$1/$2 at Mohegan Sun. Thursday evening at a very soft table.

Villain is a younger guy from the Caribbean. He is very loose. Raises to multiple sizes (have seen him ISO to $6 and $11) but also limps and overlimps. In the past few orbits he has lost a large percentage of his stack across two hands (both times he had trips and opponent had a straight). $200 stack.

Hero is 32yo white guy. Should be clear to Villain that I am playing tighter and more aggressive than the rest of the table. This hand is the first time I've 3bet but I've only been at the table an hour. Covers.

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Two loose passive players limp EP. Villain raises to $10 in HJ. Hero 3bets AhJd to $40 in CO. Folds to Villain who snap calls.

Flop: Kh9c5s (Pot: $80). Villain checks. Hero bets $30. Villain calls quickly.

Turn: Kh9c5s 4h (Pot: $140). Villain thinks and checks. Hero checks.

River: Kh9c5s 4h Jh (Pot: $140). Villain bets $70, leaving himself with $60 behind.

Is this a spot to hero call second pair? Any thoughts on previous streets are appreciated too. Too loose pre-flop? Should I jam turn and try to fold out anything that isn't a King?

He called so fast otf with no draws, so I would think he has TP. It was played fine so far but I don't see a reason to hero call or think he's bluffing here.

Villain doesn't sound smart enough to know what to turn into a bluff here, so I fold.

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It depends. How wide does villain iso pre and then call a 3bet? KQo? KJo? QJo? JTo? What does his 4bet range look like? AKo? Would he iso raise that more? How much does villain stab rivers after checked to?

Call if villain stabs rivers wide and calls preflop wide. He can have QJ, JT, and just other random pairs and stuff he probably shouldn't bet anyways. I would make this crying call a decent chunk of that time here vs a lot of villains. Only have to be good 25% of the time.

Unfortunately I had not seen enough showdowns to get a real sense of this guy’s range.

Several times prior to this hand, he had overlimped and then folded when I Iso’d to $15. He seemed somewhat frustrated by me. I thought he might have a somewhat wider raising range as a result (because he doesn’t want to limp/fold anymore). And just purely based off gut feeling, I would say this guy is more likely to be over-calling vs a 3bet vs over-folding.

The pot odds I am getting here are one of the main factors in why I wanted to call. That said, even though $70 is only half pot, it is a pretty big bet for this table.

Another reason in favor of calling: I think I am pretty high in my range after I check back turn? I don’t know how much that matters in a spot like this, but getting a good price it feels like I should at least consider it.

I can have some traps like KK and obviously rivered JJ. But outside of that, I have maybe QQ and KTs that might check back turn for pot control/deception.

I don’t think I have very many straights or flushes, as I think I would want to bet turn with draws. I guess I have A5hh and A9hh.

I would snap fold, this looks like AK more than anything else the way he called so quickly pre and otf (he had no need to think about anything) if he had KQ, he would at least have to think a bit. If he has TT, he would probably check the river hoping hero checked back again as he did ott instead of turning his hand into a bluff.

I thought maybe AK thinks about jamming pre and also about raising flop. I don’t know if that hand is a snap decision on either street.

The timing tell in this hand I was most concerned about was his tank check on the turn. It looked like he was trying to decide whether to donk or not. I think sometimes players do this deliberately as a reverse tell to try and get the PFR to slow down and check. But I’m not super confident in that read.

Villain’s river sizing is weird. Hard to find many natural bluffs though.

This is def. true, they do hollywood to slow you down but then he ends up donking out for hp otr so that turn performance goes out the window.

Honestly, I can go either way, but my A-game says fold.

Does V even realize the flush came in? Somebody with Kx might slow down a tad instead of auto v-betting top pair, right? Pity we're not deeper.

I'm trying to figure out why the 4h of all things, would make V want to donk out. I don't think blasting off on the turn, given his wondering whether to bet, and observed aggression, gets you anywhere.

Silly bet from V on river. A shove is still under pot-sized. It's the sort of thing a fish wanting a call would do (did V think you might c/back river too?), and I think an aggro-donk like V would shove if FOS.

We only have one pair, so fold, despite the juicy pot odds. EDIT: I'm giving V a lot of dumb Kx 2p, maybe 54, a few flush combos T9hh, QThh and QTo, etc. 'Balanced' against a bunch of other broadway garbage, and <TT PPs that don't know what to do. But I still think a lot of those would shove vs risking you sigh-calling.

