PAHWM vs a hyper-LAG Russian

You play with interesting people...

Given (AIUI), you have been calling Mr. Lag this whole time, versus raising into him, and he seems to be steaming at you, and you opened (how many 4X are you opening here? A4s? Maybe? Which position are you??): I kinda want to raise.

The goal is here is for him to think you are completely FOS, and for him to rage-rip in whichever OP Yuri happens to have.

Well, obviously we are never folding here.

The question becomes which is more EV, call or 3bet.
To some, call might look stronger than a 3bet.
To others, a 3bet might look either nutted or super bluffy.

Villain can have all the 4x, 22, bluffs and then some overpairs.

When you snapped off his bluff earlier, they might be saying doc is a fish will snap you off with even bottom pair, just stop bluffing him etc.
If he does stop bluffing you, then it means this hand might all be value hands. The only hands you beat are his overpairs range which might not even be in his range since he limp/called.
Against such range, maybe calling is best. If we 3bet especially if we have a passive fish image(vs him), it looks super strong, it might overrep our hands.

too much text. way too many assumptions - some guy at the table might have told him how to play in another language and he might have listened and he might have backraised but then he called so he didnt lol. bet smaller on the flop, call now

I forgot to give my position. I was in the CO. I'm not opening much 4x, even from the CO. It would mostly be 54s, and if action folded to me, I'd open A4s. Otherwise, I would probably just over-limp A4s here. Not that he knows anything about what I should be doing or would be doing.

ETA - occasionally I'll mix in some 64s from the BTN, when table conditions are conducive to opening wider. If I'm winning and think it's kosher, I'll open 64s from the CO.

I think my range here is mostly over-pairs for value. My bluffs would be...well, everything else. Given that I block hands like 65, 53 and A5, and unblock all the over-pairs to the board and other draws (like BD draws, and "draws to a pair" - unpaired over-cards), I figured his range would mostly be that stuff, though I wouldn't have been shocked if he massively slow-played something pre, given how much he seemed to love check-raising turns.

Ordinarily I'd raise bigger over a limp, but the BTN was playing kind of loose-passive, and the SB kind of tight-passive. When I saw V staring at me, I sort of expected he might back-raise huge if BTN or SB called, so I didn't see the point in making a bigger bet when I was just going to fold if he did 3B.

I had raised him in a couple earlier hands - the one where he bet-3B-jammed TPTK on the three-flush / three-straight / paired board was against me. It was around that time that I realized he liked to be the aggressor, loved check-raising/check-jamming turns, and was effectively un-bluffable, because he'd rather jam than fold to a barrel or raise. He really hated folding.

But it was obvious he would also call pre and flop way too wide, such that if I checked back the turn he'd bet river 100% of the time, with his entire range, and he'd typically size up with value or down with bluffs, making the c-bet flop / check-back turn / bluff-catch river line insanely profitable against him. I'd probably won an extra $200 from him in the past 2-3 orbits, just by checking back the turn and calling whenever he bet river small.

This was the first hand I'd seen him check-raise the flop. As I was considering my response, I did some quick math in my head. If I flatted the x/r, the pot would be $195 with just over a 2 SPR going to the turn. So I was thinking about the best way to get all the money in. I was concerned that if I raised, he'd just fold everything worse, which I thought would be almost his entire range.

My thinking was that given his propensity for big turn bets, he might barrel large to rep thick value. But if he didn't, and bet small, because he was bluffing, I might just flat the turn and plan to bet / raise river. If the turn brought in any BD draws and he bet small, I would probably raise, and if he bet big on a BD draw card, I'd just jam.

I didn't think he'd ever check turn after x/r'ing the flop, but if he did, my plan was to just bet around 2/3 pot, hopefully inducing him to jam.

I tend to agree, and will go a step further. If we 3B and he calls, he'll likely check to us on the turn, and it would really suck to have it go check-bet-fold. It would also suck to check back the turn and lose a street of value. Taking back the betting lead just leaves us guessing about what to do on the turn when he checks in flow. Even if he calls and donks turn, a raise at that point looks super-nutted, I'd think.

Also, we really have no idea what he actually has here. If we let him keep the betting lead, I thought there was a pretty good chance his turn action would tells us a lot, based on his habit of betting small as a bluff and betting huge with value.

If there's $195 in the pot going to the turn, and $425 behind, it should be easy enough to get the rest in, if not on the turn, at least by the river. If the river adds any sort of draw, I'd expect him to bet huge with his over-pairs, and maybe bet small if he picks up that draw and decides to slow down once he turns equity.

Ordinarily, I'd think raising here would be an enormous blunder, because I have the board crushed and it would look so nutted to 3B. I'd expect most V's to fold everything worse than trip 4's.

