PAHWM: .25/.50 AK OOP, splashy villain (1 Viewer)

Legend5555

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.25/.50 on Fox. Playing 3-5 handed for this session. This hand is 4 handed.

VILLAIN is very splashy, vpiping at least 70% for a mix of limps and raises. Never folds to 3 bets. Seems to never fold any pair or draw on flop. But does find the fold button about 50% of the time at some point post flop. Has already shown down several trash hands, but he is running pure and sitting on $130. A hand previous to this when table was 3 handed he limped the button with :9c: :3c: and called a 5x raise from HERO in the SB. Hero went for three streets with :qd::td: on :9s::8c::4h::jc::7c: and luckily VILLAIN just called on the river. Which brings us to our hand.

.25/.50, 4 handed
Effective stack to start $84
HERO in BB with :ad::kd:.

UTG raises $2.
VILLAIN (button) calls.
SB folds.

Action on HERO (BB).
 
I’d 3-bet big, probably like $14. Sets up nicely to half pot on the flop and jam turn, assuming we hit/get a good flop
 
Raise for sure, question is how much. Any info on how much he’s willing to call? My normal raise would be to $12 here but charge him the sticky tax, make it $15. Or even higher like $20 if you’ve seen him make calls at that sizing
 
Against opponents with no fold button, I like to make a hand before I start piling the money in. We have good equity now but most flops will miss our hand.
I want to 3 bet large enough that UTG folds but not over commit to the pot yet. If we get a 79J rag board it will be tough to continue and V can have two pair in his range despite calling a large 3 bet. Maybe I'm too cautious against these types of players but I have lost a decent amount trying to barrel three streets only to have them call me down with bottom pair.
 
Against opponents with no fold button, I like to make a hand before I start piling the money in. We have good equity now but most flops will miss our hand.
I want to 3 bet large enough that UTG folds but not over commit to the pot yet. If we get a 79J rag board it will be tough to continue and V can have two pair in his range despite calling a large 3 bet. Maybe I'm too cautious against these types of players but I have lost a decent amount trying to barrel three streets only to have them call me down with bottom pair.
Wrong way to think about it imo. We want him to call as much as possible with a weak range, when we hold a premium. We just have to adjust properly post and not run poor bluffs against opponants that don’t fold when we miss/get a poor runout
 
I agree that we want him to call - I just dont want to put more money into the pot than I need to in order to get UTG out.
 
Continued...

.25/.50, 4 handed
Effective stack to start $84
HERO in BB with :ad::kd:.

UTG raises $2.
VILLAIN (button) calls.
SB folds.
HERO raises to $10.
UTG folds.
VILLAIN snap calls.

Pot: $22
Eff stack: $74
Flop: :td: :ks::6h:

HERO?
 
I agree that we want him to call - I just dont want to put more money into the pot than I need to in order to get UTG out.
Why not let him make as big of a mistake as possible?
 
From your description of villain it seems he could have all Kx and most Tx as well as all straight draws and willing to call with them. So our main concern should be how to best get stacks in.

This was one of the reasons I wanted to go bigger pre. I wanna bet like $14 here but that will make the pot $50 leaving $60 behind. I guess we could go $16-17 and leave a pot sized bet behind for the turn instead.
 
We have TPTK with a backdoor diamond draw but I dont think we have a hammerlock on this hand.
V's range is wide but if he calls, he likely has hands we're ahead of like straight draws, Tx and Kx as @Eriks notes above.
If he calls our flop bet he also has hands that beat us like KK, TT, 66, KT, K6 and T6. He called a 5x raise with 93s pre-flop (above).
Normally I would exclude KK (4 bet pre), KT, K6, T6 from a normal 3-bet caller's range, leaving TT and 66 (66 is villain dependent IMHO).
I'm not interested in jamming turn on a blank in this scenario. Not likely we are beat but too high variance for me.
I bet just over half pot, $12
 
Last edited:
Continued...

Will discuss all lines and reasoning (or lack thereof) at the very end

.25/.50, 4 handed
Effective stack to start $84
HERO in BB with :ad::kd:.

UTG raises $2.
VILLAIN (button) calls.
SB folds.
HERO raises to $10.
UTG folds.
VILLAIN snap calls.

Pot: $22
Eff stack: $74
Flop: :td: :ks::6h:

HERO bets $7.
VILLAIN calls.

Pot: $36
Eff stack: $67
Turn: :td: :ks::6h: :5h:

HERO?
 
Almost done. Guess this hand is either not that interesting, or people have other team things to do ;).

.25/.50, 4 handed
Effective stack to start $84
HERO in BB with :ad::kd:.

UTG raises $2.
VILLAIN (button) calls.
SB folds.
HERO raises to $10.
UTG folds.
VILLAIN snap calls.

