2 pair OOP in scary board.

Very hard to find bluffs here. Normaly fast action are more likley to be on the bluffing side because they want to seem stronger and more confident then they actually are. I would need to know how wide villain is calling here preflop ? is he a recreational that cc here pretty tight or on the loose side so he has hands like KQo JTo that he can turn into a bluff when he has the gutshot+flushdraw ? but even then this hands have still nice equity vs your hand so if he is not able to overplay hard hands like KJ or A5 here i would fold.
Turn i would like just a check to keep his range wider and not be lost vs raise then thinking if i induced some overplay or bluff etc and leveling then myself into a call wich i dont think is good here

He shoved 3x pot? You aren't in the top 25pc of your range so fold

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I realllly don't like the turn bet. This card is awful for your range -- you aren't iso-ing massive with QT and have almost no flushes when the Ad, Kd, and Jd are out there. You are putting yourself in a horrifically bad spot when he jams.

I actually disagree with Bill Hickok -- I think you are pretty close to the top of your range here, especially if you are betting a different turn sizing with AA, KK, JJ, etc. and checking weaker hands. How many better hands do you actually have when you take this line? How can hero ever have a flush or straight here?

Not to say that I wouldn't fold here, because I still might.

I am snap folding

The only thing that would make me pause is that your small turn bet might be bluff inducing to an action / fun player. Running basically the same bet on flop & turn means you dont have a flush.

I would have either checked or bet 2/3 pot

I assumed he only has one turn sizing or check. Otherwise it's hard not to give off sizing tells. If you are always capped on your small size then you are forced to fold to raises too much

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elmcityboy wrote

Raising Pre betting flop and betting turn the weakest I am here is AQ. AA, KK, AK, AJ are all my most likely holdings. These are cards that players don't fold too often at these stakes. I never have a flush or straight here.

What I was considering did V know this? What is he shoving with here? A Royal wouldn't shove. Would a straight? What about nut flush with a Qd, or even a smaller flush. He would play suited cards here. Would he shove on draws? or is V only value shoving knowing I have a chance to a full house or a straight? If he shoves as a bluff what would his sizing be when value raising or vice-versa?

Big raises seem like a go away bet, but then again...

If that is the case, then you have zero bluffs and zero nutted hands on this board. Your bet is completely face-up as middling value, which means players will be able to absolutely torture you with bluffs and thin value raises alike.

Grunch:

PRE - As a general rule I prefer to raise in increments of $5, so that the dealer doesn't slow down the game making change for people, and as a way to make the pot easier to calculate as the hand progresses, so I'd probably just make this $20, not $17, especially when we'll be OOP.

FLOP - I think we can either check to induce someone to stab, or over-bet here. No one is folding an ace yet, and if they do, that's fine. We don't mind denying some equity and charging their draws more to see the turn. So either check or bet $50-$60.

TURN - When the nuts change, I'd either check and evaluate or bet very small. Your $35 bet here seems fine on paper, but might look weak when you bet $30 on the flop, which could induce some light raises.

That said, it's hard for V to be bluffing here, in this line, when the most obvious draw gets there. I think this is a pretty standard fold.

You were 60% vs his 40% on the turn. I like his logic of raising with his specific hand, blocking the nuts, blocking Broadway, blocking top set, and never zero equity against your calling range, if you call. Not sure how I feel about the 4x jam sizing.

It's interesting that from his perspective, with the Qd in his hand, there's really no hand you can have here that will love getting raised on the turn, unless maybe you have T9dd and think he's FOS. But if he is loose pre, maybe he could have something like Q8s or worse QXs, and T9s is in the blender. Especially when he's flatting next to act in the BB, with three limpers left to act. He could have some QXs combos that would make sense.

If he raises to something like $150, you're not folding sets for that price, but you might fold to a 4x jam. That sizing folds out just about everything in your range, including sets, unless you're a station who simply can't fold.

So when he does this, he has a TON of fold equity, and a reasonable amount of equity when you don't fold. Hard to hate on his play.

