5/10/25 2500 cap Pocket 9s versus LAG

I don’t understand this line of reasoning. In my mind, you can’t bloat the pot until the turn or river. Before that everyone is jockeying for information. The 3bet sends a message, especially from the sb, that should make decisions easier moving forward.

99 is at the top 95% of possible starting hands. Why would you not be aggressive?

i got in trouble for saying this in another thread but i legitimately think you cannot be a winning player if you fold the flop to b22 here. its probably worth something in the neighborhood of 3.5bb at equilibrium and likely more vs this guy. i just don't understand how you're not completely hemorrhaging in every node if your standard is to fold this. its not super clear what our sb flatting is going to look like, but you're probably folding something like 90% of range in a spot you're meant to defend 80% lol.

you can say you don't have an ego but if you put your fingers in your ears and refuse to read the logic in this thread while insisting that you're correct, to me that's also a form of ego.

i still think v is likely to be reggy based on the description

This was very well said and I fully agree. I don’t mind folding strong hands against certain players, and never really thought about it, but I play fit or fold against them too. If I feel like I’m in control against 4 or 5 players in a game, why take a flip with a tricky player.

There’s a few players in my pool that often escalate with unexpected overbets & I don’t mess with them without strength. For the most part they know this, so when I get involved, they often get out of the way too.

I love theory - but this game is about the people and that thinking ahead part involves treating each player as an individual. Some you scrap with, because they’re easy. Others you don’t mess with unless you’re loaded.

Imagine how easy that this hand is to play if we 3bet pre to $250. If he calls, heads-up flop pot is $520.

Flop ($520): TT2r. Hero cbets $180. Villain calls because he likes to float.

Turn ($880): 3cc. Hero checks because Villain seems like a young hotshot LAG who likes to bluff. Villain bets $1000 because he loves overbets. Hero calls happily because Villain is repping narrow and because Hero does block some T9s and even T9o (maybe this young kid calls big 3bets with T9 offsuit...who knows?)

River: ($2880) Tccc. Hero checks. Villain probably shuts it down because Hero's range looks like a big pair that just boated up, and Villain "knows" that people don't fold big boats with JJ+ on TT23T boards to 1.35x pot small overbets. He suspects that he would need something more absurd like 2.5x or 3x pot overbet sizing to get a bluff through against something like QQ.

It's insane how risk averse this forum is. It's 2025. People are more aggro than they used to be. Deal with it.

Let's just be frank. This forum has been going downhill over the years. It's overrun with the most risk averse and money torching advice. All the real poker players who actually play the game the way that it is supposed to played have given up on the forum, and the ones still posting here are just pretending to play poker when they're really just playing bingo ("let's just set mine our way to victory!")

i think you guys are vastly misinterpreting the villain description. i dont really see much to lead me to believe he is opening let alone calling a 3b with t9o lol. or even that he necessarily overbluffs. there isn't really much clarity in the hh's posted, but small otf and overbets on variety of runouts / textures is standard and good. again the 95o sizing down and going for thin value to me doesn't seem like something that whales do. i doubt he is linus but i also very much doubt that he is a caricature in a wsop video game that is going to continually blast every decision point in every hand (these people are notable whales and an incredibly endangered breed in public poker 2025).

i understand op is set up to provide that but im somewhat hesitant to buy into that narrative as there arent a ton of hh's and the ones that are, are basically a fever dream. would be interested to hear exact details of the 95o hand as i think that would be the easiest one to see if whale or not

I suspect that Villain might be decent because he likes to use overbets. He understands that this game is NO LIMIT HOLDEM and not Pot Limit Holdem.

On the other hand, many of the live Villains who are creative enough to understand that also tend to open their BTNs and COs too loosely because they think the rest of the table are soft targets. And many of those Villains also tend to call 3bets too loosely because they think that they have a skill advantage postflop.

Plus we have a data point where he opened 95 offsuit on the BTN earlier versus 3 blinds (not the same configuration as opening the BTN against 2 blinds)

Which is why we should 3bet preflop here to capture the value that is there to be had. And we 3bet large to minimize our positional disadvantage.

At least 90% of the replies haven’t even mentioned OP’s question. Never change, 2p2.

Just a note: There is $165 in the pot on the flop.

TBF, I asked OP like 10 questions that would ACTUALLY help us answer his question on page 1 3 days ago, and he's left us to spiral into madness arguing with each other about whether you should call more when you're playing with the blue deck or the red deck.

In any case, people focus on the most marginal spots. Whatever question you have about the hole cards you happen to hold on the node you happen to be on, the answer is probably "It's close." The real opportunities for improvement lie on suggesting another branch you should have gone down with the combo you hold, or how you should play the hands you don't hold, or how you should play entirely different hands that escape your notice entirely when you don't have a tracker and just jot down the 4-figure pots in your phone.

Look around you: HHs are passe, forums are dying, all the answers you need are hiding in plain sight.

Oh, I agree.

I’m wondering now if H posted this hand because he folded and V didn’t show, but in subsequent similar hands V’s river overbets were called by other players and he had air every time?

Let's see your results crushing the games - everyone on here is terrible so you must be printing money.

Most people are more risk averse as they age.

Let's be real, how many regs on here are in early 20s? I'd assume people come here are from older guys who used to come 2+2 when it was still popular(10-20yrs ago).

Also bluff catching for 3 streets even vs a maniac can be scary. How often do people come into such situations? It's way out of our comfort zone.

