Adjusting to bad LAG on my left

What is v's history of opening over the 5 straddle? His 10 raise pre looks full of it. Can you confirm he uses larger size with premiums? Esp over the limper? If so we can exclude AK, AQ, and any of the top 3 sets. So he is saying he has a lower two pair, 66, 22, or backed into JT.

I think his river line is either contemplating how much he should bet, but also could be him trying to figure out if he had enough showdown value to check.

Have you seen v tripple barrel bluff much before? Give up? Or go to value town with this line?

Depends on reads and history, but I lean slightly towards fold. This line and sizing looks like value.

Call.

Based on your description V plays and bluffs at nearly every pot.

As MLark observed his 10 open doesn't look like a big ace. m
i'd expect to call and win against a 6, or a missed draw or evens stone bluff.

I wouldn't put to much stock into his preflop raise amount, especially if he was confused about the action and you've already seen sizing tells from him.

At the river, your decision should be based on whether he's a maniac who'll bet ATC, or whether he's just a splashy LAG.

Since he sounds like the latter, the river feels like a fold.

Snap calling this guy.

Having to mentally count the pot is a bit weird because he's the only person that's bet at any point, and he hasn't varied his size relative to the pot so could easily just tripple the previous bet for 20/60/180. Having to count the pot happens to me a lot more often if I'm IP and call and then get checked to on the river.
Then again it is 2am.

Given that I would lean the read more to him having to think about his hand in some way, maybe he has A6/A2/KdQd/Kd2d/Qd2d/62 and is thinking about if he needs to be worried about better two pairs; or QJ and deciding if he can check; or could also have like 7d5d/7d6d/54 and thinking about if he should bluff this one off.

Any fold would be near the top of your one pair range, esp. for the weird preflop sizing.

6max GTOwiz BB v. UTG mostly calls (although sizings to get here are a bit different).

Result:

You THINK your issue is these hands. It is not. It's that you have no strategy against players like this. None.

I'm going to play few/some/many pots in/out of position and I'm going to open a tight/medium/wide range and play passively/average/aggressively and if I hit ai big hand I'm going to bet it/call and I'm doing this because.......

That's a strategy. I'm saying this to help. You don't have one.

i mean after the 84ss hand how could u ever fold anything to him

Think I might 3B pre, at least sometimes. I also think I might x/r the flop, at least sometimes. I might even x/r the turn sometimes.

As played, and with the reads and other hand histories, I think we have to call, but I'm not loving this spot, when V goes pot-pot-pot and we have TP, $hlt kicker.

By check-calling the whole way, we've let V realize all his equity, let him get full value for his strong hands, and put ourselves in the position of having to figure out if we can call with a marginal bluff catcher. It's fine if V is a spewtastic maniac, but if he's just a bit splashy, we're torching.

So how do we adjust?

This deep, against weak-passive V's who VPIP too wide, and a semi-LAG who likes to bet big post-flop, I'd be attacking any signs of weakness.

I don't know that we've seen enough from V to determine he's all that bad. We don't know what he had when we folded JT, and he had the best hand when he raised flop with AJ. The 84s hand was just pure spew, but it was just one hand, and I could see an argument for over-bet stabbing that AAK board when the nit checks flop, to fold out 99-QQ. I think the over-bet makes more sense than a small bet, if he's got air and trying to fold out PP's below the board.

So, how to adjust:

1. Punish the limpers and V's weak raise by 3B'ing with a wider range. A7s isn't really all that great to play as a flat call, but I think it works well as a raise, inasmuch as we can fold out some better AX pre, and go to the flop with an uncapped range, with a hand that can make the nuts. I'd have made it $60 pre.

2. Check-raise the flop. Start with range-checking from OOP. We might check-raise our AX with BDSD's and KXdd with NFD's on this board, and of course our sets and 2P. After we flat call pre, we're capping our range, but we're going to have 66/22, as well as A6 and A2 in our range. It's really doubtful V has a strong enough hand to withstand real pressure when he opens for $10, even when he c-bets 2/3 pot, which looks bluffy following his $10 open, and is mostly just repping 66/22 or A6/A2.

3. All the above said, our hand functions well enough as bluff catcher on the flop, so I'm fine with the flat call pre, and the flat call on the flop. While we're not going to have AA/KK/AK in our range, V really doesn't have those hands either, but he could have some weak Kx that will call a turn check-raise, and some draws that will continue to barrel, so after flatting pre and on flop, I think the turn is a good spot to x/r. He's not going to know what to do, because we're not going to have that many strong hands in our range on the turn. He won't want to fold if he has any piece of the board, and won't raise without a really strong hand, so he's mostly just going to call.

4. Even if we know he'll barrel off with air, I don't like check-calling pot sized bets on flop and turn with just a weak top pair. It's okay if he folds some worse hands on the turn, because our hand isn't strong enough to try to get value on three streets. It's a little too in-between. I'd rather have some stronger aces, a draw to the nuts, or a 1P combo that blocks some of the hands that make the nuts on the river, like KJ, KT, QJ or QT of diamonds.

5. I don't really like showing down A7ss here. We look like a station. If V is remotely competent, he may decide to stop bluffing us, and just take us to value-town in future hands. I'd rather win this without a showdown, if possible. I would rather bet-fold the river than check-call. Yeah, we'd only be repping JTdd or 2P+, but we can have all those hands. If he calls, and we lose, we'll be able to get paid when we get to the river with strong hands. At least if we bet, and he calls, we can say "I have an ace", and muck without showing if he has a better hand. No reason for everyone to see our A7ss.

To be fair we also let him blast off for three streets with 8 high or whatever that really wanted us to raise flop or turn so it could fold 5% equity or less.

AIUI a decent plan for a bad lag who doesnt ever slow down is to just not fold much when we have something, and I guess people are saying OP didn't have a plan because he posted the hand when everything went pretty much as expected and H won the max.

If V starts checking back turns to realize equity it becomes worse to just x/c flop, but it can't be bad when we won piles.

Respectfully, I think this is being results oriented. We happened to win piles here. We could have easily lost piles. And we've sent a clear message to V that we'll bluff-catch light, likely impacting the value we'll be able to get from this V in the future.

Not only did we send V that message, the whole table apparently noticed what we called with. What are the odds any of them will attempt to run a three-street bluff on us in this session, or even try to bet really thin for value? I would be very hesitant to continue making light calls against anyone in this game after this hand.

The way OP played this hand is similar to, if not the same as what Bart Hanson has dubbed "a negative equity slow-play". Our check-call on every street line just allows V to get to the river with all his draws, and all his worse hands that have some equity to improve to a better hand.

If we *KNOW* V plays this way all the time, and is more likely to have air than value, and he's incapable of adjusting in game, okay, fine. Go ahead and make this play. But otherwise, it's just bad poker.

Also, FWIW, Banana has a tendency towards labeling players as crushers or fish based on very limited info. I wouldn't rely on the three hand histories we got to be indicative that he's always blasting off with bluffs, but not also playing his value this way, especially given the read that V always takes the high variance lines.

Yeah, he could have air, but he could also have the nuts, which is why I hate check-calling the whole way with a marginal bluff-catcher.