Facing Turn Check-Raise

At 1/3, the Beluga Whale Theorem still holds. If you raise pf, bet out on the flop and turn, and then the villain raises, your TP hand is no good. You don't even have TP. Easy fold.

You’re probably right, just let it go.
Do I just not care if he’s exploiting me, because he could do this with JJ or worse. Could I have done something different prior to this?

Maybe I’m just over-thinking
Cause you’re right, typically it’s an easy fold

What are we trying to accomplish with the turn bet?

Hands that fold are drawing slim to dead. Leaving them in is a good thing.

Omaha basically covered this in fewer words, but betting this turn is pretty bad IMO. What worse hands will call? Unless villain is some kind of mega-whale that can't fold JTo or A4, but your reads don't indicate that. There isn't even a bdfd to be worried about.

Betting because "I don't like checking" isn't a good reason to bet. You basically have a perfect spot to check back turn, where you will be able to bluffcatch virtually every river against a capable opponent.

As played, it's a standard fold versus the vast majority of 1/3 villains. If you tell us that you called and he showed some b.s., then congrats to you and honestly WP to him.

Good point
I get aggressive and forget I’m better off with some pot control having only one pair.

Hero folded
No hands were shown

Had some concern maybe he picked up a tell that I wasn’t confident, but it is 1/3

Definitely will check turn next time and see what happens.

When I look from villain’s pov, I might have the answer. He knows I play strong hands, so when he hits 2pair, he bets big hoping I’m inelastic and call.

I will continue to evaluate this opponent
Thanks to you all.

Good fold.

Some players (not saying this is you) love to bet the turn with middling strength hands so they can protect their hand and "buy a cheap showdown" or whatever. If I see this play from someone once or twice, I will start check-raising turn a lot more, especially if I know they are capable of folding.

It's possible villain had seen this in your previous plays and decided to exploit it, but it's WAY more likely that he just had 9x and wanted to get the max from AK.

Important to know why you're betting turn.

Agree
I was just barreling blind
Hopefully fixed this leak.

Kinda awkwardish stack sizes for the preflop 3bet sizing. If we did a 3x sizing of $35 this would mostly create a HU pot with an SPR of 6, which is a little awkward although not as bad thanks to position. If I feel I'm setting up a commitment SPR then I like to offer poor 8:1 IO, but that would mean a 3bet to ~$65 which often won't get called by worse. With us having the Button and no other dead money or limpers in the pot, I might actually get a little tricky and just flat here (often creating a more playable SPR of like 12 3ways, and sometimes inducing a spazz from the BB which we can then 4bet), but that's me. Kinda unexpected result with the 3bet getting HU with the BB.

IMO, the common thread in a lot of your posts is *aggression aggression aggression* and you've taken that line again with your large flop sizing. What does this accomplish? There's no draws to protect against on this drawless board. There's only 1 naked overcard to protect against (i.e. a small protecting cbet makes a lot more sense here with TT than it does QQ). Is he folding better? Is he calling worse (or, perhaps more accurately, calling multiple streets with worse against a 3bet and a cbet)? Will a weak looking checkback perhaps help us get paid off by worse later / induce bluffs? I really have no idea what our aggressive action accomplishes here. So I passively check it back (and if cbetting would bet much smaller).

Ditto thinking for the turn, which is now even worse since one of the few worse hands he could be calling the flop with (i.e. 9x) just got there. Pretty much the only reason for this line (as far as I can tell) is to somehow comfortably induce spazz that we can snap off... but how often is he doing that against an old guy that just 3bet preflop and barreled the flop and turn... and how comfortable are we snapping off with an incredibly mediocre hand, all with zero semi-bluffs he could be doing this with (like, we have to be banking on him getting here and doing this with complete air)?

As played, I'd fold. And I'd really start to ask myself what the point of having the accelerator pedal pinned on every action is really accomplishing. IMO.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Flat would be so damn bad pre don't do that ever.

