Bare Ace Play

[sierradave 0]

$1/2 nl, Caesar's Atlantic CityVillain has lag tendencies. Has made some costly bluffs, also made a number of oddball str8s. Difficult to put him on a hand, his raises tend to create massive, multiway pots. He's sitting two to my right.Relevant stacksHero: ~$450Villain coversPreflop, one limper, villain in cutoff+1 raises to $7. His range is huge in this spot. Hero has Ad10c on the button, raises to $25. Folds back around to villain, who calls.Flop (2 players, $50): jd10h9dVillain checks, hero bets $35. Villain calls.Turn (2 players, $120): 3dVillain bets $75. Hero pushes.Thoughts?

[rdtedm 0]

Weird line from villain, c/c then lead for 3/4 pot? I smell something's up and would probably shovel too.

[David_Nicoson 1]

I think I call the turn with position and the nut draw. The best way to profit against an overly aggressive opponent is to let him keep coming at you with a worse hand.

[No_Neck 0]

I don't mind it but I agree with david, you don't try to out muscle the muscle you try to out think the muscle...

[mtdesmoines 3]

$1/2 nl, Caesar's Atlantic CityVillain has lag tendencies. Has made some costly bluffs, also made a number of oddball str8s. Difficult to put him on a hand, his raises tend to create massive, multiway pots. He's sitting two to my right.Relevant stacksHero: ~$450Villain coversPreflop, one limper, villain in cutoff+1 raises to $7. His range is huge in this spot. Hero has Ad10c on the button, raises to $25. Folds back around to villain, who calls.Flop (2 players, $50): jd10h9dVillain checks, hero bets $35. Villain calls.Turn (2 players, $120): 3dVillain bets $75. Hero pushes.Thoughts?

Without seeing a bunch of hands villain played, I can't say. This is a read-dependent play.

[Scott3705 0]

I don't mind it but I agree with david, you don't try to out muscle the muscle you try to out think the muscle...

this is in no way an endorsement for hero's play here. I actually don't like it very much. I don't like bluffing on a coordinated board against a guy who's too unpredictable to put on a hand. Pretty unrelated to the specific hand but wanted to comment....I disagree with you and David regarding sitting back and waiting for hands against the LAG. When I feel myself "getting out of hand" the guys who calls behind with small pairs, AK, AQ and suited connectors are the types of guys that I want to be playing against. The guys that are just going to continue to fold unless they catch something. I'm more thrown off by the guy who's willing to 3-bet me with KQ and 66 preflop. It's my opinion that you should be raising the raiser when you're playing against LAGGish players. Just because he's aggressive doesn't mean he stacks off when you catch a set. (In fact since he's raising so many hands, he's often not stacking off just because he usually doesn't have a hand.) By doing a lot of calling, you're doing exactly what a LAG wants...you're making yourself fairly passive and transparent.

[David_Nicoson 1]

I disagree with you and David regarding sitting back and waiting for hands against the LAG. When I feel myself "getting out of hand" the guys who calls behind with small pairs, AK, AQ and suited connectors are the types of guys that I want to be playing against. The guys that are just going to continue to fold unless they catch something. I'm more thrown off by the guy who's willing to 3-bet me with KQ and 66 preflop. It's my opinion that you should be raising the raiser when you're playing against LAGGish players. Just because he's aggressive doesn't mean he stacks off when you catch a set. (In fact since he's raising so many hands, he's often not stacking off just because he usually doesn't have a hand.) By doing a lot of calling, you're doing exactly what a LAG wants...you're making yourself fairly passive and transparent.

I don't think we should take the raise out of our arsenal, but I think this hand is an example of a place that we have more of a chance to trap than to bluff. I really think there are some more specific details that add to the LAG description that can help us out.

[coremiller 0]

First, the math (let's hope I can do this properly). After he bets $75, there is $195 in the pot. You have $390 left. If you push and he calls, your equity depends on how many outs you have (I think we can safely assume you're behind if he calls); it's between 7 and 9 (it could be less if he has a flush with a straight-flush draw, but that is pretty unlikely). For simplicity we'll split the difference and call it 8. That gives you equity of 8/46=17.3%. So, when you're called, 17.3% of the time you win a $900 pot and 82.7% of the time you lose a $900 pot. This works out to a payoff of -$587.But sometimes he won't call, he'll fold, and then you win a $195 pot. The question is how often does he have to fold to make this play profitable. The EV equation looks like this:EV = 195x - 587(1-x), where x is the probability that he will fold. In order to find the break-even point, we set EV = 0 and solve for x. When we do so, we find that x = 587/781, or ~75%. In other words, in order to break even, he has to fold to your raise 75% of the time (assuming I did the math right).Whether he will fold 3/4 of the time here is read dependent. My guess is he calls with all flushes, straights, and some of the time with sets, and not very often with two pair.75% seems high, but it's a consequence of the fact that you're over-betting the pot with a weak draw with only one card to come, so you really lose a ton whenever you're called, even though you're never drawing dead.Personally, I think pushing is a mistake, probably the third worst of the options you have (pushing, raising w/o pushing, folding, calling). Folding here is not a bad idea. You're almost certainly behind, you're probably not getting pot odds to draw, and your implied odds are weak because he'll rarely pay you off if a fourth diamond hits. Calling is not that bad either, if you think he'll bluff or pay off the river if you hit.

