PMFHWM at 1/3/6/20

Excellent flop decision and sizing Banana. Turn spade here is a reasonable card for the semi-bluff continue, not quite as good if we had AJo w/ As but still valid to bet with our hand. Turn card flush-completion changes dynamic of board so our overall strategy is going to be for a smaller size than a brick. When betting I will use a 180 size (40%), if you do bet will be quite impressed if you can find this size in game. AJo with As I am always firing turn, best semi-bluff combo here blocking Axss and overbet jamming brick rivers as top-tier bluff candidate, with the expectation our relatively small turn bet will get c/r against flushes some frequency and EXTREMELY KEY is blocking his Axss river calls. If you are not firing the river shell here w/ that combo specifically then need to honestly evaluate your game, you are playing scared poker not using the best possible bluffing combo.

With your actual combo - AJo w/ Js, always checking here is playing too passively, but always firing will be too aggressive. Spot I would mix between bet 180 and check, leaning slightly more often bet than check. This size applies pressure to QJ/QT suited, folds out hands currently beating us 65/76 JJ/TT non-spades if these were continued on flop, and also folds our hands that we are currently ahead of such as JT/AThh but we must fold vs river bluff on blank.

TLDR - your hand I mix between 180 (40%) and check, slightly more bets. The other important detail Banana here is planning ahead, if you do bet the turn and get a blank river - CHECK AND GIVE UP. Blasting brick river is an absolute torch. The reason AJo As is significantly better bluff is we block the Axss portion. The most exciting result for this hand IMO is betting, getting the dream offsuit river T and value-jam.

I don’t like the little flop bet, this isn’t multi-way. Force the action now or why did you raise pre-flop with a folding hand.

I don’t understand betting 1/2 of your pre-flop raise. Down-betting when you’re trying to convince an obviously strong hand that it’s not strong enough. Pot the flop and take the dead money, dude was tanking over 1/4 pot size bet.

It’s critical to get a clear picture of where you are in a hand, and find out early.

As played, you let spades get there - your betting doesn’t look like you have it. Worse than that, there’s a lot of money in the pot with no good way for you to get it:

Guess I continue the trend; bet small again, and likely fold to a raise.

Checking invites him to bluff you off your range, you say he’s aware. Betting pot or jamming could work, but we can’t know for sure. Is there a chance villain is tank/calling trying to imply weakness (acting) with a powerful hand?

Not sure where we are is not a good time to invest, because when we’re wrong, favorite hand is costly.

Turn 450 - 8♠

H checks back

River 450 - K♠ Q♠ 6♥ 8♠ T♦

V lead shoves 1025...

We have a range advantage on this flop. And we have nothing. So we want to c bet & I'm happy to bet bigger because we want folds - what would we bet with AK KK & QQ. Bet that because we're happy to fold out pocket pairs.

As played our tiny c bet means we've kept his range wide. We still have nothing and we still want folds. Bet bigger to 'set up' the river shove (that we prolly won't make)

I'm betting $250-300.

Wow. What a river card. Things just got even more interesting.

The only way we don't call is if we give him the nut flush. But there wouldn't seem to be very many combos. ATss, maybe A5ss. I wonder if he gets here this way with AsJx and we're chopping.

I mean, he has to have the As in his hand, I'd think, unless he was sand-bagging KK/QQ/KQ and thinks he's betting for value, targeting all our hands worse than his top 2P or top/middle set. It feels kinda thin.

I might give him 2-3 combos of the NF, versus 6 combos of KK/QQ, 3 of KQ, and maybe occasionally 1 or 2 combos of TT, plus some chops with other AJo, and maybe some AsKx or other AsXx combos that were planning to do this on spade run-outs.

I dunno, Banana. I don't think I could fold our specific hand in this spot, even facing the over 2x pot jam from a tight-conservative player. If he has the NF, I might just call it a cooler.

I may have to downgrade this hand to 1 or 2 Bananas on the Stupid Banana scale. If you lost to the NF, I wouldn't beat you up, because I wouldn't expect this V to have many AXss combos here.

ETA - if the reveal is that V showed up with something completely unexpected, I may have to give your reads a sarcastic slow clap.

Well as the Cowboy in the Big Lebowski said: "sometimes you get the Bear and sometimes the Bear gets you...."

