OOP with KK versus a huge whale

Grunch:

PRE - seems fine. Might size up when I know at least one player left to act doesn't like to fold.

FLOP - seems fine. Wouldn't c-bet or check raise here.

TURN - this is where we need to be dialed in with our reads. A lot of maniacal opponents will be one and done when they bet "scary" boards and get called.

When he bets $50 into $80 on the flop, it's tempting to think he likes his hand and will barrel. But that could just be his way of trying to tell a more convincing story before he gives up once we call.

If we know he doesn't like to fold, and might be capable of spaz raising, and turn donk becomes very interesting. Not saying I'd always find it, because I don't think I would. But sometimes I might.

RIVER - interesting dilemma now. I don't want to go for a check raise. I want to bet. The question is what size is best. I think small, giving him an opportunity to raise.

Ordinarily I might say 1/2 pot, but I think we might be able to size up slightly, and still induce. I think a smooth figure of $100 is small enough, and still leaves $475 behind, enough for him to think he can put max pressure on us by jamming over top.

All reads on whale are him calling stupid amounts with stupid cards, sometimes betting with two pair that should check but never bluffing ... then piles money in with strong hands.

Betting small to induce seems about as crazy as bluffing off 200bb to get him to fold a bad top pair.

Raise bigger pre. $35 at least, maybe more. Any reads on how much this guy will call pre?

Just bet flop, would be tempted to x/r after the check/bet/fold when we are HU vs. whale. Gets annoying if he shoves though, esp. with reads.

Just bet big on turn. Better if we still had the betting lead, but would treat the hand like the nuts vs. a passive calling station and donk bet big anyway.

Just bet big on the river. Pretend to think a few seconds, look at V and slide out 10 green chips.

Maybe even more would be fine, I doubt he's folding an 8 for all of the money and might not even fold JT to it.

Look at the A3o hand and pretend you're doing the same thing.

Thanks. I think your reads on the whale are very good based on the info I provided (which is basically all the info that I had at the time.) I ended up playing almost six hours with him (spoiler alert: it didn't go very well) and all of your reads proved true -- he didn't really bluff, refused to fold any shred of equity until the river, and would bet huge with good hands. One thing I noticed later on is that he would also stab flop very often IP with semi-marginal hands (e.g. I opened KK from UTG in a different hand, got four callers, and villain bet 2/3 with TT on A96r when x to.)

I started sizing up my opens and isos shortly after this hand, going $25 RFI and $30 over one limp. Should have probably gone bigger. The hand where he limp-called $45 with A3o he was the only limper.

Agree with your other points re: betting and sizings. I didn't play this hand very well, unfortunately.

Bet flop 25. You have a overpair. You block KJo. The only V holding that beat you are QTs or T9s. You want to charge the flush and straight draws.

Just bet the turn and try to get V stacked. You don’t need to check raise to get in stacks on the river.

Bet river. Exploit calling stations by betting.

I agree that flop can be a bet, but your range is incorrect. This villain has every combination of sets, two pairs, and straights on this board. He plays virtually every hand and does not 3b any of them.

I tend to play a pretty passive style OOP and multiway as a default. I find that I get more information from my opponents by checking than by cbetting for a small size. It also tends to make my decisions easier on flop, turn, and river. I think I should be deviating significantly from my default versus this guy, though, and I clearly failed to do that in this spot.

Thanks. I agree that V basically never has AK (probably rarely has a K or 8 either) given the snap check. Two pair is certainly a big part of his range. This would be a fairly easy spot for me to have a bluff (I would play a lot of FDs as a xc on flop) so I was trying to find a size that reps a busted FD and always gets called by 2p.

These spots make your win rate. It makes zero sense to let a whale who has no fold button do the betting for you. Bet every street and bet big, he makes calling mistakes, give him the opportunity.

Agreed. I think my mindset is these spots is often "I don't want to play my hand as a bet-fold, so I am going to play it as a check-evaluate." It works against a bunch of the villains in my pool, who will completely telegraph their hand strength when they bet and will start overfolding versus aggression, but is really bad versus this guy.

Subject: Re: OOP with KK versus a huge whale

This is exactly the kind of seat we dream about on a Super Bowl Sunday. A wealthy, high-VPIP whale on a heater is the ultimate variance test, but also your highest hourly win rate.