[Mirrorsaw 0]

First, the math (let's hope I can do this properly). After he bets $75, there is $195 in the pot. You have $390 left. If you push and he calls, your equity depends on how many outs you have (I think we can safely assume you're behind if he calls); it's between 7 and 9 (it could be less if he has a flush with a straight-flush draw, but that is pretty unlikely). For simplicity we'll split the difference and call it 8. That gives you equity of 8/46=17.3%. So, when you're called, 17.3% of the time you win a $900 pot and 82.7% of the time you lose a $900 pot. This works out to a payoff of -$587.<snip>

Think those numbers need some tweaking. I haven't done this math in a while, so I could be off base. Your expected value is the sum over all outcomes of payoff times probability. If you win your payoff is $195+$390-$75, since you don't count the money that you're betting this round in the payoff and you're actually only raising $390-$75. Similarly, the downside payoff is -$390 because you only count the bet this round (and not the money in the pot) as a loss. So E=(0.173*510-0.827*390)=-234.3. The breakeven point in terms of fold percentage is then about 54.6%.

[sierradave 0]

I don't think we should take the raise out of our arsenal, but I think this hand is an example of a place that we have more of a chance to trap than to bluff. I really think there are some more specific details that add to the LAG description that can help us out.

Appreciate the discussion thus far. Adding more details, this wasn't one of the tough, thinking LAGs who play a huge range preflop and a tough, aggressive game postflop. He'd built much of his stack by sticking around with oddball draws and having them come through, and a few of the tougher players at the table (discussing a couple hours later, when the table broke up) agreed that he was pretty much their main target. One particular thing about his play - and this is what influenced me to make this move when I did - was his propensity to fire a third shell on the river. He lost a number of medium-to-large pots when he bet the river, got called, and immediately folded his cards face down. Once this happened on a JJJ109 board with three spades (the final J fell on the river) and his caller showed ace-high.As such, his suspicious bet on the turn definitely wasn't something I was going to fold to -- there was a decent chance that I actually held the best hand with second pair-top kicker. If I made a smaller raise, I felt he was likely to call if he held the Q or K of diamonds, a set, a straight, or even two pair. The problem is that I really didn't have enough to raise, get called, and then fire a meaningful bullet on the river. So I felt that many of those hands would call my river bet after calling my turn bet, losing me a ton of value. Against a tougher LAG, I would have considered just calling on the turn, then making a play on the river, knowing that if the board didn't pair, they'd be well aware that they didn't have the nuts and I was showing a ton of strength by calling. But the problem was that I felt confident he'd fire again regardless of the river card, and that would put me in a tough situation in a pot which once again was large enough to potentially attract a crying call. If the guy bet $150 on the river, for instance, I'd have to choose between practially min-raising and folding a hand that still rates to be the best some of the time. Both seem like -EV choices to me.His turn bet was clearly meant to make me lay it down a big pair. This was the first pot I'd reraised at the table and my image was very tight/conservative because of a combination of card death and missing flops with big aces. I don't think I'd seen the turn in a raised pot even once (My stack was big b/c I'd been transferred from a broken game). In response to Coremiller and Mirrorsaw, I expect him to fold in this spot almost every time. If the roles were reversed and I was posting this hand online, we'd be looking at a $315 raise from a tight opponent into a $195 pot. Str8s look no good here, small flushes just found out for cheap that they're probably no good, sets and two pair are praying for a boat and getting terrible drawing odds with no implied odds. He's either betting a scared str8, semi-bluffing with a weaker flush draw, or betting a scared small flush. All of those ought to be folding to the turn reraise.My one concern was that the bet was so big and out-of-character that he'd decide it was fishy and look me up. Honestly though, my hunch was that even if he decided I was making the play with just the nut draw, there was a decent chance he'd fold anyway. This guy was chasing plenty of loose draws when it was cheap, but he also was taking the initiative often enough that I didn't think he'd feel comfortable risking so much of his stack with no way to win except producing the best hand.And yeah, in case it isn't blatantly obvious, villain tanked for awhile and then mucked.