It doesn't matter a whole lot if you are pretty high in your range. You are exploiting him if you choose to overfold this spot. Yes thst opens you up to being exploited, but that's okay.

For the sake of argument, you can also get to the river with KJ, AK, KQ sometimes. Bet, check, bet is often a really good value line, and it gives you the option to just call a river bet when bet to, naturally protecting your turn checking range.

Thanks, that makes sense to me. I am trying to clean up my thought process a bit in spots like this. Feels like I have a million different things to consider and sometimes I get lost in stuff that isn't that important in the games that I'm playing.

The result of this hand was that I called the river and won. My thought process was basically: "This guy seems loose. He is more aggressive than the rest of the table. He might be on tilt from losing several big pots recently. I am getting a good price and am high in my range."

After I called, Villain said: "Good call, I missed" so I turned my hand over. He seemed shocked and then said "I knew you didn't have a King! I had pocket Tens." This guy ended up lying a bunch about what he had in other hands, so I'm not sure which to believe but it does make sense to me that he had TT here. The bet on the river doesn't really make sense in theory (too strong to bluff, too weak to value bet), but I see players make bets like this often enough. It's easier for them to bet than it is to check/call or check/fold. Also it's pretty easy to recognize that I am somewhat weak in this spot.

After this hand, I started to question my call. As @fatmanonguitar said, there aren't really any natural bluffs here. Villain needs to turn a small pair into a bluff, or needs to float my flop bet with AQs or ATs or 78s maybe. I know making hero calls on the river in spots that are underbluffed is a major leak in my game, so I figured I would post this spot on 2p2 and see what you folks thought. Seems like this is a pretty borderline spot at best, so maybe it's fine to call if that's what my instincts say. Just glad I didn't have T9s or something here. Wouldn't be the first time I've bluff caught river only to lose to a bizarrely strong bluff combo.

I think it's a good call. This is exactly the type of villain that we would make this call against. And I think the Ah gives us bonus points since it reduces a lot of flush combos.

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but here goes...

This V sounds like an idiot. Why are we trying to range this guy, or figure out what his tells are, or if they're real or reverse-tells, or otherwise trying to get inside his head to figure out what he's doing, when even he doesn't know?

Yeah, okay, we rivered 2ndPTK, and we block the nut flush, but V could have any Kx, 54, QT, two random hearts, J9, or even J5/J4. How often can we expect this guy to donk-bluff with 3rd pair when there's 3 to a straight and 3 to a flush on board?

Why not just fold 2nd pair, and snap him off when we have top pair or better? Why are we hero-calling against this guy?

In fact, why are we c-betting the flop against this guy, with no pair? Forget the fact that we 3B pre and the flop is K-high, which favors our range, blah, blah, blah. This guy might not fold any hand that was strong enough to call our 3B pre, unless we triple barrel, and maybe not even then.

Why not just check-back flop and bet turn if he checks to us again? Why try to bluff this guy on the flop? Think about it - if we were betting AK for value, we'd EXPECT him to call with most, if not all his worse 1P hands and chase his draws. Is this the guy we want to c-bet-bluff after he calls our 3B?

We'll have top pair or better and will be able to c-bet for value often enough that we don't need to try to get him to fold with a bluff on the flop.

I am trying to play well against this guy because it's guys like this that are going to make up the bulk of my winrate. Shouldn't playing well against these aggro fish/action players be my top priority? Otherwise I'm left with the nits, the bad regs, and the good players, few and far between as they may be. Obviously I want to play well against those players too, but figuring out how to make the best decisions possible against guys like this feels like it's of the utmost importance.

Furthermore, I hadn't seen enough showdowns from this guy at this point to properly figure out his game. In my OP I tried to give as much info as I had at the time. Obviously once I reach showdown in this hand, I have a ton of new information on this guy that I can use in the future. Getting that info feels pretty valuable, and I actually think it should tilt me a little bit towards calling the river here.

