KK’s against loose bluffs guy.

Gotta bet the turn. There aren't many Ax hands that can continue against your check/raise.

Call river for the same reasons.

Players are most inelastic pre-flop, so you know your own mistake - bet 50 to 100+, whatever you think he will call. It’s a punt not to take this free money.

Flop is strange to me
I think you should bet the flop
I would not have tried a check-raise, a really strong looking play -but-villain-called-now-more-confusing

On the turn, my thinking is that the ace does not help villain - he didn’t need it when he called the check-raise. It makes no sense to follow your strong play with a check on the turn and it only stirs things up.

He could check-back because
1. He thinks you will check-raise again
2. His 45 is good, but he wants to make sure the flush doesn’t come in.
3. Been betting the flush and wants to see if it comes in.
4. Has 2pair afraid A hit your range
5. Wants to see if you will check the river

I would shove the turn and put the decision on him. The ace has to scare him, more than help him. It’s a game of incomplete info and if numb nuts lucked up, I’ll take the loss.

From villain’s POV:
Probably made a bad call on the check-raise that looks like a monster and now he’s the one having to decide if he’s beat.

You can’t play the 2nd best hand in Hold’em weakly (turn/river checks look like you gave up) and then level yourself and fold to a guy that calls everything. As played, call.

We are sitting in the worse seat at the table, directly OOP to a deep and difficult player. Gotta get out of this seat (ideally across the table from him), imo.

On my typical shortstack of $200 I could easily raise to an amount preflop where I could trivially commit postflop, thus completely negating this guy's positional and skill advantage. However, I can't do that at this large stack size. So I'd get tricky preflop and just limp the BB to his UTG straddle HU. If he raises, we'll then be able to limp/raise to a size that comfortably commits us and offers him horrible IO to continue. If he checks, whatever, play a small pot OOP and try to eke some bets out of him (I'd lean to check/calling with a nitty image).

BTW, IIRC, this is the second time I've recommended an extremely tricky preflop play with a big hand to you (I think?). I just want to clarify that this is most definitely not a thing I would do a lot (ask me how many times I've open limped the BB with a monster, it's probably almost never). But this is a rare spot (folded to us in the BB at LLSNL, WTF?) with a deep difficult guy in the straddle, where I think it should be considered.

So we've ended up creating a very troublesome spot preflop. Our raise size offered him 17:1 IO; that's not great IO, but it's not terrible either, especially for him being in position and us having likely a fairly face up hand with our image. We also created a very awkward SPR of 6.5, where he can make us play for stacks (at an SPR we don't really want to) whenever he wants. It's actually a fairly crap spot.

So this would be my overall thinking postflop. If we bet/bet/bet for stacks, what range does he end up with by the river calling down? Against our tight image, probably a range that is heavily weighted to beating our hand. But if we check/call off our stack, what range does he have? He still has all the hands that beat us, but he's now also got a lot of air / busted draws / etc. So, against this guy (as opposed to a face up passive calling station), we're much better off check/calling off stacks than betting them off, imo.

As played, gross flop spot. Against most passive calling station types, we can bet/fold. But against him, not as much. Overall though, we could have done something preflop and flop (and even pre preflop, such as where we are sitting, and perhaps even what stack size we are sitting at) to avoid this spot. The question really shouldn't be about sizing, it should be whether we were raising/betting at all, imo.

GNLisadifferentanimalthanLimit,goodluck!G

Grunch:

PRE - nice raise size.

FLOP - I'd prefer to either c-bet full pot, or if we go for the x/r, take it to the moon, like $150-$200, so we can play a three street game.

TURN - So...he just flatted from the straddle. How many strong AX combos does he have here? What's the strongest AX combo he'd flat from the straddle when we raise almost 6x from the BB? He's aggro pre, so...maybe AJ, or maybe just AT?

Yeah, it sucks to see an A roll off when we have KK, but we x/r'd the flop. We were repping a big hand. We could have AXcc. How much AX does he have here, and would he really check back AX?

Instead of checking turn, I'd probably just barrel for a small size, like $100-$120. If he calls, I might check most rivers, to let him stab at it.

You said he's stabby when you check. Does that mean you were checking to induce him to bluff at it? And you were planning to...call? Fold? Raise?

What was your plan for the river if he did NOT stab at it on the turn? Was it to check-call? Check-fold? Check-evaluate?

RIVER - When he checks back turn, I think I'd block bet small, like $30.

When we check and he jams, we kind of need to go back to all the earlier streets and actually try to range this guy.

He flat called a 6x open pre from the straddle, but he's going to be HU and IP post-flop. And he's aggro. He might be a little wide here. He could have a lot of PP's, a lot of SC's, etc. He'll never have any premium holding.

He stabbed on the flop for a little over 1/3 pot, and then called a just over 4x x/r. He could have flush draws, and some over-pairs. He's probably not calling with two un-paired over-cards with nothing else going on.

He checked back the A turn. Sure, he could have some weak AXcc combo, but what's he scared of? Are we x/r'ing the flop with AA/AX and then checking turn on an A? If he has an A, how likely is that? Are we x/ring flop with the one combo of AA, or just AK?

I dunno. Maybe he has an ace here. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he ran into a set on the river with 99. I think he gets to the river with a pretty wide range, and we've effectively handed him a permission slip to turn everything that can't beat KK into a bluff.

