1/3 - Aria early Friday afternoon

Hero ($290) - BB - running very cold except hand six orbits ago in which I quadrupled up. Outdrawn on the river a couple times. Whiffed 90% of flops at which I've been the PFR. Not been c-betting for most part b/c of coordinated flops with lots of J's and 10's. Overall, my image is weak, losing, and V's at the table want to GII with me. V2 should know better b/c I played a six hour session with him the day before in which I took down $1K.

V1 ($300) - MP - tight, predictable Japanese fella. Not important.

V2 ($500) - CO - Works for airline and frequently visits LV. Tight. Competent. Observant. Bets air in the obvious spots but doesn't get too out of line. When the pot gets huge, he almost always has a monster. Definitely has a fold button, and the things that make him a consistently winning 1/3 player would probably work against him at higher levels.

Pre: V1 opens for $10. Folds to V2 who flats. SB folds. Hero calls from the BB with J9.


Flop ($28): 5Q5

Hero checks. V1 checks. V2 bets $15. Hero calls.


Turn ($58): 10

Hero checks. V2 bets $30. Hero check raises to $90. V2 thinks for a minute or so and calls.


River ($238): 9

Hero? $175 left behind.

I might lean towards a fold preflop since we'll be OOP, only going 3ways, and have at least one competent villain in the hand. Course, it's only for lol 2.5% of our stack, so calling probably can't be horrible.

I probably just check/fold the flop. How likely is it that we have a 5x in our hand and how likely is Villain to believe that? We're basically banking on calling, having him check back his 88/etc. on the turn, and then us hoping he can manage a fold to a river bluff. Too many things have to go right, imo.

Kinda lucked out on this turn card. I'd hate to get reraised off my draw (which could easily happen), plus if we simply check/call the turn and then donk the river UI we might have ok FE since the flop was drawless and it really looks like a slowplayed 5x or perhaps decent Qx (so we risk less for perhaps the same amount of FE). I'm a little worried this guy is betting twice, and really worried he's called a turn check/raise.

Nice run out, lolz. With just 3/4 PSB I don't see how we can do anything other than just shove. Just go for max value against 5x (which is never folding), hope for the best against Qx, and if he somehow boated up we're never getting away with this much remaining.

Gflopandturnarespewy,imoG

#$%@! Turn was a 9 not an 8. I'm doing my best to remember hand but it's been a couple days. Sorry about that... Editing thread.

When V2 bets this board I'm done with the hand.

Also hate raising the turn. Hate barrelling the river given our image.

I think your line looks super convincing here which should give your shove some FE on the river. That being said in my experience you really have to know the player to pull moves like this. You are going to get snapped a lot by a Q just because they can't fold top pair. I know you say he has a fold button but that's the key thing to evaluate here - how astute his fold button is.

On a separate note your flop float is pretty terrible. Definitely want to save these low equity floats for when you are in position. Out of position there is no way to play this profitably.

Played with V2 for 12 hours over two days and was very confident of read b/c he plays the way I did before I incorporated more bluffs. V2 is tight with his calls post-flop when the pot gets big. Predictably prudent you could say. Not as tight pre. He has less than Q-x exactly never when he calls my check-raise.

The question in my mind is how often does a player like this call the turn check raise with Q-x? Do I need to shove the the river to get him off it, or would he have been likely to release most of his Q-x on turn making a river shove total spew?

$50 pre. Ck-f flop AP

Why?

I'd give up on the river. One of the few hands he could possibly be getting out-of-line with on the turn got there (KJ), and otherwise we only have a 3/4 PSB left (where he is never folding 5x and probably not folding Qx enough of the time).

Gwetriedwaytoohardtowinthispot,imoG

FWIW, I called the flop with the intention of check-raise bluffing the turn, repping a 5. Backing into the OESD changed nothing.

Interesting observation I didn't make. KJ does fit his line in this hand.
Didn't see V2 bet his draws a whole lot or get out of line a whole lot either. However, he usually bets the flop when checked to and last to act. He was in this situation quite a bit. An OESD could have encouraged him to fire another barrel.

Its not necessarily ideal, but it gets through a lot in a tight game at the A. I like it better than calling oop the times I'm not just folding.

Pretty horrendous plan facing two bets don't you think?

Basically, when Villain calls the turn check/raise, you have to start narrowing his range of hands (most likely to 5x, Qx, KJ, combo-thin J9, and tricky AA/KK). Most of that range is unlikely to fold to a 3/4 PSB river shove (as the hands are too strong or too underrepped).

