Bally's Twin River in Lincoln, RI on a Monday night

About 10pm at a $2/$5 table that just opened 4 hours ago (the buyin is $200-$800, and all tables are 10-handed)

Hero ($1600) is a MAWG who has been active all night; I've had to make some big bets and go all-in, sometimes showing I didn't always have it. I've faced a lot of big bets on later streets from others this night, and called at times and won, called at times and lost, and made some snug folds.

Main Villain (covers) is complete unknown to Hero, never seen him before. He's been very active, playing more pots than most at the table, and seems to be quite good at hand reading. He's straddled every opportunity he could, and almost always defended against pre-flop aggression. Hero has not played a hand with him, and for most of the night he was sitting at the other end of the table. Only had of note was a hand with maybe $500 in the pot on the river where another guy showed JJ after Villain checked to him on like an 8 high board, Villain mucked, but before dealer touched his cards he reached out and turned them back over because he realized he had actually made a wheel on the river with AKoff. Turned into a 20 minute delay of game when the JJ guy waited for the floor to rule on if the AK was live or not.

Villain 2 (~$1000) is also completely new to Hero, turns out he's a Vegas pro visiting back home for his birthday. He has been playing solid and making smart plays with good reads.

OTTH

Main Villain straddles to $10

Hero (UTG) looks down to find A A and opens to $35. There wasn't a lot of 3-betting at this table so I didn't even contemplate a limp-reraise. I've either opened to a raise, called a raise, or folded 100% at this table this night (haven't been in a good 3-bet spot yet when this hand happened).

Villain 2 calls $35 on the button

Main Villain calls $35 from the straddle

Flop ($112) Q 8 3

Main Villain checks

Hero bets $90

Villain 2 folds

Main Villain calls

Turn ($292) Q 8 3 10

Main Villain donk-leads for $175

Hero?

Can't imagine doin anything else other than calling. This could be a 1 pair hand that doesn't want you to check back, might be 2 pair or a straight. Folding and raising both suck so it seems like a clear call

Could also be 1 pair that picked up a straight draw, or a flush draw that picked up a pair, or a flush draw that picked up a straight draw. I agree, it’s hard to think of not calling. Let’s play a river.

Flop: Do we need to bet so big holding the As?

Turn: Nothing to do but call and see a river. I'm already thinking of turning my hand into a bluff if a spade comes. But let's see what he does first.

Donks are typically attempts at pot control by non-nut made hands. If we knew this guy to be an unstudied fun player, the right move with an overpair on a straightening board is to raise to prior pot + villain's bet, in this case to about $465-$470. Given that the villain seems like he has a clue or two, if excessively LAGgy, just call him down, even if the river puts a fourth straight card on the board.

Not necessarily just bc we are ahead doesn’t mean we want to raise. If he’s trying to pot control QJ I would much rather call and make him pay on the river than blow him off his hand on the turn

If I knew he had QJ I would raise. QJ has 9 outs to beat us and might call a well-sized raise.

The reason not to raise is the chance of us being behind, combined with the fact that Villain likely has decent equity when we are ahead.

Okay, so what can the villain have that beats us?

QQ should be deeply discounted (but not absolutely ruled out) because the villain neither three-bet preflop nor check-raised on the flop, in a situation where slowplaying could be disastrous (We've got lots of AsXs in our range, which, because the Qs is on the board, their pocket queens cannot block. Likewise, 88 should be somewhat discounted because of the villain's failure to check-raise the flop, and so should 33 (which has the saving grace of having some 3s combos that slightly block flush draws). The villain as described could easily have all the Q8 and QT combos. Call that one combo-equivalent of QQ, two each of 88 and 33, and twelve undiscounted combos each of Q8 and QT. I suppose we also have to give them Th8h, for flopped middle pair with a backdoor flush draw.

Can they also have J9, after having check-called a large flop bet? I am only willing to give the villain Js9s and Jh9h (with the backdoor heart draw), and, again, I want to discount these because of the incentive to check-raise with both of them.

Call it the equivalent of 31 or 32 combos.

What we beat: all the QX hands except QT and Q8 --six combos of AQ and twelve each of KQ, QJ, and Q9 -- all six KK, deeply discounted because no preflop three-bet; flush draw combos like KsJs, KsTs, JsTs, Ts9s, 9s7s, and 7s6s (maybe they even have hands like 5s4s 4s3s). Maybe Th9h as well.