But, here, it crossed my mind that V might have slow-played a big PP pre, and if so, he may have decided he's just going with it when I c-bet on this low-low-low paired / rainbow board, where I'm so unlikely to have anything better than an over-pair..

Like, I started to wonder, if I 3B with TT or JJ here, would my hand be any good if he jammed over the top? Probably not. But would he call a 3B with 55-99? How many of those middling PP's would he actually check-raise? I kind of felt like his range here was mostly TT+ for value.

As I was thinking that, though, I started to doubt that he'd x/r-4B-jam TT or JJ, and if not, I though it was possible he'd get worried I had QQ+ when I 3B, and might he find a disciplined check-fold on a later street, especially with AK, if he took this line with AK.

So, I think a 3B here really just targets QQ+ that he was planning to limp-3B pre, but didn't because his buddy defended the BB. The problem with that is A) I wasn't entirely sure that was what was going on here, and B) I didn't want to give him a chance to get away from TT / JJ or any bluffs, on the off chance he might be doing this with some un-paired over-cards.

If you think overpairs is a major portion of his range, I think a 3bet might be best.

You mentioned he bet/3bet w/TPTK on those boards, which means he often overvalue his hand, he has no fold button with any value hand.
Overpairs to him on a low board even on a paired board might be the nuts to him.
He doesn't care what you have, he only cares what he has.
Most likely he's jamming vs your 3bet. Sure occasionally he might chicken out and just call your 3bet but I think he jams more often than you think.

But the thing is, I think he's wider than overpairs. Not sure how he will react to a call or a 3bet with his bluffs portion.
Imagine villain has like A3/A5/35/56 type hands. These hands vs a 3bet, villain might call might jam might fold.

If you just call, villain might continue barreling his whole range on the turn.

So imho, if you have reads he has overpairs mostly, just click it back. If not, flatting has more merits.

With this sizing I think he can have any pocket pair, not to mention he might have A2 K2 Q2 all in range too. It’s not out of the realm he shows up with 52 or 32 too.

And that’s value. A3 and A5 are natural bluffs (35 and 56 too), and he can just have J9o and setting up a kamikaze blast off cause we almost never have a 4 or 22.

Yeah, as a general rule, I try not to let my ranging of an opponent become too narrow based on not enough info, or rationalize a poor decision by assuming too much.

My gut feeling in game was that his smallish 2.5x raise sizing suggested value that didn't want me to fold, but not necessarily value that was hoping to induce me to 3B. There might be some aspect of "seeing where I'm at" at play, and a 3B might tell him too clearly he's behind.

I thought he was very likely to barrel turn if I flatted. I wasn't nearly as confident he'd check-raise-4B jam a worse hand, because I hadn't seen him take his aggression that far. All his prior check-raises and bet-3B's were in response to a bet or single raise.

I thought he was capable of over-valuing his hand or bluffing when opponents showed weakness. But I didn't have enough info to believe he'd bluff huge into an opponent showing real strength.

Based on what I'd seen from him, it seemed to me like his aggression tended to either be a strong value hand that had been trapping, or a bluff once he realized he probably couldn't win at showdown. This would explain why he liked to play early streets more passively, and ramped up his aggression by raising turns or leading rivers when the turn checked through.

In my mind, I was bucketing his range this way:

1. Hands that have me beat: better 4x and 22 - not very likely because not very many combos possible, and I wasn't sure he'd fast-play all those hands by x/r'ing the flop, rather than waiting to spring his trap on the turn, the way he did when he flopped bottom set in an earlier hand.

2. Middling over-pairs: 55-99 - all possible, but I couldn't see any logic, even fish-logic, for him taking this line with 55-99. Since this line would seem so random for those hands, I didn't have any idea how he'd react to a 3B, if he'd fold or decide to turn them into a massive over-play.

3. Biggish PP's: TT, JJ, maybe QQ - it seemed possible he may have been planning to limp-3B pre with one of these, decided not to because of the BB defend, but once BB folds he's all clear to start fast-playing. But he'd have to be cognizant that my range is uncapped, such that I might have KK or AA. He may not fold to a 3B, but he may not jam, either.

4. Premiums: AA, KK, maybe QQ - same logic as above, except he's not scared and he's just going with his hand.

5. AK: decided to slow-play pre, now turning his hand into a very aggro semi-bluff. Will probably fold to a 3B.

6. Straight draws: 65, 53, A5, and I guess 63 and A3 - not all combos possible because we have the 5h in our hand, and I hadn't seen him start a semi-bluff with a flop x/r prior to this. That's not something you see many rec-fish doing, when they can just flat call and see a cheaper turn. It seemed to me that he'd be more likely to just check-call with these hands, based on how he'd been playing.

