1/3 Live NLH @ Fortune Poker Room in Renton, WA

Hero opens QT to 13 from CO, BTN flat calls. BB raises to 35. I call the raise knowing that BTN has a high VPIP and mainly plays a passive PF, and will call trying to see as many flops as possible. No history/information on BB so far other than that he's a MAWG. This is the first hand we play.

BB [$400 stack]
Hero [$600 stack]
BTN [$450 stack]

About $400 effective

[Flop - $106] JT3

BB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks

[Turn - $106] T

BB bets $35, Hero raises to $110, BTN folds, BB calls

(at this point I put him on at least an overpair, AJcc+, JJ)

[River - $346] Q

BB checks, Hero bets $110 to get called by AA, KK, and backdoor club AJs+, he snap shoves for $135 more.

He's just calling and never shoving here with AA, KK, and he might shove with AJcc+. He's definitely shoving JJ, QQ here. I block some QQ combos, so I'm really only worried about JJ here.


RESULT:

Depressing spot.

But what worth thinking about here - it's suspicious when the preflop 3-bettor checks the flop and then suddenly wakes up on later streets. When he bet the turn and then called a raise, alarm bells should go off imidiately. If he had an overpair he would just bet the flop, this is not a board to slowplay your AA-QQ, you want to extract value from Jx and straight draws.

So when he checks the flop, he either:
1. gives up with his AK, AQ type of hand
2. completely crushed the board and wants opponents to catch up
3. has showdown value, a Ten most likely.

When he bets and calls a raise we can exclude AK, AQ give up. Even if he calls with clubs, I think he would lead river to not risk losing value when he hit his draw!

So what's left? Monster or a Ten. A Ten just calls your river bet. So we're left with a monster.

Welcome to the forum.

This is a very straightforward call.

He has 5 combos of value that beat yours: TT (1), JJ (3), QQ (1)


The pot is 700, and 135 for you to call. Your getting pot odds of 700/135 or 5 to 1.

Therefore to justify a call on the river you need to find just 1 combo of value that would play this way. As you mentioned both AKcc and AQcc would play this way. AJcc would probably bet the flop, so I'd eliminate it from consideration.

Your preflop call is pretty dicey. QTs is the worst suited Broadways. If BB is 3 betting AQ+,JJ+ then you're absolutely crushed. Better to just fold preflop IMO.

I don't think AKcc plays this way. AKcc leads the river or just calls the river in a 1/3 Live Game, Hero showed a lot of strengh on the turn. Not to mention that AKcc could very well c-bet that flop having gutshot straight draw, backdoor flush draw and 2 overs. But I'll admit it's not impossible.

And yes, preflop call with QTs is not great.

you guys call 3 bets way too much

start folding preflop, everyone has JJ-AA, AK when they do this (at minimum) in LLSNL. actually most people have QQ-AA and thats it.

We have less than a PSB left on the river and Villain checked JJ with full knowledge that he risked a check back. I just think he probably never leads this river with any hand except to make a blocking type bet with a marginal hand.

I don't find that players at this level really understand relative hand value well enough to know that AKcc is not the nuts on this river. When the river improves their hand they get excited and go with it. Our hand looks a lot like a T an they don't expect a typical 1/3 player to fold a T in this spot.

Fold pre. AP you call getting this price. It’s a cooler and it happens. Rerack and tighten up a little.

This.

Nobody cares if you're getting a great price. Your hand is dominated and it's lighting money on fire in a vacuum (ie vs your avg live player's 3b range without reads that say otherwise).

River snap call altho it sucks.

If you want to call, PP >>>>> dominated/weak broadways.

Never ever folding river. Never folding pre either for this price.