$1/$2 at Mohegan Sun in CT on a Sunday afternoon. Brand new table (I think this is the ~4th orbit) and hero is playing seven handed with a couple older nitregs and several older loose passives.

Hero is 32yo white guy. I am the youngest person at the table by two decades. I should have an aggressive image and I've won several pots without showdown. My plan after initially surveying this table was to play more of a LAG style (within reason). I figured I could run over the table a bit and if I get caught bluffing early in the session, it could pay dividends down the road. $500 stack.

V1 is MAWG playing loose passive. He has done a lot of limping pre-flop. This is the 3rd hand we've played together. In both of the previous hands, I check-raised the flop. In one, he sigh folded the flop (I had the nuts). In the other, he called the flop raise and folded to a double-barrel on the turn (I had a combo draw). $275 stack.

V2 is an old white woman. She has also done a lot of limping pre-flop. My read is that she is not particularly experienced or competent. I have seen her bet out for a couple different sizes in multiway pots, and I am guessing the sizes reflect the strength of her hand but I haven't seen enough showdowns to confirm. $200 stack.

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V1 limps from UTG. V2 overlimps in LJ. Hero raises in CO to $15 with 97dd. Blinds fold but both limpers call.

Flop: AcJd7h (Pot: $43). V1 checks. V2 donks $11. Hero raises to $35. V1 cold calls. V2 calls.

Turn: AcJd7h 9h (Pot: $146). V1 checks. V2 checks. Hero bets $90. V1 calls. V2 folds.

River: AcJd7h 9h 5h (Pot: $326). V2 snap jams for $135. Hero?

I know I am not good here a lot, but is the price too good to fold bottom two? V may well have every combo of AXhh and most of JXhh. Not sure if he would have a hand like A5o but I wouldn't be too surprised. I can't think of too many bluffs (QT?), but maybe he overplays something like AQ occasionally?

Also would be curious to get feedback on pre-flop and the flop. I know both plays are pretty loose. Hopefully not too spewy though?

I think this can be a WTF Ace-King/Ace-Queen just often enough to flick in the call.

It’s one of those spots where you’re not beating any *actual* value hands, but you are beating some hands that a fish might think are value hands, so you can’t just do a simple “is he bluffing or does he have value?” odds calculation—you have to do bluffs + (some random top pair hand that makes no sense).

Also: On the flop, I think calling (you can improve or bluff later streets) and raising are both fine, but when you raise it needs to be much larger. Your tiny raise size accomplishes absolutely nothing beyond folding out worse or getting called by better.

Like…you don’t REALLY expect the donk better to fold top pair to that tiny raise, do you?

Who is left in the hand, V1 or V2? I would probably fold to either, there are very few natural bluffs on this runout.

Oh good call, that's a bad typo from me. V1 is the player that calls turn and donk jams river.

Thanks for the feedback Davo. Actually, you had a post or two on here about responding to donk bets once which somewhat informed my thinking in this hand. I do think I would call in this spot a lot (especially HU) but, as I mentioned in the OP, I was trying to take more aggressive lines to start this session.

Regarding the raise size - you are probably right that it is too small. I will say, you would be surprised how tight some of the older players at my casino can be in response to raises. The default size here is often a legit minclick, so a >3x raise feels bigger than it actually is. Example: in this session I bet $10 from BB into ~$35 on the river with A9 on AA48J (limped pot, flop got checked through, I led $5 on turn and got called in 4 spots ). UTG min-raised to $20. BTN called $20. I folded. UTG had 88 for a turned full house, and BTN had 44 for a flopped full house.

In this hand, my thinking on the flop was that V2 (the donker) was unlikely to fold flop but that I could bet big on the turn and get her to fold anything that isn't 2P+. I also thought there was a good chance that she just had a Jx hand (or even weaker possibly) given the extremely small sizing she took.

The fact that V1 felt like he could cold-call speaks to the fact that my raise was too small though.

PRE - you know you're out of line raising the old folks with 97s, but if you can dial it back post flop when you need to, I guess you can't get into too much trouble.

