Micro Stakes Online NL Poker Forums

Villain is playing 20/15 w/ 10% 3bet over 169 hands. I have played back at him a little, going after his cbets etc when I have equity, and he has done the same to me. In a previous hand, he called my button raise in the BB, check-raised my cbet on Q44ss and folded to my 3bet. He has only folded to two out of 7 cbets he has faced so far. He seems competent and fairly aggressive. I think my image at the table is one of aggression, attempting to take down a lot of pots and playing back at people.

Effective stacks at the start of the hand are approx 160bb.

Full Tilt Poker $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 1003697
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

SB: $82.85
BB: $115.45
UTG: $20.10
Hero (CO): $81.60
BTN: $50.00

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is CO with K A
UTG calls $0.50, Hero raises to $2.25, 2 folds, BB calls $1.75, UTG calls $1.75

Flop: ($7.00) K J 2 (3 players)
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $5, BB calls $5, UTG folds

Turn: ($17.00) 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($17.00) A (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $10.50, BB raises to $47.75, Hero ?

I checked back the turn because I wanted to keep all of his weaker hands in that he would check-call the flop with so that I could get some value on the river. I also think that my river bet may look a little like I'm trying to steal the pot with air. With his check-raise I'm getting about 2:1 on a call, so need to be good about 33% of the time for this to be a breakeven call.

Any thoughts?

Of course A on the river is an excellent card for a bluff and your opponent probably knows that. But on the other hand, A also hits your range.

Turn pairs the board, so now he can only have 1 combo of quads. With this image and history I am almost sure, that he would 3-bet PF with JJ. Also, I don't think, that he called OOP with QTo, but QTs could be.

So finally he can have 5 better combos and - now this the question, how much worse combinations. There are:
- 6 combos of KJ
- 8 combos of KQ, which decided to turn the hand into a bluff, same could be with KT
- 6 combos of AJ are also possible IMO

But his sizing is also awful. I don't how much AFq does he have on the river, but if it is something around 28+, I would probably call.

But his sizing is also awful. I don't how much AFq does he have on the river, but if it is something around 28+, I would probably call.

Yeah, his AFq on river is almost exactly 28%. His river AF is 3.0, compared to 1.8 on flop and 1.0 on turn.

If he have read "Let There Be Range" he may know this tricky concept with c/r on turned or rivered A - the opponent has an extremely hard time to call this, even with A. Here you've got top two pair, so folding this hand in this particular spot is almost impossible.

I checked back the turn because I wanted to keep all of his weaker hands in that he would check-call the flop with so that I could get some value on the river. I also think that my river bet may look a little like I'm trying to steal the pot with air.

If we had this in mind when we checked the turn, we shouldn't fold the river raise barring a really bad river card (J?) imo - we shouldn't be taking this line on the turn if we are intending to fold the river to a raise on a card that improves us and only improves an extremely narrow range of Villain's hands. That said, I don't like the turn check, I think there are a lot of worse hands that will call the turn that call the flop, and I'm not keen on giving free cards with TPTK on a drawy board.

PRetty sick spot. Hard to imagine him doing it with anything worse then AJ for value. Then again, what are you actually losing to? He would usually 3bet KK, maybe JJ as well. A2s should really fold the flop here and there is only one combo of set here. QTs is the scary one though in this situation and I'd probably find a sick hero-fold here. For him to ever be bluffing here he has to be turning TJ/QJ/KT or something into a bluff which I would not give someone credit for being able to do untill I actually see em do it. Fact that most regs are total weaktight nits once stacks get deeper make me want to fold more too.

Also, I'd still say the turn is a mandatory valuebet

i'm not in love with the turn check.

Funny spot, QT seems unlikely as a preflop call, ditto KK/JJ, so villain is repping something like AJ or quads, or unlikely AA/KK. At the tables I'm sure I call, what do i think is best? The line says it's the nuts, hand reading says he can't have any nut hands beyond quads. I call, berate myself.