I actually like the flop x/r given the hand you showed us from villain and this board generally doesn't connect well so he could be stabbing more often then if we bet. As played I think OTT we check planning to call it off - betting serves no purpose and he just ends up folding worse hands. If he jammed the turn I would call it off - given he checked the turn and jammed the river I'm really close on this. I think I would call it off given the money in the pot but expect to lose a lot. I don't think this line gets bluffed that often after he checks the turn, but also his line doesn't make a ton of sense.

I like pre and flop. I'd probably bet the turn, but the reason I wouldn't is if I thought he would shove river if I check again, so I'm calling.

I like a check raise on the flop against this guy. I felt a high degree of confidence he would stab. Betting might let him off the hook. I do think I should have gone a little bigger with the raise. If he had a piece of this flop he wasn't folding.

I got greedy on the turn thinking he would stab again thinking I didn’t like the A. I think it’s a bad spot to check after I showed strength with the CR on the flop. In the moment I knew I made a mistake not betting. There is already 190 in the pot. I need to make him pay to draw out on me. When he checked it back my plan was to call a not huge size bet on the river.

My gut told me he had a hand this time when he jammed. This is the perfect spot for him to jam and take advantage of his bluffy image from the previous hand. Also, he made a much smaller bet in the previous hand I saw. Also, I felt like if he was gonna bluff he would have bet the turn or maybe bet smaller on the river. He also gave me a smiling look when he checked the turn as if he was grateful for the free card. I tanked for a couple minutes and then put in the call. He had 92s. At the time I didnÂ’t realize how fishy he was so I was having problems making sense of his bet.

Thanks for the feedback.

With so much money in the pot I don’t mind him folding to a turn bet. It seemed unlikely he had an Ace which means he had a pair or a draw. Either way I wanna make him pay.

I like just calling pre flop here because he absolutely would have raised probably to 20. I didn’t even consider it. How much would you reraise here?

On the other hand, this may spook him into a fold.

Curiosity question:
If you ‘double up’ you continue with a deeper stack right - you don’t cash out and come back in short do you?

I used to start out short and I liked it when I doubled thru, because it looked like I had only a buyin stack, yet I was already ahead.

I quit doing it, because I didn’t like the image it created, and I lost the ability to exploit playing a short stack strategy.

However, I’m the crazy old guy playing one buyin - when I lose that I go home. Therefore, I sometimes end up short and have to grind.

I don’t give away my money with what the heck plays, not even short. If I’m short awhile and card dead, I may just pick up and go.

My game improved a great deal when I no longer had an obsession with being in the card room. Once in a while, they get my buyin, but they don’t get a chance to take more until I show up again on another day fresh and ready to go.

I’m not advocating, simply saying I don’t care what you think about this - it’s what I do.
The room knows if I’m winning or not. The strong player that lost 4 buyins in the last couple of hours, it’s never real clear.

But you do play deep sometimes, right?

Agree with this. Played well preflop and flop.

Again, I'll stress that even though I have a very limp/reraisey style, limping a monster in the blinds is an extremely rare thing for me to do. However, this spot (non-short, OOP, somehow folded to me in the BB at a full ring LLSNL table WTF, very aggro straddle, even somehow sitting in this seat to begin with which I wouldn't be hardly ever, etc.) would be the rare exception case for me. I'm not a tourney player, but I would think it would be similar to sometimes open limping the SB with monsters in order to prevent the BB from running over us in blind-on-blind spots when we limp it.

As for my limp/reraise size, I like offering poor IO of 8:1, which means that ~setminers (let alone anything else) are getting horrendous IO (which we need to offer since we'll be setting up an SPR OOP where it will be unlikely we can fold postflop). So with $500 stacks and facing his $20 open, that would mean about a limp/reraise to $80ish. This would create a $160 pot with $420 behind = SPR 2.6 where we've more-or-less completely negated his positional / aggro tendencies advantage over us, and we can trivially commit most of the time postflop (we'll only really have to make difficult decisions on Axx).

Ggoodluck!G

This seems like a spot where we should know we're beat, even if we don't know how.

We can only beat a bluff. People tend to under-bluff ace-high boards, and under-bluff rivers, and under-bluff when using big sizing. When we x/r flop and check turn when the ace hits, it looks like we're scared of that card, so some opponents will bluff if we check again on the river.

But even if we think our opponent can have a ton of bluffs, it would be unusual for him to go for massive sizing when we look like we're giving up. We should be looking at the river card and thinking about the combos he could have that would have improved in a big way, and that would make sense for him to have. I wouldn't be thinking about 92, but A9 and 99 make some sense. In his spot I'd think it would be very unlikely we'd check again on the river with AA, so A9/99 are the effective nuts.

His line doesn't make much sense to me, but it's LOL-stakes and people do wonky $hlt sometimes. In his spot, I'd have bet smaller, hoping to get a crying call from all your PP's below the ace and weak AX combos, like A5s/A4s that had a GSSD on the flop but then turned a weak TP and decided to try to get to showdown.

I think hero played it well, maybe a smaller bet on the flop to 90? You want V to call with unmade hands.

Gross spot on the river. V’s line makes no sense, maybe 78cc? JJ? Did V read his cards wrong? Puke call. OP please call and reveal.

He did call. Reveal was he lost to 92.