early stages 100/200/25 $1100 live 6-max event, 130 runners, still in re-entry stage for another 25 minutes.

opening stack 12000.

Hero (18500), good-looking 48yo W OMC, respected and loved by all, raised UTG1 to 600 with 22

V (11800), BTN, creative long bearded late 20s, super nice guy, exceptionally good results in these events, raises to 1500

HOMC calls. set-mining in part, but i also just love playing hands against this guy. bring it.

We have a ton of recent history. V will be 3 betting a wide range here. i have a demonstrated light 4 bet range (e.g. QJ, A9, AQ, KTs) also. we're both active, aggressive, thinking - him more than me on all counts.

flop Js Tc 4s

i check
V checks

i think V has missed the flop and believes i may have some paint holding that won't fold. if he had a value hand he'd surely bet it against my paint range.

turn is 8d

Hero leads 1500.
V calls. This looks like a KQ AQ A9 K9s that picked up additional equity ott, plus some A8s K8s that got funky pre, plus some occasional Q9s that checked back flop and ginned the turn.

river is 3h

Hero checks
V jams 9k into 6k

Hero wonders what on earth V can possibly be repping with an overbet jam.

thoughts ?

they need deeper stacks in these things and/or better structures, 12k is only a few 3bps worth of play by like level 3 or 4, its stupid.

I would also call pre for this price.
Ok you clicked a button on the turn, plz just xf next time.

idk on river, I get what you're saying about his range looking heavy on missed broadways, but who knows, you guys have some dynamic, maybe he does this with QJs/J9s (esp. if he has previous reads that Hero tends to make these turn bets with ATC pair to the board).

I feel like you should just try to play a more overall solid strat than this super street poker style where you mergebet rangebet turn then want to hero your range on brickish rivers.

why do you have a spoiler? i didn't look

Hi mate, nice to hear from you. Been ages.

Check spoiler, it’s not a spoiler yet. Just talking about what I’m hoping to achieve in this series, because we all want to make huge hero calls at times, and there’s little discussion around the correct criteria for making such calls in a forum like 2+2 because we’re all advice nits.

Turn bet is interesting for sure. Thinking was simply that if he bricked flop then he also bricked turn and I’m ahead. I wanted to take the initiative and if called then so be it. But when he jams, I can safely remove all the Tx that might pot controlled the flop, hence the thread

Unreg pre. Too much button clicking to comment sorry. Prolly a bad open.

I think 3x is too large of an open, dont mind peeling the 3b given this price though. Disagree on him having a ton of draws like you mentioned, those all bet flop. Its a live event and having fun is ok, but if we're trying to maximize ev I doubt leading turn or calling off an overbet jam otr are optimal. Wouldnt be surprised to see him show up with weak Jx (J8s-JTs), or Tx (T8s?).

fold pre the first time.

as played you have tons of better hands to bet turn with (both as a bluff and for value) and you have tons of better hands to x/c river with, so x/f turn and/or river.

cool story if you called and were right though which i assume this thread is going to be about. im not even hating on that but it just has so little to do with reasonable nlhe strategy.

This river is a fold.

First of all, for you to put in A9 and K9 in his 3 bet range and not think he can have AA/KK/QQ and be playing tricky is ludicrous.

I think the only 2 reasonable hands that he can have in this spot is AK/AQ that you beat. You could be looking at a slowplayed monster.

There is also a chance that he is bluffing with the best hand. (Eg. 55 - 77, 98, AT, etc.)

Fancy play syndrome.

I think the open is probably -EV and at best breakeven.
I think calling the 3bet is probably -EV and at best breakeven
I think betting the turn -EV relative to x/f and at best breakeven
I think calling the river is probably -EV and at best breakeven

So you have to call 9K to win 24K, right? You need to be good 37.5% here and I cannot find a reasonable range that gives you those odds. His bluff frequency would have to be abnormally high here to make the maths work.

When you factor in Phat's point about "bluffing with the best hand" then this is almost a trivial fold here.

There should be more efficient way to express your feelings towards him than playing gigantic 3-bet pot with 22.

PS. WTF is OMC?