As for how to adjust to this guy - you need to decide if he's capable of doing this with both value and bluffs, or just bluffs. If he's also doing this with value, then you have to dial it back and play more defensively. You can't check or bet small with bluffs or thin value and bet big with thick value.

Hard to imagine he'd ever attempt this without that critical blocker to the nuts, so if you have it, he can't confidently make this play. I think that would mean you would want to check or bet small here with bluffs, thin value, and thick value, so that he has to decide between over-bluffing, over-calling, or over-folding when you take this line.

When or if you have enough observation to be pretty certain he's splitting his range, only taking this line with bluffs, then you can start exploiting the $hlt out of him by bet-folding your bluffs and thin value, and bet-calling with the nuts.

You really want to nail down his range when he does this. Like, here, he had 40% equity against our actual hand. That's a lot, enough to create insane variance for us if we just start snapping him off with AJs in spots like this. If he's also doing this with AK and 55, we're going to have a hard time exploiting him.

If he's capable of doing this with worse than AQo with the Qd, and can show up with some low or zero equity bluffs, you might be okay snapping these off. But if he puts those hands into a different line, and this is always the nuts or a bluff with a ton of equity, you're torching if you start trying to induce this from him.

Take notice too that in this hand, he defended his BB not closing the action, with 3 limpers still to act, with AQo, and then called your flop bet next to act, with the Qd. So, while you might see him as LAG, he didn't 3B pre or raise flop with a hand that a lot of LAGs might play more aggressively. Instead of raising to clean up some equity and gain position by raising others out of the hand, he played possum.

I think you're onto something when you wonder how he'd actually play nutted hands. I don't think the nuts would 4x jam here, and obviously he doesn't have any sets other than maybe 55, and I doubt he's flatting in the BB with AK. I think he's looking for spots like this one, to put opponents in the blender when he has the right combo of blocking the nuts and a lot of equity when he gets called.

Just be wary of playing for stacks against guys who don't mind getting it in as a 40% underdog at best. If you had AA here, he'd only have 25%. If he's willing to gamble 300bb's like that, and if you're not, then you need to be playing a stronger range to lessen your risk of ruin.

Thank you all for you comments.

Follow up HH. close to last hand of this session.
H 4c5c SB
V Q6o BU
multi Limpers BU calls H completes

runout Q 4 5 3 2
H bet flop and turn checks river
V bets about pot on river.

All of Vs shoves seemed to come on flop or turn with cards to come when he was on a draw, combo draw. And a big value bet when he was best at river. At first it looks like he is making his shoves as bluffs and value bet sizings that are easier to call. When I type this it seems easy to exploit this type of player, But will he make adjustments to me based on our shared HH?

Does this mean that I should play even tighter? or that I should be willing to gamble against this guy?

You may have suffered from villain’s perception of you. I use this type of semi-bluff often, but only against thinking regs that will find the fold.

I’m afraid the ‘acting quickly’ doesn’t help much because he’s got time to think while you’re pondering. It’s funny that if you had shoved the turn, instead, villain would have quickly folded.

I think you need to calmly nod your head that you got outplayed. No shame, he simply made a bet that you couldn’t call. Your gut told you big bet was trying to run you off, but you needed to act on it. And even then he could have rivered you. That’s what makes it a tough line.

You win by playing strong hands, in position, with the initiative. OOP is always tough. My suggestion is to use check-raises - your bet bet bet line yields little info. It’s best to try to find out where you’re at before he shoves on you.

In counter-attacking, you can tighten up against this guy. Hey, I avoid people all the time - I’m trying to beat the bad players, not mix it up with the good ones. But ultimately, you got to let him know you’ll call him down.

I feel like you did everything but trust your instincts - you got a reaction when you tabled your cards, there’s no rules, trust yourself - if you’re wrong, who gives a crap. Give yourself permission to make any play that feels right.

And I will always maintain that it’s easier to be bluffed, than lose $600.