2/5 ~ QQ facing x/r+barrel

call river and NH. not folding to a flop CR when you bet 1/3 pot. dont see how you can fold river either for 1/2 pot.

Yeah I think you would need more of a read in order to hero fold the river against this sizing. Could potentially see a worse hand for overplayed value and the flush draw missed so there are obvious bluffs. V potentially being tilted from the last hand is more reason to call too.

You need to work on your ranging of opponents.

You think this V 3B's pre with AK/AQ, c-bets the A-high flop, and then just checks turn, and check-folds the river? You think he's 3B'ing some suited connector pre, and then firing on the flop, before giving up?

I wouldn't give him AK, AQ, or a busted flush draw, unless maybe his c-bet was really small. But in that scenario, I'd think he'd probably fire again.

I'd think his range is mostly JJ-KK, maybe also TT, but probably not. There's no way he's 3B'ing pre with AK/AQ and giving up with TPTK or TP2K just because his flop c-bet gets called and the turn pairs the 8. And there just aren't many SC's in his range that 3B pre and fire a c-bet on the flop.

This V type tends to play strong hands aggressively, and don't like to fold strong hands, but they get very gun-shy whenever their hand shrivels up in value and they meet resistance.

PRE - seems standard. I might size up a tad, to $25, when this V is in the blinds, because I think he's going to over-defend.

FLOP - c-betting seems fine, but I'd choose a larger size, at least 1/2 pot. Again, with this V, I think he's going to be sticky, and I might go 2/3 or even full pot.

With our exact hand, I would probably bet full pot. When the board is draw heavy, this V is going to be very sticky with any piece of it.

As played, when he x/r's to 3x, I'm calling. If he went 6x, I might consider folding.

TURN - the 3d is just a brick, unless he's got 75 or 52. I'd think he'd size WAY up with a vulnerable hand, like 2P or a set. Definitely not folding. I might consider raising.

My reasoning for considering a raise is that this V type does not like giving up, and they tend to HATE being bluffed. Any time we have a value hand on a draw heavy board, and they're showing aggression, I just want to pile it in, to get max value from both their worse value and their draws they just can't let go of before the river.

RIVER - Still not folding, Still considering a raise.

I don't think he's taking this line with many, if any hands that are improved by the turn or river. If he had a super-strong hand, especially a sneaky straight, he'd size WAY up. This type of V is greedy to an extreme. They can't help themselves.

I really want to raise for value here. His missed draws are obviously going to fold, but I don't think there's any way in hell he's folding TX, or if he has it, JJ, when the FDFD missed.

Sometimes, yes. More often, no.

Pre, and flop, for sure. Maybe turn and river, too.

Because he's letting fear and greed drive his decisions, just like most fish.

If he has 2P or a set, or a straight, and he's not willing to get stacks in, he's either scared he's beat somehow, or he's scared you'll fold if he bets too big.

If he just has 1P and he x/r's the flop, he's scared you'll out-draw him. When you call his x/r and chunky turn barrel, he's scared his 1P may not be good.

If he was on a draw that bricked, he x/r'd because he didn't want you to barrel the turn, and he kept his size small because he was scared you'd 3B him and he'd have to fold. He didn't over-bet the turn because he was scared you'd call. He's not jamming the river because he's afraid you'll call.

I don't know if he's got 2P+, or if he's just over-playing top pair, or if he's not willing to run it with a missed draw. If he just lost a big hand and he's topped off, he could be tilted and chasing his losses, making him more likely to bluff or over-play thin value, and maybe size down with his nutted hands, to make sure he gets called.

We won't know until we see his hand. Once we see his hand, we'll know for next time.

I think we'd have more clarity if we raised bigger pre, bet bigger on the flop, and / or raised turn, even for a min-click. If he 3Bs the turn, he's probably not on a draw or over-playing worse value. If he flats and donks river for a huge size, he's not bluffing.

If we raise turn, and he calls, we can go for some thin value with a small bet, and fold if he x/r's. This type of V doesn't bet-call turn and go for the river x/r without a monster.

I like a turn raise here, with a hand that is often best, but benefits from equity denial, and is unlikely to improve to the nuts.

Say we click it $200 on the turn, and he 3B's. It's a trivial fold, and we saved ourselves from torching more money by hero-calling the river.

