$360 live event. We're already in the money with about 50 left and hero's at about 400k, which is well above average... blinds are 4k/8k with 1k ante.

I've just been moved to a new table. There's a huge-stacked early-20s kid across the table from me sitting with about 1.3 - 1.4M. Hard to tell. He looks the part of a capable player. I'm late 40s, bald, smallish, and don't give off an intimidating appearance.

I hear someone at the table make a friendly comment as I'm sitting down that this kid can "just continue bullying the table." Apparently someone had just punted a big stack to him.

The hand... Second hand at this table, I get 77 in early position and raise to 18k. Folds to the kid in BB and he calls. If he is indeed leveraging his stack to push people around, I believe his range could be super wide here.

Pot is 50k. Flop comes 965 rainbow. he checks, I bet 25k, he raises to 80k. I have about 360k behind, still nicely above average.

What are your thoughts on ranging him with no history and nothing to go on but an overheard comment about bullying? And what's your play here?

I'm inclined to take the table talk seriously and assume he is calling preflop with top 40% hands and c/r-ing you on the flop with just about anything.

In that case, you're a 65/35 favorite here, shading down to 61/39 if he only plays top 30%. He could be making this move with lots of suited Ax, etc. stuff that you're way ahead of. But there's also some risk that he's got 9x and is eager to induce.

I don't think you fold out better hands with a shove; nor do you get worse hands to call. You just make his job easier.

Meanwhile, you knew enough to expect a c/r on the flop from him. So folding to his flop bet feels both weak and a symptom of an incoherent strategy for playing the hand.

I'd see this as a rare situation where calling gives you the best chance to make more money playing poker. Call down and hope he bloats the pot for you.

Start with checking the flop, against a big stack bully you want to get to showdown as cheaply as possible without committing too many chips in before the river, unless of course you really have a hand. Here about the only hand that's going to call you that you have beat is like 67? 68? Almost any hand that he check raises you will have some equity against your lone pair of 7's, so I would personally let it go and wait for a better spot. It's hard to let the kid keep bullying everyone, but if he keeps up with it he will get caught sooner or later.

More often than not he's either going to out draw you, or already has you beat. Hero calling players should only be saved if you're ABSOLUTELY certain that they can show up with a bluff in that spot, then find a few hands they could be bluffing with that make sense, and go with it.

+1

Call and evaluate turn.

No offence to the other two posters in this thread, I'm not a pro but I have played this game long enough to know that is just not the right approach to this hand. What are we going to do if the turn bricks? Are we just going to call him in the hopes he'll bluff all the way down? If we hit a 7 and it's four to a straight what's our plan if we're faced with a huge bet on the turn or river? If we make the straight and he has us beat with a higher straight we lose 100% of the time and can probably never get away from it. If the turn bricks a high card and he bets again you just going to keep calling this kid down?

This is seems just too much with just a medium strength hand, why can't we just fold the flop after the raise and let him have it? Calling down people in spots like this can only spell more disaster than victory, yes you can still effectively call the flop and be left with 35 BB's on the turn, but calling the flop raise could spell doom because now you've committed more chips in the pot, you still have no idea on what he could be holding, could be a variety of hands, and any bet on the turn now is going to be close to half your stack.

Calling the flop bet is not necessarily bad, it's what it could lead into. If you are folding to most turn cards followed by a bet, you're just torching chips. Live to fight another hand.

Thanks fir the replies. Gotta say, I'm very surprised people are recommending that we call here -- calling was the one play I had eliminated, exactly for the reasons UntimelyBluff said: that we're in a gross spot on future streets if pretty much any card but an 8 comes on the turn. IMO, calling is just burning chips.

I think folding is reasonable. But do you think his bluffing/bullying range is wide enough to warrant a raise here (and if we raise, we'd really have to jam)? Folding and jamming were the options I was deciding between as I tanked.

just meh fold flop, don't want to really continue when were in a bad spot, with still x2 streets to come. Calling is out of the question imo, this type of player is going to be barrelling turn/river with a pretty high freq to protect his flop x/r. So in essence we are really drawing to a gutty that chops sometimes, dont really want to see a 7.

