JJ Multi-Way Part Deux (1 Viewer)

[power13]

Played this one in AC last night.

Late and the table has been juicy since a boxing match got out earlier and a bunch of fishy players flocked to the poker room. Villain in this hand is to my right a typical bad reg, limp-calling a bunch, playing too many hands, playing pretty straightforward. Chatty latin guy, has had a few drinks but doesn't appear bombed. We've been talking about some of the "interesting" play at the table. He has roughly $400.

I've been playing a little looser than usual looking for opportunities to play with the fish. Limping behind more than usual with small PPs and SCs since the table is quite passive. I'm sitting just ~$325. I've racked up my chips planning to leave when the BB gets to me.

I'm UTG and look down at , make it $14. CO calls, villain in the BB calls.

Flop is . Villain checks, I lead out for $20, CO calls, villain calls.

Turn is . Villain donks for $35. Hmm, I haven't seen him do that before. I call. CO folds.

River is . Villain leads for $55. Hero?

 

[colter ripton]

Getting like 5 to 1 I dont see how you could ever fold.

Pretty clear call

 

[Jimulacrum]

Getting like 5 to 1 I dont see how you could ever fold.

Pretty clear call

Agreed. Villain doesn't need to have trips or a boat to make this play, and QQ+ seems unlikely based on the action.

A raise on the turn may have been a good play, BTW. That small donk bet may well have been Villain trying to set a low price for the river card.

 

[Kain8]

Why do the pushing when the donkey will do the pulling? Throw a call in and hope that the villain's range randomly has 54o as a river bet.

 

[ChaosRock]

I call also.

I'm not sure I like the suggested turn raise though. I wanna keep Villains bluffs/semi-bluffs in. I don't think Villain calls Hero's raise with many hands we beat there since Hero opened UTG, c-bet the flop and raise the turn donk.

On the river, I think Villain is never value betting with a hand we beat (possibly QQ), so we might have only a bluff catcher with JJ there. Given the price Hero's getting, it's a call imo though. Flush draws and 45 and even maybe some 88-TT combos who are turning his hand into a bluff. Enough to warrant a call me thinks.

 

[GenghisKhan]

Agree with @ChaosRock
But if this hand is worth talking about, I doubt he just had the suspected lower pair or 4-5 straight draw. oop:
But it was a must call/don't raise scenario.

 

[GenghisKhan]

This reminded me of a game I played in this week. I won 2 large pots by calling the river, and both times they asked why I didn't reraise. Both times the original raiser was known to only play rock solid hands and only raise with top hands. (Nuts, 2nd best, 3rd best possible hand). Rest of the table plays questionable (good buds having fun).

Both times I had 3rd best possible hand, and knew this villain only calls a reraise if they have better, otherwise folds. So I only called. It's like they had never heard of this scenario before. So of course, I did not teach them about it. Lol.

 

[Steve Birrer]

Clearly got to call. Probably would have bet a bit larger post flop and raised after Villains turn bet.

 

[Pesto628]

I think with the calling the turn is fine. River is definitely a call imo.

 

[Josh Kifer]

Just call.... Pretty easy situation where your good, or your not.

 

[Lemonzest]

I think folding or raising on the river are both out of the question. You are either way ahead or way behind and your hand is just too strong to fold. I call and if he has trips or better then good for him.

 

[JustinInMN]

Chalk me up for a call as well. I really only like raising the turn if you think he's donking ace his here.

So unlikely he has qq+. The donk on the turn is so weird though. It does kind of scream a seven or nothing. Maybe he's taking a weird line with Tt-88. I think there are ways to fold this hand if you know the player enough that the turn donk is always strength. But if there's any bluffs possible, this hand is too good to fold.

 

[power13]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. The consensus here was consistent with my initial thinking -- that given the action and the board, my overpair is a bluffcatcher, there are really no medium-strength hands I can beat that make sense on this board. He is unlikely to have an overpair given the pre-flop action, and so his value is trips+, which is maybe 10 realistic combos +/-. So if he has like 2-3 combos of bluffs here then this is a call given the great pot odds. The turn donk could maybe have been a blocking bet with two overs and a flush draw so easy to imagine that many bluff combos.

So that was the logical, odds based thought process. On the other side of it was the live read. The line he took was so weird -- donking small after two aggressive actions into a multi-way pot where the late position player had called a flop bet. A flush draw with overs could have donked, but could have also easily gone for a check-raise there instead, or donked bigger. And then the river bet is like 30% of the pot. I would think a busted flush draw would be sizing up if they were looking for a fold, at least at 1/2. In my experience, regs like this are under-weighted toward bluffs on the river. I hadn't been super nitty tonight given the weak table, calling down with top pair bad kicker a few hands ago against one of the fish (correctly). If I read him as a much better or much worse player I would have snapped, but my alarm bells were going off even though the price was amazing. I'm taking my time and watching him, he doesn't look uncomfortable, but also I don't have a solid read from him.

