1/2 Nl At The Borgata

[dead money 1]

Here is some background info. Villian is a very loose preflop player. He often would call reraises with less than premium hands and hit. We had been at the same table for about 5 hours now and he had built up $100 into $1000. At the time of the hand he had spewed off $600 or so and is now sitting at about $400. About 5 hands prior to this hand I had raised to $17 with KK and got reraised by MP player to $37. Villian had flat called and folded to my all in reraise claiming QQ which I did not believe at all. Here is the hand in question. Im pretty sure I made mistakes on multiple streets. I have about $290.Preflop:I limp from UTG with 88. 2 players limp behind. Villain raises to $7 from LP. 2 more callers and I call. Then 1 player behind goes all in for $37 total. Strange play and I felt he had a wide range at this point. He looked impatient and ready to leave. Folds to Villian who calls fairly quickly. Folds to me and I call. Flop 7 5 4 rainbow:I check and Villain checks behind. This is where I think my first mistake is. I was hoping for a check raise as Villain was prone to try and steal pots on flop.Turn 2:I check again and Villain bets $65. Im pretty sure this was my biggest mistake. I feel I def should have bet here. I ended up pushing all in for about $250. I didnt think I could flat call here so I thought it was either push or fold. My goal was to win the side pot and go heads up against the all in player for the main pot. If I was indeed behind, I still had 6 outs if Villain called.Villain called. Please rip me freely. Im pretty sure I ruined this hand. Im mostly a tourney player who plays mainly preflop, but I think you guys can see that from how bad I played this postflop. Thanks

[Royal_Tour 0]

Here is the hand in question. Im pretty sure I made mistakes on multiple streets. I have about $290.

I love those villains, turn 100 into 1000 and dont realize they should call it a day. and spew back. For the hand in question, I wouldnt check/raise the flop. that is pointless, you're turning your hand into a total bluff.what do you want to happen? check/raise and he folds? because if you check/raise and he calls. you're most likely beat.You said he is loose preflop, but you havent mentioned if he calls light post flop.also, since there is 1 all in player, villain probably wont be making huge bluff attempts agianst you. He's forced to go to showdown.I'd check/call the flop here all day. (dont be scared if an over card comes later in the hand.. use your common sense)when the turn is the 2. I'd lead out here, time to put money into the pot, and force villain to make mistakes.also, i'm confident you're ahead of the all in player.(As far as how the hand was played. I havent quite decided if i want to check/raise or check/call. I mean, i'm not really scared of villain showing up here with much more than 2 overs. In the off chance he has a monster, our check/raise gets auto callled.I sometimes prefer playing this hand slow and taking a small chance at dodging his 6 outs if he has two overs.

[dead money 1]

I love those villains, turn 100 into 1000 and dont realize they should call it a day. and spew back. You said he is loose preflop, but you havent mentioned if he calls light post flop.

He has been very tricky postflop. Ive seen him 3 barrel bluff. Ive seen him trap. Ive seen him check call all the way down with bottom pair and hit trips on the river. He seemed to be a player that went with his reads. He would bet about 80% of the time he was checked to. It was difficult to get reads on him.

[Royal_Tour 0]

He has been very tricky postflop. Ive seen him 3 barrel bluff. Ive seen him trap. Ive seen him check call all the way down with bottom pair and hit trips on the river. He seemed to be a player that went with his reads. He would bet about 80% of the time he was checked to. It was difficult to get reads on him.

Then i'm always check/calling flop (since he didnt fire flop, i'm leaning towards a turn bet)expecting him to fire a 2nd barreli'm check calling turnand then expecting him to bluff river so i'm check/calling river also.looks like we're just calling down, but in reality, your read is saying he's betting here more often than he's calling while behind.so i'd let him build this pot for us

[Banner17 0]

Villian is playing in late position. He can have popped it up small with a 67, 75, 64 type hand here as well. I wouldn't dismiss that from his range here. I mean, he went from 100 to 1,000 in 5 hours -- he had to have played some weird hands and hit them hard vs guys who will stack off with one pair.I like the idea of check-call flop even though most likely this is a great flop for us. Kind of a tough spot because if we lead out and he raises us good, we don't like our hand much. If we check raise and he 3 bets us, we don't like our hand much. Then, if we take the course of action that I like, which is check-call flop and lead the safe 2 on turn, and he still comes over the top, we're gonna end up on the bad end again.I would probably take road C, and he pops turn, get my stack in there. But that's why I'm a broke poker player.