Given your reads (VPIP 75%, flatting AA pre, zero 3-bets), here’s how I’d approach playing Kings against him:

Pre-flop Isolation: Forget standard sizing. If he’s cold-calling everything, your 3-bet or ISO size should be "annoyingly large." If the standard is $25, go to $40 or $50. You want to build a massive pot while you still have 80%+ equity.

Post-flop Strategy: Since he’s passive pre-flop but "on a heater, " be prepared for him to show up with random two-pair combos (like 64o or J5s) that a normal player wouldn't have. He’s not 3-betting, so his flatting range is literally the entire deck.

Don't overthink it: Against a whale like this, "Balancing your range" goes out the window. Play pure exploitative poker. Bet big for value, and if he suddenly shows extreme aggression (raises your C-bet), believe him. Passive whales only raise when they can beat a single pair.

Looking forward to seeing the flop and the showdowns you mentioned. These sessions are usually where your month is made or broken!

Preflop: Go as big as he'll call with everything. Probably something like $50 and just play a tight range.

Flop: I actually like the flop check. If we were heads up with the whale I would agree to just bet big exploitatively. Here though we're playing 4-ways (edit: missed that the limper folded, closer but a check is still OK) and it's really a pretty dangerous flop. Start with a pot control/evaluate line, then if it plays out so you get heads up with the whale then you can pile in money.

After whale bets and everyone else has folded I think you can likely go for a smaller check raise and look to play for stacks now. This isn't something you would want to do against a "normal" player on this board, but a whale likely stacks off with plenty of hands you beat.

Turn: As played up to turn I probably lead turn small. Even whales don't typically call off massive bets on 4-straight boards with another street to come.

River: As played after calling flop, and turn checking through, I probably bet big. As someone said, slide out a stack of like 10 $25s that is really an overbet, but doesn't look like much in a whale's eyes, and hope for a snap call before he takes a minute to think it through.

i think theres basically 0 chance he raises a worse hand otr when he snap checks turn unless u minbet or something

i dont think he has better or anything and id b3b if i did get raised but i think that the betting volume that goes in if you bet small is going to be entirely contingent on him calling.

i think b25 always gets called by any 2 pair but maybe u can go 50 given hes winning / player profile. i do think when you start sizing bigger than that hes going to fold some amount of the time. i think jam is a good way to get him to fold range lol although have no idea if he actually does or not

probably lead turn is best play but maybe thats results oriented? im just struggling to see many hands except maybe like the nf / idk what combo draw he could have or a set that can count on to continue if we x/r the turn. can sim later to look at flop but it feels like we can either cbet or x/r at equilibrium (c/c also fine and conceivably people will play worse vs it)

This hand was a complete disaster for me.

why don't you think your river decision is a mistake?

i think choosing to overbet and only going for 110%, and getting him to fold whats probably the top / bulk of his range without thought should give you at least some amount of evidence that you chose a poor size. the people saying jam i think are tripping. i find it hard to find many 8x in his bet otf snap check back turn range except maybe j8 / q8? i would not count on someone calling worse than that vs 275% and probably he dont even call an 8 very much on this board (vs overbet jam)

simmed this

there are boards to x range on oop this isnt one of them. combo is very very frequent b25 otf. ranges are tighter in the sim than in the hand id imagine. i have around 20% for bb and 11% vs btn whereas button sounds like hes playing much closer to 40%. can run it vs that if i get a chance

facing bet its more likely to raise without a heart and call with a heart, can probably just simplify to pure based on that. turn we do a good amount of blocking with range (~33%) if we c/c and this hand mixes. if it doesnt bring a bdfd you would more or less pure lead your hand. ap, 100-110 is preferred size but theres some caveats to this. it thinks he will a good chunk of kj / kq / sets while mixing call with qt / qj / j9. i think hes a good bit more capped than this and not going to defend theoretically well when you go big. also it feels like a set thinks about what to do ott and i doubt he have kj / kq though they dont really matter from a river value betting perspective to us vs a guy who isnt trying to reach mdf. i believe a bulk of the ev from the bigger size is coming from how often he has and calls with a set when he checks back turn

vs river block (b33 here) he pure calls 2 pair and mixes call w aq / aj. vs overbet he gets to just call with a king. with that said people dont care about this and i think very few players really check back kx w any regularity ott let alone snap check it back so i would think hes capped enough that you could conceivably jam river if you wanted to, i just think that mostly results in an empty calling range

I don't think you made any massive errors in this hand. It's just hard to get paid when there's a 4-liner on the board, even apparently when your opponent is a whale.

