1/3 live

v1 (EP) whale: $300

v2 (LJ) $580 Rec player who I play with about twice a week for the last few months (it's a small room). When we started playing a few months ago he was very aggressive, but I'm guessing it stopped working so he has switched to a nitty style post flop. He rarely plays back at me in particular and has had it every time he has raised me and the hand has gone to showdown and/or he shows his hand a lot even if it doesn't go to showdown. It seems his strategy is somewhat based on his mood and while he has put in some substantial raises with pair+flush draw hands tonight, he hasn't gotten too out of line.

H (HJ) covers. V perceives me as a solid tag and knows I'm either a pro, or I'm just in the poker room all the damn time. 2/5 isn't running and this game in general is playing huge.

v1, v2 limp, H$20, both call.

Flop: As7c4c

pot:$60

xx, H$25, both call.

pot:$135

turn 5c

X, V2 pauses as if considering a lead then checks, H$85, v1 calls, v2 shoves $535

I start chatting with v2 about his bet, which I shouldn't have done since it's multiway, but he seemed very calm and relaxed in his responses to me.

He is competent enough to know what his raise represents, I don't think he is doing this with a made hand worse than a flush for value.

If we don't have Ac, probably not calling with lower than the Q-high flush. If we do, then it gets interesting...

So let’s assume we don’t have the Ac for the hypothetical.

I did have actually have a queen high flush with QJcc and I sat there considering the crazy exploit fold.

I'd be happier if we didn't block the J-high flush, but I probs still call.

jack high flush+ i would double him up for sure.

yeah pocket aces with the ace of clubs, id call.

folding all 2 pairs and all worse sets.

i guess the question is what do we do with like 98 of clubs, probably a fold


though there is the factor if we have 10 or lower flush with the 6 of clubs we aren't dead.


i don't know, low flushes can probably fold rather safely.

Grunch

I can't see any bluffs at all here with the whale already calling your bet.

If he doesn't already have the flush he maybe has a decent AcXx for decent top pair plus NFD. I doubt he raises a pair plus straight draw though with the flush already possible.

What do I call?


Pot is 305 before V2 shoves 535. We're still waiting on V1 to act and he has something like 175 behind? We face a decision over calling 535-85=450 to win either 840 or 1,025.

If V1 calls then we may be getting close to enough odds to draw at the nut-flush ourselves if we have Ac. We need 30% equity though and with only 1-card to come and presumably two clubs in V2's hand and possibly another in V1 if he calls we don't have the odds to draw.

Just a question of what flushes we call with. Difficult one. He's got to have a pretty good flush to be so happy GII against two players, hero at least looking like he has a flush himself a good bit of the time.

7c stops V2 having T7 97 87 76 75
4c stops V2 having 64 43 54 42 43
5c stops V2 having T5 95 85 65 53 52
86cc 63cc are traight flush

That knocks out quite a few low and middling flushes with SC. T9 T8 98 96 are the only middling flushes left so it looks like he mostly has J-high flush or better. Some loose players limp-call any JXs or higher, some QXs+ etc.

I guess I want a Q-high flush minimum here but even that may be a bit loose.

Hmmmm, with the QJcc I'm seriously considering folding. He's mostly got K or A high flush once you stop him having J-high.

i think you have to break down his overlimping range here. with QJcc you are blocking most of the king combos he limps with i think, i mean maybe he overlimps with KTs K9s but K8 is a stretch and the board blocks the rest

then if he overlimps with a low suited ace then the low clubs on board block those

so we have to ask ourselves if villain limps along with A8s+ with a whale limping in EP

doesn't seem plausible to me but you know him better than i do but i would definitely back up to pre flop and try and narrow his overlimping range. if he is raising most of his suited aces pre you just gotta call this off, just so few Kx combos in his pre flop range that you can ignore those and focus on what Ax combos he is working with

I'm calling this with a K high flush and I'm folding a J high flush.

I'm pretty indifferent with a Q high flush... maybe I call Q9 but fold QT/QJ, since I want to unblock the J and T high flushes. But it's a pretty close spot with the Q high flush imo.

There's a small chance villain is making a move with just the naked Ac, and there's a small chance he also has a set, but I wouldn't put too much weight on either of those things.

you have to call 450 to win 1290.

and that pump/check move is scared money, so he doesn't have the nut flush. or even that good of a flush.

if we are giving him credit for a flush, he always has like an 8 or 9 high flush here, so I am snapping with a jack or better.

ten high? meh. probably calling

I don't think we should range him for anything less than a flush because he is getting good enough odds to just call the 85, unless he is turning his A5x into a semibluff.

is there ever one of these threads where at least one person does not get the pot right?

He's right actually. He just worked it out a funny way:
Pot $135, bet of $85 and jam of $535
---> take away $85 from both bets and add them to the pot
= pot $305, facing a jam of $450

So we need to be good (450)/(305+450+450) = 450/1205 = 37% to make a breakeven call

Assume he has all suited aces except maybe AK and AT, all suited connectors 45s+, most suited gappers 64s+

I do have results for this hand and will post later.

I do hate how bad I am at mental arithmetic...

