1/2

Hero image: 1st orbit. But table is full of regs. My reputation precedes me. As aggro. 1/2 regs respect me though as a big winner. Other half think I am aggro luckbox.

Villain: friend, knows me well. Super aggro donk most time. Turns into huge calling station when stuck. Bluffs river at a ridiculous high rate. (Should never be folding rivers to him). Not sure if he thinks I am terrible, or very good. But whenever we play together. He spends the whole night trying to out play me. (Confirmed by other friends) Huge leaks are he bluffs way to much. Never folds on any flop. (Floats close to % 100)

Dynamics:

First hand at table I raised J9ss inHJ $300 eff
Called by sloppy drunk in CO. V calls on button. 10-J-Q flop. Check, check, V leads $15.
Call call

Turn:K
V bets 45, hero folds, drunk calls
River:blank
Drunks leads $100. V calls. Drunk wins with 9-4off

few hands later. $300 effective
V opens to $10, I raise to $35 with QQ in BB

Flop $90
2-2-Add
Hero checks. Don't believe he is folding anything on flop. He will float % 100 and try to outplay me. Could bet for value, but his range is heavely weighted towards weak Aces and pocket pairs.

V bets $50
Hero quickly calls. His range is wicked wide here.

Turn:Ax

I like this card. As it changes nothing. Except he feels more confident with small Ace

Hero checks
V bets $90

Hero picks up live read of strength. Fairly reliable.

So live read says fold, math and ranges tell me to stack off vs Aggro maniac who obviously is tilting.

Hero?

All I can do is go by the math and call. At table, however, it's a different story.

Would you normally play an A so passively, esp. w/ two diamonds on flop?

If I had AK. I probably would have checked. Definitely checking AA. Would do this not as fancy Play syndrome, but for fat value vs him. He has never seen an Ace high flop he didn't like to bet and bluff.

Other factors in hand

His ride isn't leaving for 5 hrs. He has $700 ish. With % 100 of his bankroll on table. (Maybe fire another bullet off loan)

I am over rolled for 1/2. So losing 150BB isn't the end all.

I see nothing wrong with folding the turn if you have a reliable tell that he is strong -- unless he thinks a pair below QQ is strong or a hand like KdQd (unless you hold Qd) is strong.

I think live tells are key and if I always followed them I'd have a bigger bankroll.

You say you have a reliable strength tell. You have to trust your reads in my opinion.

V is almost certainly going to shove the river if we call the turn.
He will have $150 left, so we are essentially calling $240 to win $360.
So we need to be good here 40% of the time.

If he bets all pocket pairs:
33 - TT (as he should 3bet JJ+ here some portion of the time) 48 combos
AK - A2, 44 combos

Then we can call down here profitably.
It is a pretty lofty assumption to think that he will bet all pocket pairs against you as your hand is pretty face up a pocket pair 99 - KK or a slow played Ace.
However, if your live tell is pretty reliable, then just fold.

Nice reply

Math is correct. I was aware of both pot size and remaining stacks. He is firing river close to %100.

As you can see in dynamics hand. He obviously had 2 pair or set and bet a super scary turn into 2 players with showdown value.

Think it's more than obvious he is betting all hands here. His bluffs, pocket pairs, and his Aces. Don't think he has any clue if he is bluffing or value betting though.

Although post is fresh. I am going to give results. As what I would really like opinions on my thought process.

I picked up a read of strength. So I folded face up to get a reaction and hoping he would show. I got neither.

My thoughts:
-He preflop raised. Felt he is raising no more than 35% range here.

-Believe he is raising every single Ace he sees at this point. (Have many hrs with him)

- plan pre was to fold to Ace high flops. GII all others. (Most likely on turn or river)

-thought maybe he would slow down vs me with 2 huge fish at table (leveling myself)

-had lots of time to get his stack (wrong, when people play that bad, stacks go quickly)

-rather play many small to medium size pots with him in position (had seat change button)

- I was fresh to game, believed the read I caught was reliable.


