Quick question. vs a tough pro, will he ever call the river with worse?

The way the "pro" played both of these hands are quite terrible. Like honestly 0/10 quality.

Weekdays 10am ~ 4pm, I'd imagine these are the worst times to play since it's heavily reg infested?

very little of this makes sense to me

Revisiting this.

With the benefit of the reveal, and starting to get a handle on how this V plays against us, I think one of two things is likely true:

1. If we raise small, he just folds his nut flush, because he thinks we have no bluffs when we x-raise small, but if we x/jam, there's a non-zero percent chance he hero-calls, because he can't make sense of the line, and thinks we wouldn't take that line with a boat, therefore we must be bluffing.

2. He thinks he has the best hand, and / or thinks we're just always FOS, and he's calling whether we raise small or jam.

Don't know which is more likely to be true. But it doesn't seem to matter. A x-jam here is printing against this guy, and a small raise is just leaving money on the table.

Yes, definitely reg infested. Worst on Mondays, gets slightly better later in the week.
Unfortunately, I don't often get to play during juiciest times. My usual sessions are Mondays and Thursdays 10am-3pm.

Tbh, after I checked the river, I was just on autopilot, hoping for a bet from V and having decided that my only play was going to be call.
Maybe I created this thread just for some reassurance that I didn't miss out on any value by not raising the river.
But I definitely should have paused after he bet the river and thought before calling.

I can't imagine him calling a jam, but I have seen him make some sick hero calls, in fact I just saw him do it vs a rec player in this same session on Monday. So who knows, it's not a zero-chance.

Ok, that means I am in his head!
LOL.

Ugh. I can already tell this hand is going to get stuck in my head...

Having a little more time to think about this...I'm starting to wonder if he was bluffing.

I don't think his making the nut flush on the river matters here. Does he think you're donking turn with a Q-high or worse flush draw, and check-calling river, even for 1/2 pot, after he calls the turn, on this board?

On a board of AA22, it almost makes more sense that you might decide he has less AX in his range and you're going to donk with 2x.

If that's what he's thinking, and I'm starting to suspect it is what he was thinking, he's a weak bluffer. Like, if he's calling turn, putting you on 2x, he knows his FD is meaningless, and he's planning to bluff the river to rep AX.

But, if he doesn't think you have A2, he must think you're defending your BB super-wide. WTF 2x do you have in your range here, that isn't A2? Has he seen you playing the dirty diaper (32)?

Even if you have 32, he's betting 1/2 pot, trying to make you fold a boat? That's pure button-clicking madness. Or at best, he's auto-piloting, betting whenever you check, calling whenever you bet, just half-potting it as a default bet size. Sort of a bizarro-reverse-Martingale strat.

Maybe you're inside his head, and only dreamed he was inside yours?

Honestly, it seems like you may be giving this cat too much credit, and playing too conservatively against him. He's got some big leaks in his game, at least when he's in a pot with you. I think we need to hard-exploit this clown, and send him back to the circus.

I'm genuinely curious how you are sure he is a "Pro"?

And by "Pro" here, I'm assuming someone who has a long run positive hourly rate that he can live on.

You can't fully assess a player based on one or two hands. Especially since they are two hands that I picked as interesting hands, and may therefore be anomalous. They are not randomly selected and not representative of his play as a whole.

But yeah, this guy plays long hours daily, has been doing so for at least the couple years that I have been hanging around the cardroom, and I expect that he beats this 5/5 game for more than 10BB per hour.

- I described him more in an earlier post in this thread.

Last week I played a hand with him, and I don't quite remember the board, but he value bet 1/4 pot on the river IP against me with a rivered flush. I think it was maybe a double paired board. I don't remember exactly. But I paid him off with two pair, and felt like a dope. Maybe that is why he is value betting a rivered flush against me for a decent sized bet, 1 week later. Basically, what I remember is the turn was a backdoor flush draw card, I bet, and he called. The river completed the backdoor flush but put the 2nd pair on the board. I checked to him, and he bet small on the river. I remember thinking after the fact that there was no way he had a full house on that board, and so I should have bet or check raised the river.

Anyway, I am going to play tomorrow morning, and he'll be there. Honestly even though I may not play my best against him, or he might be exploiting me, or I shouldn't be choosing tables that have who I consider to be tough pros, I sometimes don't mind sitting at tables with people who have a play style that I find interesting. It keeps me engaged and thinking, even if it less EV. I'll study their play. I do put this guy in that category. Sometimes the weekday tables full of tight regs and omcs is pretty boring.

First of all, if the board was double-paired, and you had 2P, that's ace-high?

Or did you have 3P? I may not know much, but I know 3P beats a flush. Pretty sure the others here will back me up on this.

Why's he going thin for value with a 1/4 pot bet last week and going 1/2 pot this week, in basically the same spot? Did you donk turn last week? Does he think you're just a big dummy who's going to pay off a twice as big bet this week? If you're just a dummy, why not size up even more?

That's the thing - I think he's doing some mergey value-bluff BS here. If he's only giving you some PP between 22 and AA, but thinks you'll call it off, he should go larger. If he's not sure you don't have a boat or quads, he shouldn't even bet. It almost seems like a compulsion with him. Like it's against his religion to check back a river, or take an exploitative sizing.

I dunno, man. It sounds like he's auto-piloting, and you should be able to exploit his pants off.

If a board is Ad 3c 5s 3s As, and I have pocket 9s, I have 2P/3P and I lose to a flush... It was like that. 3P definitely beats a flush if you have the stones to raise on the river, for sure.

I would love to exploit his pants off. As I described before, he is my nemesis (purely just in my head), because I think he has gotten the better of me more often than not. I have recently become more friendly to him, complementing him on his successful plays, and making jokes with him. Historically I've been tried to be quiet and stoic with him, but he has made some good reads on me - check raising me when I am weak, and not often paying me off. So I think switching things up to be more casual and friendly can't hurt, and might change the vibe a bit, potentially recalibrating things.

I haven’t read the responses and I assume others have chimed but this turn donk might be gto as we should have more aces, but in practice we shut down his bluffs in a spot where we have basically the nuts and can’t be beat on any river.

He’s going to have a lot of air that stabs this dry flop.

Just read your hand history with him. He’s just a punter clicking buttons, making me want to check the turn much more.

As you say, it can be difficult to see the forest for a couple of trees and we can all play a hand tilted or with wrong reads or whatever (although the QTo hand is pretty out there) ... but from every hand you've posted it looks like he's going for a lot of very thin value, and is getting hero calls so it's working out much better than it should be for him.

So if I saw this I'd start checking a _lot_ more OOP with good hands and x/r a wider polar range everywhere. Like if you have a great hand on the flop and he's behind, just check instead. Then pretty much everytime you want to hero call the river think about which of raise/fold you should do instead.

this