Am I a psychopath or is this completely normal?

Two things can be true at the same time

Looks good. He'll probably call all overpairs with a diamond, but probably folds most without. You probably won't get the nut flush draw to fold as it is a straight flush draw, but any KQo type hands go away. You've probably got around 8 outs if you're behind. For a 2.5x open there might be some small pairs, 76s etc in his opening range.

A pot-sized bet has to work 50% of the time. Your bet probably needs to work 70%

I am never surprised when people call 3bets, but a x-raise caller probably doesn’t want to go anywhere. I don’t think you’re a maniac but this sticks in my mind. Was anything significant about the pause?

Don’t think I would ever play a straddle UTG, no matter the peer pressure

You feel good outplaying this guy, does he understand that this board hit your range and missed his? Are you sure he will fold JJ or 88?

Again, I think villain folds to a pot-sized turn bet or he’s not folding at all.

This guy is a little bit weak-tight..he gets squirrley when "real" money starts to go in...

PRE - Probably fine to just fold A6s, given our read. Also probably okay to call when he raises so small.

FLOP - Dafuq? Why are you raising this V, of all people, without a thick value hand or draw to the nuts?

TURN - go home, Banana...

He could also be drawing dead. These close to 0% equity bluffs are terrible and considering how wide our range should be as we were the straddle and called an open we have a large number of combos that aren't close to 0% equity that could run a bluff. I get it, we're attacking a nit but Banana's reads aren't worth much tbh.

I've seen about 30 Banana threads so far and these type of hands are the reason he's probably a small winner to break-even player. These aren't sophisticated bluffs, it's nonsensical spew. These hands don't add to your win-rate, they destroy it.

You have other hands to make this sort of play with that have stronger draws, like Adx. AdJx is 58% and Ad6x is 62% against 88-TT on this board.

I actually don't like it as there's a good chance he has a diamond and will call the raise and of course overpairs continue. OTT - if he has an overpair he'll snap you off thinking you have a single diamond, and who knows maybe he gambles with AK/AQ single diamond as he also has a straight draw. Honestly probably better to call the bet, bluff diamond turns or any straight turn that doesn't give you a straight

Doubt HU OOP with no other dead money is going to be profitable versus his range with this hand unless we're planning on stealing a crapload of pots (but I think we're overestimating how often we're going to be able to do that OOP against what is often a showdownable hand).

Think I might just prefer calling the flop. If we hit our OESD we go into value mode. If the diamond comes we go into bluff mode (shutting down immediately if he calls).

As played, I guess the question is how often he's going to fold an overpair + diamond (which is obviously what he has unless we're already punting into the nuts). Doubt he's folding AAd (which also has a gutshot). Can we get him to fold KKd? Maybe. But he has to fold a lot in order for this overbet to be profitable.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yeah, the play looks like you have a bare Ad. An Ad has a big combo draw with a straight draw and over cards.

Folding might be best, but floating and maybe bluffing later is better than playing for stacks.

Surely the reason you would explain why it's easy to play again him is that you can fold all of your bad draws and medium strength hands, for the smallest amount of money.

Preflop probably looks a lot closer than it is, wouldn't be shocked if it's just a fold even for this size. You get some metagame advantages by calling a lot, but how do you make money with this hand ... you are hoping to cooler him with an A62 type flop, and him pay off with AJ+? Have him check down and A be the best hand often enough? Hitting an A and he bets KK for 1 bet?

But then you flop air and a bad draw, but decide to blast all of the money in praying he folds? And if he decides to not fold his "face up good hand" you have like 5 outs vs. TTd, and it only gets much worse from there.

If you had a read that he bets too often, and too big, on monotone flops ... and/or on flops that don't hit his range, then maybe you can start going nuts with a lot more hands that only have a single diamond in them. But, in general, when I see people who bet half pot from EP on this type of flop not only do they not understand why they shouldn't bet black KK here but they continue to not understand why it's bad when you raise.