Missed that it was 6-max. In that case, preflop is fine, but I stand by what I said about Turn and River.

Btw, when it's a 6-max table, most people would call that "MP", not "UTG+1". Both are technically correct, but for someone reading quickly, saying "UTG+1" makes it seem like you have far more players left to act.

Actually now that I think about it and realize that it's 6-max, 22 is a good candidate to 4bet jam as a bluff with.

Had you previously disclosed that you are good-looking? I obv already had the love+respect but pls add jealousy or revise to, "loved, respected and envied by all."

On to strat...(wish I could grow a beard)...I'd open to like 450-475 if you wanna play a lot of hands. As played I dont think you can fold any PP to a 2.5x 3bet (even after opening to 3x) but it's close.

Conventional wisdom post (lol..may not apply etc) will tell you to just try and get to s/d after flop checks thru. Turn probe seems like ur overbluffing (too high in range, poor equity when called blah blah.) This hand may be better suited for a river probe if turn checks thru.

RE: heroing river...you do unblock a lot of bruffs and not even sure if blocking the FD would matter with a deuce?

All discussions about what Villain might have here aside, I'm not convinced that getting 60 big blinds in the pot with a bluff catcher at this early stage is a strategically sound play. The advantage you gain with the additional chips is far outweighed by the disadvantage you face with a loss.

If you win, great, but if you lose then we would call it a spew. And if the positive reinforcement of being right a time or two leads to a habit of stacking off with weak hands and bluff catchers in the early stages of tournaments, it will not have a positive effect on your results.

You see plenty of guys pile up stacks in the early going, making loose bets and hero calls, but usually those guys are long gone when it gets down to the end.

What range can we construct for V when he checks back flop?

If it's enough to fool you into going ham then it can be everything.

There's certainly a lot of air, some pairs like Tx and medium pocket pairs. It's a good spot for AK and AQ without draws to check back.

It wouldn't be a crazy spot for him to check back an overpair.

Look I get what you're getting at. His range should be capped on the river, and his overbet doesn't make much sense. The more I think about it, the more I'm sort of like yeah I get why a hero call is appealing.

With that said, I think your turn bet makes no damn sense whatsoever. You're way behind villain's calling range and you're lighting money on fire by betting.

Just a rare line that he decides to float you after the turn with your line after you opened utg1 and then decide he wants to make you fold one pairish on the river incase you check again.

I don't like the turn bet.

If I thought you were gonna bet the turn and check call my river overbet with 22? I would check back the flop with lots of good hands hoping to win stacks.

lolol

i don't believe V is checking flop to trap me into a bet ott. there are two spades and any number of paint hands can improve, so it seems a little daft to hand a free turn card to my range. if V is trapping here in that scenario, then good luck to him, but it would be a new strat in hands between us.

the only better hands i put him on when the turn bricks and I lead are Tx (standard check back for pot control).

i do understand the dislike for the turn bet. when V checks back on the flop on that board i'm betting because i believe i'm in front of his Ax range and it will check through on the river if he's played Tx this way. that's fine either way. it's very unusual for me to lead the turn into V in this scenario, so i'm not concerned about future exploits and any meta-advantage from taking this line is there on both sides, provided we both remember the hand, which i'm sure we will.

when V calls the turn, i have his range as all draws, Tx.

when the river bricks and i check, i would expect weaker Tx to check back and stronger Tx to make a small value b/f.

when V overbet jams, i'm trying to find credible hands in his range that would jam for value against my range. Q9, sets. but all of these hands would play differently. Q9 would bet/gii otf, sets would seek some value.

Well nice hand I suppose. I agree that villains range on the river should be capped and it’s hard for him to rep much.

I still think you’re mostly taking yourself to value town with the turn bet. In addition to Tx he can have 99, some 8x, the occasional checked back Jx or overpair. We should just check/fold there.

not much to add beside gg to the "good-looking loved by all" and godlike player that is OP
Repeskt

NH OP,

Villain not betting flop if he is going to 3 bet A9o is a mistake here IMO.

I don't care about the hand at all but can we all agree this is the single best hero description of all time?

I'm gonna beat this next month during WSOP circuit!