live 1/2NL

Hero 500
villain 300

villain is a young good player. hasnt gone to showdown much, overall seems pretty TAG


hero is UTG+1 with AdAs

1 fold, hero raise to 12. 7 folds, villain in SB calls. BB folds.

flop

Jh Js 5h

villain check, hero bet 20. villain raise to 60. hero?

I hate these hands, I'm never sure if they have the J, a FD or if they are putting you on AK and trying to push you off the hand.

I'm calling here and seeing what he does on the turn. Would he raise 66-1010 here or would he just call? Would he raise with air or a flush draw here? Any clue what he thinks about you?

i dont want to say too much because i want to hear more feedback. Hero (isnt me), hero is female, and has shown down a handfull of good hands ranging from turned straights, to flopped fullhouse, which is why hero is up at this point.

I check behind a lot on this flop.
The tighter the hero is, the easier it is for the villain to raise here since a tight person rarely ever raises UTG+1 at a full table with any hand with a J in it like AJs or JTs or anything. 55 is also probably out of the hero's range as well. If the villain things the hero will assume he has a J if he raises, then this is just too easy of a play for him to make, even OOP.

Like I said, checking the flop is a good start.

its not the way i would play it. there's tons of hands you can get 3 streets of value from.

i call the check-raise, and it's gonna be tough for me not to loose a lot if hearts don't come off.

my guess: you were in the SB w/ JTs, and she shoved and spiked the A.

I would never check behind here.

I would call his c/r and see what the turn brings. If a blank comes and he fires big again I'll might back off, depending on image, villain etc.

if hero's been c-betting a decent amount & winning pots uncontested in addition to showing down good hands, hero should bet and call the c/r. more likely to be facing a play, plus it blends our cbets with real hands.

otherwise, if hero has just been showing down monsters, hero should check behind and raise a bet on a non-heart turn. with that image nothing is calling a flop bet other than a flush draw (or a J), and we pick off turn bluffs and also have a chance at a free river showdown against Jx, for the same price as betting & calling a flop c/r, when the villain doesn't have AJ.

once hero bets and calls the c/r, hero should fold to another turn bet by the villain. hero raised UTG+1, bet & called a c/r on the flop, and he's still getting bet at on a board that shows no combo draws other than 5x-h, which has reduced value because of the paired jacks. if villain's ballsy enough (or dumb enough) to commit himself to a naked flush semibluff or total air bluff on the turn, then hats off to him.

btw, hero pushing the flop would be awful.

1. Villain is going to be ballsy enough at least 50% of the time, as he was ballsy enough to c/r on a semi-suited, paired board. This is assuming he c/r with a worse hand than our Hero holds.

2. Pushing the flop cannot be THAT awful if you're willing to call the c/r and then fold the turn to any heat. The only turn I'm probably folding to, unless the villain overbets, is a heart.

So to everyone who's saying "I call the c/r" then what is your plan for the rest of the hand? What are you doing on a non-heart turn. What about a heart turn? Are you just not folding becuase you have AA? I'm just curious.

Ok, glad to see that basically no one said Raise the flop.

which kinda pisses me off even more, because as soon as I (villain) c/r the flop, the guy on her right, who was with her, mumbled something, and I am almost 100% sure he said, (he had a jack and folded it) which leaves 1 possible jack left.

so she announced raise about 30 seconds after he mubbled and i mucked before she even put chips in.

she then turned over AA. I thought it was kinda silly for her to raise since i had been TAG the entire day up to this point

I've played hands like this there where I had an overpair to a JJx board with two to a flush and after getting my flop bet raised I've reraised. Just depends on if I thought the other player would raise a flush draw or medium pocket pair there or not. Usually I base that decision off my remaining stack size, size of the pot, and my thoughts on the villain.

ya, i can see where a raise will work, however, a raise against a tight tricky villain who might c/r with a FD would mean we're betting enough to price him out.

which in this case would almost commit villain if he calls, and if he does call. thats usually a sign its a J and not a FD or air.

I'd have to go through my hand histories, but I think I'm usually ahead here around 75-80% when I have pushed on these hands. At least at the limits I'm playing people aren't good enough to lay down flush draws on paired boards with no odds to call and middle pairs think they are making a hero call against AK often enough to make it profitable.

Your calling yourself the tight tricky villain, but do you know how the Hero here is actually viewing you? I've found 1/2 in a live setting is about the same quality of opponent you find at .5/.10 online. If your opponent is that observant of you and realizes you are capable of bluffing here, they very well may be thinking you are making a play without the J.

I'm usually a little more nervous about a cold call here if I have AA than I am a raise.

I would get the floor over and give them one warning. They need to be separated or simply kicked out.

OK, to the hand. Is is likely that the villain, as a TAG would call a PF raise with anything with a J in it? That's the standard you use to decide as the (female) hero here. If the villain plays well, you're only afraid of pocket fives.

I'm sort of basing this on reads given. Villain's c/r with air is ok, but after getting called, a good villain should realize that unless he has a lot of outs, potsticking himself with another turn bluff is -EV. Hero's raised UTG+1 and has mostly shown down good hands. Once hero calls the flop, she's got an overpair or better waaaaay more often than anything else, and at 1/2, people don't fold overpairs enough to make continuing our ruse profitable. This is all assuming villain's good (and hero hasn't been playing like a tard and just getting lucky).

Given the description of table dynamics and reads I think it's ok to call and then fold turn regardless. We're basically investing $40 as a "bluff blocker" based on our image as having good hands, this being 1/2 where no one folds overpairs, and the villain being smart enough to realize we have a hand here.

Obv we can't bank on that often.

So assuming a more normal situation where we're betting the flop here to blend real hands with cbets, and have an image of occasionally floating the flop, our plan for the hand is either fold right now on the flop, or call and then shove a non-heart turn, the decision being dictated by how tight we think the villain is. We lose about $20 worth of equity in a $100 pot by just flatting the flop against a FD, but if villain sticks in more money on a non-heart turn, we're getting a crapload more because he has to call a shove with it. Meanwhile our equity against Jx goes from 8% to 4% which is a trivial EV loss.
Maybe this sequence of flop & turn actions look like they turn our AA into something more like 66, but
- villains could be firing with pocket pairs, and although they should fold to a turn raise, sometimes they won't because of "pot commitment"
- having AA kills any pair outs villain could have with the FD

Keep in mind though - like you (but maybe not as much as you), I check behind the flop sometimes.

Did you take any action over the whisper