V1 stack 300
V2 stack 580
H covers

Preflop: 20+20+20=60
Flop: 60+25+25+25=135
Turn: 135+85+85+535=840

We don't know if V1 calls or not yet but he has 300-20-25-85=170 behind so if he calls pot will be 840+170=1010.

Either way our call will be 535-85=450.

Without V1 calling we need 450/(840+450)=450/1290
=35% equity.

With V1 calling we need 450/(840+170+450)=450/1460 =31% equity.

7c 4c 5c onboard.

If V only limp/calls A9s-A2s KTs QTs JTs 98s-54s J9s-64s he has flushes with...

86 A9 A8 A6 A3 A2 KT (63 K9 K8?) - 7 (10) combos beat us.
T9 T8 98 - 3 combos lose to us.

Assuming V2 is never bluffing we win 30% of the time at best so it's a break-even call if V1 folds but a slightly +EV call if V1 calls.

A further wrinkle would be if V1 were less of a whale and would only call with a flush or AcX himself. Then when he calls we can guess that a lot of the time V1 has AcXx and therefore V2 has fewer nut-flushes and our call is potentially more +EV than otherwise.

well then it's definitely a fold

we are beat by A2 A3 A6 A7 A8 A9 KT K9 64

we beat 89, 9T, 79

we need 37% equity and this appears to be only 25% of the possible combos and when behind we are drawing dead

if we could rule out A7 A8 A9 it would be a call but with those combos in his range it's a tough but correct laydown imo. Very disappointing!

of course that is assuming he only has flushes here, if he does this with any of his set combos then the math is not nearly as easy lol, but i definitely think you should go with the flush read. you have to narrow his range down somehow and go with your instinct

No chance I'm folding QcJc here. Zero.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Ragequit thanks for the breakdown, I appreciate the effort. Seems like the general consensus is this is just too exploitative a fold to make even given the villain description.

Before I get to the results, one other possible meta-factor is five minutes ago someone tried to bluff me off one pair in a 433 bb pot and I called them down correctly. I don't know how much that matters but it's worth at least considering.

My hero folds have been on point lately, but sadly I got this one wrong.

Results: V had Ac8x. Dude legitimately hadn't played back at me for months but boy did he own me here. Luckily I was having a big session so I was able to laugh it off but definitely a learning experience.

These results stick, and they turn people into stations.

Don't let it get to you. You ran into the bottom of his range.

In reality, he should have very few offsuit Ax hands in his limp-calling range.

Whenever this sort of thing happens to me I try to think about the broader implications for Villains' strategy and our strategy.

Villain: limp/calling junky AX and sometimes running big bluffs multiway with stations in the pot. This means he's going to be losing lots of small pots when he just missed completely or flops only a weak pair. He loses lots of medium sized pots when he flops dominated top pairs. He loses some really big pots when his bluffs fail. He occasionally wins a big one with a bluff or by bluff catching but is it enough to make up for the losses associated with this strategy?

Hero: folds in a big pot when it's looking marginal break-even at best. Means you're going to occasionally be bluffed out of pots you should win. Conversely means you don't get value bet to death by all the mostly ABC players. In addition you remember who is capable of big bluffs and you adjust accordingly to minimise the frequency with which you fold incorrectly.

Villain may have won this battle but I very strongly suspect he's losing the war.

You have said this player has been putting in substantial raises with pair plus flush draw types hands. So, we can start by considering if he has turned the nut flush, which means he would have flopped top pair and a flush draw. Is this a hand that he would have raised you with on the flop? Does the size of your flop bet make it look weak to him and make it more likely that he would have raised? By thinking about how he would play Ax, it is possible that you can discount or even eliminate the nut flush from his range.

Your next step is to look at the Kx hands in his preflop limp/calling range. You block his ability to have KQ/KJ. Would he play KTs that way preflop or would he have raised? Would he have played worse kings that way?

Would he raise you with smaller flushes? It feels like the answer is yes. Would he check to you and risk giving a free card? I have played against opponents where I could rule out made but vulnerable hands because they are too scared to go for a check-raise because of fear that it gets checked through.

Would he have slowplayed or made a smaller raise if he had a bigger flush? If you think that the answer is yes, that makes it very like your hand is good.

Would he raise with a made hand that is not a flush? It's possible that you can rule out flopped sets and two pair because, as with a small flush, you might assume he would either check-raise or lead out to avoid a cheap turn, so he might have a hand like A5o with the A.

Will he interpret our turn bet size as weak or will he think we might not always c-bet a flush draw on the flop? This makes it more likely he might jam with the nut flush draw on the turn.

These are the questions you can ask yourself at the table to narrow down his range. How you answer could make this an easy fold or an easy call. It sounds like you have played with him enough to at least guess at the answers.

^ good point on possibility of eliminating turned nut flushes.

I have to admit I just assumed no flop semi-bluff raises because of the whale in the pot but villain may well feel any AX has plenty of value against the whale's flop calling range so the whale is actually not an impediment to a flop pair+nfd raise even with serious kicker problems.

^exactly this

so what did V range you on? AxK? or a set even? obviously he didn't know how strong you were or I don't think that he would have shoved. maybe since he just saw you call down with one pair, he thought that you had one pair again and that you would not call a big bet against him specifically. Plus, he had legitimate outs if you did call him.