Pot: $22
Eff stack: $74
Flop: :td: :ks::6h:

HERO bets $7.
VILLAIN calls.

Pot: $36
Eff stack: $67
Turn: :td: :ks::6h: :5h:

HERO bets $25
VILLAIN calls.

Pot: $86
Eff stack: $42
River: :td: :ks::6h: :5h: :8d:

HERO?
 
Given the description of villain I don’t think it’s very interesting in terms of what action to take (3bet/bet/bet/bet seems pretty standard). I think the bet sizing is more interesting. I would’ve gone bigger and I’m curious of your reasoning behind the relatively small sizing pre and (especially) on the flop.
 
Given the description of villain I don’t think it’s very interesting in terms of what action to take (3bet/bet/bet/bet seems pretty standard). I think the bet sizing is more interesting. I would’ve gone bigger and I’m curious of your reasoning behind the relatively small sizing pre and (especially) on the flop.
Yes, I mostly posted this because of sizing concerns. I was curious what people thought about exploitative sizings here.

I skew toward GTO sizing. So I don't typically bet very large on dry flops, especially in 3 bet pots. While I had seen this villain do some goofy stuff, I wasn't super confident in the read quite yet so I defaulted to standard play. This hand ended up changing that confidence level. I chose sizings to allow a half pot river jam. In my experience, even people like this villain don't tend to just call pot sized jams on the turn with naked draws or bad top pair. They are more apt to call "normal" sized bets.

My preflop sizing could be a little bigger, but I generally feel that 4*bet + (1 or 1.5)*callers is okay. It's not like we were super deep where I think I a case can be made for making it bigger.

This is all assuming general strategy and not taking into account specific player tendencies. I tend to not adjust this unless I feel my read is very reliable. I prefer to remain fairly "standard" in my sizings and ranges because I think it's important to have good habits.

Anyway, since the rest isn't very interesting. I jam since the only real hand that bluffs here is QJ and there are a lot of worse hands I think can call. He snaps and rolls over :ts::8s: for rivered 2 pair.

I comment that it must be nice to be running so well this session and he replies, "Not really. I just knew what you had."
 
Before this hand, I didn't think he was calling as light as 2nd pair for multiple streets.
 
Man, just got here!

Preflop: I like the big 3 bet here to isolate the V. AK is good, but I dont want to play multiway with a monster hand. Given that the read on V is he has no fold button pre, we want to exploit this and charge a premium.

Postflop: Kinda mixed flop. Nice TPTK, no flush draws, and several straight draws out there that will be in V's range. I think you could bet your entire range small here (like you did), or go straight up exploitative and target his weak pair or straight draw hands with a half pot bet. No bigger than half pot though, we want a call with weak hands here.

Turn: Back door flush draw possibilities, but otherwise pretty much a brick. I say continue charging same hands as above. with a 78 or 89 type hand, he aint going anywhere.

River: a bit of a coordinated river card, but we can't deviate from the plan. I think you could either check/call here or just put it in yourself. Either play would be justified. No folds for us though.
 
Yes, I mostly posted this because of sizing concerns. I was curious what people thought about exploitative sizings here.

I skew toward GTO sizing. So I don't typically bet very large on dry flops, especially in 3 bet pots. While I had seen this villain do some goofy stuff, I wasn't super confident in the read quite yet so I defaulted to standard play. This hand ended up changing that confidence level. I chose sizings to allow a half pot river jam. In my experience, even people like this villain don't tend to just call pot sized jams on the turn with naked draws or bad top pair. They are more apt to call "normal" sized bets.

My preflop sizing could be a little bigger, but I generally feel that 4*bet + (1 or 1.5)*callers is okay. It's not like we were super deep where I think I a case can be made for making it bigger.

This is all assuming general strategy and not taking into account specific player tendencies. I tend to not adjust this unless I feel my read is very reliable. I prefer to remain fairly "standard" in my sizings and ranges because I think it's important to have good habits.

Anyway, since the rest isn't very interesting. I jam since the only real hand that bluffs here is QJ and there are a lot of worse hands I think can call. He snaps and rolls over :ts::8s: for rivered 2 pair.

I comment that it must be nice to be running so well this session and he replies, "Not really. I just knew what you had."
I agree with smaller sizing not being confident in the read. I would still go bigger but more marginally bigger given that info. Unlucky river, he would probably not have folded to that half pot bet even without the 8.
 
Reasonable as played but this specific villain will get to the river with air a lot, have you seen him bluff those? Might be better line to size down a bit on turn (maybe 20ish) so he’s got a natural 2/3 pot bluff for you to check/call

Obviously still getting stacked here
 
Against a villain like this, I'm going pot sized($22) on the flop, and shoving the turn. If he wants to get his money in as a 88% dog let him.
 

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