Also majority of the users here don't even play 5/10 or higher. They are commenting based on their experience at lower stakes. Which is very likely a different game. Player pool and tendencies are very different. Maniacs at 1/3 probably can't even pull such trigger with air. 5/10 or 10/25 regs seem like normal spots for them because hero is capped.

You are actually one of the good players who still bothers posting quality advice, so you're definitely not terrible.

I don't agree with you about flatting 99 pre here (I would rather 3bet 99 for value), but I respect your opinion regardless.

I mean, I agree with your read on the forum in general, but it seems the trend is going the opposite way in this thread. OP wrote a HH clearly leading us to feel like this is a bluff and the people (I think) who have actually played these games and face overbets on the regular are the ones who are most skeptical.

Reasons why I think this is going the other way:

1) When you actually face overbets frequently, you know that they're still generally skewed toward value, even among the population that actually uses them.

So the first line of question is about the strength of the read. People who actually face overbets know small bet flop, overbet turn and river is a standard line, so seeing it twice over a few hours wouldn't get someone flagged as an abusive overbettor. That's why I asked how many times has he done it and how long the session's been going. I'd also love more details about the other hands (runout, actual sizes, positions, reads on opponents, etc) to see how fishy they really are. The flush hand seems sus to me, but I gotta see it.

2) When you actually face overbets frequently, then your brain doesn't just stop at "It's an overbet." These bets are rich texts and the more you've faced them, the more you read into them. For one, overbets when you're capped can be bluffs. Overbets (from a thinking player) when the majority of your range is boats and you can easily have 10 combos of that actual, literal nuts are value.

So the next line of question is how likely is this person to be a whale (more on this further down).

3) When you actually face overbets, you know there are enormous sizing tells. B150- are a lot more balanced than B275. I'll be honest, the times I can think of where I caught a non-drooler bluffing this large were at lower stakes where people are still working out the kinks and the money doesn't matter as much.

Also notice neither of these are exactly 3x or 2x pot. They're both clicked down a little bit, which are both tells. There's some $9.99 type pricing strategy going on by villain here.

So the the next line of question is what were their actual sizes in other hands.

4) When you play low stakes, the bluffiest players are described as "young and aggro." The lowest stakes are loaded with degens with underdeveloped frontal lobes who are happy to blow a couple hundred dollars of their paycheck, but when someone under the age of 40 feels comfortable throwing several thousand dollars around, then they probably earned that money from poker.

There are plenty of young fish at these stakes obviously, but I'm talking specifically ones running $3k bluffs into $100 pots. So the next line of questioning is whether he's wearing a $10k Rolex or he's known for being that guy who spiked the local Big Boiz of Poker tourney or something.

Of course, the young aggro pros in these games are bluffy, but given the first several points I made above, it's important to establish he's not just splashy but also fishy.

5) The more familiar you are with overbets, the less worried you are about being owned here. Between the turn and river villain is betting a combined 15 times the starting pot on the turn, and there is absolutely no reason we can't just have a T.

Either by dint of math or experience, you know you can easily beat these games without having a bluff catching range here.

6) This isn't stakes specific, but the other counterintuitive thing going on here is the gameflow dynamics. The fact that he just got his dick slammed in a car door means he's LESS likely to be doing this as a bluff and MORE likely to get frisky trying to get max value with the nuts that block the nuts. The natural inclination is to over-extrapolate what we learned from his failed bluff/thin value bet from earlier, which is why the frequency question is so important: do the other HHs show he's out of line or do they just suggest that the stars have aligned perfectly for villain to go off with quads.

I'm not even that adamant this is a fold. I'm like 65/35 and perfectly willing to change my mind based on any answer to any of the questions above. I'm just outlining why the more you play these games and the more you face overbets, the more suspicious you are of the story OP is selling.

Hero tanks for 2-3 mins while starting at villain and villain eventually gulps. Hero calls shortlya fter. Villain has ATo for turned quads.

Later in the session a gambler limp reraises him and he makes a 10x 4 bet shoves with JJ. Unclear how he would react to a 3bet pre with ATo.

Ooof you fell for the fake nervous gulp

Glad I chose this hill to die on. I was fully prepared for the "villain didn't even have two cards" NVG results.

Sorry for your loss OP. I think responses show you wouldn't be the only one, and at least you showed heart at the big boy stakes.

i think the biggest issue with this thread is you still don't realize he's good lol

Preflop is not terrible. Have to call the smallish cbet. Decision on turn with huge overbet. Maybe let him steal pots with such a large bet until more reads.

10x pot shove with JJ against a limp/3! is really bad without specific reads on player, etc. Unless opponent is awful, shove is getting called by QQ+/AK or tighter. Limp 3! could be that range to start with.

The plan on the flop should be to call down. When he makes the huge overbet, you need to reevaluate.

I am not sure how he is good shoving 10x pot with JJ against a limp/3!. Seems extremely reckless. That is more reason to stay out of the way against his overbets unless you have it.

So please explain lol how a shove for 10x pot or 10x raise with JJ against a limp/3! is good. The 3-bettor probably has AA/KK or some other big hand or some hand he limped with like a sc or Axs. He presumably folds all his bluffs and calls with AA/KK. You might get AK or QQ to fold. Is the 3-bettor such a whale that he stacks off with TT/AJ/A5s?

i mean he describes the villain in the hand as a gambler. seems unlikely to me that his range is KK+ lol