Villain in this hand runs at 58/17/3.6. He's not a very good player. He donkbets with very weak hands and loves being the aggressor when no one has shown strength, even when he holds total air. Earlier, he made a "tricky" play against me: checked on the turn OOP when it gave him trips. He checked on the river as well, getting no additional value out of his hand, lol. He also makes very thin calls.

I wasn't sure what his PSB on the river meant. His river bet % around 80%, but he usually doesn't bet pot. In an earlier hand, the board paired bottom pair on the turn and he bet around pot. I called and on the river, he bet pot again, so I folded. That should pretty much cover it... here's the hand.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1 BB (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Hero ($143.15)
UTG ($147.80)
MP ($133.40)
CO ($111.50)
Button ($384.70)
SB ($130.90)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A, Q.
UTG raises to $4, 2 folds, Button calls $4, 1 fold, Hero calls $3.

Flop: ($12.50) 5, Q, 9 (3 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks, Button bets $6, Hero raises to $18, UTG folds, Button calls $12.

Turn: ($48.50) 5 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $25, Hero calls $25.

River: ($98.50) A (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $337.7 (All-In), Hero...

I dont understand your turn decision.

wow that's a sick spot...when someone makes a completely out of character play, it tends to be the nuts or nothing, and i think you've run into that situation here...based on his previous play of big hands against you though, he might have decided to play the hand a lot slower on the turn if he had a made hand there

this is insanely close, i really don't know what the best play is here...i think i'd have to call getting about a 3-2 price against a very cloudy range, and then puke when he rolls over like A-5

Call, get ready to reload and make a note for next time. If the villain is a semi-regular, this info is priceless.
I can't think of much you can beat aside from total air though. Maybe KQ/A9/QJ

Yeah, he has it -- nines full. Don't pay him.

I've been seeing numbers like this in multiple strat posts and i have no idea what they mean. Can someone tell me what they stand for and what they mean in terms of strategy?

That's exactly what I thought at first. People do that sometimes when they figure you have to have made something to still be the the hand. If he puts you on a hand like you have, it's a good shove. Then again, he could turn up with just a naked 5, A9, another AQ, or complete air. And man is that guy stacked for 100nl.



Poker Tracker stats. Buy it, sir.

First number is there VPIP, how often they put money in the pot pre-flop. So in this case he/she sees 58% of flops voluntarily. Next number is pre-flop raise, how often they raise pre-flop and the third number is their Aggression factor, or the % of time they bet/raise divided by the number of times they call

Andddd I'm calling. If he was horrible enough to bet bottom pair then call a check raise so be it. Plus, by checking river you massively underep your hand. This is usually 10J or air and sometimes an ace. Half pot turn bet seems like value but villians like this do idiotic things. If you bet river and he pushed we'd have a real problem on our hands.

If this is TJ or air, why reopen the action on the turn for so little $ ?

easy fold, why risk all your money on middle pair??? get him next time you have a bigger hand.

I brought that up in my post. I think mainly he is a donkey and had no purpose with that bet. While most players value bet half pot, I can see his line of thinking focusing around trying to win the pot cheaply and then pushing in a desperate move because we checked river which could be a scare card for us. Also people build pots with draws and he could've had an OESD.

If there was a flush draw on the flop that went unfilled this would be a definite call. If we bet river and he pushed it would be an easy fold. As played and with that board I think its a tough call. I like betting river but when we check we have to catch the bluff WE CREATED. Why else on earth would we check top two against a donk who's hand range is massive? We WANT to snap off a bluff. It's too bad he pushed but I still think calling is right play.

I suggest you read both of the OP's pocket cards next time

whoops, will either way..............as the pro's say don't bust on a lousy pair........or something like that.

I just never experience making money when making this kind of call.

thats why we have two pair


on to the hand:

Id say you're beat here, and this is a tough tough spot. It might be easier to fold if we didnt improve on the river, but now, we have a real decision. The shove just makes me thinks 9s full, trips, or q9.

it's like i lost the ability to read, why did i not see the river card? and why did i think he had a 9? i am so m-bare-assed. :/

I am calling with top two here everytime, if he has you beat so be it, with stats like that you can't fold top two IMHO.

i think the fact that we have top two instead of just the TPTK we had on the flop is more or less irrelevant. he's either got it or has air, and the only time having top two really matters is the small % of the time villain has a brain fart and pushes with his "slowplayed" Q9. which i guess might be possible here - it would be the epitome of donktastic "trickiness."

the two biggest questions in the hand for me are this:
1) hero said villain calls light. but so light to the point where he'd call a 3x c/r with 5x when it's pretty obvious you have TPTK, maybe TP2ndK, or better?
2) does villain ever call light in order to float and bluff from position? that would of course make a call with 5x a lot more likely. your flop c/r defines your hand pretty well to the point where i think a villain that likes to play position could decide he'd take a shot at moving you off your hand if the str8 draw completes.

given the way villain's been described, i think he checks the turn with 9's full or Q5 most of the time. this isn't a guy that subscribes to the "betting is more deceptive" school of thought. this also means that he probably checks the flop sometimes since it's a somewhat dry board.
he might value bet turned trips though and that's where the above questions come into play.

in the end i think i call this. we're getting 2-1 on a river call that has a greater chance of being a bluff given villain's betting patterns with super-strong hands and our own passive play on the turn & river. not to mention, if you crunch the likeliest hand combos, here's what you get:

16 ways for villain to have JT
4 ways for villain to have A5
6 ways for villain to have 99
4 ways for villain to have Q5

we beat just over half of the likeliest hand combos given the action. add in the possibility for random air and it of course gets better. if you limit JT to only suited combos it obviously gets worse (we'd need 3-1 just based on hand combos), but bluffing is likelier here plus a villain running 58/17 is probably playing JTo from the button to a single raise.

That's by far the best analysis of the hand. Very thorough... impressive.

Results: I hit the time clock on this hand, wondering if he really had it. After 15 seconds, it all clicked and I made the call. I remembered the hand where he turned trips and just checked on the turn and river. I didn't think a player who would play like that would make a strong value bet on the river with trips or better. He flipped over... wait for it... 710o. Hilarious. It was close though. Pre-time clock on FTP, I might've pitched it.

Yea that's pretty much expected. You played it great against an aggro donk. Make a note to check river to him from now on.

If you were gonna pitch this pre-time clock I suggest bet/folding then because anytime you check a river against this time of villian you are inviting them to bluff you. If you're not comfortable calling a pot bet or more then use a blocker bet. They're maniacs but they'll rarely push over a river bet with air.

When someone does something that is completely out of character for them and I have a strong hand (you beat A LOT of hands here) then I am more likely to look them up since it's suspicious and I either gain information for my money and sometimes I get paid too!

I guess against the way you described this guy, I'd go down with this ship.

agreed

Yeah, that's exactly what I was doing. When I checked on the river, I was confident I was ahead in the hand, but his shove made me wonder.