Recent session at the 1/3 tables at the Borgata (AC).

3 young aggressive players have just picked up to go to dinner, taking about 2k off the table.

Villain is of the new players to sit. He is an older gentleman who just kept talking and joking socially. Very comfortable.

We're 100BB effective.

V (300) raises to 15 (within standard opens) from UTG+1.
Folds to Hero (450) with XX in the BB, I raise to 50.
V calls.

Flop(100) Ts 6s 2d

H c-bets 50 for value.
V raises all-in.

$200 for hero to call.


1. As hero, what range are you calling with?

Aces and TT, maybe AKs or AQs

Our 3b range will be pretty tight here, we probably won’t have much Tx. I would call JJ+ and any spades

Definitely QQ+ and any flush draw I think we have equity to call off.

JJ in practice I am probably flicking in the call too, but that might be a losing call, considering he can have QQ and sets. We are also behind flush draws with 2 overs if we have JJ. Enough to call, but against a range full of hands we are drying to a J and hands thst have like 55% equity, even if you give him ATs, we probably don't have equity to call.

Not trying to post any more info until at least 24 hrs from original post, but would like to reply.


I agree.
AA & Top Set are hands that crush possible shoving hands (KK, QQ, JJ & 66,22)
AKs AQs (AJs?) should all have equity against all shoves from V.


Agreed. I didn't 3-bet light OOP.
JTs and TT are possible Tx hands (is TT considered Tx?) and since my JTs wouldn't have a front door spade draw, JTs isn't calling, while TT obviously is.

Factoring my reply to Stumeister, I don't think I'm rushing to call KQs, KJs, QJs as they are overs with flush draws that could be dominated/crushed (vs. A2s, and broadway Axs.

I tanked. Going back to my reply to Stumeister again, AA is a tank call, as well as Axs (I'm only going to have broadway suited aces here. Not on board with the Axs wheel 3-bets yet). KK, QQ, and JJ are tank unkowns. So are other non nut flush draws.

Even most recs will 4bet KK, and even if you give him KK, if you also give him JK, you can easily have odds to call his pot sized shove with QQ. When you probability weight his KK towards 4betting some, QQ is an easy call.

So are KK and AA of course.

You should be running this in an equity calculator.

TT+, JTs, QTs

AT, KT both kinda suck since he's likely never shoving worse tens and the don't block his strongest hands that play this wag (JJ and QQ)

That's where I'd start at least. Could see myself folding all Tx and JJ or on the flip side calling down to T9s or even 99 no spade depending on in game variables.

*Also give him JJ*

I thought AA would have 4-bet a large majority of the time.
QQ+, AK a smaller portion.

When he raised and called the 3-bet preflop, I figured:
Any pair under Aces.
Any suited Ace.
Any suited broadways.
Any suited connectors.

When he jams over the c-bet....



Thanks. Since the T was the flush draw, the suited hands shouldn't have the T (for either of us).

No other reads other than "older gent", I call with AA and any set.

Maybe I call with KK/QQ, but I might even tank-fold KK/QQ here.

Tired of seeing these wing-nuts who play like Helmuth, slow-playing pre and over-bet-jamming flop with the nuts. I'd rather light my bankroll on fire - literally - than pay off one of their transparent jams.

ETA - I know I might get flamed for this. Don't care. I'm not playing anywhere near GTO against rec-fish who play this way. I will die on this exploitable fold hill if need be. Until he shows me he can do this with draws, 99, or TX, I'm not giving him credit for anything remotely resembling a reasonable range with anywhere near enough hands we can actually beat when he check-jams 2x pot on the flop. Nope. Uh-unh. Not paying this guy off.

I thought the same.

I pause:


What I did:


What happens next:



About an orbit or two later:
My buddy was having a rough go at the table, getting lots of money in good and other players catching 2 and 3 outers.
He was ready to call it a night.
We picked up when the blinds came back around.


Thanks for the responses.

Because you're from NY/NJ and playing at Borgata, and I'm from Philly and play at Parx. Around here, guys like V are more common than underpass graffiti.

Maybe it's the same all over. I don't know. Maybe people here have a tendency to not want to generalize or stereotype V's. I think we all occasionally make the mistake of refusing to accept that opponents are playing exactly as face-up as they appear to be.

If we have 22 or 66 and this guy has TT, fine, I'll live with it. I'm not folding sets. I think his range is heavily weighted towards slow-played premium pocket-pairs.

As bad as these guys are, they seem to at least be aware that they're at a skill disadvantage on later streets, so the over-bet-jam is their go-to move on a lot of flops.

I said I wouldn't give him credit for having a reasonable range. 88 isn't in a reasonable range that jams here.

Was that a bluff or for value? Does he even know? Did he want us to call or fold?

He went set mining pre just to jam 2nd pair down a dry hole on the flop? C'mon.

What's he doing with AA or TT? What's his "actually playing poker, not just gambling" range?

Good fold.

Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk

JTdd, JThh, JTcc, QThh, QTdd, QTcc are all suited hands with a T that you both should have a decent amount of in your range

Yes, but despite being wrong here... should be folded.