So there are somewhere adjacent to fifty combos in the villain's range with reasonable likelihood of continuing to our raise. At the very least all the combo draw and pair+draw hands will continue, and the discounted KK. I count something like 34 combos.

34 > 32, and there is a reasonable likelihood of villain continuing with rather more than 34 combos.

If we are beat, well, that's poker. If they outdraw us, well, that's poker (and note that our As blocks flush outs). If our turn raise gets three-bet, we can fold. But I think raising here looks profitable.

Better poker players can overcome the timid loss-aversion cognitive bias that keeps them from raising in spots like this. If you are willing to fade the variance, you will make money in the long ruin.

Flop bet is too large. We push V higher into his range.

Also it's multiway.....so we need to keep bets small. 1/3 pot or so.


As played, call turn and see river.



River play will be heavily dependent on river card and V's bet sizing. If he shoves, we basically have to fold on any card that isn't the Ad.

On brick/safe rivers, we can call up to about a pot sized bet, maybe a little over.

On super bad rivers like 9h, we are just folding.



So ya, as played.....call.....plan on folding a decent amount on river if V doesn't slow down.

Raising here is setting money on fire in the long run. We are too deep and our hand isn't strong enough to play for stacks at 160bb deep.


We are in position and V just donked for 60%....which is close to where we would bet anyway.


We call in position and reassess on river. Raising here is -EV for sure.

Agree with Yogurt that raising turn is no bueno against this chunky-ish sizing. If V bet like 25-30%, I could get on board with raising and check back bad rivers.

If the flop was QT8r and the turn brought a 2nd spade I would be more inclined to raise bc villain is usually donking a pair+fd

Call. Rest of hand is fine. Flop could be a little smaller, but it's fine vs. two players.

I wish I had some kind of elaborate reason for my flop sizing, but I don't know/remember why I chose that size. I will say that one factor in this hand is that I completely forgot that I had the Ace of spades through the flop and turn somehow, so that played no factor in anything I did there.

I do tend to bet larger on flops the wetter the board is, so with 2 spades and 2 broadway cards I was probably always going to bed 2/3 pot more-so than 1/3 pot, even 3-ways. But maybe my thinking is flawed there.

Anyways, let's continue the action



Turn ($292) Q 8 3 10

Main Villain donk-leads for $175

For some reason as soon as he donk-lead, I felt like he had a good hand. There isn't that much donk-leading at $2/$5 at Twin, and from what I have observed it's often because people's hand improved and they want to get immediate value. But like I said I've never seen this particular villain before so have no idea how often he donk-leads or for why. He had been sitting across the table most of the night and only moved to my right shortly before this hand so I didn't have as many mental notes about his game as other players nearer to me.

When the bet came out I was taken aback because I was expecting a check, and for the reasons above I started thinking about what hands he could have here that beat me. J9, 1010, Q10, 108.... I didn't get to start thinking about what bluffs he had here that he might lead with as my standard thinking time was now up, but I knew I wasn't folding for this sizing, and didn't see any compelling reason to raise, so I called.


Going to the river, Hero has $1300 left in his stack and villain covers.


River ($642) Q 8 3 10 6

Villain takes a second then bets $375.

Hero?

I think the best move here is to ship all in. He has a lot of 2 pair and straight hands here which beat you but he can't really have a flush here after leading the turn and you can credibly rep it. You have the As which is a great blocker and further decreases the likelyhood of him having a flush. You bet on the flop and turn is consistent with a flush draw. You're also deep enough where he's not pot committed so you have some real fold equity

This may seem like one of those times where our hand is too strong to bluff or fold, but I do think we are behind a decent amount of the time. QT, 8T, 88, 33, TT, J9ss, KJss

Time to go for the bluff I was thinking about on the turn. Our line looks exactly like a nut flush draw and we have the blocker to back it up. Have to sell it though (ask dealer how much, start counting out our chips, unstack and restack, double check hole cards, start counting on your fingers out loud, ask dealer to spread the pot, triple check hole cards. This is optional).

We are giving a decent price but that might make it look that much stronger. From V's perspective and if V can hand read as you say, he shouldn't be able to find many bluffs. AsQx and AsAx one would imagine would just call river. Maybe KsJx, JsTx, AxJs, AsJx but that is reaching a bit. Value is every nut flush and probably every K high flush. Will be hard for V to fold a flush himself but all other hands should be able to fold.

