Fun with Pokerstove : KhKd vs A8h , sets and overpairs on the turn. KK is 50.8% fav.

* actually $570 to win $1482 gives villain 2.6 to 1 odds. Making it wrong to call with a flush draw.

Plus, we're probably talking about bad players, so there might be some fold equity there. This specific guy is probably less likely to fold based on history with Coach, so I'd give it a low chance of folding, like 10-20%.

The $200 confused me. I thought he might be trying to induce a shove, but it could also be a blocker bet.

100% agree

Maybe the $100 flop bet could be considered a blocker , but after a snap call and then leading out again on the turn the villain is prolly thinking I've got him hooked and all I have to do is reel him in.

You're probably right. I almost never do those small bets for fear of losing value, so I didn't think he would do that. I was giving him my tendencies, which was a mistake.

I guess we're done berating for this week. See ya'all next week , same time , same place.

Sorry for ****ty format--I'm doing this hand on my phone while I hold a particularly farty baby.

I was just about to leave a session after 6hrs (in for a G--sitting on 2.5Gs) when a guy with a $1400 stack sits die-rectally my right I'll call him Sonny.

My aggression is dialed down from stupid-aggro to pretty-darn-aggro at this point. Sonny wins a few hands--I can see that he likes to make a show of it when he wins. He's not being a jerk, rather he's entertaining himself.

I 3-bet Sonny pre, and take the pot down with J-7 (and showed) he is mildly irritated because he must have had me crushed. He does say, "good raise" and he sounds sincere.

I buy a drink for me, Sonny, and another guy at the table...and now everybody has tons of chips, a fresh glass of booze, and everyone is happy.

I'm on the button with $2500 and AQo--which is like flopping a set for me. There are a couple limpers, then Sonny opens for $20 with about $1600 behind. I think for about ten seconds, and then raise to $70 total. They all fold, and Sonny tank calls. At this point I'm weighting his range towards broadways and "pockets".


($160) the flop comes 2h 6d 6h
Sonny checks.
I tank for 30 seconds because I'm tired, stupid, and the two tiny sips of cognac are probably dulling my senses (cheap date alert!). So somewhere during my noob-ish tank, I find the balls to bet $100.

Sonny doesn't need much time to think about my $100. He promptly announces "$300" and I have to start thinking about playing a huge pot before I go home.

What do y'all think about any/all of the action?

His flat of the 3-bet is worrying. I still expect a very strong range when he does this to you.

Don't like tanking about anything.

I don't expect him to bluff you here, he has a hand. Eject.

Or just ship it and make him make a decision.

(I suspect I know what you did.)

I usually have a plan for any action that a villain takes. Sometimes I'll adjust if I see an "LOL live read", but I usually muck/bet/raise/shove quickly. I don't really care if I lose a hand, and I'm an optometrist at heart--which means I always think I'm ahead, so that cuts down on tanking.

Would have thought you'd be more of a Gynecologist at heart.

Touché Monsieur.

When he flats my 3-bet pre, I'm def scared of his holdings. He seems like a guy that would never raise a huge hand in that spot.

I really think this is a fold.

The difference between a really good aggro and a spewtard is knowing when to eject from a hand. You'll watch them bet-bet-bet and turn over a winner to get paid, or bet-raise-shove and show up with the nuts, but then fold and get shown a set while their opponent laments "the one time he folds!".

Big fan of the way you format your posts (bolding, colouring etc.). GL, hope you're able to improve through posting in this thread.

I stole it from KyddDynamite. I love it, too. It makes HH's easy to read.

Thanks for the well-wishes.

You hit it right on the head, Angrist. I'm really trying to transition from spewy to aggro-deadly.

So I assume you're on board with the preflop 3-bet?

What do you do when when he checks to you on the flop?

As long as he can call a 3-bet with something worse than AK I like it. The sizing is small enough that you should see him continue pretty wide, much more than if you'd made it $100 pre-flop. After showing him the J7 this is pretty likely. I think a lot of PP, broadway, and largish SC hands (T9s) are going to call you/ So the more I think about it the less worried I am of the flat.

OOP would be a different story. I have no problem flatting and getting out of the hand on the flop if we were in the SB instead. But I'm a bit of a position nit.


It depends a little bit on my live reads (I have a tendency to put a good amount of weight on the way people behave in spots like this), but I probably check back the flop. You're not getting him to fold a PP, and bloating the pot here seems like it'll cause problems later. In one sense this turns our hand face up as "didn't hit", and it might induce a bet from him on the turn (so we're obviously hoping to bink a Q). I'm kind of hoping to let him bet $100 on the turn and float him if we miss, or raise if we hit the A or Q. This is more of a TAG play, where your range is narrow and opponents will tend to "put you on AK" any time you raise.

That being said ... I don't mind betting the flop here either. A lot of players respond really poorly to aggression. They'll float the flop, float the turn, and fold the river when it's obvious to an outside observer that the aggro is unlikely to have anything.


The most common mistakes that players make when facing an aggro are:

1) Ejecting too early when they're scared that they're beat. Sometimes you need to call down with Top Pair Good Kicker.

2) Showing their strength way too early in a hand. They'll flop a set or a big overpair and raise the aggro on the flop, basically announcing that "they haz teh nutz".


This spot smells an awful lot like #2.

I 3-bet a guy with 300 big blinds. I'm prepared for a big pot. I feel like the term "bloated" has negative connotations. I've made mistakes in huge pots, and I've seen other people make similar mistakes in huge pots, so I'm confident that I can win a big hand now and then by just "not making the biggest mistake in the next minute or two". When he calls my 3-bet, I think he could be really strong. OTOH, when he check-raises the flop, I see him as wanting to take it down. I feel like a HIGH percentage of players slow play their huge hands, and I think it is reasonable that he would almost always "just" call my flop bet with a monster so they don't "scare you off." Does that sound reasonable, or do you think I'm looking through rose-colored glasses?
When people call me down with top pair, I usually go home all sad and stuff.

Aggression against ME (of all people) looks quite strong.

Fair enough. With $1600 behind you probably need the "bloat" if you want to get all in by the river anyway.

I somewhat disagree. While he *does* likely want to take it down now, it's probably because he has a strong hand and is afraid, not that you're ahead. This could easily be QQ/JJ.

It's just a weird double fear thing that I see a lot of people do. They're afraid that they won't get any action with their big hand, so they raise now afraid that it'll go check/check on the turn or some nonsense. And they're afraid that you'll outdraw them, so they raise to "charge you".

It's probably a currently strong hand that has some cards it doesn't want to see. Big PP that hates an A most likely

You *might* be able to blow him off the hand with a big raise here ... or you might just end up blowing him instead.

There aren't many hands that he really makes that raise with that you're ahead of. Basically none, unless he's turning KJ into a bluff (doubtful without more info).

So when he check raises the flop, do you fold, call, raise, or jam it in?

Seems his most likely holding is a PP (JJ-77). Fold
Fun with Pokerstove : AQo vs JJ-77 on the flop. AQo has 25% equity.

Pro tip : I tank when I'm counting hand combo's.

On that flop I'm betting to bet-fold. So I'd try really hard not to instamuck just to disguise my play a little bit, but I'm pretty much always folding to this c/r in this spot.

(This is a perfect spot for when you make a rando raise with K6o btw.)

What if you call cuz you play badly, and the turn is a black queen, and Sonny insta-ships?