FLOP - I like the raise over the donk lead. I'd like it even better if we were deeper stacked. If you're the aggro punk among geriatrics, I'd expect them to spaz raise with 2P+, so this is a good way to keep control of the pot size and define their ranges a bit.

TURN - interesting spot when you make 2P but it brings in the BDFD. I'd think we'd want to bet bigger to get value from their likely Ax holdings, preferring to get stacks in now or set up a trivial size river jam. At deeper stack depths or against more tricky opponents, I might be worried about someone check-jamming a better 2P, but I'd somewhat expect a scared 2P to donk lead big here.

Given the stack sizes, I think I'd prefer to just over-bet jam turn.

RIVER - yuck. We can't fold now, getting over 3.4:1 on a call. If he made a flush or a better 2P, we just have to pay him off.

I think he has every Ax here, including all the AXo with the Ah, and all the AK. I'd think he'd fast play Ax with the NFD on earlier streets, unless it was AhJh specifically, so I'd be more worried about him having a better 2P, very likely A5, since we probably would have heard from other 2P sooner.

But with the BDFD coming in, I'd think he'd only be doing this with Ah5x, which is just 3 combos, compared to all the other random Ax he has that he'd rather turn into a bluff by jamming than play as a bluff catcher when you jam. If he was slow playing some other 2P, there just aren't that many combos with the Ah in them.

Meanwhile, he's unlikely to put you on 97 here, unless he's seen you show down those sorts of hands already, which seems unlikely if the game is only on its fourth orbit. Our hand has been reduced to a bluff catcher now, but I think it's a good one, when we unblock a ton of worse value and all his bluffs.

I still expect to lose a lot when V takes this line, but we're going to win more when our hand is stronger than our opponents are likely to think.

Thanks for the post Doc. This makes sense to me. RE: flop - I agree that I would expect to re-raised here by AJ or A7 which is really helpful. The cold call was slightly concerning but in general I agree that their ranges are a lot more defined after my raise.

On turn, I do think I could probably go a bit bigger, especially because AXhh and JXhh are available. Even a hand like AT is a pair plus gutter which won't want to fold. That said, both Vs are so short that I don't think it's super necessary. As it stands, V1 (the deeper stack) ended up with less than half pot behind on the river. If I had raised flop bigger like Davo suggested, maybe I could just jam the turn which I think would be good.

The result of this hand was that after I calculated the pot I figured I could call. So I sigh called. V1 said "Good call, I just have a pair of sevens." Normally I would fastroll my hand here but I thought I misheard him because this was such an unbelievable result. Eventually I turned my hand over without seeing his and I won the pot.

I have no clue how this guy got to the river with just a 7. The only thing that makes even a little sense is 78s with a backdoor flush draw that called the flop and picked up a nasty looking gutshot on the turn. There is only one combo of that though! T7s also has a gutshot on the turn but yuck.

I made this thread because of the confusing result and because I actually did consider folding on the river. I think I would be more likely to fold here with AK or AQ too? Maybe that's a mistake and I should just call any made hand. I know I am leaking a lot of money calling rivers in underbluffed spots though.

FWIW, I've occasionally noticed that many under the age of 40 seem to think that anyone over the age of 40 is going to be playing a tighter range, and they always have it when they bet. But I don't think that's right. I think we need to differentiate between the reg OMC's who rarely bluff and the bad rec-fish who can show up with anything, and just happen to be older.

Also, we don't know what V was thinking. Maybe he put you on a value hand like AK, that was raising and barreling to fold out flush draws. Maybe he jammed expecting you to put him on a flush draw that got there on the river. It's not crazy, because you did almost fold.

Yeah, in a perfect world, he'd have a hand with better blocker properties, or just a better hand to continue versus your flop and turn aggression, but sometimes we get to the river with a crap hand and no way to win if we don't toss up a hail mary.

I was thinking about this hand and similar hands I've played recently, in which I turned bottom 2 or rivered middle 2 with a lousy starting hand like 43s or J6s, and got max value from a calling station. In theory, these hands are just pure folds. But in live games against weak opponents, they become somewhat more playable, because of situations like this, where we can show up with 2P we're not supposed to have.