1-2 AQo in biggish 3bet pot on Q6d4d Qd

Everything seems pretty normal, but I would probably size down the turn a little bit? I would also be tempted to flat hands in this set-up preflop (let the fish in instead of iso-ing the reg) but AQo seems like the nut worst hand to do that with.

One "lol live poker" consideration I would have is regarding your "diamond check" on the flop. IMO players usually only double-check their suits when they have offsuit hands (including pairs, of course) so if V saw you double-check your hole cards, then he can probably put you on a pretty specific range of hands given preflop and this bigger turn size. Not sure how relevant this even is here, though, unless he xjams on you.

I think the post flop sizings are way off. On this particular flop I'm going larger. We want to maximize our pay off against pocket pairs. We aren't going to get 3 streets or even 2 sometimes against them. The turn, however, is just way too large. You want to keep in pairs especially ones with a diamond. Even something like 1/3 pot is pretty good. You have everything but a flush so crushed.

Balance your double checking range by doing it with the nuts sometimes. Or just memorize two cards..

Grunch:

PRE - seems fine.

FLOP - obviously you know you should memorize your suits pre so you don't need to check them on the flop.

C-betting seems fine. Sizing seems fine. Might be able to go a tad larger, if we want to quibble over anything.

TURN - actually kind of an interesting spot now. V could 't have had any pair +.draw combos on the flop, and likely would have 3B pre with AA/KK or AKdd.

Seems like a spot where any 77-JJ with a diamond isn't folding to a large bet, and isn't likely to check-raise, so I'd think we could size way up. The stack depth is a little awkward, but I wouldn't mind a roughly 2x pot jam.

Do whatever works for you.

I try to remember my cards the same way I try to remember the name of someone I just met, by mentally repeating my hole cards in my head three times.

Among the problems we cause ourselves by checking our cards is the situation we have here, where V may be able to work out that hero probably doesn't have a flush if another diamond appears.

Pre is good

Bet 30 on the flop.

I like the turn sizing but it’s 3rd level poker against this V, so whatever.

Looking at your hole cards on monotone flops is a tell. On monotone flops, I always look for players looking at the cards.

I don’t understand the flop bet, maybe it’s a solver thing. If it was multiway, I could see betting quarter pot, but you hit your hand. Heads up against the best player at the table and you’re giving him rope.

I guess you folded him on the turn. The quick calls has me thinking big pockets which fears a queen. I would have more money in the pot from the flop and size down or check turn to hide that a queen helped me.

I’m not putting the guy on diamonds, but he might be putting you on diamonds. I can’t see logic in thinking he will jam. With what hand does a good player come over the top in this situation.

It’s just old man me, but saying GTOwiz supports everything I did doesn’t resonate well with me. Not sure your label from the info, but if you’re a tight rec, he’s gone for sure and even if he thinks you’re loose, I think he folds to this line. But I don’t think you want him to fold.

O yeah, card checking
I don’t know about you guys but when I flop a flush, I just have to check my cards a couple of times to make sure people are thinking I’m wondering if I have one. Easy reverse tell that honestly works a lot.

To be fair I was quite surprised by all the "don't recheck your cards" advice ... I recheck cards a lot, pretty much always when I know I flopped the NF or NFD or whatever. I've lost enough money by misremembering my cards that I don't think it's close anymore, maybe I still give off some tells though.

So solvers don't have reasons but the main points I'd infer are that it's a pretty dry board in a 3bet pot, H doesn't necessarily want to put in 150bb on the flop with AA/KK/AQ and V has hands like JT or even AK that have only backdoor draws. H also has at least a bunch of AK that doesn't want to bet big and snap fold to a raise. Then the close to the best parts of V's range is JJ-77 with the best hards being NFD/KQ/QJ (assuming he doesn't have 66/44 much here, or the one combo. of QQ) ... so betting big makes it easy for him to fold almost everything that we are crushing.

Also betting big would mean V should mostly fold with a fairly strong calling range, and betting small means V should be raising some worse hands (Eg. I'd assume at least some NFD) and calling wider.

Maybe as an exploit you can/should go bigger vs. low stakes populations targeting only FD/KQ/QJ/JJ/TT/99, but I think this is difficult to know exactly when to do it as the people I see do this a lot end up getting folds or putting money in bad.

Also while I said the best player at the table I don't think he's a crusher or anything, he was just much better than the randoms limp/calling 30-80%... so also possible he calls too big of a bet on the flop too wide.

On the turn I was kind of assuming that AdX/KKd/JJd/TTd/etc would call this size, but without a diamond underpairs to the Q might just fold to $50. Also I think there's a better chance people see JJd and decide they aren't folding to $100 now so might as well put in the rest now, vs. seeing a bet of $25-$50 and deciding to raise.

Anyway, results...

Played fine. Not much else you can do.

Either look at your hand almost every time or memorize your cards -- either is fine. Thank goodness I have a good memory -- I don't even recheck in PLO 😉

Bruh.

If we were deeper, we could size down on the turn and play some poker on the river. At this stack depth, when we 3B pre, flop TPTK, and turn trips, even when the most obvious draw comes in, there's not much we can do to avoid disaster.

Suppose you check back the turn. Are we folding if he jams river from up front? I dunno. Maybe. Suppose we bet turn small, and he raises. Do we not just shrug-jam? I dunno. Maybe.

Shake it off, brother. It's just bad luck.

Makes sense. Few players are observant enough to pick up a tell, and if you are checking hole cards often for no reason except you forget, then it’s not a tell anyway

I recheck riiiiiight before the flop. Even if I know damn well I have Aces.

Re - checking your cards because you might mis-remember....

I was recently watching a highlight reel video of Alan Keating hands. There was one from HCL vs Ryusuke where he had black ATs and jammed river on a three-flush board, hearts or diamonds. He didn't have the flush.

I'd been somewhat binge-watching Alan Keating videos recently, paying particular attention to see if he had any tells, and I was pretty sure I found one. He talks to his opponents when he's bluffing, and stays silent when he has it. But in this hand, he broke the pattern. He was bluffing, but he just sat there silent.

His opponent makes a very light call with a weak top pair, one flush blocker. Alan says, "flush", and turns over his cards. Everyone at the table laughs, like he was doing some sort of fake-angle reverse slow-roll.

Alan didn't laugh. He looked visibly shaken. Listening closely, you could hear him say he thought he had the flush as the dealer is pushing the pot towards Ryusuke. He stood up from the table, repeated it, and took a walk.

I mean...if you're not sure, I guess check before jamming, especially into a sticky opponent.