Hello all,

Im looking for any advice here. If you see any horrific lines taken by Hero or gross sizing mistakes or just anything you feel would be constructive to point out please criticize away. The stacks I kept at 2k and the only hand that it might be a little off is the last hand where villain is about 1.8k deep to start the hand instead of 2k.

All of these hands are from the same session and are in the sequence from which they happen. Most of these villains are aged 30-60 and are of Chinese descent (like from China not just Americans with Chinese heritage). I only include this because it seems they played with a certain rage to their game. Most of them have deep pockets and none are pro-players but all are 4x/week reg players. They are far from the normal weak tight fish, but are all bad in their own way. It would be tldr if I include all reads on villains so if you have any questions feel free to ask and Ill reply in comments. Im going to show the last actions in the hand and the result for the sake of being able to be criticized on my river play. Obv please dont let the outcome influence your advice. Thanks.

Hand Information
, 5 BB (9 handed).
Hand History converter courtesy of pokerhandreplays.com

Table Information
Seat: 1 seat 1 ($2000) Small Blind
Seat: 2 seat 2 ($2000) Big Blind
Seat: 3 seat 3 ($2000)
Seat: 4 seat 4 ($2000)
Seat: 5 seat 5 ($2000)
Seat: 6 seat 6 ($2000)
Seat: 7 seat 7 ($2000)
Seat: 8 seat 8 ($2000)
Seat: 9 seat 9 ($2000) Dealer
Dealt to seat 8


Preflop (Pot:7)
seat 3 FOLD
seat 4 CALL
seat 5 CALL
seat 6 CALL
seat 7 FOLD
seat 8 RAISE $45
seat 9 FOLD
seat 1 FOLD
seat 2 FOLD
seat 4 FOLD
seat 5 CALL
seat 6 FOLD

Flop(Pot: $102)


seat 5 CHECK
seat 8 CHECK

Turn(Pot: $102)


seat 5 CHECK
seat 8 BET $75
seat 5 CALL

River(Pot: $252)


seat 5 BET $175
seat 8 RAISE $475
seat 5 FOLD
Showdown:
seat 8 MUCKS

seat 8 wins the pot: $902

Prior to this hand I had a clean image. On this hand I had noticed that many of them (in particular this villain) were limp/calling about 80% of hands and were commonly getting to showdown vs each other with very weak holdings. My plan was to 3 barrel this hand from the beginning IF I ONLY GOT 1 caller otf, b/c I felt that eventhough I had showdown value, the river bet just gets folds from every Ax Tx and I make a lot of money on avg when they call/call/fold. So I actually wanted ot be called otf & ott . My biggest Qs here are: should I not be attempting to exploit them in this way? Is this a bad turn / river to follow through with plan? I know some straights get there, and I also know that he can def. have peeled the flop with any 8x since he's so wide on all streets. Is this one of the nut worst runouts to continue with plan?

Hand Information
, 5 BB (10 handed).
Hand History converter courtesy of pokerhandreplays.com

Table Information
Seat: 1 seat 1 ($2000) Small Blind
Seat: 2 seat 2 ($2000) Big Blind
Seat: 3 seat 3 ($2000)
Seat: 4 seat 4 ($2000)
Seat: 5 seat 5 ($2000)
Seat: 6 seat 6 ($2000)
Seat: 7 seat 7 ($2000)
Seat: 8 seat 8 ($2000)
Seat: 9 seat 9 ($2000)
Seat: 10 seat 10 ($2000) Dealer
Dealt to seat 2


Preflop (Pot:7)
seat 3 CALL
seat 4 CALL
seat 5 CALL
seat 6 FOLD
seat 7 FOLD
seat 8 FOLD
seat 9 FOLD
seat 10 FOLD
seat 1 FOLD

