$100 single re-but Live event in a local pub. Only 50 entrants
Remaining around 16. First 8 get paid.
Blind levels 500 / 1000 no antes

villian is in SB
hero is in BB and gets 79

I know villian quite well, younger guy LAG. Het likes to finish 1st or bust. Knows his poker and knows his spots. My image at that point was somewhat tight.

I had a stack of 55k
Villian around 45-50k.
Both stacks are around twice the average.

Villian raises to 3000.
I decide to call to keep his range alive
Pot is 6000

flop 983 rainbow (no so no backdoor flush possible)
Villian bets 3000
I 3bet to 9000 (perhaps stupid but let's hear your thought's)
Villiand 4 bets to 15000

When I ask him how much he has behind he silently moves his chips so I can count and his hand shakes heavily.

What would you do? and why?

I would have just called the flop bet. But I think its fine to raise here and protect your hand.

At this point I would fold. In fact, before I raised to 9,000 my plan would be to fold to a raise and to check behind on the turn if he called. That would look like a semi-bluff and encourage a river bluff. Not sure what I would do if he led the turn but probably fold as well (unless it was a 9).

About the shaking hand, you need to have a baseline for this behavior. He might shake when he bluffs. Mostly though it indicates a big hand. Or he could have a disease where his hand always shakes...

Now you are in a tough spot because you have to call that 4 bet. You can't fold for 6K more in a pot that is 37.5K if you call. You are getting better than 6 to 1. I would call the 6K and make a decision on the turn (Usually fold but sometimes call. If you are folding to that tiny 4 bet, you have to put the villain on 2 pair or a set. Are you sure that is what his holding is? He can't have AA?

Pre is fine. Flop is interesting - because this is blind vs. blind we should have a fair number of hands in our range so I can see an argument to raising with more than just 2p+ here. And if we're going to pick a 9x hand to raise, 97 isn't that bad. We deny equity to random overcard hands (none of which we block) and can barrel on a T, 9, 7, or 6 if we get called. Would be better to have a backdoor flush draw, obviously, but it really isn't that bad.

We shouldn't do this with all or most of our 9x, but doing it occasionally is fine.

As played, the scenario flips. Having the 7 is bad because we block hands like 76 and T7 that might take this line. It's also possible if our opponent has an overpair that our 7 isn't live, so we might be drawing to either runner/runner straight outs or a 9. Lean fold, guess I can get behind a call/decide turn if we think villain has high air bluff frequencies.

Let the LAG do the betting for you. What are you trying to accomplish with your raise?

EDIT: Whoops...our 7 is usually going to be live my mistake, unless our opponent has exactly T6 or JT. (and even then we'd have a redraw) For that reason I think we probably call/decide turn as played because we can potentially stack an overpair if we hit.

thanks for all the feedback.

First question I read: what I was trying to accomplish by raising.
My thought process at that point was as follows.

(And If you guys spot some flaws in that process from your part, just shoot me. Trying to look at this from all angles.)

If I just call his flop bet (what I should do to keep his entire bluffing range alive) I know I have to call the other two streets. If you look at stack sizes then (even without the 3bet) and the player I am up against, we will end up all in on the river anyway. Because of my relatively tight image I just wanted to win the pot with a 3bet and move on to the next hand.

I did not call the 4bet because my plan was to 3bet and fold to a 4bet.
Only one turn (9) would really help me because the 7 would complete some straight draws.

Still think that was a poor decision, If my goal was to pick up the pot, I should have jammed in that spot (knowing i will only get called by a better hand and he will fold hands I got beat so -EV move). Somehow the shaky hands made me doubt and resulted in a fold.

Perhaps I was also lacking the balls to simply call and play two extra streets. Knowing this guy he would lead the turn anyway and we both had around one potsize bet left after my 3bet.

Also I think I misinterpreted his small 4bet. If he had a real strong hand he would just call and could savely assume the chips will go in on the later streets. So I should have looked at it as weakness, leaving an escape hedge to fold to a jam or check fold the turn. Your thoughts?

Anyway I folded and he showed 65 off.

Looking forward to your replies!!

Ps I talked to him later that night and he indeed had a kidney issue with caused shaking hands. I ended up in 4th place and he got 3rd place.

Just calling and reevaluating the turn seems better. Thinking he will always fire 3 barrels is generally a mistake. Most LAGs do have some hands they give up on. Raising the flop can be like waving a red cape to a bull; it might just get him to go nuts on a draw on the flop.

I do think as a general rule raising the flop with top pair weak kicker is bad.

But on these lower card boards when you likely have the best hand atm, it can be ok sometimes to freeze LAG's who might otherwise feel inclined to barrel with random overcards and/or backdoor draws. I wouldn't do it very often, but I wouldn't say to never do it either.

I think in this spot the best play is to call the flop and let the villain bluff as another poster stated. The villain won't barrel every turn always and if they do, this is good for you, you will get action on future streets and can keep the pot smaller in position.

I think to fold to such a small mini-raise is really criminal. I didn't notice it was Blind vs blind, which makes me way more inclined to call and get it in on most turns.

Thanks guys.

What also played a role was the table itself.
After folding I still had 2nd stack with position on the chipleader who picked up that pot.

I know I played this hand wrong, therefore I posted it, and can say there were some weaker players at the table with small stacks.

Have a nice evening

That's not close to being true.

If OP calls the flop bet there will be 36,000+ in the pot before the turn.

Villain will have 27,000 to 32,000 chips.

Assuming villain will bet the turn his most likely sizing is all-in. However, perhaps more scary is betting 10,000 to 15,000 on the turn leaving a small river bet for all-in.

The only way it doesn't get all-in is if villain checks the turn. Which we now know is a possibility but only because we have seen his hand. Given OP's description and the betting so far I think its fair to say that villain might still have shoved the turn. Or the river if the turn checked through. Unless OP is willing to go all-in I think folding to the min-raise on the flop is reasonable. Better would have been to just call the flop bet and continue to keep villain's range wide, in position.

Its true this is a $100 buy-in at a pub so we can assume players are very very bad. But villain's 3-bet is much worse than that given OP's range for his raise. Even if OP is on a draw min-raising is giving OP the right price to draw just one card.

I disagree with folding to the flop mini-raise. There are very few hands that we don't get the odds to call that mini-raise. Even if the villain has AA, we are 23% or roughly 4 to 1 and we are getting 6 to 1. We might pick up more equity on the turn. Given that this is Bvb, call the flop and see what happens on the turn.

Also, think that for a a lower buy-in tournament, you are going to get a lot of goofs playing. People making plays that don't make sense. Sometimes you will get someone who has AK and think you have a weak pair that will lay it down. Or they will just pump a draw JT/QT/KT with them going all-in on any turn.

Basically, we are giving people too much credit here.

Not that crazy to jam the turn with a draw and overcards, especially the JT combo. 13 outs verus hero's hand, and plenty of fold equity. Would hero call flop with 7x and fold turn to all in barrel? Certainly possible.

Villain bets (1) you raise (2) and villain re-raises (3-bet).

If him 3betting the flop isn't what you were looking for when you raised then I'm not sure why you raised. I'm not saying the flop raise is necessarily wrong, you just need to have specific plans for all his possible reactions to make it work.