Calling down with aces

nh

Seems fine. I sort of want to raise every street, but I'm not sure you get called by worse, except on the flop.

Against random amateurs, you don't need to worry so much about balance or whatever, so with this very small flop lead, I think it's probably better to make a small raise and build the pot. But if you want to be passive sometimes, AA is a good hand for that since it's the least vulnerable.

once you get to the river Im probably not folding that often but i think never folding is wrong. so what would we look for to change a "never fold" to some frequency of folds?

There's a few different criteria to look at:

1) assessment of villain: most 1/3 opponents dont have a 3barrel range with air or even 3barrel range turning made hand into bluffs (low or no SDV type stuff), so looking for a healthy amount of natural bluffs. Boards that offer more than one combo set of straight draws or SD + FD etc.

2) Timing tells - 95% of villains, even good ones, arent going to rush in a bet on the river. and by rush i mean QUICK. river gets set, 2-3 seconds for them to process "flush comes in" and they instantly have a handful of chips going into the middle - this more often indicates bluffs because value hands are going to take a moment to deliberate "how much can i bet?" even if they're just middle of the road opponents - they're going to pause and ponder. A better more experienced player MIGHT have this deliberation prior to the river being tabled and so _could_ have a clear idea of "when my flush hits im betting 100" or something similar but this player is probably experienced and tending towards solid player, and most often solid players are going to have a standard "10 seconds til action" countdown they always do unless its a very difficult spot.

Important to note though that all of these statements are not absolutes. Flopped nuts may just auto pilot the whole way with bets fairly quickly. hands like 99, 66, and 44 for example. A hand like 78 only needs to make sure the river isnt a flush and while it pairs the board, a villain who tends to make a mistake of betting too often in spots they should be checking could also be quickly pushing a bet in on the river.

3) not holding Aspade means villain could have some AsXs hands - especially pair plus draw hands, but this factor would then need to be filtered thru points 1 and 2. The As4s hand might hurry in a bet, satisfying our hypothesis.

That said, BB leading into 2 players + 1 of them being pre flop raiser without much of a concern typifies strength especially for more recreational players but the bet sizing is off for your run of the mill opponent who hit a solid hand - i'd expect something like 1/2pot up to 75% with solid value. I'd say a better player would also take a second to think about whether or not donking here or checking is going to yield the best results.

Flopped sets and some 9x hands both fit the strong value, T9 however does fit and makes a sensible narrative here as well and T9 is absolutely in a BB calling range.

So while I dont think calling is the biggest mistake, I really think there's enough reasons here given what is provided in OP to say folding river might just be the best choice of any.

Furthermore, raising the turn for value simple 2.5-3x is also better than flatting simply because if you are ahead here, most villains wont stick that 3rd bet in for value most of the time and if they do check the river, their check/call range might not be as wide as you want. Without much more info on villain, i cant make any better observation beyond general population tendency.

And going back once more, I dont mind raising flop. nobody is tracking your play enough to exploit you enough it sounds like but i think the value of raising flop is better than raising the turn given the weak sizing. the argument against that statement on value is the range of hands that call turn raise might be stronger equity wise vs AA than the range on the flop. IP though I tend to want to raise turns more often and maybe this is something i should be thinking about more especially against weaker fields and perhaps raising more flops might net better results.

But my standard strat is raising turn with stronger hands and raising flop w/ hands that have middling SDV (pair + blocker) plus other obvious combos, whereas i start to get more polarized on turns more often.

If you raise the turn and they call, I'm checkin back rivers that arent faces or the age of a toddler/infant.

One other quick point: the archetype of villain who donk leads in these spots tends to be loose/weak up to loose/aggressive. loose passive opponents do NOT donk here even with a weak bet without the goods. Loose weak players see a raise preflop "put you on AK" and try to stab and scoop but tend to give up on teh turn. loose agressive players however have the 3barrel range iwth less than the best but they're gonna stand out more. in 2 rounds, these types have played almost every hand limp calling raises even and will CC 3bets. if in 2 rounds opponent hasnt been too active, then once again i'm concluding more evidence that river is definitely closer to a fold. turn I still might raise some # frequency as well except against the type of villain who plays every hand like they hit the nuts in which case, when im their dancing partner i tend to let them lead pretty much the whole song.

im not folding the river to this size bet when worse overpairs or Tx that flopped a draw is probably in range. this might even be random button clicking with something like 77.

given the other responses here, I wanna provide a bit more of solid answer vs the "maybe this maybe that" of the prior reply -

against an absolute unknown random, i still think calling 3 barrels when you've raised pre is wild but sure - call it off. The information you gain if you get to see their hand is absolutely worthless if they're a bad player because it will only confirm something you can easily find out within another orbit or so.