[Andynice20 0]

Dont think he flopped a straight since you have two of the most important blockers... did he get cute and raise to $7 PF with pocket 7's then flop top set?As far as how I would have played it... PF seems fine even, flop seems fine for me as I would have gone for the CR to try and define what the hell is going on. Turn I definitely would have lead out half the pot then fold to a raise, but as played its tricky, anytime someone like that checks the flop in position after showing aggressiveness the whole session alarms go off in my head. I prob fold half the time, call 25% of the time and shove the other 25%. Problem is that we really have no clue where we are in this hand yet and all we have is the slightest of overpairs to the board. As played I prob fold the turn cause I'd hate to get stacked by someone I know I could prob trap somewhere along the session.

[schnibbs 0]

I'd fold preflop. You might be ahead of the short stack shover's range, but since villain likes to call reraises with less than premium hands, he's most likely not folding, especially since he has position on you. You will have no idea where you're at on the flop, especially since you've had trouble getting reads on him. That's not even to mention he may even 4-bet you preflop. The reason for the limp preflop is to see a multi-way pot and set mine.Not only that, you have two other limpers behind you that could call or squeeze. As played, if my calculations are correct, the pot is $118 (3 people in for $37 = $111, plus 2 limpers and blinds = $7) on the flop. You have $253 behind. That's a stack to pot ratio of 2.1 to 1. With a ratio this small, folding an overpair is bad. Choosing the correct line is crucial. If you decide the check/call, check/call line, you cannot fold to ANY card on the river. If you call the $65 bet on the turn, that makes the pot $243 and leaves you with $188 behind on the river. If he's capable of a 3 barrell bluff, he's bluffing this river as well as value betting it. I prefer a liine that give you some fold equity. The guy "claims" he had QQ in a previous hand. It there's even the least bit of truth in that, it seems like you have some fold equity with this guy. I like a check/shove on the flop or the turn. If he decides to stab at the pot, you'll put him to a decision.

[Danege 1]

I prefer a liine that give you some fold equity. The guy "claims" he had QQ in a previous hand. It there's even the least bit of truth in that, it seems like you have some fold equity with this guy. I like a check/shove on the flop or the turn. If he decides to stab at the pot, you'll put him to a decision.

Lol. So you want him to fold out all his bluffs and only call when we're behind? Thats fine if you have KJ on this board, but why would you do this with 88 here?

[schnibbs 0]

I'm fine with the check/call on the turn and river, if we're fine calling off all of our chips to this guy, IF we think he's bluffing us. After the preflop action, our stacks are incredibly short. I'm not comfortable with just calling off all of our chips with such a small stack to pot ratio. I'm much more comfortable check/calling his bluffs if we're still very deep.Can this not be a value shove, too? A7, A5, A4, 76, 87, even maybe 45 are all in this "tricky" player's raising range. Since he's donked his chips, he may be steaming enough to call with a wider range, or overs.Edit: The more I think about it now, the more I lean towards c/calling turn and river. I just hate calling off our chips being value-towned, but if we shove when we're behind, we're aboslutely getting called, as is the case. I just hate the call to the shove preflop that got us into this predicament.

[dead money 1]

Thanks for the replies guys. Ok, so the general consensus seems to be check calling the flop had he bet and check calling the turn. My only problem is that there are so many scare cards that can hit the river. Im not really happy no matter what hits the river. Only a 2,4,5,6 or 8 really make me feel ok on the river. Everything else may have hit him. Even an 8 isnt that good as he could have 76 or something similar. Is check calling the turn really that good of a play? I may be looking at this wrong. The only reason I pushed on the turn is that I wanted a cheap showdown and checked. He then made a 2/3 pot bet and I felt that folding was too weak and I didnt want to see one of the many cards on the river hit and be put in a "make me puke" situation. The results are not important, but here they are anyway. He called fairly quickly. He had a set of 7s. An 8 hit on the river and obviously he was not happy. He busted 2 hands later putting his last $40 or so in with KQ. I felt bad as Ive been in that situation many times, but boy did it feel good to be on the donkey end of one of those hands. I posted because I was playing with 2 friends and we got in a debate over the hand. I felt I played it wrong, yet my one friend felt given the maniac I was playing I should have felt comfortable I was ahead. Given some of your responses you felt similar.

