player has opened with a bet sizing tell, as happened here. I really didn't think he had AA or KK as he was the type who would want to get value out of those hands.

Nonetheless, I can't rule out AA or KK (nor can I totally rule out anything for UTG). I could see him also doing it with 99+and AJ-Ak, but again, would expect smaller size from AK and certainly, AK suited and AQ suited.

I'd guess he picks his bluff hands intelligently so some suited aces and broadway blockers that don't play as well post. Let's just say, A-2-A5 suited, QJ off, KJ off.

I think it's an interesting question. My guess is that a lot of the better players in my game play extremely aggro reckless -EV with their shorter stack (playing right into my shortstack wheelhouse) just to build a deepstack ASAP (where they now get play in their wheelhouse). If there are a bunch of poor deepstack players sitting at your table with deepstacks, it's possible (???) it might be worth these relatively ~small risks.

GnotsureG

Totally makes sense, but as Garick mentioned i woudnt put too much weight on it- but certainly some. Especially against opponents i know its prone to tilt if they get felted and forced to reload, i can gamble a bit wider to try and get the table steamed up a bit. Also couple of other regs in my game does this on a regular basis: gambling more with players that have tilt issues and can possibly dump big amounts to the table if they get steamed up.

Variance can really kill you, as other posters have mentioned, discussing "the abyss." I want to minimize my chances of ever visiting the abyss again, so -ev spots for lots of money are not what I'm interested in.

If I want to make a -ev play to tilt someone, or build a stack, I'd rather do something like make a marginal flop call with a gutshot than put my whole stack in with -ev draw.

1/2 nl
Casino, Sunday, daytime, 300 eff
Hero, mawg, but in the older side of middle . tight/passive image, I'm guessing. Ethnic, Mediterranean background, would that be relative to my perceived image?
Villain young aggressive Hispanic guy.I
This is all from memory as a sidenote.
Hero raises to 12 in middle position. 2 or 3 callers.
Flop is favorable: Q T 7
I'm first to act and c bet 20
Only villain calls
Turn is a blank but I decide to check with the intention of betting river for value, not knowing if hand is worth 3 streets of value and not wanting to bloat pot with one pair hand.
Not to surprisingly, he's a young agro after all, Villain bets 25 after I checked. I call of course.
River is a rainbow Ace. I now have two pair but K J beats us, aside from any sets but I disregarded those, as I think villain would have played different.
I decide to check call. Villain bets 40 and I snap call, not turning my hand over so he has to show. He showed Q2 suited. Wanted to emphasise the suited.
Should I be betting the river myself?
Should I be raising his river bet, knowing that a hand like he had is well within his range?
Did I play that hand, overall too passive?
Am I an omc nit?

I'm assuming we have AQ?

I'm not in love with our preflop result so I might do something different.

I'm ok with our flop bet (although I think checking is also fine depending on how many we have behind us and how poker aware they are regarding preflop raising us betting into a large field).

I'm cool with our turn check/call allowing aggro to hang himself.

River is probably close between bet/evaluate (we don't want to allow him to check behind callable hands) and check/call (allowing him to continue bluffing busted draws although there ain't a lotta 98 stuff). If he's like ******o aggro (like his river bet suggests) then check/calling is fine as he'll end up betting all his showdownable hands for us (but it's risky).

GcluelessNLnoobG

NH

Yes, yes, I had the AQ.
Thanks for the feedback GG.
As far as villains river bet goes,my first thoughts were pretty identical to yours, I thought he must be some ****** too. THen, the more I think about it, could it be that he thought, possibly because of the way he perceived me, passive, middle aged guy, that he could turn his hand into a bluff and get me to fold a better hand?

Who knows what he's thinking, but putting in 4 streets with this hand with what ends up being secondpairnokicker (which has showdownvalue at the end) is so bad. As it turns out, every one of our street actions allowed him to misplay his hand terribly, so from that point of view we did pretty well.

GimoG

ok. Thanks AB, thanks GG.
Who says poker is dead, I dare them, I dare them!

Being an older Mediteranian would def affect your image with me, though I am a massive poker racist, agist, etcist.

I would kind of expect your play to be more ego driven. Stubborn and a bit tricky. I wouldn't expect you to have really learned poker fundamentals, but to have had a lot of experience playing.

I'd think there was a good chance that you were a massive, massive fish when playing against a decent female player.

I'd like to see a raise somewhere in this hand, due to his wide range and small bets. A small turn check raise would work. Sounds like this guy might not fold top pair much. Then you lead river, obviously.

The river feels like a CR too, but it's really hard to think of enough worse hands that give you action, so your nitty check call is OK. But, had you arrived at the river this way and it were a queen or paired the board, I think you could go for a small CR targeting worse queens and allowing bluffs to continue.

No worries, I don't think you're a bad person
All joking aside, I totally agree with your profile.
I would think the same thing, exactly because I know "my people" best.
That's exactly why I referenced it.
That I was born here and lived and played poker in Germany( nothing special) for many years, doesn't change the fact that my features sometimes betray me.

I'm very thankful for this forum and all you guys that frequently post and contribute. I'm a far better poker player now than I was a year ago.
But, yeah, I can still be a fish. I'm still a far ways from a consistent winner.

The villain was a young Hispanic male. Are you referring to a personal interaction? Did we play a hand together?
I'm confused.