7. Airballs, 2x, random nonsense: possible, but this would be pure spewy spaz, and I hadn't seen him blast off on the flop like this with air. I'd think he'd fold 99% of this stuff to a 3B, so not worth considering, beyond perhaps maybe "balancing" the "value" portion of his range.

No Sputnik at the table..........

Flop: I like the c-bet as we have plenty of midpairs in range in need of equity denial in addition to suited wheel draw semi-bluffs. V also has midpairs given preflop action, so I view his xr as a probe to figure out where he's at. We don't want to re-raise here and fold his midpairs or his wheel draws.

Prefer to call and see what he does on the turn. I'm guessing from your reads he will lead the turn with his range cards - basically everything non-broadway. With the pot at ~190 going to the turn, this gets us to a good spot to GII.

Assuming we win, I would change tables.

Obv. call flop. Gives us ~400 back and SPR of 2 which is comfortable to get in OTT or over two streets.

100% this.

No disrespect but this hand is no where near interesting/tough enough to warrant never ending paragraphs of assumptions.

You call.

Hero calls from the CO.

TURN ($190) is the 3s, bringing in 65/A5, 43, and 33, and putting a BDFD on board.

V downbets to $60. Pot is $150 with $365 behind.

Hero?

What do we make of this downbet to less than 1/3 pot after he x/r'd flop?

I think this sizing is either very nutted(42/43/33) or like a value but not too strong hands(overpairs, 3x, 2x).

Either way it's a call imho.
Tbh with the way it's going, I might fold on river if he shoves.

Keep calling. Doc you’ve been told a hundred times stop writing such long posts.

I don't like preflop. You know he is a decent aggressive player, so why raise his limps light? I would fold or limp behind. No need to automatically raise marginal hands at limps.

Turn is a bad card. Maybe have to just call down now.

i mean you should be ecstatic to call the turn

could really get him going if you splash the pot teddy kgb style with 5$ chips

also man, i have never thought this much about any hand ive played. at some point its 1/3 vs bluff tard, you have value hand whats the question here. dont gotta know the rake, bbj, what language they speak, their facial expressions. you got trips on a board you never have trips on vs a spaz on a board people spaz on w no real draws present. let him spaz. give him the hollywood treatment if you want, not your friendly forumgoers

Pretty sure pot is $195 after the flop. You call again.

Lol.

There's $5 rake and $2 promo drop, taken out on the flop, before dealing the turn. The pot would be exactly $189.

I rounded up to $190, partly because I'm not sure they keep taking the $1 for the high hand promo after it ends, and we were playing this hand just after. If they don't keep taking it, the pot would be exactly $190.

All good, was responding to this mostly.

Press call.

It's hard for him to have 42, 43, 33, 3x, or 2x, as played.

Even someone who plays very loose pre probably isn't limp-calling with 42o, and there are no suited combos possible.

Assuming he's only playing suited combos, there's only one combo of 43s possible. I've seen him slow play flopped sets on wet and dynamic boards. He waited until the turn to x/r. It would be a change from his past patterns for him to x/r the flop, and there's no reason to fear a draw on this board texture.

There are three combos of 33, but it seems at least somewhat unlikely a low stakes rec is finding a flop x/r with 33 on 442rb.

It's hard to give him credit for 3x, unless he has 53, an OESD that turned a pair. There are three combos of 53s possible. He limp-called pre, x/r'd flop, and barreled turn. Not sure how often he's doing all that with 53s.

Hard to find the 2x combos that get here this way. Mostly just three combos of A2s that pick up the gut shot to the wheel. Assuming he's only firing again on the river if he spikes another 2, an ace, or an unlikely 5, I'd think we'd want to get more value now, by raising.

If he's playing an over-pair this way, I'd think we could raise for value and call if he jams. Not that we're scared of letting him have a cheap chance to spike a two-outer, but if we flat again, he may decide to give up and possibly check/fold to a river over-bet jam.

The pot will be $310 if we call, with $365 behind.

Succinct, and I agree. I'd thought 3!'ing V on the flop would do it. But if V isn't truly tilting enough to rage-shove, then call seems better.

However...aren't bad LAGs downbetting generally a sign they've something they like? Doesn't change the nuts, but does bring 3 to a straight in. Still H has trips, has draws to beat whatever 65 silliness V was giving L/RR vibes with, and is still beating the OP I thought V had originally, so call.

H is in position. Jamming takes that away. Besides, even to this V, bet/call, then jam is profoundly nutted for a board you still shouldn't have jack on. Even this clown will find a fold. Call, see what they do on river, then if they still check, dribble some b10/b20 out and see if he spazzes.