GcluelessrangingnoobG

Would your opinion if I told you that, in 12 hours of play, I hadn't seen villain call a $100+ bet without the near nuts? My river shove will be $175 if it comes. No one has shown down a big river bluff five hours into the current session. It is 1/3 after all.

Another way to put it - can we range him that wide after he calls the turn bet? Or is that reasonable? (We need to add pocket 10's to his range as well.)

Ok, so his range after calling the turn check/raise is 5x, Qx, KJ, J9, TT, AA and KK; am I missing any, or does he sometimes get stubborn on the turn with other pocket pairs?

5x, KJ and TT are never folding.

AA and KK have been very trickily played and underrepped and beat all Qx (including QT) that we could consider best. I doubt (???) they are folding, but they probably fold a small percentage of the time.

J9 is most likely folding.

Which only leaves Qx (of which QQ is never folding). Qx is probably folding a decent amount of the time.

So the question becomes: does Qx / J9 make up enough of his range and fold enough of the time for this to be profitable? At this point you could probably break down exactly what part of this range Qx/J9 is (with some guesstimates of exactly what type of hands make up Qx given his preflop call, ex. I'm assuming Q2o ain't one of them) and then figure out what percentage of the time he'd have to fold these hands (given he's never/rarely folding the other part of his range) for a shove to be profitable here. My guess is that the required folding percentage is unrealistic, but the math result would probably be helpful here.

GcluelessmathnoobG

My impression that this guy would fold any pair or overpair to a river shove close to every time, and lesser PP's never get past the turn. (This is why I targeted him.) My impression was also that he was cold calling pre with a 5-x almost never, even in position against two adversaries playing fit or fold. This may have optimistic on my part.

The one thing I know I did right in this hand is target the right guy.

Combo's Probably Folding = 50
AQ = 16; KQ = 16; QJ = 16; (J9 = 2 if discounted)

Combo's Never Folding = 28
KJ = 16; 10's = 3; 55 = 1; (5-Xs = 8, too optimistic?);

Combo's That Could Get Stubborn = 18
AA = 6; KK = 6; QTs = 4

This doesn't look to bad if I'm letting optimism get the better of me. However, do we need to discount all the Q-X? He'd play them early on just like he did I think, but he could be folding them quite a bit on the turn...

At this point I'd like to point out that you just can't have it both ways: If this V is betting J9 and KJ otf then he has a lot more 5x pre and/or a lot less Qx folds post.

I feel like this whole thread is an accidental BBV post where OP is bluffin dem nits off toppest pair yo.

The only real take away here is that hero now knows exactly what line not to take with all hands >KK.

This V wouldn't be my first candidate to run a bluff on. Not only is he a decent, thinking-player, but he also works for an air-line so he presumably has money. He's not a scared money player and he probably thinks you are FOS due to your losing image. Also, your hand history reeks of frustration from running bad so this guy, as well as most of the table, has likely picked up on this during the session.

Normally, this type of player didn't fly all the way to the casino to fold top pair. There's a lot better bluffing spots than this.

This hits upon something crucial I missed while playing the hand. V2 was showing up quite a bit last to act and betting the flop when checked to almost every time. V1 was tight and predictable. I was missing every flop and coming into some bad situations for c-betting when I was PFR OOP.

Preflop, he probably saw this as a good situation to steal if V1 and I missed. I knew he was betting flop with a lot of air. I put him on Q-x after the turn check raise. I saw 5-x and ridiculously unlikely. What I didn't account for is that he was cold calling preflop uncharacteristically wide.

Hero shoves for his remaining $175.

V2 takes five seconds and angrily throws 85 into the muck face up, asking me for a show.

Better lucky than good.

Wow.

In general, I wouldn't expect people to fold trips in cases where there is no flush and unlikely for there to be a straight. I guess he's basically putting you on a bigger 5x?

Gdoesn'tthinkthiswillworkthemajorityofthetimeG

I wondered this myself. The majority of 5-x I show up with should have worse kickers than his. 10's fit my play I guess. He may have seen KJ when he tanked the turn. It's not a fold I would have made, even against someone I perceived as being passive.

More than anything, I wondered how much of his Q-x he would have left behind on the turn.

Well, if he's folding 5x, he's basically folding anything that is non-nuttish.

Know your opponent, I guess?

GcluelessbluffingnoobG

The more I think about it, the more I think he was afraid of the straight. He tanked for a while on the turn. It really seemed like he was Hollywooding or he saw something he really didn't like. I wasn't watching him, and I don't think he would bother Hollywooding to induce a player he perceived as very passive. The fold on the river came quickly, as if he had already made up his mind to lay down to a big bet.