Flop(Pot: $12)


seat 2 BET $15
seat 3 FOLD
seat 4 FOLD
seat 5 CALL

Turn(Pot: $42)


seat 2 BET $35
seat 5 CALL

River(Pot: $112)


seat 2 BET $300
seat 5 CALL
Showdown:
seat 5 SHOWS

seat 2 MUCKS

seat 5 wins the pot: $712

This hand was interesting. Like I said these guys are aggro and I expected to be geting played back at after showing the overbet bluff. Leading up to this hand I had been opening a lot of pots and taking them down relatively uncontested. The villain in this particular hand is probably the most aggro player on the table BUT, I ended up folding the river vs. shoving/calling based on a live read of fake weakness he was giving off so I'm pretty confident with the read. The one other thing to add is that this villain (in hindsight) seemed aggro when initiative was "released" when checked to him or when hero checks back. I hadnt seen any ch/r bluffs from him, so its possible this line doesnt mean bluff, but its weird anyways b/c hes so ridiculously polarized. I almost shoved river b/c I thought he might have decided to x/r bluff with any pair on the board and most importantly the only draw 34 picked up a pair on the river. Villain snap x/r & barreled otf & ott but then kind of paused for about 10 secs otr before barreling 800 which spooked me a bit. My read on him was that he snap bets weak usually. Im sure there will be some that hate this hand...and I hate the outcome mostly b/c I know call/call/fold is the worst line I can take vs this guy, but in the moment I just couldnt bring myself to pull the trigger otr and I think its for the best.


Hand Information
, 5 BB (10 handed).
Hand History converter courtesy of pokerhandreplays.com

Table Information
Seat: 1 seat 1 ($2000) Small Blind
Seat: 2 seat 2 ($2000) Big Blind
Seat: 3 seat 3 ($2000)
Seat: 4 seat 4 ($2000)
Seat: 5 seat 5 ($2000)
Seat: 6 seat 6 ($2000)
Seat: 7 seat 7 ($2000)
Seat: 8 seat 8 ($2000)
Seat: 9 seat 9 ($2000)
Seat: 10 seat 10 ($2000) Dealer
Dealt to seat 8


Preflop (Pot:7)
seat 3 FOLD
seat 4 FOLD
seat 5 FOLD
seat 6 FOLD
seat 7 FOLD
seat 8 RAISE $20
seat 9 FOLD
seat 10 FOLD
seat 1 CALL
seat 2 CALL

Flop(Pot: $47)


seat 1 CHECK
seat 2 CHECK
seat 8 BET $35
seat 1 RAISE $150
seat 2 FOLD
seat 8 CALL

Turn(Pot: $382)


seat 1 BET $300
seat 8 CALL

River(Pot: $982)


seat 1 BET $800
seat 8 FOLD
Showdown:
seat 1 MUCKS

seat 1 wins the pot: $1782

The action in this hand is me vs the same aggro villain in the hand above that ch/r and barreled me off. He is btn and the reason I 3b this hand is for 2 reasons. 1: I noticed that he plays really poorly when checked to and I wanted to have the initiative and give it up to him post flop if I flopped a pair. He just basically pots his entire range when checked to. 2: The EP limper tilted his hand accidentally toward me when he was initially dealt it and so I saw his A7o....so I 3b with plans on foldingn out the A7 limper and c-betting most all Axx boards and maybe barreling 2 streets. In this hand for some reason the hand converter doesnt show my hold cards K9o until showdown.

Hand Information
, 5 BB (10 handed).
Hand History converter courtesy of pokerhandreplays.com

Table Information
Seat: 1 seat 1 ($2000) Small Blind
Seat: 2 seat 2 ($2000) Big Blind
Seat: 3 seat 3 ($2000)
Seat: 4 seat 4 ($2000)
Seat: 5 seat 5 ($2000)
Seat: 6 seat 6 ($2000)
Seat: 7 seat 7 ($2000)
Seat: 8 seat 8 ($2000)
Seat: 9 seat 9 ($2000)
Seat: 10 seat 10 ($2000) Dealer
Dealt to seat 5


Preflop (Pot:7)
seat 3 FOLD
seat 4 FOLD
seat 5 CALL
seat 6 FOLD
seat 7 FOLD
seat 8 FOLD
seat 9 RAISE $25
seat 10 FOLD
seat 1 FOLD
seat 2 RAISE $80
seat 5 FOLD
seat 9 CALL

Flop(Pot: $197)


seat 2 CHECK
seat 9 BET $125
seat 2 CALL

Turn(Pot: $447)


seat 2 CHECK
seat 9 BET $250
seat 2 RAISE $850
seat 9 ALL-IN
seat 2 CALL

River(Pot: $3917)


Showdown:
seat 2 SHOWS

seat 9 MUCKS

seat 2 wins the pot: $3917

I get very lucky ott here as villain showed up with the ABSOLUTE top of his range for not 4betting. He had QQ here, but Im sure he is much, much wider than this would lead you to believe, esp on this texture.

Thanks all for responses. Flame away!

