1-2 T9 on Ts9c7c6s9s in limped pot (GG special ;)

Snap call. 87ss makes sense but there are more combos of T9, which is the effective nuts. I could see any full house making this play too, since your hand looks like it could be spades and Villain is trying to get unstuck.

The $15 turn overbet is scary (looks like 8X or nothing) but IMO players don’t view these bets as being large relative to the pot. They look at them like “$15 is not a lot of money to bet with two pair or a set” as opposed to “I’m betting 3X pot cause I’m polar to the nuts or nothing.”

Pre - You should fold because it sucks hitting a flop you never wanted to see in the first place and losing your stack :P

Flop - I'd probably bet almost always for like $5 because you'll get a lot of random calls from worse, but I like to maintain a LAG image and tiny pots like this are great opportunities to be seen betting without too much money. That said, I don't think checking is "wrong", just a stylistic decision.

Turn - Ugly, but I see no option but calling. I agree with Dan, V probably doesn't see it as "large" because $15 is often just a regular preflop raise. The $ size of the bet is often more important than the size of the pot. But that he is betting at all screams two pair or better.

River - Bailed out or roped in. V2 has so many straights, could have backdoored a flush or lower FHs. You have to value bet. The shove is gross, but you run into a chop or smaller boat more than you run into the SF or tens full so it has to be called off.

Your best chance to fold was pre, this is why I hate the BB in limpfest games. I make a point of raising my BB when limped to more aggressively than might be prudent for my current hand and tell everyone I'm going to punish limpers because I want to discourage this type of action. So anything that I might call a regular raise from the BB with is going to have $25 put on top of it if action limps to me. T9o is a bit cuspy for that, 67s+ or QJo+ I would have raised big pre. It doesn't always work, and sometimes you'll be caught by the old fishy trick of limping/backjamming AA, but it does seem to cut back the limping when I'm BB. It's worth $100 through a session if you can avoid some ugly spots you never wanted to play in the first place. I'd rather have a playable hand OOP in an inflated pot than risk getting second best in a bingo game where ranges are every card in the deck. I have no idea if that strategy is +EV, but it's good for my table image and it makes me feel better.

I like a bet here. In those very low pot sizes, bet to pot ratio matters less than absolute size, so I'm going 10, with the expectation that most of the time in low stakes anyone who has any piece will call.

As for now, snap calling. Good chance we are ahead, and even if it's a smaller chance, we amost certaily still have the odds.

I just fold the turn. He bet $15 into $6?

Flop i would go ahead and bet $10-12. It's a loose passive game and you block top and middle pair, and there are all kinds of draws that want to see the turn.
On the turn I would just sigh fold.

River, where the real money decision is... We lose to 87ss and TT, both of which are consistent with the betting pattern. But if TT checks the flop then so do other sets, and with the flush out there I can imagine an under boat feeling pretty good.

I can't tell if the table talk is misdirection but usually the easiest "lie" is the truth so I don't feel we have enough reason to fold

BTW - not sure why you put the spoilers in. They're useful info on your thinking and villain's actions, and help with the post.

Ranges only get smaller, so he has to check flop and 3x pot turn with a hand that makes a worse full house. For different FHes 66 makes some sense, TT maybe (although it's not a worse FH), but 97/96 seem much less likely to me.
As I said I agree with the 3x pot in limped pots not really meaning 3x pot, but even so most people tend to default to 10 which is ~2x pot (maybe not on this board).

To be fair I don't think I considered a chop, at the time.

First two were my thoughts about what I did and why, so people could decide what they would do without being influenced (and the general consensus seems to be to always overbet flop, which is interesting for our checking range because I doubt I have much TT/99 here although J8/86 are obviously in range and at least some 77).

River was the table talk thing where maybe people might be "Well I'd just auto call this hand, but the table talk might make me re-think"

Probably wait another day before the reveal.

Sure. I wouldn't rule out someone checking a big hand on the flop though. He can be going for XR on flop with T9 or 77. Then chooses the big size on the turn to make up for lost time. Clearly can't assign him full combos of any of the full houses, but the nice thing about a spot where only 2 total combos beat you is that Villain just doesn't need to have very many combos that you beat in order for this to be a call.