Perhaps the V has fallen into his own bear trap. He has very few NFs as Doc says. He really should have bet his sets on the turn with the 8s on board. He probably should have xr his sets on the flop. I think he has to bet turn with Ts9s.

I cannot find a fold here holding the Js. If V has us beat, it is something of a cooler, although there's a good argument to fold preflop as discussed.

I realize V may be counting on our ability to level ourselves into a call here against a jam. I'm hoping Banana hero-called for a chop here. This would be a just ending to the tale.

Genuinely interesting river spot, V is essentially repping flushes and you have an indifferent call/fold mix hand in theory. Blocking AJ/JTss. Ultimately Banana this comes down to how capable you view the opponent - if I was playing as V here my expectation would be that all flushes will bet turn as well as naked A of spades unless AK/AQ which checks sometimes - against this capped range I will find bluff jams w/ a hand like AThh. If he defends AQo w/ As preflop also an interesting bluff candidate. You are also chopping against AJhh, and there is a small sliver of QQ/66 that arrive like this that can conceivably overplay that you are beating, even if they “shouldn’t” be jamming. Flip side though against population nitty fanny-pack wearing regs my expectation is he may be slightly underbluffing this spot. Ultimately up to you to make the judgement call how often he is bluffing in this spot, mixing some calls here to keep him honest is reasonable.

We may need to start a never-ending thread called "Fear of the Fanny Pack", in which we all post our horror stories of hands played against V's with the aforementioned accessory.

Also, @Stupidbanana , in light of the river card and action, good check back on the turn. It seems fairly likely he was sandbagging a monster, and may have check-jammed on you.

I may have literally vomited in that spot. Just typing it makes me queasy.

Agree with @GreatWhiteFish that V's tank-call on flop is not necessarily an indication of weakness. I do think if you bet smaller on the flop V may have very likely x-raised.

Trying to get inside V's head. He could be thinking one of these:

1. Hero never has AJo here, and never checks back turn with a flush, so the river is just a brick and he can jam KQ+ for value, targeting hero's AA/AK combos.

2. Hero has KK/QQ here, and checks back the turn spade for pot control, but won't be able to fold a set on the river, even facing a 2x pot jam, so he can jam AJ for value.

3. They're chopping if he can't get hero to fold, so he's free-rolling when he jams. Not sure if he's doing that with AsKx or AsJx. Wild if he's doing it with AsAx and putting hero on AA no spade.

I dunno. Feels like we're either coolering KK/QQ/KQ, or we're getting coolered by ATss/A5ss, or we're chopping with AsJx.

Looking back at the flop, I'm starting to wonder if he has more AXss in range. This would be sick if he has A6ss. Expecting to see results-oriented post-hoc recriminations for hero's turn check back that lets V's AXss combos draw for free.

Not a huge fan of the turn check back, we have close to bottom range and a great blocker to keep bluffing, I think without the As we can't really empty the clip but at least one more street to make him fold out his Qx, some weak Kx, stubborn pocketpairs that called the small bet on flop or guttys that still have equity or could bluff us out on brick rivers.

As played, if you mdf it this is a snap call, I really wouldn't overthink river to be honest. You don't have enough history on the guy yet to make an exploitative fold.

Result:

V is a fish

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WP, SB.

There are some people that spaz when bad turns and rivers come. They think they are slow playing and then get frustrated so they bet REALLY big, stupidly big.

Villain should probably 4! preflop. Villain has to raise the flop with top set on a wet board. You probably would have folded to a raise on either street, but that doesn't matter. Villain's river shove is just awful. Seems like he doesn't want to face a decision if he bets and is raised. He should maybe check river, with the option to x/c or x/r.

I actually like exactly how you played it, although preflop 3! is loose. I would have checked back turn and maybe checked back flop too. I was going to say call river. It looks like he could have a bare As or be spazzing. Definitely a call from an MDF perspective.

Without checking results:

This might be the most interesting hand you've ever posted, SB.

It's difficult to imagine him playing AA KK QQ 66 KQs this way. A lot of his open-folds are probably A9-2s's. From his likely perspective hero is a super LAG. The YAM/fanny pack combo is no BS concerning as is up $250 with no showdowns after three hours in this looney structure. I highly doubt the two minute tank otf was Hollywooding.

The only hands I can give him are AsKx ATss JTss AJhh. C&D seem the most likely to tank *call* otf and then snap shove after a scary river card.

So I guess I fold, and also would've folded pf ldo.