You really should split these into separate threads.

Hand 1 is risky and player dependent, but his line is a missed diamond a lot. I'm never folding here vs certain player types. Raise is ok if he can fold an overpair or mini pair, otherwise you're better off just flatting. Flatting is definitely way better in a vacuum.

Hand 2 is pure spew. Check/fold it away, even on the flop.

Hand 3 - fold to the initial raise from an aggro player, he is going to put you to the test on every street. I don't know why you called turn because he's going to bet that river 99% of the time and you aren't going to call that.

Hand 4 - I don't like the limp, I fold this in EP normally vs. aggro donks.

the **** replayer really confuses things...T7s hand I was bb & checked option. In the last hand with K9o I was again bb and 3b the btn open. For some reason it doesnt show my hole cards until the end. The A7o is the ep limper that folded to the 3b pre.

hand 1: cbet then give up. river raise is pretty dangerous since most players aren't extracting thin value and have a flush, straight, or 2 pair they aren't folding.

hand 2: don't bluff into 3 opponents

hand 3: you bet/called a 4.3x flop raise with A high with someone behind you? What?

hand 3 I bet/called a flop x/r, b/c wtf is he repping? a set only? he never has an overpair or Jx. the 3rd player in the hand folded to the x/r before I called.

Ok, then why did you call turn and fold river? What is he magically repping then? He has a 9? A middle pair? If your read is he's a crazy spewer, then I don't see where you ever should have folded this. You needed to plan your action for all 3 streets before calling the flop.

If this guy is so bad he's spewing like this, just fold flop and wait until you hit. You can give up a lot of $35 c bets to get his $1100 on the turn and river. Adjust to his play.

I guess I finally understand hand 4. Flop and turn feel standard. Pre is spewy, why are you betting someone out when you know what he has? It's not like he has A9 here and he's crushing one of your hole cards.

Yea I know call/call/fold is the worst possible line. I'm thinking based on frequency of this guy's aggression which was REALLY high that he must be turning any piece of the board (I.e. any bottom or mid pair, maybe any 2 overs that can't call down easily...into a a bluff) so I hated folding knowing that he rarely has **** that he actually wants to stack off with. I wouldn't put it past him to x/r & barrel ott with a wheel gutty that got there on the river. I think there's a very decent chance that he also could have simply rivered a pair and thus the hesitation before deciding that his pair had no showdown value & bluffing the 800. In hindsight if I had to do the hand over I would probably just fold flop & wait to have a pair vs him OR get really sick with it and call/call/shove river b/c I get max from him allowing him to barrel off. What do u think about call/call/shove in this particular spot?

my hand was just slightly too weak to be calling the open 3 way comfortably and I thought there was more merit to getting h/u with the opener with the additional knowledge of the other 2 hole cards. also, I just really, really wanted to take the initiative in the hand with plans on instantly giving it up b/c the opener has a hard on for pouncing on weakness postflop. In hindsight yea I guess theres merit to calling...but I think I can pretty comfortably get him off a lot of hands knowing Ax dead cards on a variety of high card flops.

You aren't deep enough to shove over his 800 and have him fold almost anything you beat. River is always a call or fold.

Grunch

Hand 1(AQ on 3 diamond flop):

Preflop: Raise size looks about perfect as we got what we wanted, a heads up pot.

Flop: Monotone board that smacks a fish's liming range, standard check behind.

Turn: Don't like a bet here as we checked the flop and we can't really rep a 5 since we raised it preflop huge so all we're really repping is a flopped flush and both of those hands are fairly rare to have. Also, villain checked the turn when he could have fired and repped a 5 or 2 pair more credibly so I think this means he likely has some sort of hand with showdown value.

River: Villain's range here is polarized and I would expect a call from 2 pair+ and expect folds from flush draws that missed and 1 pair + flush draws that missed.
Not sure what the EV of bluffing is here but it feels like it might be break even at best and most likely -EV. Fold > Raise > Call imo.

Hand 2(107s):

Entire hand: Our read is that villains are getting to showdown with very weak holdings so to me that means villains are looking up people very light and therefore means we should be bluffing way less, not bluffing more.

River: Not sure how often villains fold TP to an overbet in this spot but your line looks really FOS as all we are really repping is a full house, as in we aren't going to lead just bottom pair on the flop OOP.