Say we click it, and he snap calls. More than likely, he's got SDV or a draw, and we've got the best hand. If the river is just a brick, and he checks to us, we can bet chunky for value. If he donks on a brick, we can call. If he donks big on a spade, we can LOL-fold.

How do we know V is going to over defend??? He hasn't played a hand in the last 30-60 mins until the very last hand where he 3betted gigantic.
If we size up to 25$, we have a sizing tell? 5$ difference to give off a tell that we have a monster?

How do I know V is sticky? I rather believe bb is sticky than V is sticky? I thought 3way/multiway pots we supposed to cbet small???

Interesting, never thought about raising before.
But where do you get that villain hates being bluffed? Just from previous HH?

What??? I'd understand the raise on the turn but the river raise I can't comprehend. By the river to me he either has us beat or a missed draws.
Most people are raising top of range, draws and bluffs on flop? Now he followed thru on turn + river, against this range we still raise river??

To answer your questions,

Probably calling, not thrilled about it. While H needs to be good about 25% of the time, and probably is, most LL midaged players don't go x-r, b55, b55, with things an OP is beating.

My guess is that their sizing is whack, based on heuristics like, "raises should be 3x the original bet," "bets should be around 1/2 pot," etc... Instead of looking at the SPR, and figuring out bet sizing to get stacks in versus sizing to make drawing +EV/deter draws, etc. The kind of mediocre player who doesn't really keep track of the pot and the effective stack all of the time, and certainly isn't varying their sizing in accordance with those. So I fully expect to see 66/44 here, some TT, but also some whiffed spades.

I think you played it well, and folding to Avg Midaged LL V to this action would be premature. Hopefully they were overpaying JT/AT.

I'm not raising river or turn. If I felt like folding at any point, it'd be to the flop x-r, though I'm probably not folding there either. Lots of players go nuts with overs and a FD, and H is beating those.

Passive play has left you wondering. Don’t give up the initiative so easily! Calling the check-raise flop was fine, but now take back the initiative with a raise on the turn.

He might fold
He might call and check the river
If he raises, you’re in the same boat you are now, but give him an opportunity to make a mistake.

Calling from the SB pre labels him a weak player in my mind. Could have done that with a small pair or AT. With 2pair unlikely and flopping sets rare, we are probably ahead. Still, I never like piling in money with one pair.
Maybe why he didn’t shove

As played, call
You’re pretty disguised, should be good

I believe V is going to over-defend because people over-defend at low stakes, because he's likely tilted, and because middle aged men from macho, patriarchal cultures hate folding, especially on early streets, because they think it makes them look weak, and they're naturally distrustful. They need to be told more than once that their hand is no good.

No, you don't have a sizing tell. Most low stakes opponents aren't paying that much attention to our betting patterns. And we wouldn't be sizing up because our hand is strong, we'd be sizing up because he doesn't like folding.

You should know V is sticky based on your observations of player pool tendencies, the tendencies of various demographic groups, and watching for player specific reads. What's the point of telling us he's a middle-aged middle-Eastern man if you don't think his play is a reflection of who he is?

Men from parts of the world known for corruption and haggling over every transaction are typically on guard against dishonesty. They would rather make a light call and see they're beat than make a tight fold and wonder if you may have "tricked" them. They're sticky as hell.

Think about how much the average player agonizes over a decision when their opponents can be bluffing. We all hate being bluffed. But this guy is from a culture with a history of cutting thieves' hands off and stoning women who cheat on their husbands, and every government employee has to be bribed. He's been indoctrinated into a mindset of mistrust. You think he's likely to believe you have a strong hand just because you put in a single bet or raise?

As I've said previously, I think you need to work on your ranging of opponents. Yes, he can have a better hand, or a missed draw. But you're apparently dismissing the possibility that he has worse value. That's a mistake in general, against any V, but in particular against this V, in this line.

He raised flop. Maybe he raised for value and protection with 2P or a set. But someone who hates being bluffed will generally take lines that prevent us from bluffing them when they have SDV. They donk and check-raise aggressively with their vulnerable value, and trap with the nuts, because they expect us to bluff.

You asked about his bet sizing and why he doesn't want to play for stacks. That's a sign your intuition tells you something isn't right here. Pull on that thread. Think about it. Ask questions, like...

Is this the line you'd take with 2P or a set? If someone else took this line, what might their reasoning be? If this specific V took this line with 2P or a set, why might that be?

I'm not sure we have the best hand, or that we should raise. But I'd think about it before I folded or called.