That being said, why did you choose to bet river with bills?

I would guess it's psychologically harder for your opponent to call facing a bet of 2 $100 bills than it is to call facing a bet of 8 green chips or facing a statement of 200.

That's just something to think about for the future. I've heard that casino chips were originally invented because it's psychologically easier for people to part with casino chips than it is for them to part with cash. I don't know if there's any truth to that story, but I don't think the paper bills help your chances of getting called.

I used to play with bills in MLHE/O8 games 20-25 years ago while drinking. It’s dumb, don’t do it.

It’s hard to learn how to play with real whales like this guy, but an ironclad rule is don’t overthink it with AA & KK pf/of, or bottom set on dry flops. Just giit, especially short-stacked. That’s whole point of taking shortbuy shots! You’re almost certainly a big favorite or a small dog.

Just be prepared for the swings.

Maybe results oriented, but maybe you needed to bet the turn and then the river. Maybe a mistake to expect him to bet on QT98 without a straight. He may have been a whale, but slight overbet on the river represented the straight well.

Yeah, I mean, good question. I guess I meant that it couldn't be a mistake to bet big versus a guy that calls too much, but clearly something went wrong here, whether or not I gave off a read or just chose a horrible size.

Thanks for running the sim. I would guess that btn is playing significantly wider than 40% even. He wasn't VPIPing 100% of hands, but he wasn't far off (e.g. he was cold-calling 64o and 75o in hands I played after this one.) I agree with you and other posters that flop should be a small bet and should be a XR as played, especially when BB folds out.

I also agree that a set probably considers betting turn, so his range on the river is even weaker than I initially gave him credit for. Part of the reason why I bet big on river may have been a feeling that I missed value on the flop and turn, so it's a good reminder of the way that small mistakes compound throughout the hand.

I actually hate playing with the bills. I will frequently bet with them just to try and get rid of them (or to get the dealer to change them out for chips) so I would say that I am balanced using the bills versus using chips, but that doesn't really change the way they're perceived. Will probably use this session as an excuse to never willingly put bills on the table.

Yeah bills are kind of dumb in general. People are constantly asking how much people are playing, because it's not obvious when looking from across the table. Also there are more situations where someone goes all in thinking their opponent had less than they really have, because they didn't see the $1, 500 in bills behind their stack. Plus it makes it easier for cheaters/anglers to try to sneak bills out and claim they're playing more when the situation suits them.

My comment in general was just to consider the psychology in LSNLHE. Sometimes the size of the bet in relation to the pot doesn't matter against recreational opponents, but the absolute size of the bet does. Or it just matters whether the bet looks like a lot to them.

Your read is that he's a "whale", but sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking someone who plays very loose pre is going to continue playing loose post. It's important to not just look at the hands they VPIP, but also look at their post-flop actions.

In the A3o hand, he wasn't betting or bluffing, he was just calling with a weak top pair. When the middle card on the flop pairs on the river, and the PFR bets again, I can understand why someone holding an ace would be suspicious. What's the PFR repping there? 8x? 66? 75? The one combo of AA?

In the J8 hand, he called a bet with middle pair, took the betting lead when he made 2P and action checked to him, called a raise (reasonably, IMO, with middle 2P on KJ38rb), and got max value when he boated up on the river.

In the JJ v 75o hand, he turned 2P on an interior-straightening card. What are you repping there? A gut-shot that got there? 96 or 64?

In 64 v K6, he may have folded to a river bet, but it seems like you should know better than to try to bluff that guy, or play a trash hand like K6.

The KK v TT hand - what do you beat on A969T when he bets huge? Is he doing that with QQ or JJ? 88 or 77?

