Two back-to-back hands vs whale — is river fold standard in 2nd hand?
1/2 NL live, villain is a classic loose whale playing any two cards, calling wide preflop, very passive postflop, never seen him bluff so far. Posting both hands since they happened back-to-back and may affect each other.
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Hand 1:
I open CO to $15 with 7♠7♦, V calls in SB (~$500 effective).
Flop ($30): 8♣7♥️2♣
He checks, I bet $15, he calls.
Turn ($60): A♦
He checks, I bet $40, he calls.
River ($140): 9♥
He checks, I bet $125, he just calls and shows 8♦2♦️ (top and bottom pair on flop).
Very surprised he didn’t raise at any point despite having top & bottom pair on a fairly drawy board.
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Hand 2 (shortly after):
I open CO to $15 with A♠Q♦️, V calls on the button.
Flop ($30): Q♥️4♣️2♣
I c-bet $15, he calls.
Turn ($60): 6♠
I bet $35, he calls.
River ($130): T♥
I bet $90, and he snap raises to $200.
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Main question:
I folded to his snap min-raise. But here’s what I’m thinking:
• If he didn’t raise the river in Hand 1 with top & bottom, then his decision to raise this river in Hand 2 feels much more polarized.
• Is there any reasonable chance he’s bluffing here with busted clubs or random air without SDV? Or do these kinds of whales just basically never bluff min-raises on the river?
Given the timing and his prior passive behavior, I leaned heavily towards him having QT, sets, straight or some random two pair and made what I think is a fairly nitty fold.
Would love to hear how others approach these types of spots vs passive whales.
7 Replies
I think your sizes are a bit weird. Maybe that's an exploit for the player.
Would be much happier to go bigger in H1 on turn, and smaller in H2 on river (and everywhere, tbf).
Unless I've seen V do weird bluffy things, I think H2 is a fold even without seeing H1.
I guess in H1 he might decide you have a bunch of A9/A8/A7, and is maybe worried about straights on the river, and would be less worried in H2 ... but that just means he'll be happier to raise hands that beat you.
There's some chance he thinks you "don't have it", but I can't see that being 25% of the time.
I think your sizes are a bit weird. Maybe that's an exploit for the player.Would be much happier to go bigger in H1 on turn, and smaller in H2 on river (and everywhere, tbf).Unless I've seen V do weird bluffy things, I think H2 is a fold even without seeing H1.I guess in H1 he might decide you have a bunch of A9/A8/A7, and is maybe worried about straights on the river, and woul
H1: $40 into $60 is 0.66p though.. plus A is such a bad card because he will fold 8x to a big size.. right?
H2: I’m just targeting Qx
How long have you played with him without him bluffing? Big difference between 2 hours (which ofc is only approx 50 hands) and 20 hours+
If it's closer to 2 hours I'm probably just calling vs a splashy whale. It's one of the best hand hands you will have to call with here. (It's a little better than KK-AA because you're blocking the two pairs)
I do expect to usually get shown QT and occasionally a set.
H1: $40 into $60 is 0.66p though.. plus A is such a bad card because he will fold 8x to a big size.. right?
H2: I’m just targeting Qx
Yes, he folds a lot of trash in H1 on the turn ... that doesn't mean you size down when you have the virtual nuts, esp. as you started off 250bb deep and still have like 8 SPR.
Even better you unblock a lot of hands that can't fold like NFD or even A8.
You even unblock Ac7c which looks like the nuts, but is crushed by your hand.
Then in H2 you bet very close to the same amounts, but instead of having the virtual nuts on the turn and losing to 16 "normal" combos. on the river ... there are like 34 "normal" combos. we are crushed by on the turn, and we have no blockers to any draws, then we bet river for roughly the same size progression "targeting Qx" but the normal Qc is basically QJ and maybe some KQ/Q9 now? (and if he has KQ he probably has TT as well).
If he has Q7 or even Q8 then he probably has at least some Q6/T6 too (and given the 82o in SB hand, let's stop pretending and assume he has almost every two pair combo. by the river).
Again, not saying it's terrible. You can be exploiting him by having a strat. vs. this player to always bet 50% pot / 50% pot / 75% pot with any value hand but you should be very sure you are exploiting and not just doing that automatically.
Assuming your reads are correct:
- hand 2 easy river fold, careful though because if your read is a little incorrect villain only needs 21% bluffs for you to call.
- hand 1 is a sizing error on the turn or river. Doesn’t matter all that much which street you overbet but you need to be all in by River. You label villain an ATC whale who calls down light, stop trying to guess (inconsistently) at what he will call with and just put the money in, you need to give the calling station whales a chance to be a hero, that’s how you get paid
H1: $40 into $60 is 0.66p though.. plus A is such a bad card because he will fold 8x to a big size.. right?
H2: I’m just targeting Qx
H1 I think it’s a mistake to target 8x. Guy has so much AX (AXcc, A8o, A2s, and he probably floats flop with a lot of broadway AX esp with a club). A passive whale like this isn’t folding any of those hands for any size on the turn, but he’s also not raising them. So you need to shovel money into the pot with 77 as fast as you can.
H2 is sadly a fold. You took the same exact line as the hand where you showed him the nuts and he still raised. We already know he likes to trap from the 82s flop call too.
How long have you played with him without him bluffing Big difference between 2 hours (which ofc is only approx 50 hands) and 20 hours+If it's closer to 2 hours I'm probably just calling vs a splashy whale. It's one of the best hand hands you will have to call with here. (It's a little better than KK-AA because you're blocking the two pairs)I do expect to usually get shown QT a
We should take a Bayesian approach here (Ed Miller does really well explaining this), because being able to bluff the river vs, should be anchored on priors for general population
In this case say 85% of the 1/2 population is capable of big river raise bluffs, and 15% not.
Each observation we see from villain moves that probability. In this case given the obserations, it's only moved the probability down, perhaps it's now 13% based on what we observed.
WP up to now. Like the thin value bet on river, and now fold.
