AQs hero vs weird line?

Looks like a very easy fold

So 610 pot with 270 to call seems like an actual decision as opposed to an insta-fold. I agree with matzah ball that this is an easy "population" fold but against this V, I might have trouble finding it.

We block top two pair and QJ. He's not checking top two from the sb on the flop and we have all the AK on the turn anyway.

Is he slow-play/check-raising 44 or TT here? Perhaps. But he also has a bunch of FDs and combos (Kdxd) to semi-bluff with. V could be tilting and we have redraws when we're behind. If he has the nuts he should just smooth call with the Ad on board, but H's read is that V isn't that sophisticated.

I suppose given that the post exists that we're supposed to hero call. It's a population fold on Baluga Theorem but probably a "live" call against this V.

No idea why QJ wouldn’t raise.

I think it’s an easy fold facing a raise from a loose passive when we’re at the bottom of our range. We can have a ton of way stronger hands and we still get raised. I understand the player is clueless, but that usually doesn’t mean they semi bluff a ton, especially in terrible spots to semi bluff.

Bet like 60 ott, and now fold. A passive player wouldn't usually do this with AJ or worse. I don't know why you're even questioning whether you should call or fold in a 5 way hand, unless you're leaving out some reads but even if I folded and he shows 27o I'd still be happy with my decision.

Might be okay to bet flop some with this hand, but it’s overwhelmingly a check.

Turn bet is already spew, especially at this size. Continuing to a raise is like a “you won’t make it out of 1/3NL until you stop doing this” level leak.

What is the problem with betting on the flop and turn?

Can't easily sum up all the scenarios of a 5-way pot, but long story short you induce more bluffs from worse hands, get lighter calls on later streets from the value range you're targeting, get bluffed off your hand less often by not making the pot bigger than you can handle for later streets, make it harder to get bluffed off other parts of your range, sometimes save money by putting $0 in when there's multiple bets and raises before action gets back to you, etc.

The turn is pure pot control. You're 34 combos from the top of your range (not counting super nutted draws that play better here) in a spot where you have ~150 combos before accounting for postflop action. Blasting off this much into 4 opponents for one bet and 2 opponents for another is just extremely ambitious.

AJ- is 56 combos in full, so assuming they actually continue to $100 OTT any less than 100% of the time, your bet marginally qualifies as a vbet just taking 1 player in isolation. And it's certainly not good enough for 2 more streets of value so it's pretty indifferent to vbetting even in that scenario.

Pre is good, but I'm opening for 12-15 normally here. Any reason for 10?

Flop: There's so much Ax and even Tx and draws that call you, I like the c-bet
Turn: I think bet and check are close here, but if we bet, it should be smaller. After he raises, we beat nothing but bluffs here, and unless we've seen him make those, or he's so bad that he could over value A9 or something, it's an easy fold.

Trusting the material I had studied was the hardest thing for me to do when I first started playing live. Of course technical knowledge is king. But sometimes you just have to put your trust in hard earned practical wisdom. It doesn't make sense to reinvent the wheel. Some things just are.

I don't have TOP in a digital edition and I'm not going to search page by page. So my apologies to Mr. Sklansky for butchering his words "... it doesn't matter what the action has been to this point. When V takes an action that tells you he has a specific hand no matter how unlikely; believe him until shone otherwise.". And, "You should strongly re-evaluate the strength of one-pair hands in the face of a raise on the turn.” - BalugaWhale

Your description of V reminds me of the first time that I played 2/5. Guy sits down 2 seats to my left. His knowledge of the game does not extend past the mechanics. Asks how much he can buy in for. It's match the big stack (me), so he does. Couple orbits later. 3 bet pot. He calls me down and shoves OTR. I call and he shows K2o and takes it down.

IDK if your V had 44, TT, or hit his gutter ball. But based on your description (and the stakes); that's his Range until I see otherwise...

AQ is ahead of both opponents calling ranges.

flop $20
turn $40 ($110 pot)

The turn is really close. I thought it was pretty easy, but when I set ranges in the equity calculator, I cannot find 50%+.

Against one opponent, we have roughly 60%, but against two opponents with Ah and broadway, we are only at 30-35%. Maybe if you bet small, like $20 Flop/$40 Turn, they might call with KQ-type hands.

$100 on the turn is definitely a spew but betting is not.

I limp in but at this stack depth a small juicer raise is probably fine too (so long as we have a solid handle on potential later street decisions for lottsa $$$).

SPR is 8ish against the SB, so okish / playable. Multiway OOP I'm just not looking to build a big pot ASAP with just TP, so even though there are obvious draws to get value from I'd either check/evaluate (mostly calling any reasonable bet) or bet smaller.

Turn is now bringing in commitment issues with the biggish flop bet being called multiways, so not in love with our spot here (and another reason I think a limp preflop is fine). I think I lean check as I don't want to be blown off my gutter. If betting, I'm folding. Yeah, he may be clueless. But he also just check/shoved a big street for decent $$$ against a 3barrel multiway; I mean, that's pretty clueless if he's doing this with worse.

GcluelessNLnoobG

This feels like a turned 2P+, most likely KT, but K4 wouldn't shock me.

When the clueless kid jams turn, facing this action, it's hard to give him enough worse hands to justify hero calling with just TP. Think it's a fairly standard fold.

Result:

It's an interesting hand, Banana.

Once again, we're forced to ask what "loose-passive" really means, as a read, when this kid is jamming K6dd here. That doesn't sound too passive. It looks pretty loose on paper, but he's calling a $10 open at 1/3, from the SB, getting good odds when the CO and BTN both flat call in front of him.