Turn is bad. Just fold now.

Semi-grunch after seeing Venice mention Beluga theorem...

PRE - Seems fine.

Depending on table dynamics and the usual raise size in the game I might 3B a little larger. Hard to find good reasons for 3B'ing any smaller, unless we're trying to induce shenanigans from a LAG left to act, which may be the case here, with V in the BB.

FLOP - When we're not starting out super-deep, and it's a 3B pot, with V cold-calling the 3B out of the BB, I might check back the K-high board, especially if we know V is LAG. I don't want to discourage him from stabbing at it on the turn.

If we're going to c-bet, I'd probably go smaller, like 1/3 pot or even a tad less. Nothing wrong with down-betting. Don't hate.

TURN - Feels like we're starting to run out of value when the 9 pairs. We were already losing to KX. Now we're losing to 9X, and another bet is likely to fold out a lot of V's worse hands and draws.

I'd mostly check back and look to bluff-catch on the river. Especially if we think V is LAG and likely to stab at it. Our hand has plenty of showdown value, and doesn't need much protection. V's river action will likely let us know his hand strength.

As played, when V x/r's, it seems like a pretty straight-forward fold. There's some non-zero percent chance he's FOS and just repping trips or better, but we could have KK here, or we may just not want to fold AA/AK, so it's hard for him to be bluffing. If our image is tight, bordering on OMC, he'd have to be super-aggro to be doing this as a bluff.

As you noted, calling commits you to calling the rest off on the river, making it even less likely he's bluffing. Calling is the worst option.

I suppose there's some argument to be made that there's some frequency of V being FOS + some frequency of him folding 9x because he thinks we'd only jam KK that would make jamming +EV, but he'd have to be getting way out of line, and / or our image would have to be super-nitty. I wouldn't want to gamble on him folding 9x to a raise.

By process of elimination, folding has to be the best option.

I kinda take this as a compliment, because nobody wins playing passively. When the rest of the table thinks I’m very aggressive, they tend to play more straight forward against me.

That being said, you have awakened an understanding that there are times to play passively and I can still gain information in those situations.

I thoroughly understand reasons for betting, but I have let taking the dead money override my actions at times. Also get crushed value owning myself against slow plays and sets and this is where applying your thoughts will be very helpful.

I will do a better job of realizing that if I can’t fold out better or get worse to call, then better options than stabbing for the dead money exist. I think over time, adding a little slowdown to my game will make me a tougher player. Thanks

There are spots where the passive approach >> the aggressive approach. There are spots where the aggressive approach >> the passive approach. And there are spots where it is fairly close either way.

As long as you have sound reasons for taking the approach you are taking in each spot, you'll probably do fine.

Ggoodluck!G

Aggression wins when our opponents are mostly tight passive. When they're mostly loose aggressive, passivity has its place.

This is hard to find doc…
Nearly, every time I play there’s a mix
A couple of nits, a couple of near maniacs, a couple of duds, maybe a pro, couple of unknowns

Can’t just blanket it as loose table or tight table, have to target strategies towards the villain(s) involved.

Yes, exactly. Tailor your play to each opponent. I hope you agree that even at a table with a mix, the contrast between the player types makes their tendencies stand out.

You had V pegged as a LAG. He's generally going to bet when we check, raise when we bet small, and over-fold when we bet big.

You 3B slightly more than 3X pre, then c-bet a little more than half pot on flop and turn. He cold called out of the BB, check-called the K-high flop, and check raised the board-pairing turn.

Could he be bluffing? Possibly, but it seems unlikely. We didn't give him a reason to bluff. And if he is bluffing, he'd be more likely to jam all in.

If you know he's LAG, give him rope to bluff. Size down with your bet sizes, so he continues too wide and has more worse value and bluffs in his range getting to later streets.You can trap more, but you can't value bet as thinly, because he's going to start turning more hands into bluffs when we look weak.