If we don't want to make this play, I would just fold. It is kind of a chunky river bet, almost 60%. I don't expect single pairs to bet this size very often.

Raise > fold > call

This is a weird spot. Are we ever bluff catching here with a real bluff catchers, and if so, what? I have to imagine AsAx is pretty good as far as bluff catchers go. Turn really does represent turned 2 pair, straights, or maybe just a weirdly played top pair hand. Not a lot of sets.

AsQx is also a good bluff catcher as we block two pair. I might call AsAx and AsQx here.

I might call AsKx on the turn to be able to bluff the river when spades hit. Plus 4 outs to broadway and 6 outs to an A or K which might be good. If you don't do this, then you really don't have enough bluffs on river.

The main thing I don't love about the hand is the large flop sizing multiway and OOP to the button. Check or small bet flop. There are a couple of reasons for this. It is hard to have a balanced range on later streets when we big bet flop. Specifically with this runout, it us hard to have a good bluff for spade runouts. Secondly, you decrease the SPR, which makes it harder for you to be able to bluff on later streets.

If possible, I would like to get to a spade river with enough behind that if I jam with the nutflush blocker, villain is going to vomit.

My bluff catchers would be sets and 2 pair. AA w/out the As or AQ w/out the As might be a bluff catcher b/c he can theoretically have more flushes in his range which makes raising less good. I think there's just too good a chance you're behind here to bluff catch w/1 pair, as Diezel said if we don't want to raise, we should fold

Unlikely he has J9 when he calls a large flop bet. He has a combo draw of sorts but I don’t think it makes sense to build a bigger pot with one pair cuz he can also have QT full combos. We do have the As for protection against the flush draw. Call

The river looks a lot like he has a flush here. We can’t call. Jamming is prolly best option if we think he’s capable of laying down a flush. It looks like he has JTss

I'm not convinced a player of this type might not be doing this with AQ to set his price. It's kind of a moderate bet size on turn and river. Maybe KQ even... KsQo? Only need to be good about 27% of the time. And I think he could also have flushes on the river too. I'd give him 8 possible straights and 2 pair on turn (Js9s now a flush). Not entirely sure he even has T8 or J9 without a backdoor. KJ, KT, K9, JT, T9, 97, 75 is 7 combos of flushes. 6 combos of AQ. 12 combos of KQ, 3 combos with Ks. Maybe he could also find a bluff with JT or T9, no spade?

The problem is, what do you weight the probability of all of these? I think it might be close considering him possibly having just top pair here.

If you are only continuing river with 2 pair and better, well you have no two pair by the river because I don't imagine you have two pair on flop and I don't think you bet QT so big on flop. You have QQ, 88, J9, and flushes as your best hands.

When it's this close I still think I find a call with AsAx and AsQx, definitely jamming nut flush, maybe 2nd nutflush, jamming AsKx as a bluff. KsKx is close, but lean towards folding.

I think I can find a fold with AA/AQ no spade.

10 handed UTG I am not sure we have KQo, so not sure KsQx is a thing.

Rippp city

Call turn, now call river.

Turn raise isn't awful to fold out semi-bluffs but pretty happy to call turn and let pro continue to bluff river.

Villain has way more hands we beat on turn than 2p+.

Villain value range on turn is mostly qt/q8 not many other 2p combos. And he can bet other qx, tx, jx, 9x.

Also really dislike our hand being described as a bluff catcher when villain could bet worse pairs for value.

Will Hero's hand be good at least 25-30% of the time - of course it will, routine call.

Can we ever raise turn here to set out calling price for the river? Would the V ever call then check the river?

Turn donk at these stakes almost always says "I can beat KK/AA" or it's a combo draw to the nuts. We have to call turn at this price with As but I'm not loving it. V likely turned more equity.

River: V makes value bet, not polar. Why this sizing? Raising is setting money on fire here. AP we get 5-2 so it's very close. I can find a fold here. I doubt V is pro because of anecdote about mucking his wheel. I could find a call against a pro who has shown some capacity to float IP.

River is tough. Rip it in or fold. I guess you can call sometimes, but it's close as to whether you are good often enough.