As you say a pretty "standard" hand but absolutely not without interest - these situations aren't always obvious

I think it's played fine. I'd bet the flop more often than check, your hand can withstand a raise. But no issues with the check. Agree with others that large flop size is common in these limped pots, absolute bet is small and while this is probably some sort of made hand it may well be one that feels vulnerable and could well be worse than yours. No need to raise, but folding top two to a bet of 15 would seem absurdly tight.

River is fine, this can be worse a lot (looks strongly like 77). Somewhat unlikely this is a straight of a flush but just call - don't begrudge giving your opponent with the straight flush your money!

You also lose to TT.

Think the hand was played fine. The live tells are interesting, if we think sad looks are strong, or wonder if he's sincere.

Don't see how we can fold. If he's got us beat, he's just getting paid.

Wondering if his turn card check is indicative of a straight that needs to think about flush possibilities, like J8ss that slow played flop.

The speech sounds like sincere exasperation from playing bad and running bad.

I also wouldn't be shocked if V has 66.

I would have snapped this off so fast there wouldn’t have been time for table talk. But I also would have folded turn.

If you fold turn here you need to consider quitting live poker. People spew bet draws so hard in limped pots in these kind of situations.

Flop is whatever.

River is a snap call. If you're beat it's just a cooler.

I think turn is an easy call if you consider absolute value, and that he could have a lot of hands.

I'm curious, if everything was 10x, i.e. the bet was 150 into a 60 dollar pot, would you still snap call?

lead flop

Assuming we started 2.5k deep? ... Not sure.

As I and others said the big thing to consider is that people spew overbet the first bet (or sometimes the 2nd if you bet a "normal" size first) in limped pots ... so if we are 10x deep and I have the same kind of read, then I call for the same reasons.
Another thing is that nobody at 1-2 3x pots turn and 3x pots river, because the pot is a "normal" size by that point, so if you aren't sure if you are ahead on the river you are probably just facing another 15 or 20 bet ... where if we were playing 10x higher I think 150 turn and 1050 river would be a possible line (and even if it's a smaller size it will be a more polarized range, instead of a weird merged range we beat some of).

Also if everyone is better, I doubt it's even a good call vs. range on the turn.

Reveal, even though GG didn't post yet 😉

My mind clicked "snap call", which is one of the reasons I laughed ... because I couldn't think of any reason V would look sad and then shove anyway unless he had one of the 1-2 combos. that coolered me, but I was also 99%+ sure I'm never folding. I did manage to think long enough to decide he could play TT this way after I said I only lost to straight flushes ... but not long/well enough to think of T9 or 66 and realize that's a giant amount of combos. compared to what I'm losing to.

For good or bad I now try _really_ hard not to finalize snap decisions without the absolute nuts/air anymore, esp. in bigger pots. Have had too many spots where I've thought about a hand for even another minute and remembered some important piece of information from earlier in the hand that I hadn't considered.

One of the reasons I didn't think even longer here was that when he replied that I had to call I believed he was telling the truth and was resigned to losing, so I called and he said "You're good, I thought you had a straight" ... he definitely showed J♠ and I think the other card was 4♠

Although people mentioned it was possible in this thread, I've still no idea why anyone would feel/look sad due to the raise and then put in even more chips. That breaks my brain.

Also even though I mix bet with this type of hand on this flop, when I do bet it'd always be a normal sized one ... a big takeaway from this thread is that I should probably be overbetting, when I bet, at low stakes. For similar reasons that I shouldn't be opening to 6bb but if they are calling 85o anyway and nobody is 3betting ... why not?

Re the overbet on the turn….not all 1.5xpot bets are made equal because most low stakes villains are thinking in absolute and not relative terms.

The fact that this pot was limped and then the flop checked through means it’s tiny still in absolute terms and for most people at low stakes a $15 bet into a $10 pot doesn’t need to mean they have as strong a holding as a $150 bet into a $100 pot would….even if it’s at the same stake.

Entitlement tilt. He had a good hand he didn't want to fold, and found a way to level himself into raising when he could have just called, if not folded. He probably told himself you could just have trip 9's, or a worse flush, or a straight.

I mean, he's not wrong. He did have a good hand, and it's not crazy to think you might have worse. You might bet the flop with T9, or jam all in with your better hands, so it's hard for him to put you on a monster, and not hard for him to think you might be over-playing worse value.

oh for sure, that's the point I was making.

Theoretically it should be the same, but absolutes do matter, because behavior does change at low absolute amounts.