LOL. I'll have to come check it out. Closer ride, but nowhere to enjoy a cigar on campus.


I've played in Vegas a bunch, and they aren't much different.
Back to studying more and seeing if I'm supposed to call off there, according to the book I'm sure I am.

Yup, sets are getting it in.
When I include AA, KK, QQ, JJ, I'm not doing so great.

Perhaps I'm not giving them credit for taking advantage of their image?
I flopped a set vs a super nice and super old dude.
Called flop IP with a flush draw.
Raised his same bet on the turn when it missed.
Stunned when he lead out for my raise size on the river.
I called. He showed top 2 pair (rivered 2nd pair).



I can only tell you what I was thinking at the time.
Still new to the table. Somewhat active and in hindsight playing "Testosterone" poker. Maybe impressing the middle aged woman in between us, who happened to be another buddies wife.

Value. He must have said Ace-King a hundred times, putting me specifically on that and missing the flop. Axs I'm calling.

I can only tell you what happened.
Donchaknow AK is a drawing hand... 8s crush it.

Do I give credit for him knowing he has more sets on that flop than me?
I suppose I could work a check on the flop with an overpair, but it feels so dirty on that connected board.


When I bet, he's shoving.
If I checked, I'm sure he fires the same size I did and I call.
There isn't a card in the deck that isn't a queen that I want to see.
Who knows what happens when I check-call flop and get to a non-queen turn?
Maybe a non-broadway card goes check-call?
Maybe the flush card goes check-check?


Thanks. Felt like a dummy. Thought I'd get a longer chance to get it back.
One long session, I'll get it from him or another of his kind next time.

Spr is 2.5, we just have to go with overpairs. We should expect him to jam some Tx and all JJ and not have a lot of QQ-AA.

88 is quite a surprise though.

I'm not surprised with the outcome here. It's only 100 bb, and with the big open, the 3bet and reasonably big cbet otf, that's going in relatively easy. People like to put 3betters on AK and thus go for it on a low flop, that's always been pretty common iyam.

RE - Parx. A lot of NY peeps play there. There's a group of young guys from Staten Island I've become friends with over the last few years. They call me "Unc", I tell peeps they're my nephews. Everyone asks if the one kid is my son. I tell them if he was my son I would have smothered him. Good times.

There's a smoker's area outside, if it matters. Not sure if there's a cigar lounge inside, but I don't think so.

I've played in Vegas too, and once somewhere in the mid-west, can't remember where or when, only that it sucked. I'm sure the action is similar all over, but I'm fortunate to live in an area with a dense enough population to form some fairly reliable automatic reads based on demographics.

All my questions were rhetorical, just thinking out loud, defending our thought process behind the fold, and sour-grapes ridiculing V's idiocy.

Not arguing with you, more arguing with this V who isn't here - what the serious hell? He puts you on AK, so he jams 88 on the flop...for value? I mean, maybe "value and protection", at a small enough stack depth, to deny equity, blah, blah, blah, but if he's also jamming 4x pot, we're just folding AK, so where's the value (again, rhetorical)?

My point was basically that if he thinks he's jamming 88 for value, he's actually turning a value hand into a bluff, even if he doesn't realize it. His hand beats AK, and happens to get QQ to fold. But he loses when we call with AA/KK, TT, 66, 22, and as soon as we see he's capable of jamming 2nd pair, he'll be losing to QQ, JJ, Tx and 99.

Is he just jamming every PP on any flop that isn't A or K high? That's not playing poker. That's playing bingo with monopoly money. He's just gambling / guessing.

The thing about live reads with OMC's - I think a lot of them are capable of playing off their image. But that usually shows up as them opening wide and barreling off, or stabbing at pots when no one shows interest. It's less common to see them massively over-play weak value.

After hero bets 50 and villain calls 50, the additional 200 makes an spr of almost exactly 1.

I really dislike the advice saying to fold here and I stand by what I said. Long story short, there are plenty of bluffs and value we beat with QQ+. KK+ is heavily discounted. And then there are silly outliers like this that skew things even more in our favor. Like, give villain a 10% spaz factor and that just helps our case.

I think there is an internal bias towards remembering the times we called and were wrong. We are sort of supposed to be wrong when we call.

Player A folds 10 out of 10 times facing pot sized shoves for $100 and is right about folding 6 times out of 10. Player B calls 5 out of 10 pot sized shoves for $100 and was right only 2 times out of 5, lost the other 3 times. Player B made $100 in this spot and player A made $0. We want to be player B.

We also have outs vs sets as opposed to AT.

call w pairs lol. understand when you're commited based on spr and stop finding ways to level yourself into folding when that's the case. if you're unwilling to play for stacks with one pair dont 3b pre and create a situation where you're often going to have one pair and going to need to go with your hand

I'll include a wider jam range moving forward.


I'm still learning. I guess part of it was after I put in a 3-bet preflop and c-bet the flop... why is he eager to flip at best?