+1 for checking flop and I think this is the main thing from this hand. Putting yourself in a situation where you can get check raised when holding a non top pair + draw is always awkward.

By betting, you open up the game tree for him to x/r you and then put in a couple of big bets on later streets. By checking, you keep your positional advantage with a hand that can call pretty much any turn bet in position.

He's thinking about your range with an EP open and his range in the BB and that flop hits mostly his range than your perceived range so I think a c/r from him makes sense. Play your position and don't bloat the pot by just checking back I think makes the most sense.

Bad spot.
Give up.

If you believe what table said about the kid, imo you have two options here:

1) Don't openraise 77 here. Not only because you're on early position but because The Kid is on bb. So, if you don't want problems with him, with this postflop-commonly-weak hand, don't openraise it.

2) You openraise his bbb, so you can pexpect action from him. When flop cames you have second pair+gutshot. I think you can check behind waiting for him to bet on next street, controlling the pot.

But, if you choose to bet, you can expect a lot of check/raises because of board texture. Now, you can't fold here. And call is not really a good choice because of next streets.

Even if I don't believe what table said about the kid, I think this is a good situation to shove, taking 130k a lot of times.

Imo you can't openraise 77 ep and fold here against a supposed aggro player. If you are capable of folding here, I think it's better don't or 77 on early.

I think people who are saying check this flop are being results oriented. I think the best play here would be to bet the flop and then check most turns. If we check the flop, there are very few turns that we are actually happy to see.

Yeah I think people are being way too passive here. Hero has tons of equity on that flop but also has a hand vulnerable to overcards with a check through. V may think his range hits that flop better but the reality of the situation is that it didn't. I think 3b/f is a very realistic option here, and at the least should get a x/x on the turn (and may even check all the way through) to retain said equity.

Sure, maybe it's not optimal putting in half your stack in this hand, but once it plays out this way, you're ahead of his range on that flop. The only disadvantage you have here is that it folded around to him and he closed the action in the BB, so he could be flatting premium pairs. Otherwise you'd be even further ahead of his range.

^this

We should be checking back this flop a majority of the time in position. With a marginal hand & a villain that is known to be bullying the table, we should be looking to get to showdown as cheaply as possible (i.e. pot control). Do we really want to play for 50BB stacks with 77 on a 965 board? If your answer is yes, then you are spewy & I'd love to have you at my table.

As played, you have 2 options: all-in or fold. If you call, then you are going to face further aggression & tougher decisions on future streets. I recommend a fold. You still have a healthy stack & can find better opportunities to exploit villain and everyone else.

I think it's close between calling the 55k and folding the flop. Will the villain barrel every turn? Does he c/r range just include two pair + sets? We do have some equity here. I am most likely going to pitch it to his raise, but an argument can be made for seeing the turn.

I think hero does not have to go all-in or fold. IF you call the flop c/r, you still have 305K back with ~210 in the pot. You can call the flop and decide on the turn.


Given the size of his c/r, I am more likely to fold.

Maybe it's just me, but I hate the idea of calling a villain that I have no info on (other than hearsay), and has an uncapped range, without a plan. We have a marginal hand that is unlikely to improve & have no idea what cards are good/bad for us (other than a 7 or 8).

I agree with previous posters that calling here is simply torching chips if we're folding to turn/river bets.

Too much risk for uncertain reward. Write-off the 5.5BB and move on to the next hand with 45BB.

I agree that calling is the worst choice here, but folding probably isn't the play either. You have a range advantage on this flop against a V who thinks he has a range advantage. If you keep folding to these guys in this situation you're going to get stuck playing lower buy-in tourneys with lower skillcaps while V will keep piling up 150bbs deep in tournaments by check-raising every 3 low-card flop against nits who think they can only target mediocre players and give up vs. the tough ones.