I agree with you that running an extravagant bluff on this guy may not be the right play. So why cbet flop? Well, for one thing, it's a cheap way to realize my equity. I make a small bet on the flop, he calls, and then I get to decide what to do on the turn. Sometimes, I can double barrel. Other times, I can check back and try to hit the river (like in this hand!). For another, who is to say I don't have the best hand on the flop? I can get value from a hand like AT or QJ or JT or 78. And if he folds A4s that completely whiffed, I'm cool with that.

Checking back flop and betting turn if he checks to me makes some sense. But I also feel like that is less believable for most opponents. And it opens me up to getting bluffed off my equity on the turn. And if he checks flop and then checks turn, I also feel like I probably just have enough SDV to check it back again. That may well be the best line to take here. That's why I made the thread, to try and parse this stuff out!

I also agree when you say that this is the type of guy that I expect would pay me off when I have Kx or better here. For that reason, I want to bet flop and turn when I have value here. But if I do that, how can I only call river when I have TP or better? The only hands I would have to call with would be JJ, J9s, and QTs. Sure, I can mix some Kx into my turn checking range. But is it enough? I have to call $70 to win a final pot of $280 on the river, so I only need to be right 25% of the time. And it's entirely possible that a guy like this might be way overbluffing this spot (which I think is true based on the result of this hand).

As a general rule in low stakes live games, I've found it's most profitable to mostly just play a fundamentally sound, ABC style of poker against most opponents. The lower the stakes, the more ABC I play. At $1/$2, we shouldn't be over-thinking it.

We can make small adjustments to exploit weaker opponents when we identify reliable patterns in their play. But over-bluffing and hero-calling against this type of V aren't really necessary or part of the game plan, because he doesn't appear to have much of a fold button, pre or post.

In other words, this guy can show up with almost anything. You may not have seen many showdowns, but you've seen enough of his play to know what he's all about. He opens from 3x to 6x, limps and over-limps, and he pays off with 2nd-best hands. Is this the guy we want to bluff or pay off when he bets, and we only have 2nd pair?

Think about it this way - before you saw his hand, how certain were you that he was bluffing? If he'd shown you a better hand, would you have been very shocked? Think about the two hands he lost to straights - he had trips. How often does he put money into the pot with total air?

Why would you worry about checking the flop opening the door for him to bluff you off your equity when you bet the turn, when you only have ace-high on a king-high flop? Is this guy really going to check flop, and then check-raise turn, as a BLUFF?

If he check-raises the turn, and we only have ace-high, he's not the one bluffing. We are. We have no pair. What's he check-raise bluffing with when we have the Ah and there are two h's on board? Do you think this guy is capable of check-raising QJhh or QThh here? What other plausible bluffs does he have after opening and calling our 3B pre from OOP?

What makes you think this guy has any air-ball bluffs, ever, much less check-raise bluffs with high-equity draws on the turn? Have we seen him bluff at all? And how often is he turning any pair into a bluff on a scary river card, instead of taking his showdown value, if we bet the turn, instead of checking back?

There are tons of these guys at 1/2, 1/3, and 2/5. They open too wide, limp too wide, over-limp and over-call too wide, from every position. They want to see flops, will chase all their draws, and will call down with bottom pair.

C-betting as a bluff against these guys is just torching money. In fact, delayed c-bets as a bluff are also mostly torching money, and I'm fine checking all my high-card hands all the way down to the river against these guys, after they call my pre-flop raise, because these guys are all but unbluffable.

If we check when we don't have a hand, then we don't need to worry that our c-bet isn't credible, whether we make it on the flop or the turn. But these guys aren't thinking on that level. They're just calling when they have any sort of hand, and folding when they don't. Not betting the flop saves us a bet when we're behind.

There's nothing inherently wrong with checking flop / betting turn or betting flop / checking turn. There are plenty of flops we'll miss, followed by turns we'll hit, and plenty of turns that will hit our opponents' ranges more than ours.

Here, I'd rather check flop and bet turn, to possibly get him to check to us again on the river, instead of betting flop and checking turn, possibly inducing him to bet on the river.

If we want to realize our equity cheaply, there's no cheaper way than checking. C-betting isn't a cheap way to realize our equity if he doesn't fold, and especially not if he check-raises, or if he decides to bluff us on the river, after we check back the turn, because we got scared when he called our flop c-bet.

Yes, you were getting 3 to 1 on your call, so we only need to be good 25% of the time, but V opened pre, then called a 3B, then called a flop c-bet, and donk-led the river. Maybe 25% of his bets are bluffs (I doubt it), but is he bluffing 25% of the time when he takes this line?