In all these hands, he's generally getting his money in good, and he's correctly picking off his opponents' bluffs. He gets max value from his nutted hands and doesn't wilt under pressure from his opponents. The worst thing we can say about him is that he's too loose-passive pre and maybe a bit too sticky post.

I'm not saying I think he's a good player. But you may be underestimating him. It also sounds like you let his high VPIP tilt you. You probably weren't alone. In most or all of these hands, his opponents (you included) are blasting into him with thin value and bluffs. Why?

Why not check to him with thin value, and let him tell you what he has with his actions? Why not wait until he shows weakness before we start bluffing him, and over-fold when he shows aggression?

I think a lot of people in the thread saw your read and apparently thought he'd pay off a big river bet, but that doesn't seem likely when he bets big on the flop, gets called, and then snap checks back the turn. It looks like he just hates the turn card.

Whenever we're OOP and our opponent checks back the turn after betting the flop, I tend to think they're either giving up on a zero-equity bluff, or they're doing it for pot control with some hand that's been downgraded to thin value or SDV. It makes sense - their best hands and best semi-bluffs would keep betting.

If they're checking back to pot control with thin value or SDV, they're unlikely to call a big bet on the river. I'll usually bet somewhere around 1/2 pot, or maybe as much as 2/3 pot if my image stinks or I think they're sticky.

If V tank-checked the turn, I could see sizing up a bit when the river's just a brick. When he snap checks, it tells us he didn't even consider barreling.

I suggested we could bet around 1/2 pot as a live low-stakes exploit (rather than a more GTO 1/4-1/3 pot), and mentioned he might conceivably spaz-raise. I wouldn't expect him to raise all that often, but that 1/2 pot size is small enough to get called by 2P, and leaves enough stack depth behind that we keep the door open for him to raise.

The problem with going huge after they check back is that it just looks like value. If we bet 1/2 pot, they'll be getting 3:1, and don't need to find many bluffs or worse value to flick in the call. It's a spot where a lot of low-stakes players will bet small as a bluff from OOP, because IP looks capped.

If we bet 1/2 pot here, maybe we have AA, or AQ, or JTs, or whatever. We wouldn't over-bet with any of those hands.

I mean, he made a bunch of really good hands. Anyone is going to look like a better player than they are when they make a bunch of really good hands. In the J8 hand, for instance, he looks like a genius when he bet-calls the turn and leads the river 8, but if the river is a J (or even a brick) and he runs into KJ, he looks like a moron for calling J8o pre, calling flop and turn drawing virtually dead, and missing an obvious strength tell. As I shared in another post, he apparently lost $7k in the same $2/$5 game the night before

You are also speculating on how I played those HHs I shared, but I didn't even share any of the details. I also already know that I played them like ****, I'm not really defending myself.

I am sharing them below for additional context, but I don't really want to make this a multi-page thread with a bunch of essay-length responses. Also worth noting that I inaccurately stated some of the runouts in my original post.

• JJ no c - Whale limp, I iso btn $30, bb cc, and limper. Flop QT7cc xx I xb. Turn 5, xx, I $40 call call. River 2 x whale lead $175, I look over at BB and he is ready to muck his hand, so I call, bb muck, whale show 75o.
  
  
• K6s - Fishreg limps, I iso CO to $25, whale cc bb and fishreg comes along. Flop AJ4 xx I $30, whale call, reg fold. Turn 7 x I $150, whale tank calls. River 7 xx and whale shows 64o.
  
  
• KK - I open UTG $25, CO cc, whale cc btn, both blinds call. Flop A94 goes xx I x x whale stabs $75, fold, fold, I call, fold. Turn 9 goes x, snap xb. River T goes x he bets $415, I tilt call it off.
  

One of the (many) leaks in my game are these spots where I feel like I played my hand face-up and assume that villain is betting big as a bluff to target my face-up hand, so I hero call and just get shown the nuts. When I am playing well, I fold to big river bets, knowing that my opponents are generally under-bluffing when they take large sizings, but when I am tilted or playing poorly, I call. The reason I didn't make threads about those hands is because I already know where I made my mistakes. Also, I am frankly pretty embarrassed by them, haha.

You are not going to convince me that this guy is not a whale, though.

Not arguing with any of this. You had a good read and it's clearly backed up to some extent by the sims that submersible shared.