1-2: 99 on 8648Q, UTG vs. BB after flop x/r

I am fine with this call down. I am a calling station at heart though.

The main thing that leads me to call down here is Villain's sizing scheme. It reads as weak to me, and you are getting a great price as a result. I wouldn't be surprised to see some merge-y BS like 77 or a pair plus draw. Could also include TT or JJ in that category I guess which obviously you lose to. Naked flush draw that is bluffing makes some sense too. This guy doesn't sound like the type to give up river with a combo draw like A5s and if he is upstuck there might be a tilt factor.

The turn board pair in this hand is pretty different from that Docvail hand IMO. In that hand, Villain couldn't have naked trips so he had very few value combos on the board pairing turn. In this one, I think naked 8X is actually fairly likely, which is concerning. A hand like 87 might raise flop and then slow down on blank turns. But on the 8 pair, all of a sudden 8X is emboldened to go for 3 streets of value. And a villain like this probably has all combos of A8o, 98o, and 87o pre-flop (do they all raise flop? certainly not). Still, the turn and river sizing doesn't really read as trips here.

Either way, I'm never folding flop here after betting quarter pot. And I'm not folding the river against less than half pot after the flush draw bricks. So turn might be the time to get away but, again, it's such a small size..

Results:

I will never understand LL V's flop x-raise ranges... Nice call.

Bit late, but do you remember if the flop 8 was of the FD suit? If so, I wouldn't be able to run fast enough away from the turn.

Merge-y BS indeed. Textbook example of the monkey bet.

This reminds me of a lot of hands I played early on. It's like V is telling himself a conflicted story that his 1P is good enough to x/r, because we always have AK or un-paired over-cards, but then somehow obviously his pair is no good once you call, so he has to turn his hand into a bluff, not realizing his hand functions better as a bluff catcher when we do have AK and the like. What they lack in understanding, they hope to make up for with aggression.

It is interesting that we'd probably fold a lot of un-paired combos to this line. Like, if he was a good player, playing A6s rather than A6o, and found a check-raise when the board pairs the 8 on the turn, especially if he had the FD to go with his 2ndPTK, we might credit him with making a reasonably good play with a hand that is often going to be best versus all the AK in our range, and equity to improve to the nuts when we call with our over-pairs.

I looked at the spoiler but, yeah, still interesting line from V1. I wonder if he sized up turn (e.g. 60%) and river (probably AI) how much changes? Is this what he'd do with 87 for instance? General question about whether players in these games use uniform sizes for both value and bluffs. I mean from what you say in the OP, generally not is the answer, I guess, which makes it a worthy heuristic.

Yeh, I think the problem is they start out with way too wide ranges. If he only calls A6s here, and then uses the value sizes I fold a lot (probably "everything" for a while). But when they start out so wide it becomes obvious they are bluffing constantly, and other players at 1-2 will call too much anyway, so that's losing ... so then they try to fix that by bluffing smaller, but they still need to keep the value sizes the same or they don't make enough when they hit. And then they have sizing tell.

From what I've seen, and tried to guess at anyway.

Sizing tells are the nuts, particularly if folks don't adjust. When folks merge it can be a little trickier (as I've discovered on too many occasions with the right-but-wrong call with A high).

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Dream flop - no over-cards
Lost a lot of value not raising the flop, turn, river. Calling stations always win less than deserved. The guy was gonna tell himself no way he’s got an 8 and call down. Instead of putting villain to a decision, you let villain put you to one - which you snap called without even considering raising.

I seem to recall a thread where someone overplayed an overpair on a low, connected board and it didn't go very well for them...

FWIW, I was re-listening to some old Bart Hanson podcasts, and there was one where he said that when an opponent x/r's the flop, and then on the turn he bets the same size or less, or just bets small, it's very rarely a very strong hand, and most often is a bluff or weak value.

In the example hand he gave, V x/r'd the small flop c-bet, then he raised V's small turn bet, V tanked, then spaz-jammed with 2nd pair, and Bart snapped it off with an over-pair to the board. I don't remember the exact turn card, but I do recall V had 77 on an 8-high board, and Bart had QQ, so the hand was pretty similar.