$150 buy in, Level 6 blinds 250/500 ante 75.

Table for the majority is a mix of loose passive and tight passive. I’ve been playing about 3 hours and can’t seem to get a value hand, ie card dead. The only way I’ve been able to win pots up to this point is by bluffing and I’m on tilt after playing a big pot with two other players and losing. I 3 bet an open from utg +3 in the SB after a loose passive raised and loose passive called. Whiffed the flop and prob should have just put out a small barrel here but instead checked it to the river with everyone else and tried to fire river and got called by pocket 3’s. In retrospect maybe even the c bet doesn’t work unless I jam all in or fire two barrels. Any way these guys aren’t folding and I can’t connect with the board in anyway = tilt.

What really tilts me is how am I supposed to win a tournament by check folding every single hand? Which leads me to eventually going busto in this hand.

Villain in cut off opens to 1200 and he’s got 100bb+. The raise is pretty standard at this table so far. This villain has a very wide opening range from what I’ve seen and the hands he’s shown down. He ends up on the river with the nuts with 53s in one hand. I put him on suited gappers and one gappers from 3/5 up. He can have good hands too but a raise from the cutoff from this guy looks like a blind steal to me. Especially the way the table flow has been going. The button calls and he’s a fit or fold passive player. So we’ll know if he hit his hand on the flop immediately. I’m in the SB with about 30bb and Ad7d. I’ve been 3 betting quite a bit with these types of marginal hands so I think that’s off the table unless I want to jam my stack in on the flop and risk bust here. I believe I’ve 3 bet 3x so far in about 3 hours worth of play so it’s not like I’m a complete LAG.

It’s prob a fold here but I elect a call since I think A7s is prob ahead of the raiser and at least has decent equity against the caller here and just looks like a premium to me after being card dead. BB is extremely tight and prob the only real TAG player at this table. Even if I overcall it’s highly unlikely he will overcall.

So the pot ends up being 4K after blinds and antes. The flop comes and it’s q23 no diamond. I check with the intention on analyzing what the original raiser does here as I think he missed this flop. We have an over to the board and to really stretch it back door straight so I’m definitely considering floating this player with A high.

He fires a C bet of 2500 which we knew was coming and the fit or fold caller immediately folds, both outcomes that were expected. This c bet is a little large for this player according to the board structure. It looks bluffy and I think a little about a check raise here however I don’t know if that fairly represents my range. I don’t have much left in my stack so I would have to raise all in. By just calling I can still have pocket deuces, pocket 3s and even QQ in my range plus middling pairs and straight draws. I call thinking I’m ahead and I want to see what the turn brings. I’m putting him on a whiffed suited connector of some sort. There’s no way he has deuces and a 3 is unlikely but even if he has a 3 if we call we can prob get him to fold later on or we have outs. I just don’t ever really put him on a queen here as I think his range is more heavily favored to crap from the cutoff.

The pot is now at 9k and we have about 10k left in our stack here. 15k to start - the 1200 call and 2500 call. Just enough for an overbet shove.
The turn is a 2 which is kind of bad for us because it makes us unlikely to have pocket deuces now. Although I don’t think it makes that much of a difference if I was ahead before I’m still ahead now.

Maybe I should lead into him here and shove all in but that might be results oriented. Anyway I decide on a check with ace high still feeling like I’m ahead. He checks as well leading me to believe he’s fairly weak here.

The river brings a queen double pairing the board and the final board reads out q232q making it unlinkely to have a Queen here.

We are first to act? What would you do here? Anyone like a turn shove?

Bump, any insight is appreciated. Thanks.

Turn shove is spewtacular and represents nothing.

Check river now as played.

Calling pre is fine but your big mistake was floating with 30bb and nothing but an Ace overcard and backdoor gutter. This is not the way to beat loose passive players who don't fold. The way you beat them is value bet them to death when you hit hands. You can widen your range in a more linear fashion because you'll dominate their weak kickers (e.g. hands like KJ become valuable because they'll get sticky with worse Kings on Kxx flops).

Yah I tried looking at my betting ranges after posting this and if this hand is in my range I’m bluffing wayyyyyy too frequently.

Epic spew, I’ve just been trying to work on being more aggressive even when I don’t have hands. I really appreciate the feedback.

Anything other tha check/fdi g flop is spew. You really do have to consider your hand equity when bluffing. When you have absolutely nothing on the flop, its a bad time to bluff because if you bluff in these spots and you bluff with hands that have better equity then youll end up bluffing too often (calling with air is a bluff). You cant win at poker if you dont respect hand equity. Sure you will most definately pull of a spectacular bluff here or there but in the end its a losing game style. Moreover, the table dynamic you describe makes your game pland and line even worse. To me, vs a lag oop you have to play conservatively ( to me being oop vs LAG is the only situation i truely fear being in with any hand) and take advantage to the max when ip. So really this hand in this spot with your image is a fold pre.

yea id be 3b before calling pre, were up against wide ranges and we have a suited A blocker.

Post is fairly bad all round