Then reality struck. He lost most his stack in next 30 min. He coolers me and doubles to $700

40 min later he is broke and out of game. (I did get 1/2 of it). This time.

Pretty sure now. Even though it was first orbit. I probably need to stack off here?

It is a marginal spot. But can I realley pass it up?

If I lose the hand. I would have been stuck $700 in first 40 min. (After the cooler hand). I sometimes struggle playing stuck. Although I play alot of 2/5 so the $700 isn't an issue.

I do not think this is the hand/situation to go to war over. Fold was fine.

Seems like you have a lot of experience playing with villain...go with your live read if you think it's reliable. No reason to call off your stack if you're fairly sure that you're beat. Always go with your gut...

Just did the EV calculations. Against a super wide range. It is barely Ev. May be negative EV if he was actually calling my 3 bets with a semi loose range.

Definitely think folding is correct. Playing with flop zilla. I don't think betting flop gets me anywhere either. For simple fact he folded to exactly 1 flop bet in hr he was at table. I am not double barreling that board ever into him.

I think if he wants to try to outplay you, he would have showed you if he did. I think it was a good fold. Don't level yourself.

I'm really not a math guy and I trust my gut/reads/tells a lot.

Does this guy show his bluffs sometimes? Very rare you'll see players like him not show cards if all they want to do is outplay everyone.

I really don't care about the ev of a calldown vs him if you picked up a tell and appload you for trusting yourself and being disciplined enough to fold.

This iswhy I love live games, you can rely on so much more then math (atleast at 1-2).

OP, I am just curious what actual live read did you pick up? As played, I fold the turn. I think his sizing here OTT is slightly more weighted toward Ax, I feel if he had a PP he might bet slightly bigger OTT. Just a possible observation, if V has any bet sizing tells.

This +1
If your reads are right, that he wants to outplay you, and he didn't show after you muck QQ face up, pat yourself on the back for the good fold

You're "quick call" on the flop is a live read for weakness.
At least make it seem possible that you were contemplating a raise.

As played, fold.

Can't give up tell. As he follows forums occasionally.

Your bet sizing thoughts are right on. I felt his bluff range, or betting a smaller pair. He would most likely go larger.

But he is all over the place. I don't think anyone could actually know for sure.

You asked for opinions on your thoughts, so here goes.

You mentioned that he raises ~35% of his hands pre, but what kind of range do you put him on once he calls your 3bet?

Also, what level would you say this villain is thinking on? Is he well aware of what our 3bet means? Is he capable of sensing our "weakness" once we check the flop? Does he know we can make big folds like the K high straight from before? Do we have any history of slow playing vs villain? I'm not looking for answers, but thinking about these questions is pretty important IMO.

This becomes very important because you said that he will float you 100% of the time on flops like this. Then, you chose to check which I don't understand. If he calls the flop with his full range then it seems like an easy value bet on the flop, as we should be way ahead of his range unless his range is really that heavily waited toward As for some odd reason.

You mentioned having a "strong live read", can you please explain this a bit? Live reads are almost never 100% and generally require a high amount of history with villain. You do seem to have the history but we also have to take into consideration that this is the first orbit of the night vs villain, and he could be acting differently than usual depending on table dynamics.

Also, another thought of yours was that you "had lots of time get his stack", but I think this logic can be pretty dangerous in general. Time should not effect our thought process as we aim to make the best possible decisions in this hand. Sometimes you can't force the situation to happen (either now or later). Luckily he seems to be a frequent visitor in your local game so we really have no reason to be concerned with him leaving/going broke. There's always another fish!

Nice post.

Above paragraph is very solid. Is definitely a leak. As we should play everyhand independently of themselves.
As to rest of questions. Fairly easy to answer for me. Ranges I have a good idea of his. And what he thinks mine is.

As for not betting for value. With Vilains like him. Checking has a ton of value. More than value betting IMO. And check calling the lower end of my value range OOP has been very profitable vs him and a few other select players.