2 hands against the same villain. It is still very early in the tournament. We are probably in the first 2 hours. Villain is a young Asian player in his late 20s or early 30s. A girl came by to record him play some hands on a weird type of camera that I have never seen. Otherwise, I have never seen this player before

The only hand we have seen them play that was significant was, he 3 bet and UTG open from MP. at blinds of 100/200/200
UTG opens to 600, Villain 3 bets to 2,000.

Flop KhTh8s
Check, Villain bets 1,800, UTG calls

Turn: Ks
UTG checks, Villain Checks

River: 9d
UTG bets 12K, Villain calls
UTG shows JQ and is good

He does seem to be playing more than his share of hands, but still too early to really tell.

on to the hands (we are 7 handed in both hands)
Hand 1. blinds 200/400/400
We have 31K
Villain has 18K
Preflop: We have 4 4 in BB
Villain is in CO and opens to 800, 2 folds, we call

Flop: 8 6 3
Check, he checks back

Turn: 9
We lead for 1,200, villain calls

River: T
Hero?
I think that river is scarier for him than for me. I was thinking I would check raise as a bluff.
We checked, and he be 3,500 and we decided to fold due to bet sizing

Hand 2
We have 28K
Villain has 13K
blinds 200/400/400
Preflop: T 8 in BB
Villain raises to 1,000, 2 folds, we call

Flop: Q J 8
Villain bets 800, we raise to 2,200, Villain calls (Probably should just call in this spot, but I had been runned down in a few other pots where a player binked an A or K)

Turn: 4
We check, he checks

River: A
Hero?
We ended up betting 5k

Comments please

H1 he has at least the entire file of 6Xs as well as 77 and turned 9x. Probing 44 on the turn is bad.


H2 the only really high frequency xr you'd have are QJ and T9 so you have to give highest priority to balancing with FDs (much stronger; even 3h2h wins more at this point than T8 no hearts) and air (you won't get him off a jack or a queen; but he will fold Ax, Kx etc against which T8 already crushing and needs little protection regardless of your past recent experiences with getting run down). In other words, you are computing too much need for protection. I suspect your decision to probe turn in H1 is, at least in part, influenced by this same miscomputation.

Hand 1: I'm probably folding. I'd expect him to bet 7x on the flop fairly often bc he can turn a straight draw. I'd also expect him to usually bet a flush draw on the flop. I'd be concerned that he checked back something like KsQs on flop, called turn, and rivered a flush.

Hand 2: I don't mind your raise on the flop. I wouldn't do it too frequently, but I think mixing up some raises with top pair is ok. I probably wouldn't bet river though. You do block 10cJc, 9c10c, and 10cQc, all hands he'd probably call with. I guess I don't hate the bet, especially if you think he is ever going to fold a jack. Ax of hearts is a real concern, especially since you have no blockers to hearts. I'd probably either bet a bit smaller on the river..as a blocker bet and to mayyyybe get thin value from something like 55 that thinks you just bricked a flush draw, although there aren't a lot of flush draws that didn't make a pair better than 5's. Or just check the river and decide whether to fold or call if he bets.

I think a lot of hands in villain's range will check back this flop because it's generally better for the BB. He'll bet with some frequency because from CO he's opening enough suited connectors to hit this board, but I wouldn't read too much into it. It's not a great turn for us to lead out, I don't think, because you don't really get any more information from a call about his hand-- I mean, you'll fold out random high cards with no draws (probably), but there are so many draws on board it's really not clear if he's calling with a better pair or with some kind of draw. So you're making the pot bigger from out of position while getting no real information on villain's holding.

He has bottom pair.

Not really a fan of the check-raise; I think EggsMcBluffin explained it well. I might be tempted to turn my hand into a river check-raise bluff more than a lead-out, though. If we check/call flop and turn goes check-check, after we check river he might bet with an ace for value, queen for thin value, probably has to bluff missed flush draws with such a good card for his preflop opening range, and we block T9 and KT and unblock the heart draw.

H1: Normally I would lead the turn unless an A or K hits. But this 9 opens up a lot of hands for Villain like 7x, Tx, QJ, 2 spades, etc. to draws with overcards and 9x got there for TP. So I would more likely check again on the turn. Not sure if I would call but I think I would. As played the river is a good check fold because basically everything got there.

H2: I would check call a small flop bet and fold to a >50% pot bet. I don't mind c/r with a gutter usually but here we don't have an overcard and if our draw hits it is super obvious and we would be losing to KT (though we do block that a bit). Also, because we don't have a we are going to get called a lot by flush draws with overcard(s). Also this flop does not favor our range. I guess we are making a statement that we can have T9 but why would we then check the turn with that hand?

Our check on the turn denotes weakness and the river A smashes villain's range. We can be pretending to have the A but because we don't block any flush draws villain is more likely to have that card and may very well just call though now it looks like we can have KT and we got there. Hope it worked...