Flopped set vs competent TAG

Larger pre. I don't mind some of your small raises, but this is too small. Cbet larger. Maybe 3! the flop, but you have to x/r the turn. Need to charge draws and need to set up a river push. As played, I guess play for a river x/r, but now you have a harder time getting allin. You trap too much with big hands, which is particularly bad when you make wild bluffs.

What do you want to play him as having? Do you think he had a fd that missed and could bluff big, an A that will check if you do but would pay off a small bet, or an AJ where it does not matter as V will bet if we don't?

Just awful to get to the river this way. He could easily have a draw, and you want to build the pot or fold against that. He could have aces up and can't fold it. You don't want to get to the river like this with SPR of 1.7. If he folds to your range on the flop or turn so be it, but you have to try to get allin.

block the 44 hand ott (your entire range). i think if you're going to lose that hand in that fashion you should just fold pre because you're going to way under realize equity. it will x/decide (pure call without club 50/50 w club) on this particular river if you block turn

hand in op is idk. it doesnt really like hes trying to go geo to threaten stacks and i honestly kind of think hes going to check the river when he uses 100 into 175 ott pretty often

44 hand is probably a limp behind and call the raise multiway. You don't mention number of limpers or your sizing, but small sizing may have provoked a light 3!. Fold to the 3! HU.

In the main hand, villain likely has a big hand or a draw, and you need to x/r the turn to get the money in. 1/3 players don't usually make big laydowns.

I think you need to bet-3bet click flop here. A82tt is your board. You are deep and OOP. You can re-raise with bluffs, TP hands, and nutted stuff. He might fold AJo, but likely won't fold KJss.

As played, all of your options on the river feel kinda bad. I think leading for a big size is pretty face-up as thick value, and his hand probably isn't very strong anyway. I agree with submersible that I don't really feel like he's going to bet river himself. Maybe we can lead small and hope he puts us on one pair and spazz raises, but would just rather have the initiative in this spot.

Played it fine, but on the turn
I would double his bet and raise 100
He’s gonna call that and make getting the rest in on the river easier.
You can’t wait until the river OOP.

That said, if he’s more likely to fold than call when you get aggressive, and you know he likes to bet…every situation is different.

The player you describe might just barrel the river if you’ve been anguishing over your calls.
Maybe just check & let him keep telling his story, he certainly doesn’t suspect the hand you have. Riskier than on the turn, but the x/r could work even better here.

I definitely wouldn’t jam here as I think he finds the fold even with 2pair. It’s not about getting your money in, it’s about getting his in.

Grunch:

PRE - raise bigger.

FLOP - I'd pot it, not c-bet 1/3, on this flop, with our specific hand. As played, I'd be temped to 3B, but calling seems okay. We'll probably need to donk or x/r turn to make sure we get to the river with the betting lead.

TURN - I kinda want to donk for full pot here, when the turn is just a brick. V won't really know what to make of it, and might spaz with AX or spades. Otherwise, I think he checks back here a lot, and we just miss value.

As played, I want to x/r small, like 3x, and pray he spaz-jams with spades or whatever.

RIVER - As played, I think we need to donk. If we think V is a thinking / battling reg, I might go small, like $100, praying he raises all in. Otherwise, I might half-pot it, like $175-$200, and pray he flicks it in with whatever AX he has.

He's going to get here with a range that is mostly missed draws and thin value, unless he made aces up somewhere. When we raise pre, bet-call flop, and x/c turn, he's going to check back a lot, because it looks like we either have a good hand that will call a bet, so he doesn't want to bet thin for value, and his bluffs mostly want to give up.

Both 44 and 99 hands don't have stacks/sizes/etc but look like you are calling any pair for any amount for set value. 99 looks like the better of the two for a few reasons, but even so preflop and flop calls look big and like they are losing.

88 hand ... probably have to raise turn, even though it looks strong. You might have the image to get away with it anyway, but I don't think many people raise flop with 22 or even A2 and then only bet 100 on the turn. 125 is kind of the obvious "don't make it too big, so I get a call" size. Would assume V has AK/AQ/ss a lot and river goes x/x a lot, or he maybe bets small.

Preflop: prefer a bigger raise. But I'm focused on V1's range given the preflop action. He flat call H's raise not closing the action, fully aware that V2 can re-raise and knowing that he will be in the worst post-flop position.

Given all this, what are his raises on this flop? H has range/nut advantage. Even his crap like 5s4s may just want to call getting the correct direct price. His raises should really just be 22 and A2.

