Home game (towards the end of the session)

5 players, .25/.50 blinds

Hero ($140)
Villain ($100)

Hero UTG (A J )
Hero raises $2, 3 folds, BB calls $1.50

Flop (2 players, $4.25)
A J 10

BB checks, Hero bets $4, BB raises to $12, Hero calls

Turn (2 players, $28.25)
4

BB bets $50, Hero....

I've been playing with this player for a long time so I can give you a decent amount of information on him. He's a very good player and makes his money playing a good loose aggressive style. He makes most of his money towards the end of sessions by applying pressure on people who are either protecting their wins or trying to patch their losses. He is extremely capable of bluffing and bluffs often. He would not mind risking his whole stack here to pick up the pot. He'll pick up a lot of small pots to have the opportunity to play a big pot for free even if he has the worst of it. He can do this because it's already paid for by the pots he's played. He knows that we are all aware of his loose aggressive big bluff image.

Whats my best play here on the turn? More importantly, why would you do what you do?

I'm more concerned about the turn. I think the flop is ok.

what makes you think this guy wont play KQ to a raise?

he absolutely would play KQ to a raise, but he would play a million other hands to a raise as well.

we can't just assume that he has KQ on the turn here everytime and just dump our hand, thats terribly weak (especially given the description of my opponent), right?

i don't think i said anything in my post which mentions anything like that

Push. Is there even a question here? Villain has committed over sixty percent of his chips and has a tendency to bluff, particularly at this stage of the session. I think you push here every time unless you have a read that he has it.

I'm a little concerned w/ the flop call. Arguments for cold calling on that board?

Turn is a no brainer push.

I understand what you are saying. I am not thrilled with the play the more I look at it but I could basically give you my thoughts during the hand.

1. I have generally played hands very cautiously against this player and it has seemed to work the best. I kind of throw the rope out there and let him hang himself sometimes. I try to do a good job of managing the pot size by keeping it small and avoiding tough decisions. (maybe you feel reraising the flop or some other play actually makes our decisions easier)

2. By just calling the flop it will encourage him to fire on the turn again as a bluff. He will certainly interpret a call there as weakness and play accordingly. If I reraise the flop though I've cut him off from bluffing again.

3. If he's on any type of draw he will be willing to get the stacks in anyways. I'd sometimes prefer to wait for the turn and see what develops. If I get a favorable turn card then I can really push the action when I probably have a big edge. Theres a lot of turn cards that can kill my hand and I don't wanna really go shoving my whole stack in before seeing a safe turn.

These were my thoughts, if i'm off base here with anything please let me know what you think.

QFT

re-raise flop

QFT?

what does that mean?

quoted for truth

Flat calling the flop raise has its ups and downs...If he is on a draw, we let him see a card relatively cheap and it put him as the aggressor in the hand

That also could be a good thing though as you said, because he is willing to hang himself..

That was probably the best card in the deck to hit the turn...He totally blanked, you need to jam it now..From your description, you are probably way ahead

I think this approach against an aggressive player that tends to go too far is more than optimal. This is usually what I find myself doing at 2/5 live very often. I think this hand isn't the place.



So w/ 15 cards in the deck to mess w/ your head, you're going to let him keep firing. you caught a great card on teh turn, but what happens if the q comes? Are you seriously going to call this down to the river?



I understand this piece. I have posted a few hands in which I have caught a very strong hand, sensed a very strong 50/50 type drawing hand in my opponent and tried to fanagle a better situation on the turn. However, in this case, there is only one hand that you're 50/50 against that's still drawing: k 10 . However, "in drawing" he's got a much wider range of hands that are much less than 50/50. in which case, you WANT him to get all his money on the flop. And since he probably wants to as well, you should really let him here.



I think the piece that I don't like is that you're flirting w/ playing a dangerous board against a LAG. Letting a lag hang themselves is fine, but you can't really do it on boards where you're catch a lot of cards that are going to make you want to fold fairly often.

I agree that giving a card here can be dangerous, but if you didn't give him credit for KQ on the flop, you've now hit as good a card as you can hope for on the turn. He's bet out, which is what you wanted him to do. If that all worked, you can't go gunshy now, you gotta push.

thanks scott,

those are all good points.

you advocate a flop reraise, how much are we reraising? what do we do if he pushes after we reraise? what do we do if he just calls the reraise?

Ah, that's the hard part. Stack sizes here are a wet dream, but cause a ton of problems for hands like this.

Situations by Situation:
1) Non-allin raise to $40. This may allow him to get his chips in w/ a strong draw. I'm fairly likely to get my chips in if he pushes back because w/ 2 streets left, I'd have to imagine, he would htink it won't take much to make you put in a 1/2 pot size bet if he was in fact holding the nuts.

If he calls: I'm likely to check behind on a heart or q and maybe the king as well. If it blanks, i'm pushing.



2) pushing all in: get a fold from every hand except kq and 1010 i would think. i'd see j10 folding w/ stacks this large. So you're protecting your hand, but it's probably not getting any incremental value.