[trystero 0]

I honestly don't know what to do hereI usually wind up playing it weak/tight by either c/fing turn or bet/folding the flopI ask myself, Why did I play this hand pf, and the answer's to have flopped a set, not to have flopped and stacked off with literally the worst overpair

[Royal_Tour 0]

Thanks for the replies guys. Ok, so the general consensus seems to be check calling the flop had he bet and check calling the turn. My only problem is that there are so many scare cards that can hit the river. Im not really happy no matter what hits the river. Only a 2,4,5,6 or 8 really make me feel ok on the river. Everything else may have hit him. Even an 8 isnt that good as he could have 76 or something similar. Is check calling the turn really that good of a play? I may be looking at this wrong. The only reason I pushed on the turn is that I wanted a cheap showdown and checked. He then made a 2/3 pot bet and I felt that folding was too weak and I didnt want to see one of the many cards on the river hit and be put in a "make me puke" situation. The results are not important, but here they are anyway. He called fairly quickly. He had a set of 7s. An 8 hit on the river and obviously he was not happy. He busted 2 hands later putting his last $40 or so in with KQ. I felt bad as Ive been in that situation many times, but boy did it feel good to be on the donkey end of one of those hands. I posted because I was playing with 2 friends and we got in a debate over the hand. I felt I played it wrong, yet my one friend felt given the maniac I was playing I should have felt comfortable I was ahead. Given some of your responses you felt similar.

I love those villains, turn 100 into 1000 and dont realize they should call it a day. and spew back. For the hand in question, I wouldnt check/raise the flop. that is pointless, you're turning your hand into a total bluff.what do you want to happen? check/raise and he folds? because if you check/raise and he calls. you're most likely beat.You said he is loose preflop, but you havent mentioned if he calls light post flop.also, since there is 1 all in player, villain probably wont be making huge bluff attempts agianst you. He's forced to go to showdown.I'd check/call the flop here all day. (dont be scared if an over card comes later in the hand.. use your common sense)when the turn is the 2. I'd lead out here, time to put money into the pot, and force villain to make mistakes.also, i'm confident you're ahead of the all in player.(As far as how the hand was played. I havent quite decided if i want to check/raise or check/call. I mean, i'm not really scared of villain showing up here with much more than 2 overs. In the off chance he has a monster, our check/raise gets auto callled.I sometimes prefer playing this hand slow and taking a small chance at dodging his 6 outs if he has two overs.

/\ this.its why i dont like any check/raising in this hand. we're committing a lot of chips into a pretty nice sized pot, and because the all in player. Villain is forced to go to showdown, so he's not showing up with A high.The idea of "so many scare cards" is silly. You need to realize that if he has two overs, you're way ahead after the deuce falls. Its one of the w/a or w/b type situations.because if he has a monster, at least we're losing the min.

[dead money 1]

Ok, makes sense. But lets assume I lead the turn like you want. I make it $60 instead of him. What do I do when he flats me or pushes on turn. Am I done with the hand or am I stacking off? I dont see how I could call a push.

[Royal_Tour 0]

Ok, makes sense. But lets assume I lead the turn like you want. I make it $60 instead of him. What do I do when he flats me or pushes on turn. Am I done with the hand or am I stacking off? I dont see how I could call a push.

exactly. You don't call a shove. You're beat. If he flats turn. You check/call river. Remeber there's an all in. Or if you feel you're beat. Check/fold. Either way you're losing the min. You're either way ahead or way behind on this turn. And with the all in player we need to start thinking, he probably won't drybluff us much. If he does. See what he has when he showsdown and make note.