He happened to have a worse hand here. I believe he probably did have TT, and he probably didn't think he was bluffing. He probably worried that you had a Kx, but realized you didn't when you checked back on the turn, and you just got lucky to spike that J on the river. He was just value-betting with a worse hand.

ETA - compared to the line you took here, which put you in a tough spot on the river, consider how checking flop, and betting or checking again on the turn, would have changed things. He may have led out on the river if you checked twice, and it would have been an easier call. Or he may have checked to you on the river, and you could go for thin value.

There is a lot going on in that post. It's going to be hard for me to respond to all of it. I'm just going to make a couple quick points and then let it go.

I don't think anything I did in this hand is "over-bluffing" or "torching money." I 3bet pre-flop with a reasonably good hand against a weaker player I had position on. I cbet on a K high flop HU and in position which I actually think is the standard play here. I am willing to accept that checking back against this player may be the better play on the flop, but I would be doing that as an exploit, not because it is my baseline strategy.

On the river, I have a high quality bluff catcher and am getting a good price. Against many of the players in my pool, this would be a comfortable fold. I don't think it is so clear against this guy, which is why I made the thread.

One thing that I am sure about in this hand is that when Villain bet the river, he was doing so as a bluff. How do I know that? Because when I called, he said "Good call, I missed." Why would he say that if he thought he was value-betting? He never showed his hand and mucked face down after I showed second pair. Do I believe he had TT? Yes, I do. But I don't believe he was value-betting with it.

Nothing wrong with your pre-flop play.

Against most opponents, nothing wrong with c-betting flop. Against a calling station - who called our 3B pre, when we have no pair - it's torching.

Yes, checking back would be an exploit, not part of our baseline strategy. That was my point - making an exploitative adjustment against this sort of V, by checking back rather than c-betting flop.

On the river, yes, you were getting a good price to call with a good bluff catcher.

Rather than look at that one decision in isolation, let's look at how we got there - facing a bet from V rather than V checking to us, in a pot that we bloated by c-betting on the flop, and after we weakened our range by checking back on turn, inducing V to bet with a range no one can easily define, when both straight and flush draws have come in.

I'm not putting too much stock in V's nonsensical, "Good call, I missed with TT" talk, when TT isn't a draw on a board of K954. Like I said, he's an idiot, and I'm not trying to figure out what he's doing if he doesn't know himself. This is the sort of guy who might not even realize his hand is as strong as it is.

Arguing about whether V thought he was value-betting or bluffing is beside the point. He's an idiot. He doesn't know.

How we got there - feeling like we have to hero-call a sticky idiot because we rivered 2nd pair on a gross run-out in a needlessly bloated pot - is the point.

It puts a flush draw on the board, l,do. Villain might suddenly be concerned with protecting a top-pair sort of hand.

But V doesn't have a TP hand. And H here, c-bet. (Albeit less than 1/2 pot, and less than H's 3b size.) If this turn action is evidence leaning towards V having TP on this kind of board, with this action?
(Which I'll consider from now on, thanks! Though, it's a rainbow board. This is going to happen ~3/4 of the time.)

Anyway, assuming you're right, doesn't that make H lean even more on the river to folding? Is it that V believes H has a hand below Kx because H's c-bet is less than expected? And therefore TT (or whatever) is good enough here to seek to protect perhaps with a turn donk?

Personally, as H, I would have made a typical (depending of course on what I wanted for subsequent betting rounds and V's commitment threshold etc..) c-bet of 1/2 pot or more. H 3b, CO v LJ. H is supposed to connect with K95r more than LJ who raised two early limpers, right? So why not continue with that narrative?

I don't look at results when I reply to strat posts; and now that I have seen the result, the argument still applies: villain had a medium pocket pair, and it would be understandable for them to want to protect the showdown value of their hand from flush draws by donking the turn. (It would be a mistake, but an understandable one.)

This hand is really well played. It is criminal not to cbet the flop. There are plenty of times when a rec gets to the river and bets half pot with a hand we beat. There are times to overfold and this isn't one of them. Think tripple barrels with large sizing on turn and river or turn check raise river overbet/jam with a pure bluff catcher.


Doc you are tearing apart things that are total non-issues.