But i guess i'd ask if they're 3barrelling here given action pre and post, you should be able to make an argument to raise the river precisely because the argument to call 3barrels is more or less the same. Which means this opponent doesnt magically have some ephiphane and considerably change their strategy facing a raise and should then have sufficient hands that call the raise now that you beat as well.

The logic of calling is that they arent clear enough on value of the hand so if they 3barrel with light ****, a chunk of that light bs will also call the raise as I doubt their range would collapse similarly to someone who is more familiar with what that raise represents and would fold off every paired hand you are still ahead of rather than fold all Tx to a raise.

That said, i'm not advocating raise river but just demonstrating the call river argument isnt far off from one made to support raising their river bet given the assumptions posed/estimates on hand range.

There arent a lot of Tx hands that lead flop and now bet turn and river whereas the situation is certainly different if the T was on the flop and it went 9 turn 9 river or when flop was T9x brick turn 9 river.

If I'm gonna fold overpairs, AA is the last or 2nd to last i see reason to fold vs QQ or KK - I just have trouble finding clear reason given info provided to call it down other than "well i have THE over-est of overpairs" and we block a grip of A9 combos.

Im really trying to come up with solid reasoning behind calling it down but given just the above I honestly dont think i can write a strong conclusion to do so. And i'd consider myself a very sticky player who jsut doesnt find people's efforts to represent strong hands convincing often enough, and often to my detriment too, but im willing to be wrong in this specific situation but good god where is this game where bad loose villains just fire 3 streets w/ hands weaker than Tx?

She showed 87s for a straight and beamed saying she flopped an OESD. I mucked.

I thought about raising the flop. I was planning to bet most turns if she checked. Thought there was a good chance she had a draw. If I raise, I represent an overpair, which I have. Could maybe have a set of 9s, but otherwise couldn't hit it hard. So thought it a little tricky to build the pot and define my hand, where she could have all sets and could maybe make a flush or straight.

I didn't think about folding the river. Don't think you could against anyone decent, but maybe against a face up random. Two flush draws missed. Two pair was sort of unlikely, but those that didn't boat up got counterfeited. She could maybe be betting worse for value. When I called down, it was hard to fold the river. If she had made it like 125, I might have folded.

nh / br

I'm fine with preflop.

SPR is 8.5 and we gave two opponents great IO of 28+:1 preflop, so I definitely don't want to aim to getting stacks in postflop. So I'm also just calling the flop. ETA: Any flop raise introduces stacks, which I think is pretty bad given the IO we offered preflop.

Turn things are getting dicey. Opponent still seems unfazed, and 87 and TT just got there. But against an amateur who may overvalue and have zero clue of what is going on, I'm fine with a call.

River is also a little gross in that she's still betting for a third consecutive street and 9x got there (although 9x checks the overcard turn a lot). I mean, yeah, the flop flush draw busted... but ime an amatuer woman is barreling a busted flush draw exactly 0% of the time. Almost no one barrels TP due to being super worried about being raised on the river. But, we're up against an amateur, we only have to be right 25% of the time, and this still could be a worse overpair. So I'm cool with a calldown. ETA: I mean, I think we're shown better like 70% of the time (admittedly number somewhat grabbed out of my bum), so we're going to feel stoopid a lot... but I think (???) we'll be good just barely enough to eke out a profit here.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Passive amateurs in my games flat JJ and QQ somewhat regularly, so I would say that you beat value here and thus cannot fold. If she shows a better hand, you likely lost the minimum.

Happily calling down, expect to win frequently against busted spades, a mid pocket pair, sometimes a 6x or overpair.

Sure we lose to 9x and straights but I would think a call is printing.

A BB who donks this flop and barrels all streets has a strong holding. Many loose passives will never barrel the river with QQ and JJ on a paired board with possible straight. I understand in theory you have to call here more than fold. But for me it would be highly read dependent.

I think the hand plays easier if you raise the flop, charging the draws and defining V’s range. On the flop, why the concern over stacks?

I'm guessing it was 78...but oh well

At this SPR, any postflop raise trivially puts stacks in play. Even a "standard" 3x raise versus the lol 1/3 PSB (which actually offers terrific 3.5:1 odds to draws) will produce a $115 pot with just $340 left... meaning just an ~80% PSB on the turn leaves just a PSB behind for the river. And things escalate even quicker if we raise a more reasonable amount on the flop (i.e. a $60 raise produces a $165 pot with $325 left, which means a ~75% PSB on the turn leaves just a ~50% PSB left for the river).

GcluelessNLnoobG