NL2/3. Turn decision with AhTd
7 handed. HJ has a stack $180. I have $280. BB has us covered.
Loose recreational open limps at LJ or HJ. I iso raise at CO w AhTd to $20. BB, who is a 2/5 reg, flats and HJ calls.
Flop: Th2c3d
I cbet $40. BB calls and limper folds.
Turn: 8c
BB leads $55. I?
The best thing the villain did in the hand was getting dealt aces. You can make any old ropey play look godlike with the right hand. Preflop is absolutely terrible, but of course it's still +EV; it's Aces.
Obviously always lots of +EV to play things, but I think preflop is defensible with shorty fish behind and his postflop line is fine. Board is completely drawless, so let the original raiser cbet and then flat to bring in the fish. Now donk the turn to make sure it doesn't check thru and we can play for stacks. And facing a later street jam is always dicey, so no harm in thinking things over before confirming to follow thru with the plan.
Honestly, Villain's play in the hand is far better than
Like I and others said, some reads on V might be helpful here. All we know is that V is a 2/5 reg. I wonder if we're supposed to infer he's likely to be more splashy in a lower-stakes game.
Understanding that your pre-flop game is very limp-flat oriented, I understand why you like V's line pre. I'm generally in the other camp, and likely to hate myself if I end up losing a big pot to an opponent who would have folded some garbage hand to a 3B pre, but then flops or turns a hidden monster.
The one debatable reason I could have to flat with AA in the BB is that because we're going to have such a wide flatting range in the BB, a 3B looks super-strong, and generates too many folds. I would guess the counter argument is that we can 3B to a smaller size. V could min-click it if he wanted to, or just make it 2.5x-3x.
I'd also like V's play if we had a read that HJ was an OMC type, fond of the limp-3B pre. That would be awesome, if HJ 3B's, hero calls, and V gets to back-raise.
But once V elects to flat pre, I'd think he'd prefer to start fast-playing on the flop, to make up for lost value, or continue to play his hand like a bluff-catcher, by checking turn. He can always put in a bet on the river, if the turn checks through.
There's not much reason to worry about the turn checking through, though. The limper folded on the flop. If hero picked up a BD draw on the turn, he's likely to just keep barreling, once they're heads-up. Likewise, if hero was betting his hand for value, he's likely to keep betting, and probably for a larger size than V's donk.
I wouldn't say the board is completely drawless. Aside from 54s being open-ended, any 1P hand in hero's range has the potential to turn 2P, and any PP has the potential to turn a set. Since V did nothing to define hero's range pre or on the flop, and hero opened from the CO, it seems like almost any turn might improve hero's hand.
Which is why I suspect V tanked facing hero's jam. I was thinking V could have T8 or 88, but once we get the reveal that he had AA, it seems likely he was worried about hero having either of those hands, on top of hero possibly having TT.
The whole line just seems like schizophrenic FPS to me, and it would serve V right if hero did turn 2P or a set.