I wouldn't try bluffing this guy, in this spot, because I don't think he's going to fold TP when he takes this line. Therefore, I think we'd definitely want to raise, and for a large size, when we are sure our hand is best. At this stack depth, obviously we'd jam.

Here, if we raise, it's fairly thin, when we're not sure. And there's value in seeing what he has here, so I'd probably just flat call.

I didn't know anything midaged middle eastern guy stereotypes. Thx for info. I only know young asians and female players rofl.

Usually, yes, as a default, in theory, we should c-bet smaller in multi-way pots. But we're allowed to deviate.

Here, I might c-bet small with my best draws and my nutted hands, like top set. I'd size up when my hand is likely best, but isn't likely to improve, and is vulnerable to being out-drawn, and I think one or both opponents are likely to be inelastic (sticky) with a lot of hands in their range.

This is a super wet and dynamic board with tons of draws and potential action-killing cards that can come. I want to get max value for my hand before my opponents give up with their bricked draws or when their worse value gets downgraded.

Really? You don't have some sense of how people play based on their age, gender, or ethnicity? So, you play the same way vs any opponent who isn't Asian or female?

I'm not sure I believe you. If what you say is true, you should start paying more attention to demographic patterns of play and start building some mental profiles of common archetypes you see at the tables.

If you can guess how an OMC is going to play, you can figure out how the middle aged Middle-Eastern guy is going to play.

yah idk id call

You're almost certainly missing value if you're waiting to see some showdowns before you start exploiting opponents.

Expanding on this - it's not just demographics that give us insight into how our opponents are likely to play.

I look at how much they buy in for, how they stack their chips, how much time they spend looking at their phones, whether they buy chips from the chip runner or go to the cage, how they cut out a bet, how they place a bet, how much talking they do at the table, how much they drink, what they drink, how they dress, their jewelry, tattoos, teeth, haircut, facial hair, etc.

Layer in physical tells, population reads, and specific observations you make in-game, you can start exploiting the vast majority of opponents pretty quickly.

What was the reveal here?

We called down
V mucked.

Posted to see if call down was standard
V probably tilted from last hand?

You could have raised river.

You're leaving a lot of money on the table.

It's all hand reading. You're trying to see a showdown so you can build a read on every opponent before you exploit them, but by the time you start you've lost hundreds. Just work off population reads and start hard exploiting these fools right away.

I had 0 reads in game. To me it was a call or fold.
You got reads based on his demographics. And it was uber thin.
Also guy switched table pretty quickly, what do you make of this? There were like 2 fishes at the table.

The other day, I played with a reg, he was quick(within 30mins) at reading people he never played with before. I asked why didn't he play bigger when he's so good at reading ppl, he said he does occasionally but didn't bring enough that day specifically and the marks were at the main game, needed to go from the must move table first before going to the main game
He remembers all the HH better than me which I try my hardest to remember them all.
He was saying stuff like you don't play such hand blah blah blah, I'm like you dunno me, we barely just met, he's like "I know just from observing the table there".
He was the guy who put me on QQ when I had KK on that 4bet hand.

Even when you have reads, you don't use them.

You actually did have a read. You said you thought he was tight-passive. But he just lost a big hand, and immediately topped off.

What does that tell you?

It tells me that he's likely tilted, and going to chase his losses. It means he's going to be sticky, and under-fold. It means he's going to fast-play big PP's pre, and over-play thin value, and he'll frequently be OOL.

90% of my reads are just generic population reads. The other 10% is a mix of educated guesses and careful observation. It's inductive reasoning.

Like, if you see ten cats, and notice they all have whiskers, is it logical to conclude that all cats have whiskers? Yes, it is. The conclusion may be proven wrong by some rare exception, but if you act as if every cat you come across will have whiskers, you'll usually be right.

The alternative is to do what you're doing - not assuming anything, and instead waiting until you get a good, close look at the cat's face so you can be sure.

Have you seriously not noticed most players tend to fit into a certain mold, and very often those molds strongly correlate to certain combinations of demographic qualities?

I told you in my first post in the thread that we could raise river to target JJ and TX. That didn't have much, if anything to do with his demographics. It was mostly just based on his actions in the hand.

I actually think he had worse than JJ. At best, he had Tx, and I somewhat doubt that. These guys have egos. If you beat them when they have a good hand, it's because you got lucky. They often show JJ and AT here, so everyone can see they weren't bluffing, and they took a bad beat. I bet he had 99, 77, 55, or A4ss.