I'm ok with checking the flop, although that's not my preference, but folding to this check-raise feels awfully exploitable.

When you're agessive and have a big stack, you should be making these types of plays like V is until someone smacks you back in the mouth and you have to slow down once you got your hand caught in the cookie jar. This V isn't going to stop running people over until he has a reason to. If this play works a bit less than half the time for him then it's profitable.

Our job is NOT to stop villain, but to steadily pick good spots to grow our stack.

We just got moved to a new table, have ZERO real info on any opponents, & you want to take your stand here? With a marginal hand?

I'm not advocating playing this passively on the regular, but in a vacuum, this is a clear fold.

If you keep playing c/c strategies, all the way down, with medium pp's (77-99) in unnecessary situations filled with uncertainty....you'll be stuck spewing & busting most tournaments, wondering where it went wrong.

You have textbook ABC intermediate-level big stack aggression spot (from a player others are calling a bully) who is check-raising a flop that hits his perceived range higher than your perceived range, but in reality V doesn't realize that it actually hit YOUR range stronger than his because he didn't think it was likely you were holding 77 here. He's often making a mistake here with all kinds of holdings that you dominate. He thinks he has a lot of equity protection to make the check-raise, when in reality he doesn't realize that you hold most of it. Examples of hands he's almost certainly check-raising with that you're ahead of: A6, A5, K6, K5, T8, 86, 85, 75, 76, 74, 43.

77 may be a marginal hand in a vacuum, but it's not a marginal hand in this situation.

He's flatting your flop bet with overpairs. Why would he raise an overpair here? The big stack is afraid of a 6 or 7 on the turn? C'mon. Hero raised in EP, if V has AA, KK, QQ he should be just check-calling down Hero's bets until he stops betting.

You have a lot of equity on the flop, this is not a terrible place to make a stand. With all the factors involved, I think a 3b min-raise is a much better option than calling here. You commit a few more chips but I think you're taking this down often enough for it to be worthwhile. If V continues you still get x/x on the turn.

I think both checking and c-betting fairly small on the flop are fine, prefer checking mostly though. I do think we want some hands that we can check-call multiple streets, especially if we think villain's going to be wide. So why not check back pair+draw hands like this, plus maybe some 9x? We have other hands, like 9x and overpairs+, that are easy c-bets for value that can continue to aggression.

This is the fundamental problem with c-betting marginal made hands like this - you end up getting check/raised against an aggro villain and then put in really awful spots.

As played, lean towards fold to the c/r. This should be one of our weakest c-bets for value and while 77 does block 87, it also blocks hands like T7 or 74 that might defend BB and then c/r bluff flop.

Thanks for the great responses everyone. Good thread. I'm glad I posted this hand because clearly there are a lot of differing opinions on how to approach it. I still don't know what's best, tbh.

I c-bet the flop mostly because there were a billion turn cards that I'd hate, and I got the feeling this villain would barrel any turn if I checked behind. But I do like the arguments for checking there also. So I'm still not sure which is best.

After his c/r, I agree with the posters who believe that calling is the worst option -- again, because of the fear of what could happen on future streets. I did not, however, consider raising anything smaller than all-in. Maybe I should have.

I ended up jamming here, mostly for the reasons HawkesDave said -- this seemed like a pretty routine spot for a deep-stacked villain to c/r vs my perceived range AND I feel like he's probably more likely to flat with a set, 9, or an overpair. So I thought his c/r range was relatively weak and included a lot of air.

Villain snap-called and turned over 65s for bottom two-pair. The turn paired the 9 on the board and I scooped.

I talked to the villain about that hand later in the tourney when we ended up at the same table with 27 left. He told me that he was actually confused by guy who had made the "bullying"comment, because he didn't feel like he had been bullying at all (in fact, he turned out to be very quiet at both of the tables where we played together).

So maybe the lesson here is not to give too much credence to offhand comments like this one... let your own observations be your guide.