It didn't occur to me that V would be jamming a lot of KXdd here, when he can just call and try to make his hand on the river, or fold and live to see another day, when you bet over 2/3 pot. His pair of K's is going to win at showdown sometimes, when we have lower PP's or just a busted draw.

If we just give him every combo of QJ, every combo of KXdd, plus we give him all the KTs / K4s, and we think he check-jams all of them, it's pretty close. He's got:

12 combos of QJ that have us drawing dead to a chop 6.5% of the time.
4 combos of 2P (KT/K4) that have us crushed ~3:1.
9 combos of KXdd that have ~30% equity.

If we only give those combos as a range, he's got 9 combos we beat, and 16 that beat us. We're getting 2.25 to 1 on a call, but I think we need around 2.8 to 1, so I think we'd have to fold.

But if we think he slow-plays AK pre, or slow-plays all the AT and A4 combos on the flop, there are 12+ more combos that are crushing us. If we start giving him 44, or weird $hlt like T4, we can see how often we'll be behind when we call here.

I would have folded, because I'd be giving him 2P+. Fish at low-stakes just aren't finding enough decent-equity bluff-jams on the turn. Even if we think he's capable of jamming with all his KXdd, he's still got so much more thick value in his range.

RE: How accurate/inaccurate our reads of players are - IMO the core issue is the same as it is for many if not all of our other leaks. We plateau. Just like people do with exercising and dieting. We lack the Discipline to hone our skill. We get comfortable. We settle.

Attention to detail is critical. We should be examining our opponents the way scientists search for the God Particle. Peeling the onion to the core.

Examples:
John is a poster boy for loose passive;
Except when Richard in seat 7 is in a hand with him. John is as mild mannered as they come. But he almost had a stroke when he berated Richard 3 months ago for slow rolling him. Ever since, John is a maniac when Richard is in the hand. Have we noticed this dynamic?

Unknown in seat 3 just got paid 5 black chips for hitting HH (it's a 1/2 game) . He's been tight and straightforward so far. Do we start to pay attention for any signs that V will have Winners Tilt and get a bit loose and splashy?

V is loose passive preflop. But are his frequencies and tendencies on the flop, turn and river loose passive?

The above might not be the best examples. My point is that we need to analyze players based on long term and current dynamics. We need to analyze players, not with a broad brush, but to the finest detail we are able to. We need confirm that our current belief about our opponents is still accurate.

I give people a pass on the passive/aggressive spectrum when they raise a NFD+pair. Maybe it graduates them out of COMPLETE OMC nit rock who's just there for the high hand promotion, but it doesn't promote them any further.

Semi-bluffing is like cbetting: everyone's heard of it by now, and even otherwise passive players at the lowest stakes are going to do it sometime. If someone raises pre and bets 3/4p with AK on a Q-high board, I'm not suddenly gonna start bluff catching them with big river calls. If someone's shoving range is the nuts+some monster draws, that's still a passive shoving range.

If V had 2P and the nut flush draw, or TPGK and the NFD, sure. But V had 2nd pair, crap kicker, on a board where hero can have all the nutted hands, so it seems like he's just hoping to hit his flush draw, making this a hail mary bluff.

If villain is completely unaware of their surroundings, then just going off absolute hand strength, picking up a pair OTT to go with his NFD makes it extra super spicy.

If villain is somewhat aware of their surroundings, they might notice any of the following: the pair gives them a few added outs against Ax, it gives him the best hand against other combo draws, and it blocks KK/AK/KT.

I think there's a narrow band of players who are seriously weighing the differential value of various types of combo NFDs against each other given hero's range, BUT are not noticing any of the ways that K6dd IS actually better off than a bare flush draw.

You need 30% to call and you should have it vs most of his range - That said I think the turn bet is pretty optimistic vs 2 villians calling flop - i'd just check turn as getting jammed on is a disaster with a pair+gutter.

As played you can't really fold because the price is too good but expect to lose a lot.

I dunno. OP described V as not understanding the game. You're giving V a lot of credit here, given that description.

I think most low stakes rec-fish are pretty hesitant to push $371 (124bb's) into a pot with a bluff when they only have $40 invested and can otherwise get away from their hand, or flat call and try to realize for less, thereby saving some chips.

Everyone here is capable of looking at the action, and the odds he's laying OP with this bet, and saying it's a borderline call.

But from the perspective of a rec-fish, who probably doesn't even know exactly how much is in the pot after hero's turn bet, he's over-bet jamming turn, as a check-raise, over hero's bet into two opponents, after he raised pre and c-bet the flop. That's rarely going to be a bluff with a hand that actually has some showdown value, no matter what odds his bet is laying hero on a call.

Taking a hand that has showdown value, and turning it into a bluff by over-bet check-jamming the turn, into the PFR who c-bet flop and barreled turn, with only about 20% chance of improving, isn't really a play we'd expect from someone we'd otherwise describe as "loose-passive". That actually seems beyond aggro. I'd say it's borderline maniac.

Even if the kid was described as LAG, I still don't think this is a good call, because even a LAG is going to show up with a lot of hands that are better than KXdd, when he takes this line.

I think he's just a loose passive that got sick of bleeding down and spazzed to end his decision making. Thats what a lot of the players do at my game. They call and call and call waiting to hit and keep missing, then when they catch a piece they decide 'f-it I'm all in'

He's loose and passive. Don't pay him off when he hits something. That's nto to mention that you had 5 players call so the odds of someone having something there is rather good.

What you need to do is adjust your opens up to 15 to 20. That way you don't run into trouble. With 5 people in, betting with such wild abandon on the turn is setting yourself up for trouble.