Villain and I sat next to each other for the last five hours or so of day 1, and he told me he lurks 2+2 (if you're reading and I get any of the details incorrect, please post or PM). He'll have seen me play well, including isolating a shortstack postflop with AJ65 on J34r, folding out his KK56 (he claims) against shortstacks TJ67, playing TAG and relatively straightforward. He's probably been the best player in the tournament that I've seen. We've got involved here and there but lots of weak spots at every table meant the first aggressor has generally been shown respect.

I'm in the big blind and blinds have just gone up to 2k/4k; we're down to last 3 tables and ITM. Villain raises to 7.5k from MP, immediately notices his mistake and rounds it up to 8k, folds to me. I can't remember exactly how deep we are but effective must have been at least 150k. My hand is Q965ds. Call pre?

I call, flop comes 924r, I check planning probably to call, he checks behind.

Turn is another 9 putting a flush draw out there, I check again expecting a delayed c-bet a bunch of the time, if he has overpairs he now has a feasible draw to protect against and I can call with worse made hands. Not entirely sure at this point whether I'm check-calling or check-raising, and feel like I should give myself a chance to look at his bet and see whether he's got air, a draw or an overpair. He checks behind.

River Q, not filling the flush draw, I?

are you in the BB??
otherwise i fold pre

i bet the turn (especially because the fdraw hits)...and as played i bet river

Bet 14k or so, and fold to a raise.

Pre is fine, I like every other street.

EDIT: On second thought I like betting a little bit smaller to induce. Like 10-12k.

preflop is standard. bet 12k and i'm never ever folding to a raise.

+1

Does anyone like a check-raise on the river? My thoughts are that he's bluffing a bunch and might value-bet AA or KK which he could feasibly have checked behind on two streets, he might even call my c/r with them as my line is pretty polarized to QQ/Q9. It's hard for me to have Q9 as he probably expects me to lead the turn to protect against the flush draw or at least value-bet the river. In my mind the only hands he's checking back are pocket pairs lower than the Q, and he bets everything else. He's probably not calling my river lead with those hands either as I could be valuebetting AA or KK.

I think AA/KK are too small a % of your range given that he min raised and you flatted in the BB for him to fold, say, Q/x on the river, but he's liable to check behind realizing there's no value and there aren't a lot of strong hands in his range meaning you can try to **** all over him and he's in a gross spot. I think bet is probably best with the action since it's perfectly reasonable that you're just stabbing at the pot and he can bluffcatch moderately wide. I also think that if he's the best player at this table he may not be inclined to bluffcatch too wide against a competent PLO player and may go about his day taking the easy pickings.


Most obviously, whether or not to C/R the river depends on how often he bets. I've been playing a lot more HU PLO than any other form and full ring plays a lot tighter post-flop. I'm curious what type of hands you think he checks back the flop and turn with. Does he check back with TTxx? TT9x? KKxx? AAxx? Air ever? Weak wraps ever? ATJK-type hands? This flop just seems so dry I'm having trouble understanding his check back, unless his plan was a delayed c-bet with air that the second nine screwed up, or a pot control method with moderate but unexciting showdown value. What is the best hand that you think he thinks has unexciting showdown value on the flop?

His minraise wasn't intentional, he didn't realize the blinds had gone up - his standard was 2.5x. I had a decent feel for his preflop range, I don't think there are that many pps below JJ, I expect he's opening every JJxxds, most TTxxds and the more co-ordinated 99xx and below. Otherwise it's rundowns, probably any semi-decent double-pairs, and co-ordinated suited aces.

As to what my range is in his eyes, it's pretty wide throughout the whole hand I think, I defend reasonably wide there (something near top 30%, slightly skewed towards hands that are easy to play rather than value hands).

Basically my supposition is that there's a very narrow range of hands he's checking back for showdown value and he's value-betting or bluffing with everything else, which is why I went for the c/r.

I guess the reason he checked behind the river is that he knows I'm aggro and would have bet the turn or river as a bluff and so 'obviously' have a hand I'm calling or c/ring with.

yeah the reason why I didn't like a c/r on the river is because usually when pots go c/c flop and turn they go c/c river too. you can still get value out of hands he believes has pretty decent show down value if you bet smallish and you leave him room to bluff.

So rookie PLO question. We have the second nuts here and there's only 1 combo of QQ in the deck (I know there's plenty of combos of QQxx shut up). If we lead and get raised, are we 3-betting the river? Why or why not?

in theory i flat, because in practice they always have it.

I'm going to be results-oriented and ask what he check-check-checked with so I can learn a bit about this game.

Also Wazz, would he have checked flop with QQ or do we have the nuts on the river?

There are definitely no hands in his value range that he's 3betting other than QQ. I don't know whether he's capable of 3bet bluffing over a c/r, if he 3bets the river over my c/r I'd expect him to have QQ > 95% of the time at a guess, if he doesn't he's got to be worried I have it.

I expect he would fire QQ on the flop or turn, probably more likely to fire that on the turn than KK or AA as he has more outs to protect against.

If we lead and get raised, we flat, as we're only getting action from QQ, and again there aren't any other hands in his value range anyway.

Once he checked back I boobed and just turned my hand over and he mucked. I guess he had TT/JJ, or read me for not folding and had air, maybe KQ or something. I guess KQJT makes sense.

Given the way the hand has played out, and the fact that you believe he's competent and have reason to believe he thinks you are competent - I find it highly unlikely that he ever spazzes out and bluff raises this river. I know everyone is saying "snapcall a raise", but I remain unconvinced that calling a hypothetical raise can be profitable.

i doubt hes ever raising the river without QQ bc of his line. hes prob not checking the turn with anything that had you beat on the turn. you should lead the river. i like 12k just for a value bet hoping to get called by AA-77. AQ or any queen. im not sure what other people think but i play 2-5 up to 10-20 PLO cash when it runs around vegas and the "hero call" is becoming more and more popular as the game is getting more popular. if hes a thinking player he might call you with hands you would be surprised to see

Thing is, by my count, the guy can only raise like 40Kish on the river if he full pots it. with 135K behind, I can't see folding 2nd nut here after he's played it so weird and you've displayed such weakness. +1 to the bet 12K, snap to a raise.