AP turn: H should xr here. V likely has turned more equity JsTs, Ts9s, 5s4s......or else really thinks he's ahead with 22, A2, even the improbable A8/A7.
We're really letting him off the hook here by just calling. Either we should charge him for his draws or take him to value town with his value.

Ap River: his one Ts9s got there. The rest hasn't improved. I prefer a value bet giving him the proper odds to call with his two pair combos. If he has us beat it's because we were always going broke (AA) or didn't bet enough on the turn.

I certainly hope we have the seat change button?

I would honestly consider just completing the SB in this configuration. We don't want to get 3bet to blow out the fish and get into a HU pot OOP to a solid player.

I target the fish in this hand so I just mash a PSB in on this flop. Fish ain't folding an Ax or draw or whatever so let's build a pot as quickly as possible against him.

Surprised that it's the solid guy that gets involved. He's probably got a decent hand in this multiway pot, and also thanks to us being OOP, I think I just repop it now and hope for the best (especially since just flatting and then him checking back the turn would be a disaster). Going to $225 would create a $495 pot with $480 back, so a PSB shove for the turn.

So what's our plan? Are we just rope-a-doping and hope he barrels off? I think there is more merit to this in position (so we can make sure a street doesn't check thru), and perhaps on less drawy boards, but OOP with a flush draw in play, meh, imo. We also have a hand that we want to play for stacks with, but our line is making that difficult to do.

GcluelessNLnoobG

hmm that's not a bad idea, still I realized OOP

I pretty much agree with this. I would strongly consider 3 betting the flop. And if I just called, I definitely would donk the turn.

I don't think I've ever seen someone bet/call flop and donk big turn brick without the nuts. It's basically a flop 3bet without any draws in range. x/r turn almost has to be better.

Maybe vs. random fish it's fine, but read on V1 was "30's white guy gives off grinder for-profit vibes. Fanny pack. Earbuds. Knows everyone" ... and that guy will definitely have seen b/c + donk lines before.

Maybe V1 will believe we have AK, and/or maybe has seen Stupidbanana before and is never folding anything anyway ... but that could be true on a lot of lines.

I guess we could look at the solver to see what range we should use to balance this ... oh, that's right, solver never does this.

pf and flop are bad. just bomb flop. bomb turn too. 3bet flop. gotta get more money in.

The nuts would be AA. We unblock all the AX combos that our opponents can have, so I doubt our opponents are only going to put us on AA if we b/c flop and then lead turn while they're holding AX.

We could have some 2P combos like 87s, and some draws that picked up additional outs, like T9ss/65ss. It would be amazing if V had A7s, but that's probably too much to hope for. On the plus side, we probably don't have 77 here, and V isn't likely to put us on 88/22 when we just b/c flop.

Rather than focus on what V thinks our line looks like, I'd rather focus on what V's line looks like. He could have 22, A2, A8dd, and a couple combos of A7s for value. Doubtful any of those hands are going to fold to a pot-sized donk. The rest of his range is air, or flush draws.

His air isn't calling a bet, or betting again after we b/c flop. We don't really want to give his flush draws a free card. If we pot it, he might think he's getting good IO to call and try to suck out on all our AX combos.

I don't really care what a solver would do in this spot. We're so far from equilibrium here. V took this into the street with his BS raise on the flop. Now we're playing street poker. Anything we do is going to look strong, but our flop c-bet should have looked strong, and V raised anyway.

PS - it's 1/3 and Banana frequently over-reps his low-stakes opponents' skill level. Fanny Pack Freddy could just be a wannabe poser, just another bad reg.

Start by considering your opponents' ranges. Then ask what your actual hand wants to do vs those ranges. Then do that.

Low stakes opponents tend to call too much pre with a lot of AX combos, both suited and unsuited (especially when we use a small raise size). They call too wide in general (especially when we raise small).

They're going to have a lot of AX, some draws, and a bunch of whiffs. If we were HU, we might expect an opponent to stab with some air or whatever if we check, but most low-stakes opponents will stab less when it's multi-way. The only factor which might increase their stab frequency is the fact that there's a FDFD that's kind of obvious.

So, we can bet (preferably large) to target all their inelastic AX and draws. Or we can check and hope they stab or bet their AX or draws (they won't always bet).

Or we can bet small, and probably fold out the same range that folds to a larger bet. We just get less value for our hand and give them a better price to draw out on us.

