No interesting online hands as I'm currently trying to clear a 10k 2nl prop bet. But in my first home-game in a while, the following hand came up about 2 hours in.

The game's generally loose-passive, as most of the players aren't by any means experienced. We're being pretty friendly, and there's a lot of chatter and banter. At this point we were 6-handed (started with 8) and I was on the button with about $85. My image should be OK, if it even matters. I'm the table nerd as usual so everyone assumes I'm a "math guy" (even tho I almost failed geometry in 10th grade).

The villain claims to visit 2+2 and throughout the night seemed competent. He didn't raise often enough pf IMO but overall knew how to play NLHE. He was helping to teach his friend at the table (but not as a table lecturer). During our hand he had about $140, the beneficiary of some good luck - aces to kings pf, all-in against some dude who left about an hour earlier, and his hands connecting against donks.

Hero is dealt [ Q 9 ]

3 limpers
Hero calls
SB calls
Villain says, "I need a pot button," and raises to $3
2 calls
Hero calls
SB folds

Flop [ A A 6 ]
($8)

Villain bets $6
2 folds
Hero calls $6

Turn [ A A 6 ] [ K ]
($20)
Villain moves all-in

Now he thought awhile before shoving, probably like 40 seconds. Looked fairly comfortable afterward. While I thought about it I was shaking a bit (I always do that when I'm cold which I was during most of the game), and he had said, "you're shaking, must be a bluff or a big hand..."

I folded.

I don't think he plays a worse hand like this - do you ? You may say, Why call OTF if you're just going to fold when you hit your flush, but I didn't anticipate 1) him shoving when the draw hit and 2) a broadway. I call if the card's innocuous like a 3 or an 8. The K just completes too many hands I think that raise PF from OOP when he KNOWS it's going to be called by almost everyone.

Pf is pretty standard w/position and a decent multiway hand

Not a very interesting hand I guess but that's my contribution to nl strat for the week

Is he competent enough to assume you were on a flush draw and know that you'll call a huge overshove when you hit? I doubt it. This looks like a gift from a scared AQ. I would have called.

Ugh.

But after he talked, I think I fold. What was the line I heard once? "When people talk after their action is done in a big pot, it's because they are comfortable with their hand." You say he's competent. When you flat the flop he should only be able to put you on one of three things. Ace, slowplaying boat, flush draw. The turn made it so none of those hands will want to fold, and hes overshoved on you. He has you crushed, IMO - probably KK hoping you'll call with your naked Ace.

but his talking doesnt make sense. hero here has to call, which means we cant be bluffing. so maybe he's accidentally talking about his own hand, and i doubt he's bluffing.
i dont know if KK bets this flop with 3 other players in. 2 on the flop makes it less likely someone has one i guess, but 3 others in makes it more likely someone called with a decent/suited Ace.
i would think if he hits a boat he would check it and hope an A or flush bets, though thats player dependent.

i dont know. if he seems comfortable i could muck it, but he may think his AxJ or AQ is good. could also be JT if he might build pots with those kind of hands preflop.
if he seems a bit nervous or aggressive while hes talking id probably call.

this is pretty player/read dependent.

Sure KK bets this flop, even multiway. You think he's going to c/f just because an Ace showed up? Now if he gets called OTF, maybe KK slows down to reevaluate. But with the read that this player is competent, every single hand that he could put Hero on got there on the turn, and he's still overshoving. This is never a bluff IMO, and he'd be turning AJ/AQ into a bluff by doing this. I was leaning toward folding even without the speech, and yes I know the speech makes no sense, but it turns it into a definite fold for me. (In theory, at least. At the table I might say, what the $@!&, screw it, I call.)

i didnt say he c/f for one bet on the flop, but again it's player dependent as to whether he bets it there or not.

i dont think he's bluffing either but its possible he has a hand we can beat.

but does a boat really just push on the turn? there's 20 in the pot, he has like 130 behind and we have about 75. wouldnt a boat want to milk us for a bit more money? if he's competent at all this move doesnt make any sense. even if he was trying to price out a one card flush draw, he doesn't have to push. He can bet like 30.

Why would anyone decent play AQ like this? He cannot have AxQc since we have the Qc. The only hand I guess he could be playing here is AxJc and trying to steal the pot. JcTc is not really feasible; he's not the type of player to build pots OOP w/those hands. Like I said in the OP he didn't even raise enough IN position. I put him on a fairly decent hand to have raised from the BB.

Rise, you ask, 'why would a competent player shove with a boat or quads,' but haven't you ever shoved w/the nuts before knowing you'll get paid off ? Zeebo thereom at work. I may go ahead and shove here w/KK/AK to be honest. What can my opponent have once I bet OTF ? An ace or a flush draw, both of which are probably not folding. The only thing that led me to a call was that I hadn't been out of line donkish. He should know I'm capable of making a big fold for my whole stack.

His speech was a joke; he's not seriously saying that I have a bluff. He was just recycling poker cliches.

fwiw I don't know results. He tossed his cards in the muck right after me. Other players wanted us to show our hands, and I claimed to have folded a weak ace. In response villain tipped me since I had been the dealer (kinda lol).

We're not not playing Q9s without stacking off here.

sure ive shoved with the nuts, but i have to have a real good read AND know the guy has something good enough to stack off with. i have never 4x pot shoved against a good player. if he does have a boat, 4x overbet shoving the pot may actually make strong 2nd best hands fold (case in point: you folded the nut flush).

if he knows you're capable of making big folds for your whole stack, then he is definitely not shoving for value. if he knows you either have a flush or an A, and you'll fold both to a shove, why would he shove a full house?

have never agreed w/this logic, and don't now.

I didn't mean to say that he knew I could make a big laydown. Up to this point I hadn't really folded a legit hand beside like TPWK after having my c/bet raised (live absolutely sucks for volume, I mean my God). I meant to say that I was one of the only decent players at the table...and so I'm not going, like the table donks, to instacall my stack with flush/trips. He should've taken a different line against me w/a fh+, IMO, but that doesn't mean he's going to. I doubt a guy who won't isolate all that often w/QTo is able to think, "With my jacks, I can get him to fold flushes and aces because he cannot stack off without a FH here. After all, he plays 25nl online and posts at FCP, he must clearly be thinking on level 6." Maybe he bluffed me off the hand, tho I figure he would've flipped it up afterward (so I'm also sure he didn't have quads!).

What made me even more suspicious was that he took so long to think the hand through, almost like he was assigning me a calling range and concluding that I could snap off a shove. I mean ~40 seconds is actually a sizeable duration.

I think he never has a worse flush.
I think his range for raising limpers OOP from the blinds is really narrow.
I think he'd have to be pretty bad to tank for nearly a minute and reach the conclusion that shoving $74 into a $20 pot with AT/AJ/AQ was a good idea.
I think this is a fold.

i agree that he often has you beat.
im just sayin the way he played this hand was pretty suspicious and makes a good reason for calling.
decent players will often try and milk a full house, or check and let you bet your flush/trips before shoving.
but they could also be thinking "I have full house I can go all in like they do on tv WEEEEEE!"

With hind-sight it's a good fold. The way he chucked his cards into the muck kinda suggested that he was thinking 'could've got more'.