So I started talking. "Do you have 3s?" He looks me in the eyes and shrugs his shoulders. "I don't think I can fold this hand." I still have my chips in my rack and start counting a call with one finger, still trying to watch him. Still nothing helpful. I am about to call but decide to unrack my chips to seem like I might raise to see if that gets a reaction. He is now eyeing my chips definitely not looking uncomfortable. That was what I was looking for, I muck.

He mucks and says "damn I put you on an overpair and thought you'd call that."

"What did you have?" I said

"I flopped quads."

I'm pretty happy with my read and rack up to go. Then the old man coffee on the button says, "great fold, he definitely had you there." Now I feel like a total nit and am wondering if villain was lying to me. Quads adds up to me for his strange line, but this is 1/2, maybe he was more of a fish than I was giving him credit for. 5 to 1! I guess I'll never know for sure. Where do you guys shake out in these situations when the math tells you one thing but your read and instinct tell you the other?

 

[JustinInMN]

Quads kind of makes sense here.

If villian has quads he knows his opponents' value hands are all overpairs. He's thinking he can't risk you giving up on bluffs like Ak, AQ since the co also called (and it's reasonable to figure the cutoff for 88-TT imo), and he doesn't want to risk two opponents checking if one is willing to call.

So he's hoping one of you has an overpair big enough so he can get two streets as the best way to get value. Can't do that if the turn checks through.

Given the physical reads I bet he had at least one seven, and it may well have been quads.

In retrospect if villian had quads, he probably wishes he went for the check raise on the flop.

 

[JustinInMN]

He is unlikely to have an overpair given the pre-flop action, and so his value is trips+, which is maybe 10 realistic combos +/-. So if he has like 2-3 combos of bluffs here then this is a call given the great pot odds. The turn donk could maybe have been a blocking bet with two overs and a flush draw so easy to imagine that many bluff combos.

It's really hard for me to give him 2 combos just from a math perspective. Turning diamonds makes some sense, but I would assume AK is a pf 3b, AQ maybe is a pf flat., AJ we block, AT, KQ maybe. I suppose we have to give him A9 or A8 if we are supposing he can have a 7 in other suits. So that's 5 maybes I suppose. If we assume he continues with half on the flop that's the line.

But the problem is the cutoff called too, so it's hard to think villian would assume fold equity on a blank turn here. The turn donk just doesn't fit a bluff, but it does fit value knowing there will usually be one caller at least.

 

[power13]

It's really hard for me to give him 2 combos just from a math perspective. Turning diamonds makes some sense, but I would assume AK is a pf 3b, AQ maybe is a pf flat., AJ we block, AT, KQ maybe. I suppose we have to give him A9 or A8 if we are supposing he can have a 7 in other suits. So that's 5 maybes I suppose. If we assume he continues with half on the flop that's the line.

But the problem is the cutoff called too, so it's hard to think villian would assume fold equity on a blank turn here. The turn donk just doesn't fit a bluff, but it does fit value knowing there will usually be one caller at least.

I agree, my instinct on the turn was not that I was against a flush draw. I was very confused by the bet looking at this board. I felt like there was a reasonable chance I would have heard from him on the flop if he had a big hand. Then I thought maybe he floated with 2s on the flop and boated up on the turn? But that didn't make a ton of sense to me either given that CO called my flop c-bet. That would be a very speculative call. I was struggling to put him on really any hand, so I called to see what would happen.

When he bet the river was when I started to try and really figure out value and bluffs, and it was there that I said to myself OK maybe AdQd / AdTd / KdQd makes sense. And maybe he's a guy who flats AKs too so that could be in there too, and maybe A9 and A8 as you said. Whether he'd call with lower suited aces, and whether he'd float any of the above on the flop made everything a discounted out, but I was coming out on the logic side that there was enough that I could give him 2-3 weighted combos out of the 7-8 conceivable ones plus whatever low chance of total random air. In my thinking, the turn donk with a FD wouldn't be for fold equity but as a blocker bet hoping to get to the river cheaper than if he checked and I barreled the turn or the CO bet. Someone mentioned 45o earlier, and I definitely didn't consider that hand. 4d5d or 5d6d I guess could also have made sense under this logic, though I didn't consider those at the time.

But all of this went to my hesitation on the river - it seemed like a fairly complicated line of reasoning to follow this line as a bluff. Would he take this turn line vs. a check-call or check-raise? Would he lead so small with a busted draw? Maybe 2 combos is actually tough to give him as you said. But I also found it hard to give him all the combos of value, so I was back to feeling I didn't need to believe in very many bluffs to call given these odds, but still feeling funny about the whole thing.