There's a slim chance we'll get raised, because most low-stakes recs don't fast-play thick value on ace-high boards. Even if we do get raised, it puts us in an awkward position of having to choose how we want to continue. If you think calling a raise is face up, imagine how face up a bet-3B is.

If we bet small and get raised, we'll benefit from some reads on the raiser. We can bet-3B or b/c and then donk turn. Or we can give up the betting lead and let V dictate how big the pot will be getting to the river. Eff that, if you ask me.

So, IMO, betting (large) with our specific hand or checking are much better than betting small. We don't want to give up the betting lead when we're OOP by betting small and getting raised.

Checking to x/r works well enough, but generates more fold equity, and obviously, we don't want them to fold. Just betting out generates less fold equity. So I'd prefer to just bet out (for a large size).

If we pot it with middle set on the flop, and they fold, they're folding air, and would have folded to a small bet, or a x/r. If they call, they have something, and we can play some poker.

We can pump the brakes on spade turns, to pot control. If that seems weak, consider that when we pot it on the flop, we'll be checking a lot of turns, not just spades. We're hoping V will bet, so we can raise. Yes, we'll be risking a bad river card. That's poker.

If we don't want to check, we can use a smaller size bet on the turn, though I think that actually looks weaker and more face up, and tends to induce raises we'd prefer not to face.

If we're not comfortable checking turn, then I'd prefer to check flop and make a (very large) delayed c-bet on the turn, or bet small, with a plan to barrel small. But of course, V took a $hlt on our plan by raising over our small c-bet, so there goes that.

AJ/AT - mostly just checking from OOP. Those hands are SDV, not thick value. 3BP - range betting or range checking, depending on various factors, like stack depth, our actual hand, our read on V, our table image, how attractive the dealer is (making sure you're still reading), etc.

Taking your read at face value - V sounds like he might be a decent reg. Based on your two hand histories, he 3B's you with a polar range of very strong hands and playable trash. When he flats in the BB, not closing the action, I'd say he's got something near the middle of his range. Not strong enough to raise for value, yet playable enough that he's not worried about the limper coming along.

What sort of hand might that be? I'd say he's got some PP's looking to set-mine, some suited aces, and whatever else he thinks is worth another $12 when he's being laid 2:1 and has position on you. I'd think that range is going to be pretty wide, with a lot of speculative IO type hands.

I wouldn't say we can only continue past the flop with AX. We bet small. He raised small. We're being laid 2.5 to 1 on a call. We have a range advantage, and arguably a nut advantage. We're probably not folding any pair from 99 to KK to a single raise on a two-tone flop, especially not if V has been aggressively 3B'ing us pre and playing aggro post.

Taking V at his word about what he had in the two HH's, he's a thinking player. At least, he's thinking about what our range looks like. And he's making plays based on his analysis of our range. We could have AK here. Yet he's raising. He can probably beat AK. I'd weight his range towards 22, A2s, and A8dd.

Imagine if you potted it on the flop. If he's raising a small bet, on this board, he likes his hand. He would have raised over our pot-sized bet. He might have (probably would have) used a larger multiple, because we'd be repping so strong. He might have made it $250, and called a jam.

Hell, imagine if you just raised bigger pre, and the rest of the hand played out exactly the same. You might have 1 SPR on the river. Pot it on the flop, you can over-bet jam the turn.

Good things happen when you get more money in the pot with your strong hands, on every street.

Yeah, larger preflop. Flop should be close to pot. 3! flop, x/r turn as played. Got to get money in with a set. You only seem to want to get money in with low equity semibluffs. Flush draw board, so he can have draw you want to charge and you could be playing aggressively with draw. He can have A2s/A8s/22, which you want to try to stack off against.

villain's not supposed to have any raises really on A82 but WHO CARES THIS IS LIVE POKER. when they raise this board they are either bluffing, have a fd or a huge value hand. do NOT slowplay. pile money in every fkn street until it's all in.

Yeah, OP always likes to slow play sets and such play weak draws like sets. Chances are he has aces up, a set of deuces, or a flush draw, so try to all the money in. This hand is just awful.

Min raise turn, shove river

Result:

I like these PPs OOP vs a 3! because you sometimes are ahead, sometimes you hit a set, and Vs generally let you see a free card here and there..so I would push back on it not being +EV against a thinking player at least...but yes, deeper = better. I can't lol fold to every 3!