[mtdesmoines 3]

Appreciate the discussion thus far. Adding more details, this wasn't one of the tough, thinking LAGs who play a huge range preflop and a tough, aggressive game postflop. He'd built much of his stack by sticking around with oddball draws and having them come through, and a few of the tougher players at the table (discussing a couple hours later, when the table broke up) agreed that he was pretty much their main target. One particular thing about his play - and this is what influenced me to make this move when I did - was his propensity to fire a third shell on the river. He lost a number of medium-to-large pots when he bet the river, got called, and immediately folded his cards face down. Once this happened on a JJJ109 board with three spades (the final J fell on the river) and his caller showed ace-high.As such, his suspicious bet on the turn definitely wasn't something I was going to fold to -- there was a decent chance that I actually held the best hand with second pair-top kicker. If I made a smaller raise, I felt he was likely to call if he held the Q or K of diamonds, a set, a straight, or even two pair. The problem is that I really didn't have enough to raise, get called, and then fire a meaningful bullet on the river. So I felt that many of those hands would call my river bet after calling my turn bet, losing me a ton of value. Against a tougher LAG, I would have considered just calling on the turn, then making a play on the river, knowing that if the board didn't pair, they'd be well aware that they didn't have the nuts and I was showing a ton of strength by calling. But the problem was that I felt confident he'd fire again regardless of the river card, and that would put me in a tough situation in a pot which once again was large enough to potentially attract a crying call. If the guy bet $150 on the river, for instance, I'd have to choose between practially min-raising and folding a hand that still rates to be the best some of the time. Both seem like -EV choices to me.His turn bet was clearly meant to make me lay it down a big pair. This was the first pot I'd reraised at the table and my image was very tight/conservative because of a combination of card death and missing flops with big aces. I don't think I'd seen the turn in a raised pot even once (My stack was big b/c I'd been transferred from a broken game). In response to Coremiller and Mirrorsaw, I expect him to fold in this spot almost every time. If the roles were reversed and I was posting this hand online, we'd be looking at a $315 raise from a tight opponent into a $195 pot. Str8s look no good here, small flushes just found out for cheap that they're probably no good, sets and two pair are praying for a boat and getting terrible drawing odds with no implied odds. He's either betting a scared str8, semi-bluffing with a weaker flush draw, or betting a scared small flush. All of those ought to be folding to the turn reraise.My one concern was that the bet was so big and out-of-character that he'd decide it was fishy and look me up. Honestly though, my hunch was that even if he decided I was making the play with just the nut draw, there was a decent chance he'd fold anyway. This guy was chasing plenty of loose draws when it was cheap, but he also was taking the initiative often enough that I didn't think he'd feel comfortable risking so much of his stack with no way to win except producing the best hand.And yeah, in case it isn't blatantly obvious, villain tanked for awhile and then mucked.

I think making a LAG your target is the wrong approach. Good LAGs are slippery and can get away from tricky situations, or they aren't LAGs for long. Start pushing marginal situations INTO LAGs, and you're going broke. You FIND spots to catch LAGs; I don't know that you create them. Maybe that doesn't make sense.I'm glad this worked, but I wouldn't try it all the time.

[Royal_Tour 0]

i dont really like the re-pop with A,10o even with position.from what i read, "villain has Lag tendencies" well thats not Ultra lame lag enough to think he raises every hand he enters.Unless the goal is to get everyone to fold, or tangle only with villain HU, but you have to be willing to lay your hand down when you think you're beat. even bad players catch cards.

[David_Nicoson 1]

One particular thing about his play - and this is what influenced me to make this move when I did - was his propensity to fire a third shell on the river. He lost a number of medium-to-large pots when he bet the river, got called, and immediately folded his cards face down. Once this happened on a JJJ109 board with three spades (the final J fell on the river) and his caller showed ace-high.As such, his suspicious bet on the turn definitely wasn't something I was going to fold to -- there was a decent chance that I actually held the best hand with second pair-top kicker. If I made a smaller raise, I felt he was likely to call if he held the Q or K of diamonds, a set, a straight, or even two pair. The problem is that I really didn't have enough to raise, get called, and then fire a meaningful bullet on the river. So I felt that many of those hands would call my river bet after calling my turn bet, losing me a ton of value. Against a tougher LAG, I would have considered just calling on the turn, then making a play on the river, knowing that if the board didn't pair, they'd be well aware that they didn't have the nuts and I was showing a ton of strength by calling. But the problem was that I felt confident he'd fire again regardless of the river card, and that would put me in a tough situation in a pot which once again was large enough to potentially attract a crying call. If the guy bet $150 on the river, for instance, I'd have to choose between practially min-raising and folding a hand that still rates to be the best some of the time. Both seem like -EV choices to me.

You can call with just the pair of tens on the river, right?

[sierradave 0]

I can, but I'd prefer not to. I felt I could make him lay down a lot of hands that beat that pair of tens here. If I call on the river with my pair of tens, I'm doing so because I'll be offered a good enough price to justify (I figure they'll be good 33% or so). The raise shuts all of his weaker hands down, plus most of his stronger hands. I think the EV is higher, given that the board texture is so bad for me.And responding to Mtdesmoines, I think you have a good point in general regarding good LAGs, and maybe we just need terminology to distinguish between the good ones and the bad ones. This guy was loose, prefers betting to folding, and wasn't great at escaping tough situations. He was clearly going to go broke, it was just a matter of how long and to who. I definitely wanted to raise so I could isolate with position and a better-than-his-range hand. Good food for thought though, thanks...