Played this hand yesterday in a $218 9max $50k. I think there were about 30 players left. I don't have exact HH, but I think we were table chip leader. Table was pretty shallow but playing relatively tight. Villain is tagged as most likely a fun player. He's done some limp/spewing in position in the past.

I've played with several recreational players who have the tendency of raising any bet <1/2 pot because they see it as a sign of weakness (this is just a small contributing factor). To me, a flop raise this shallow on this board makes very little sense (unless it's to exploit this exact reasoning, which villain probably isn't doing intentionally, but might be doing unintentionally... yay rabbit hole). So, my question's are: #1 can a raise here be logical from a theory standpoint? and #2, is this solid logic/a decent play?

Folds
Hero (HJ): 25bb
CO: 18bb
BTN: 20bb
SB: 4bb
BB: 15bb

Pre-flop (2.4bb) Hero has K7
Folds to hero, hero raises to 2.1bb, BB calls

Flop (5.6bb) AQQ
BB checks, hero bets 1.6bb, BB raises to 3.6bb, hero calls

Turn (12.8bb) 4
BB (tank) checks, hero goes all-in for ~9bb effective

He has a lot of aces he will fold.

Check raise on flop screams of ace rag.


If you think he is such a person that can lay down a-8 with two queens on the board, great play.

Open is OK but def not a 100% open.

Flop is unnecessarily big, 1bb is much better against a range that's mostly air.

Flop call is really bad. V has almost all Q2s+ and most QXo, also much AXs and AXo, all of which make for fine x/r. This is actually an extremely high freq x/r spot for OOP player.

You can't fold AX or many pocket pairs without being exploitable (a hand like 77 is ~50th percentile of your range) and for balance V has broadway draws and occasionally hands like KXs and JXs w/ a BDFD make for good x/r bluffing candidates.

But continuing with this combo is just too loose and spewy. This is like 25th percentile of your range.

Checking flop is also fine

AP V has every incentive to x some Qx and Ax and your hand has quite a bit of equity--it's a perfect candidate to throw into your checkback range OTT, and shoving is significantly lower EV than checking. You should maybe (big maybe) get folds from the absolute weakest AX in V's x/r range, and that's literally about it.

Fold pre and AP flop.

Fold pre...AP- post flop Id like to see a check behind as you have show down value and either ahead or way behind on this dry flop. I don't see any V x/r the flop with ~13 BB and a gut shot or small pair?

fold

Turn jam makes no sense. Nobodys folding anything. You have a bluffcatcher with outs.

I don't have an issue with you opening your crappy hand but that flop is too rich to c-bet IMO, I would check-fold there. I def. am folding to the check raise since you actually have nothing, and if BB is the player you describe it seems unlikely that he will abandon Ace-rag if you continue with the hand.

Thanks everyone for the replies. This hand is one of the weakest preflop raises here, but it should still be +EV, unless villains behind start jamming frequently, which I don't expect.

This is a board I'd be betting frequently as an exploit, even though as Eggs points out, villain has all the Qs here and K7s has decent SDV. At the time, I didn't think that an x/r made too much sense here, since we're so short and the board is so dry--in other words, that his x/r range here was mostly junk. The reason I opted not to check flop or turn here is because villain has a tendency of betting whenever checked to, so we'd have to bluff catch T&R after checking OTF or R after checking OTT.

I know there are boards BB should simply not have a raising range--or possibly at this stack depth, should simply have a x/j range instead of a smaller sizing. The part I seem to be confused about here (and hence why I played the hand the way I did) is the function of the x/r here for the OOP player. Is it because his range has more nutted holdings, so he can bluff more? Is it because if the turn checks through, he can't get all the money in?

FWIW, he did fold turn. I was pretty confident after turn checked that villain didn't have a Q. I don't think a recreational player would often take this sophisticated of a line with a Q here (i.e. protecting his turn checking range).

You obviously had a fantastic read and are an amazing player. A question, though: If he folded to your bluff and you won the hand, why are you posting it here? You bluffed, it worked, new beer, new topic. I mean, what is the point of your thread?

Brags should be posted in the Beats Brags and Variance section which is over there --->

No reason to be sarcastic, I was just laying out my thought process. I posted it here because, as I said, I didn’t think this was a spot where BB would/should have a strong x/r range and so I was wondering if this was generally a +EV exploitative float (insofar as the opponent was either just bad or was good and trying to exploit our over-cbetting strategy).

Clearly I’m wrong about this and misplayed the hand from a theoretical standpoint, although maybe I was correct about the tendencies of this specific opponent. So now I’m trying to understand why that’s the case. What is the purpose of a raising range here for BB, where he runs the risk of capping or unbalancing his ranges?

The reason I included the result of the hand is because I think everyone except the first guy has dismissed this as a complete punt—which I think is a general bias due to the fact that almost all these threads are about losing a hand. Like you said, if it worked, why post it?—because maybe I just won my 1% hand and am going to lose in this spot the next 99% of times.

I repeat, he didnt fold anything. You moved him off junk.

That's just an "okay" c-bet flop, particularly given your hand. A check behind would be preferable to me. I also probably would have folded preflop, absent a good read. Your turn bet is fine, I'm just not sure you should have arrived there.

Right, so you much prefer checking turn and calling river? Is there no merit for taking the pot down on the turn (perhaps in the off chance that he is check calling here)? Should we maybe just always check turn behind since we’re so short anyway?

We will have the nuts here a decent amount of the time as well. Vs a decent reg, where should we look to incorporate bluffs?

Pre is not even close to a fold.

Yea lets open 31% into 5 reshove stacks, we be printing bruh