Also, what is UTG like?

Also, what is UTG like?

47/0, complete fish.

PRetty sick spot. Hard to imagine him doing it with anything worse then AJ for value. Then again, what are you actually losing to? He would usually 3bet KK, maybe JJ as well. A2s should really fold the flop here and there is only one combo of set here. QTs is the scary one though in this situation and I'd probably find a sick hero-fold here. For him to ever be bluffing here he has to be turning TJ/QJ/KT or something into a bluff which I would not give someone credit for being able to do untill I actually see em do it. Fact that most regs are total weaktight nits once stacks get deeper make me want to fold more too.

Also, I'd still say the turn is a mandatory valuebet

It's a potential $112 pot before rake, and we have to call $37, so we're getting 2:1.

There are 6 combos of AJ, 1 of 22, 1 of AA, 1 of KK, 4 of QTs.

... sorry.. gotta go afk mid thought...

This guy doesn't seem fishy enough for this, but I've seen people take this line(limp/call preflop, passive postflop, shove river) with hands like KK and AA. The shove on the river seems especially suspect, but I still can't find a fold. Aside from some wonky hands like 22, KK, AA, and QT which he's unlikely to play this way unless he has a screw loose, what could he possibly have that is beating you here?

Oh, and I'm going to jump on the "Bet the turn" bandwagon as well.

It's a potential $112 pot before rake, and we have to call $37, so we're getting 2:1.

There are 6 combos of AJ, 1 of 22, 1 of AA, 1 of KK, 4 of QTs.

... sorry.. gotta go afk mid thought...

Sorry: picking this up again.

There are 6 combos of AJ, 1 of 22, 1 of AA, 1 of KK, 4 of QTs.

AA/KK have to be heavily discounted since they 3 bet pre most of the time - so discount to say 25% weighting - 1/2 a combo.

QTs has to be discounted, too because of preflop, maybe 50%, but QTo might be in once in a blue moon, too, so say 3 combos.

22 doesn't need discounting, so 1 combo. You might have to include JJ that didn't 3b - say 1 combo too.

That's 5 1/2 combos of better hands. So you only need AJ to do this 11/6 or 2 times ~1/3 weighting, for this to be break even. So i guess the question is how unlikely is it that villain pots the river with AJ? It seems a very unlikely raise size, tbh, with AJ - i would expect either a flat or a smaller raise. But 1/3 weight, ho hum, i think it's pretty close.

Really want to post results, but would like hear a few more perspectives on this before I do. General consensus seems to be that it's a bet on the turn, and either a bet/fold or a bet/call on the river, and that it's very close either way?

General consensus seems to be that it's a bet on the turn, and either a bet/fold or a bet/call on the river, and that it's very close either way?

Yep.

IMO, he's never raising worse for value here this deep. I think AJ is out of the question. What worse hands would hero call on river with this big c/r?

I think KK and AA are 3betting probably 90% of the time preflop. JJ might call pre maybe 50% of the time or more given that a fish called and it can sometimes be tricky to play OOP in a RR pot.

First, what bluffs does he have here? MAYBE T9s, but that's a stretch. I can't think of any hands that he's calling the flop with that would bluff the river. He's probably not turning a hand like KQ into a bluff because he'd call instead. QT, JJ and 22 are all hands that he might play this way. Slowplaying a set here would be good because the fish is still to act on the flop.

I actually think this is a pretty easy fold because you're crushed by his value range. You might be good here something like 10% of the time. Your hand, as pretty as it looks, is a bluff catcher. AK here is the same thing as A4.

BTW, I agree with everyone else in vbetting the turn. There's a lot of value to be had from worse hands. Bluff catching might be better with a hand like K9 or KT, but AK is way to strong to check.

Really want to post results, but would like hear a few more perspectives on this before I do. General consensus seems to be that it's a bet on the turn, and either a bet/fold or a bet/call on the river, and that it's very close either way?

results are available for those who want via the OP, so leave them out for now imo.