If we give villain credit for firing the river with any Ace, yes. Take just a couple of those Ax hands out and the numbers change dramatically. Again, I don't think this is a bad call per-say... I'm just very wary of a bad live player who checks the turn and then is suddenly interested in the river as this usually indicates a big hand.

Also as Canoodles pointed out, the steam factor should be a big data point as well. If he's on mega tilt from an early tournament beat then maybe he's on "f*** it" mode...?

I'm kind of curious about the King-high hand as well. We're all assuming it was lol-bad (calling the river with King high usually is), but we actually don't have any details. How he played the other streets on that hand would tell us a lot more about how villain plays in general.

I would be more worried if he had just c/c the flop and suddenly woke up on the river. The b/c is consistent with some kind of weak made hand - maybe J9 or JT, but there are a lot more combos out there of Ax

Range assignment/hand reading is an art, not science. Everything is villain-dependent, of course, and how we read determines how well we do in these games.

IMO, you have way too many big hands in the range, and not too many crappy hands in it. For example, I can almost remove all the sets from villain's range, the way the action was played out, set shouldn't be there. The action for a bad player with such monster in low limit would either be too big of bet, or something quite unusual.

Same with two pairs, especially 2 pairs on the flop. Villain is unlikely to flat, hoping you to bet on turn so he can check raise. A/9, maybe, but I would look for more clues in $85 bet, and how he bet it. Nevertheless, still an easy call for me here.

Personally, I would put an entire range of Jx, entire Ax, and maybe even Kx. Broadway cards definitely go in there, and I might even add few weird low-end straight draw.

Regardless how tight/loose you assign the range of villain, and in this case, 52%. If you can't find a call in 52% vs spewing monkey, then like I said earlier, you won't win much in these stakes.

The more I think about this hand the more I think it's a snap.

Thanks for the discussion guys. Kinda realise raising on flop was a terrible play given that i was never getting a laydown from anything he would donk into me with. And yes, villain went busto from the tournament about an hr ago and had a trip to the ATM. I'v rarely seen someone's stack go up and then down so quickly.

I disagree that it was terrible to raise flop. That $35 raise allowed you to see the river. If you call the flop, you get a $45 turn bet that you have to fold to. It is actually cheaper to see 2 cards with a raise than a call, call. And you are not as far behind when you are putting your money in.

The raise did 2 things, 1) If you combine fold equity (yes you had fold equity because he made such a scared bet and you led preflop) with your hand equity, a bet is +EV. 2) If you take the lead in the hand you are more likely to get a free card on the turn. this hand is a perfect real live example of that happening. Think about it You got a free card from a guy that had TP great kicker.

so listening to online-nits' advice bad?

You are correct in assuming that lots of online nits would disagree with me on that. But I can tell you that when I had the epiphanny that I should agressively play draws OTF and weakly play Big pairs like TPTK and overpairs, I went from a break even player to a winning player. Those hands are pretty much 50/50 but on the flop you are 50/50 with other hidden hands like 2 pair and sets with a draw and a big dog wit a big pair. OTT it is a different story. That is when you bet the pair. Your opponent played it backwards. He bet the flop and then checked the turn.

In general I think you are right about being aggressive with draws but given OP's read of Villain, I think there is little to no FE on the flop and a good possibility that Hero is paying less than $35 to see the river.

+1

Plus, paying an extra $35 on the flop to *perhaps* get to the river for free, isn't exactly "free".

You are changing the argument. You are correct. The move isnt free. I never said the move was free. But when you get it checked to you, at that point, you are seeing a card for free. Putting money in on a flip situation is not really that costly and if the move is +EV, it is better than free.

At the time of the bet, you are putting money in on a flip situation, so even without FE, the EV is so small it is not a horrible move. EV calculations and pokerstove don't give you things like what psychological edge do we get from the move? My point of the post is to show that even without FE the move could be +EV if you are close to 50%EV and the raise gives you psychological advantage.

If we float the flop, the pot is $53. If villian (correctly) has us on a draw, the turn bet will clearly be at least 3/4 pot and we don't see the river. I dont think we can count on another $10 donk bet that gives us odds to draw again.

Of course you have fold equity when villian puts out what is clearly a probe sized bet. If we float, we give him the info he was seeking with the bet and we lose the hand on the turn.

Yeah, but how many times have you seen threads on 2+2 where the poster says "I bet/raised to see where I was at" and gets raised and comes to the forum asking what to do? How about using that information you got? And those are the people who bother to join 2+2 and post hand histories. The rest of the population is constantly betting for information and then calling a raise anyway. And the small donk on the flop, small bet on the turn, huge river bet is a classic fish line. It may be that Villain would decide to make a real bet on the turn, but I think it is very likely that he will either bet small or just check after Hero flats the flop.

How do you figure this is a flip situation? All we have is a flush draw, our T high is clearly not ahead. If we make it to the river, we're a ~2:1 dog against TP hands.

You are right... Technically we are not flipping, I just threw the term out there because it is close enough in my book since we are playing a game that is as much psychological as it is mathematical.

We are 39% to 61% OTF exactly. That is not 2:1 more like 3:2 ....true it is not a flip, but it is close enough that we would call $35 more if were were OOP and made the $10 bet. This is a better spot than that because we have position and the opportunity to take control of the hand.

If we put in $35 more and villian calls. Technically our EV is $28 (40%of 70) Are you trying to tell me that we don't have $7 worth of fold equity? Or that it is not worth $7 to get a chance at a free card? Or that we don't have implied odds to justify the -EV of $7. I'd pay $7 for any one of those reasons, so the fact that all 3 are there makes it a bargain. Also we are building the pot that is more in line with our hand if we make it. Plays like this is how we get donks to give us their stack with one pair. And this hand is case in point.

If you want to go with the math and only raise when the mathematical EV is 50.1% or better, be prepared to play a game where you are playing 5% of your hands preflop and are so bored when you get them that you end up married to them. That way you can win a few little pots and lose an occasional big pot. At least your variance will be manageable.

Math is idiotic.

I still don't understand why we are discussing this hand as if it was played HU.

Am I missing something?