The Setup:
1-2nl on the pokerpro electronic tables - 10 handed. Friday night so this smallish poker room has its "finest" on hand. I've been at the table for about 30 minutes, and the table is playing pretty typically.

Villian: I identified him as decent before I sat down because he was paying very close attention to the game etc. My view changed pretty quickly when he dumped two full buy-ins: the second one he called down with J6 on a KJx board, only to lose to K8...woops. He was basically betting and raising and losing.

Stacks:
Hero BB ($300): 89
Villian ($300):

The Hand:

Preflop:
V1 raises to $5, hijack calls, cutoff calls, button folds, sb folds, Hero calls

Flop: ($21)
8,72:
Hero bets $15, V1 calls, hijack fold, cutoff fold

Turn: ($51)
8,7,2, 6
Hero bets $25, V1 raises to $75, Hero??

I will post the following streets (if any), rationale and results following comments. You guys have been helpful on previous hands, so lets see what you got here!

call turn

bet ~$100 if your hand improves on the river as long as it ddoesnt improve to 2 pair 8's and 9's

vil may have 99+ a8, k8

easy call on the turn i feel

Pre is ok but you are calling needing to hit bingo or fold with 87 off played four ways OOP.

You binked top pair. I would bet flop. Something like 2/3 of pot, which you did. You got called by the initial raiser.

Against a normal V I would bet/fold this turn. The bet size is ok to me. Most of the draws he has are in decent hands that may not go away to another bet of 2/3-3/4 pot (i.e. 99 or TT isn't going anywhere, probably not A9 either against a loose villain).

Giving him a standard range to raise from early/mid position, it's pairs and decent broadway hands. Figure most hands with overcards now fold to another bet, and lots of calls from hands as good or better than you (overpairs, OESD etc.) are raising/calling. Your two bets should eliminate most of the hands you beat against a normal villain who open raised.

Read questions - you described villain as calling way too light. Has he re-raised postflop light yet? Because this hand is playing out differently from the last one. Also, what has he shown down before that he's opened with pre? What is his position here preflop? Do you think he has any concept of position?

I'd like to know a little more info. This hand can go so many ways.

Against a normal non-LAGgy villain I'm probably against an overpair (jacks/tens) a lot of the time given this line. Not a lot of villains I play against are opening with 10 9 or something like that. My play would be V dependent. If V is going to pay you off big if you catch a 4 card straight, then you call. You are deep enough and his raise is small enough that calling 50 into 150 isn't terrible with 8 outs if you can get paid. If V is going to fold every time you bink your hand, then you should just fold right here.

Against this V I continue the hand if he's just a spewmonkey based on your read. If you think we're ahead, you can't fold. If you really think we're ahead, I would raise, not call, given your draw outs.

This read is very villain dependent. Villain raised pre from early/mid position. I need to see them raising light before I put K8 in their range. Same with A8 even. The average 1/2 player isn't opening with K8. Many call with it pre, but not raise.

K8, Q8, even J8 and certainly 108 and 89 are all in his preflop raising range. I really eliminate nothing by his whopping 1.5x preflop raise. The guy was betting, raising, losing...in that order. I had seen him shove OESD and he had just called down 3 streets on a normal board w/ J6 (I think he limp called here).

My read was flat unadulturated monkey tilt. I was fairly certain I was ahead on the flop against him so the $15 was a value bet and to see where I stood against 3 opponents.

When he raises the turn literally my biggest concern is the made straight - 910, but considering I have the top side of OESD as well I'm crushing his drawing hands and I have outs to overpairs (although again super unlikely given his aggression and his waiting till the turn to raise). Given the line 910 and I guess some goofy 2pair hands were the only things I was worried about being ahead given the line.

So needless to say I call...

Stacks:
Hero BB ($300): 89
Villian ($300):

The Hand:

Preflop:
V1 raises to $5, hijack calls, cutoff calls, button folds, sb folds, Hero calls

Flop: ($21)
8,72:
Hero bets $15, V1 calls, hijack fold, cutoff fold

Turn: ($51)
8,7,2, 6
Hero bets $25, V1 raises to $75, Hero calls

River: ($201)
8,7,2,6,K (no flush)
Hero checks, V1 bets $150, Hero?

Grunch

c/c the turn. As played, it looks like you're valuetowning yourself, but I suppose I call.

Fold.

fold river, all you can beat is a bluff

hero call would be -EV

He'd have to be really bad to raise here 99, A8, or K8. He's also shown passivity in the past. This was a very bad turn for us. the only hands we now beat are random 7s and 6s but is he really raising with those?