Hand 3(AQ on J high flop):

Flop and Turn: I don't like the plan of bet/calling. If we think villain is going to x/r on this type of board then we are better off checking behind for pot control. I also think villain is probably polarized but his x/r range against us likely includes AJ, maybe even KJ. If we had a read that he wouldn't x/r those hands then I like the idea of calling down with A high. Without a read that villain x/r dry flops that are likely to miss our range and I think a fold is best.

River: Since villain's range is polarized a bluff shove seems suicidal. The only pair that we're really trying to get him off of is a pair of 4s and to say he plays 34 preflop is a bit of a stretch, maybe 34s but that only represents like 3 combos of hands. So it's either complete air or AJ+ imo, and given our image I doubt villain is bet/folding AJ for value. However, since we did get to the river we obv thought villain was FOS with his flop x/r so we have to follow through on our read and call river.

Hand 4(K9o):

Preflop: What is our goal of 3 betting trying to accomplish? Given our image and how deep we are I doubt villain is folding any of his range to our 3 bet. So our plan is to outplay him on Axx flops and check/call on favorable flops for our hand? Those types of flops are going to be in the vast minority, and the rest of the time we are going to get outplayed by an aggressive player that is in position. And we have K9o ffs. A -EV plan for sure.

Flop: Ok, so luckily we get a 9 high flop which is about as gin for our hand as it's gonna get. Following through with the original plan and check/calling seems to be the right play.

Turn: Oh snap, trips! Running good ftw. I like a check/call and check/shove blank rivers best as it keeps all of his bluffs in and our hand looks like a stubborn AK. The fact that he bet/called with QQ makes it more likely that he was x/r,bet,betting with AJ and possibly KJ.

Additional notes:

These plays seem really tilty/FPSy. We're on a table full of rec players that like to get to showdown. No need to get all fancy, just basic ABC plays with the occassional bluff in good spots will win the money here.

Some of what you said is solid advice. The T7 hand is pure spew in hindsight. Your logic that a villain would x/r huge KJ,AJ and barrel hard ott & otr is crazy. He has these hands like 0% here given all streets action. I think these are easy x/c for villain. I said villain was aggro not a value-owning noob. Obv I should have either folded flop, checked behind flop or called down all the way. On the last hand I thought about x/c,x/r river line but the problem is that there's just too many rivers that I think kill action. There's probably something like 60%+ rivers that he checks behind with his showdown hands OR his semi bluffs actually just get there and beat me 20% of the time and I have to x/c a huge bet incorrectly (again he's aggro in a bluffy way, not aggro owning himself). I x/r ott b/c I have that crazy maniacal image myself as you can see from the previous hands.
I'm not sure what u consider "vast minority" of flops to be...but with these 4 known cards we get at least 1 A or K almost 40% of flops. That's pretty big. Also I'm sure his range for calling a 3b includes a ton of Ax hands so if he has that part if his range he is much less likely to make a pair. I think the value of knowing there is a dead A folded w/o him having the same information is huge and I was very happy to iso with this info even oop.

maybe my description of the table wasn't adequate. ABC isn't going to cut it b/c they aren't going to allow you to get to showdown easily. light call downs & rebluffs are necessary or else you are going to be folding every hand. There IS another route I could go which is to completely nit it up, but they are perceptive enough to recognize that. I felt LAG was the most profitable, although I don't deny that my LAG game is lacking.

The correct adjustment to that kind of table dynamic is way less bluffing and more light calls.

Also, with the stacks as deep as they are the correct adjustment to that would be to play way more hands in position than out of position.

Yeah he probably doesn't raise KJ for value, but I do think there's a pretty good chance, although not 100%, that he raises AJ for value given your image and his image and the current table dynamic with lots of bluffing and light calling. However, if you do have a read that AJ isn't in his range I would feel very comfortable calling down with A high in this spot as a set is more likely to slowplay at least 1 street and also wouldn't raise this big.

Sure, villain could have a drawing hand but we don't know that for sure as we expected villain to be firing almost all of his range when checked to, and if villain is as aggressive as you say he was, I doubt villain is willing to check/give up on the river when our line looks so weak. We took this line to target the air part of his range and although 2 streets of value is nice, I believe villain fires the river with air again.

Vast minority was probably an exaggeration, but it probably is somewhere around the 35% range, and all the folded A means is that villain is 1/3 less likely to have an ace. To me that doesn't make up for the fact that we are going to play a bloated pot OOP with K9o against an opponent who is seemingly not playing fit or fold postflop.