Then on turn I'm curious what you think his call flop but fold turn range is?

Great questions all. I think we're representing what V actually has: some Axdd. They opened UTG (considering the straddle) 3x. Agree with GG, your IO sucks pf vs that range.

Ok, lots missed this monotone, 3-straight flop, so I can see the merits of a Mongo x-r here to fold out OPs, AX that's ahead of you.

But when they call it, they actually have a diamond here. True, H can have all of the 76/87/98/T9/JT/QJdd here, and maybe a gapper too. Then V should fold their draw to that kind of overbet shove, but really, do they ever? Especially if they're betting 1/2 pot on this flop, as illiterat mentioned.

I think you discovered they've at least a diamond draw at worst, and I don't think they fold that often enough for this to work, despite your read they're pretty weak-tight. I also wonder about Pablito's point about your winrate going up if you just tightened up and avoided these delicate spots?

My thought process:

-V's sizing pre is smaller than usual, most people are going 20$-25$ pre.
-When V cbets flop its always a value bet, his checkback range contains all unpaired-no ♦ hands and he would only bet with a pair or an unpaired hand with a high diamond
-His range to the flop in my estimation: [TT+, ATs+, AQo+, KQs], once he calls the x/raise OTF he has at least one ♦, so [TdTx, JdJx, QdQx, KdKx, AdAc/h, AdKx, AdQx, AKdd, AQdd, AJdd, ATdd, KQdd]... this is 25 combos...

So you did the literal opposite you should do based on your thought process? Wild.

I think you posted another hand recently with a 3 wheel-card flop. This is a notorious action flop. In addition to being connected, any ace has a straight draw and at least over cards. Any pp is an over pair, set, or straight draw.

It is wetter with a 2-flush than rainbow. Here there is a 3-flush, which does not really make it more action than a 2-flush, because the 3-flush kills some action. However, you don't have a diamond. So it is just a fold on the flop to the cbet.

You have to look at how strong your hand is relative to a wet board. You can get 1/3 players to fold when they miss, but it is hard to get them to fold when they hit. In general, you only want to take the line raise flop and shove turn with a strong draw or a strong made hand.

You post a lot of hands stacking off with weak draws. Usually, you just call or fold with weak draws.

If you’re a winning player, and you don’t wanna straddle if the whole table is straddling, you’re making an enormous error.

I agree. Just fold the flop. I would never raise unless I had a read. A nit must have a fold button post flop and no bluffing range. Only with a draw would I raise to 40, post a HH and get slammed by 2+2.

A6s is by one measure the most losing hand in online poker, probably live too. A bad hand to play aggressively.

Result: I shove for well over pot, V snaps me with K♦ Q♦

EZ players are ez to play against, imo.

Gandyetyoumakeitsomuchmoredifficultthanitshouldbe,imoG

if the entire table is straddling you don't straddle?

tell me you cant read the room without telling me you cant read the room

I straddle if 1/3-1/2 of the table is doing it, because I want to raise the stakes with the same players.

Lol, hero was 0.3% to win on the flop. As6s is about 25% against AdQx or TdTx. You want to gii with a draw when you have good equity if called. Just burning money, and you post hands like this over and over.

This should be a lot more concerning to Banana than I think it is. Like it's one thing to make a slightly questionable call and end up in a situation that's dicey but Banana just compounds his mistakes into massive punts and it's never quite clear why.

Like this post.

It's just insane to type this out, I'm assuming this is what he thought during the hand, and to then donk off your entire stack doing essentially the polar opposite to what your thought process would suggest. It's quite bizarre honestly.

I remember a post from SB from months ago (maybe 12-24 months now) where he basically said something like "I'm winning 20bb an hour, what does it matter if I punt it off occasionally" and while I understand the idea (if you are never bluffing low equity hands then people can fold way more often, and those calls contribute to your winrate) I wouldn't be shocked if he's become used to running way above EV in certain spots where it's going to be a lot of work to stop doing this kind of thing.