Perhaps this is considered to passive, but I'm check/calling the turn and re-evaluating the river. As played I'm folding turn.

this guy appears to be a total fish from what ive seen

he easily could have 99+

flat on the flop to "trap"

and then raise the turn once 3 to a straight appears

you have outs against any type of hand

flat the turn and reevaluate the river

this guy is a donkey

Hate your turn bet.

If you were looking for info on the flop why not check and use your relative position vs the villain? Based on your description he's going to c-bet here almost all of the time, and then you'll get to see how the other players react.

By betting what info were you hoping to gain? Unless the villain raises, how does the other players over calling help you narrow their ranges? And if he did raise, given his tilt status, what would you do?

I think you could have check called this hand down vs this villain, which is a reasonable line to take against aggro-tilted players w/ a mediocre strength hand.

Ok so i'm going to give away the ending to move on to the meaningful discussion. I call the $150 and he shows me Q9 for the missed OESD he picked up on the turn.

So my read is correct and I rake the pot and get to show that I will call light given a good read, but the question is (trying not to be results oriented), and I did check to induce a bet - but it caused me heartburn to call - I said this is what you wanted - grab ur nuts and call type thing.

The question is: did I take a bad line here and become too read dependent? If this is a recipe for disaster as played, what do we do to stay out of this situation again? or is this guy just awful and I should be happy i owned him and move on?

I think it's a little passive too, but it prevents us from getting blown off a good draw. If V is bluffing, it's not going to cost as much to expose when hero calls the river.

Fold pre.

Amazing no one has mentioned this. And please save your pot odds comments.

Pot odds is just a bad excuse for bad calls.


otherwise, c/c flop.....c/c turn....c/f river.

This is so incredibly nitty. Calling the raise is roughly 1% of stack size against a bad opponent with a hand that has some value.

Aren't you late for an aces cracked promo somewhere?

I agree with you if the raise is to $10 or $12. But not to $5. I'm putting $3 more in this deep and playing for straights.

It's also why the flop is a bet/fold - we are giving up immediately to aggression with this POS hand.

You are right. I forgot we had the pot odds and it is only 1% of our stack.

And what exactly is wrong with nitty? You say it like it is a crime or a sin. It is just a preferred style of some to play.
And finally, if you think folding trash in BB to a raise OOP and MW is nitty, then yes I am the nittiest player of all time

Not to be results oriented, but I am going to give your turn + river calls some credit in that you read (on the turn) that you are ahead of the villain's range. River card probably doesn't impact things enough for you to fold if that is your read.

Although I do think that if your read is you are ahead and you're willing to pay off $150 on the river, why don't you just shove turn?

If your argument is that it is only $3 and I am playing for straight this deep, then I have not much more to tell you.
Good luck making those $3 calls playing for straight this deep. And don't lose sight of the fact you could be playing for FH and QUADS as well.

Make sure to report back and tell us how it is working out for you.

I'm not folding pre here. I understand it keeps me out of a lot of sticky situations (see the 7-9 hand I posted on previously that basically got me screwed against an overpair - but that was 2-5 against considerably better opponents, and a few month earlier in my 2P2 progression), but I'm also looking to play multiway pots with connected cards (albeit preferably not OOP). I'd have limped 89o in mid position in this game and probably would have raised with it sometimes in late position. I mean there is so much limping in this game, I to widen my raising range typically raising 11 - 13.


I was playing 30% of hands this day, but literally went back the next day played 60% of total hands, won 25% of total hands - so essentially played any two...but that's results oriented and doesn't add any value just color to the game I was in.

Throwing away 89 for what is essentially a min-raise in a multiway pot which will cost 1% of the stacks in play is excessively nitty IMO.

Nitty isn't a bad thing in itself, but you need to adjust sometimes. This would be a good candidate to adjust.

LOL @ adjusting. Sure thing. I take that into consideration. Thanks for the helpful hint. Back to the thread. Let's not derail.

Are you talking percentage of hands or VPIP? If VPIP, 60% isn't going to ever be profitable 10 handed. However, I'm pretty sure that the poker pro tables include the blinds as "hands played" in their percentage calculations. Or at least I hope so, because otherwise I've been playing way too loose based on the stats I see at these tables.

Unsure...someone who knows more about the pokerpro tables please confirm. Those were just the %ages that came up. First time playing pokerpro tables was this session actually.