Help! Huge Pot for NL$100, what would you do?

[Kamawoop]

Hi,

I would really appreciate any feedback on this hand. I play a lot of poker, but really didn’t know what to do in this spot.

First some background. The guy on my right is a madman. I’d been playing the table for a couple of hours and had got up to $800; largely due to a preflop raising war which ended with madman calling preflop allin for $285 with 55 vs my QQ.

The villain in this hand is medium tight / medium aggressive. He often folds on the flop; but when he plays he will frequently raise, or check-raise. I’d doubled him up in the hand immediately prior to this one. In that case I had 77 – the flop came 78K. He checked, I bet, he smalled raised, I called. The turn was another K; which doomed me, as it turned out he had 88.

Anyhow here’s the hand:


Texas Hold'em $0.5-$1 NL (real money)

Seat 4: madman ($40.70 in chips)
Seat 5: Kamawoop Tea [ , ] ($566.15 in chips)
Seat 6: YYYY ($100.00 in chips)
Seat 8: XXXX ($131.10 in chips)
Seat 10: medium tight/medium agro man ($383.80 in chips)

ANTES/BLINDS
Kamawoop Tea posts blind ($0.50), YYYY posts blind ($1).

PRE-FLOP
XXXX folds, medium tight/medium agro man bets $4, madman folds, Kamawoop Tea bets $12, YYYY folds, medium tight/medium agro man calls $8.50.

FLOP [board cards ,, ]
Kamawoop Tea bets $18, medium tight/medium agro man bets $80,

Now what? Villian has $291 left, there is currently $122 in the pot...

Of course it would play itself, if we weren't both fairly deep-stacked.

[Galapogos]

Wow that's a hefty reraise. I tend to believe he means business more often than not especially if you guys have no history in 3-bet pots and you being OOP.

Also, I'd be 3-betting him more than 3x given that you're OOP and that you guys are very deep.

[al yell]

BDFD baby! Call at least one imo.

[Alexos]

use a converter next time!

It's hard to justify anything but call here

[Kamawoop]

I don't see what calling gains me? Can you explain. My idea was that this is shove, or fold....

[al yell]

there are numerous reasons of which i'll try to name a few and others can fill in the blanks...

for one it gives you another card. Any club or A improves your hand. Villain might shut down and be less inclined to believe his hand is good if he's holding anything but a set or big overpair. Either way his action on the Turn will give more info.

It also gives him a chance to bluff off more chips on the Turn with hands like KK, QQ, AJ, KJ, QJ, TT, 99 or the non-nuts flush draw - hands which you are currently beating. You can see how folding if he's holding any of these hands would be a big mistake.

Shoving all ur ships in makes him fold the majority of these holdings, with the exception of KK or QQ (MAYBE) and you're usually only getting called by hands that crush you like JJ or even 55.

Hence calling is prob your best line. (from my understanding)

[Kamawoop]

You are crediting him with too much bluff & too many hands.

Almost certain KK/QQ or set (with a slight extra allowed for AA or draw).

[Alexos]

Am I reading this correctly? You are 400bb deep right?

If so you just cannot shove here, unless your opponent is a huge donk he won't call with worse. Just call and re-evaluate turn.

[al yell]

in that case, if his range is precisely33, 55, JJ-KK you have 60% equity. Math isn't my forte but i think you're too deep to shove and folding is clearly a mistake.

[griffey24]

Your 3-bet size isn't helping your cause at all here. You're OOP and mega deep, so I'd make this at leassssst $20, if not more.

As played, I don't think he's really gonna play QQ/KK this way given how deep you are, despite your read that he raises hands he plays.

As nitty as it is, I don't even mind a fold that much here vs this opponent. If this was madman, thats a different story. You can't really go stacking off 300bb deep postflop with overpairs, after you gave him a good price pre to sethunt.

If I'm continuing, I'm always flatting. There's no reason at all to raise here, against this opponent.

[Kamawoop]

If villian is anyhow decent, it's gonna be difficult to keep this small if I play it (what turn cards am I looking for)?

I still think it's fold, or shove.

[griffey24]

If villian is anyhow decent, it's gonna be difficult to keep this small if I play it (what turn cards am I looking for)?

I still think it's fold, or shove.

You're not calling to keep the pot small perse. You're calling to keep worse hands/bluffs in. He's raising you on this board, in a deep pot so his range is very polarized.

If you bomb, he's snapping you off with everything that has you smoked and folding most hands that you have smoked (and maybe sometimes calling KK though I'm still not convinced KK is raising this deep)

If you flat, he can at least keep bluffing. He'll especially keep up a bluff if a club comes, and we're calling a club anyhow so we make money off his bluffs.

[Alexos]

don't post for advice if you don't wanna listen or even discuss..

[zook]

3bet bigger pre and call as played for reasons stated above. And this:

don't post for advice if you don't wanna listen or even discuss..

[Galapogos]

don't post for advice if you don't wanna listen or even discuss..

To be fair, he's not saying everyone's wrong. He's trying to discuss, but the only person that's doing so with him is Griffey. The rest of you are just saying do "this". He wants to know why, and says why he doesn't think that works. Then people jump on him for not taking their instructions at face value.

Once again, not trying to be a dink. If I was, it would be about you having those damned Canadiens as your avatar!

[nutsinho]

better to call preflop than make it 12.50

[Alexos]

I just got offended because he kept saying : I still think it's fold, or shove, like 3 times in a row.

Arguments made by me were :

1)Opponent will not get it in with worse, unless total donk
2)You let him keep bluffing if u call
3) (related to 1) You're very deep.

That's why fold or shove is clearly not the best play, cuz it allows him to play perfectly against your range. If you shove, he calls hands that crush you, if you fold you allow yourself to be bluffed always this deep, whereas calling forces him to barrel bluff to get you off your hand.