I said I thought he would over-defend and be sticky on the flop. I think that's true of almost any opponent playing these stakes. It's more true when they just lost a big pot and immediately reload. It's even more true of a middle-aged man from a part of the world where men care about not looking weak, which is pretty much most of the world, but especially the middle-East.

If you're uncomfortable profiling people based on their demographics, okay. I think it's silly to willfully ignore obvious traits shared by members of a group, but even without those insights, most people still give away a ton of information, if you just watch for it.

Take out the demographics, you can still make the same read I did, if you're paying just a little attention to human nature and how people behave.

Why did he leave the table? Probably out of frustration and embarrassment over torching $400 right after he reloaded. You owned him. He doesn't want to play with you any more. He's waiving the white flag.

The reg you played with is right.

When I'm at the table, I don't look at my phone or read. I pay attention to every single hand dealt, and watch what my opponents do. I'm constantly ranging them, and trying to predict what they'll do on the next card.

I'm taking mental notes on who bluffs, who doesn't bet thin, who limps, who raises, who check-raises, who donks, who uses big c-bet sizes, who range-bets from OOP, what hands get shown down, how much they buy in for, what chip denominations they have, how they stack their chips, how they cut out a bet, how they dress, how they speak, whether or not they're paying attention to the game or always looking at their phones, who slow plays, who fast plays, who over-bets, who agonizes over trivial decisions, how they tip the dealers, and any other clues that may give me insights into how they may play.

I can usually size my opponents up within an orbit or two, and sometimes quicker than that. If there's a huge pot or someone gets coolered, I can tell you exactly who raised pre, from what position, how much they raised, and every action by every player in the pot on every street.

You don't need to see how a ton of showdowns to know how every opponent plays every hand. Start with population reads, layer in some typical player type profiles, and watch for the players who don't fit any mold, like a cat without whiskers, to show you why they're different.

I was sweating a game two friends were in. I noticed a player at the table had two distinct ways of cutting out a bet. I watched him play two more hands, and paid attention to the showdowns.

When his hand was good enough to continue, he'd confidently reach over the betting line with a stack of chips, cut out his bet, and pull the rest of the chips in his hand back, returning them to his stack. When his hand was marginal, he'd cut out his bet in front of his stack, lining up the chips in little $10 stacks of two $5 chips, count the stacks by touching them with his finger, then he'd pile them up, and slide them into the pot.

It was one of the most insanely reliable tells I've ever seen. I pointed it out to my two friends in the game, and they proceeded to abuse this guy until they had all his money. They confirmed he'd been doing it for hours, yet apparently no one in the game noticed it until I did.

I saw a kid who looked 12 years old sit down at my table with $300, all $5 chips. Instead of having 3 stacks of $100 in front of him, he broke them down into little $50 stacks, and then lined the rail with them, like he was trying to make it look like he had more than he did. I knew right away he was scared money. Sure enough, he seemed hesitant to bet more than $50, requiring him to break down another stack.

I'd been running over the table, and was sitting on over $3k. I was raising almost every hand. I didn't care. I was playing with Monopoly money. One hand, I opened for $15 UTG with 95o. Two calls. The kid 3B me, but only made it $45. He'd built his stack up to maybe $450. I knew he wouldn't be comfortable playing for all of it, and I thought his 3B size was FOS, AQ at best. So I 4B him to $150. The other two fold, he thinks a bit, and calls. I knew as soon as he put the money in he had AQ.

The flop comes out K86rb. All I have is a GSSD. I check. He fires $100 into $330. I call, with evil intentions. The turn is an offsuit 9, making me 2nd pair, no kicker. I jam. He snap folds. I ask, "Ace-Queen?" He nods. I don't show. I got up to leave a few orbits later. He asked if I had AK. I told him it wasn't AA or AK, and he wouldn't believe me if I told him what I had, but he made a good fold. I could see his wheels turning as he tried to figure out WTF I could have that 4B's pre and jams turn on a board of K869rb.

If I waited to see him show down AQ after 3B'ing over a UTG open and two calls for a small 3X size, I might never get the chance to abuse him by 4B'ing 95o. Life's too short, and I'm too old to wait for people to prove I'm right about what they're doing.

You're a beast doc. Maybe you'll read me like a book at the tables.