blonde poker forum

Live Cash Game

£200 min buy in, 9 handed, Blinds £1 -£2

Hero stack £500

Villan stack £650, Villain is a very solid & strong aggressive player

Villan opens UTG £6

Hero next to act flats with  Jh Js

late position and blinds call, 5 players to flop

 2d Tc 8h

Villain checks, hero bets out £18, fold, fold, fold, Villain calls

two players to turn  5s

Villain checks

Hero bets £32

Villain check raises to £102

What would you do? 

This has to be a fold imo, we block some of the hands he can turn into a bluff (J9, QJ, J7), it's really hard for us to improve if we are behind, and we're basically always behind. This line is so nutted, it's just always a better hand than ours imo. Our hand is always going to be a bluff catcher on the river unless we hit a miracle, and very few people bluff enough in this sort of situation for it to be a good idea to call with a bad bluff catcher.

What's your image? Probably calling and evaluating river. Our opponent reps very thin for value.

What bluffs can he have?

My image is pretty aggressive..

At the time i thought he could be doing this with A 10 but on reflection he's prob just calling with A10. So as Rexas says what bluffs can he have here?

Problem I have here is that are no straights or flushes so if i fold every time i get check raised on complete dry boards am I just going to be folding to much in general? In hindsight this hand is so player specific i guess.

I flat called the check raise and the River came a  Jd

Villain bet 210, i shipped for rest of my stack around £350 and Villian was not happy at all as he knew i must have JJ to do this but couldn't fold his trip 10's obv so made the call.

Villain says i should fold the turn....... which i kinda agree with but i just feel on a complete dry board if i fold over pairs all the time to check raises I'm just gonna be folding to much....  I think as well because i slow played JJ pre flop and did not 3 bet I thought villain would think i was not strong at all on the turn so thought he could bluff me out the pot

Meh, this is basically the worst hand you can have to call with on the turn, because as I said you block some of the bluffs he can have and if you're behind it's really hard to improve. I mean, I wouldn't worry about being exploited or making exploitative folds, or balancing or anything like that in a live cash game. Barely anyone ever pays attention to that sort of thing, even less people know how to adjust given any information they get from you, and you just don't play enough hands with anyone to make it worth it.

You can have a lot of stuff you can continue with here. Remember you just have a bluff catcher, you cannot beat any value hands, so in that some category are all your 10x, your 8x, even your 2x and your Ax (although these are worse because whatever villain has is going to have very good equity vs you, and I doubt you'd go bet bet with them). I mean, I would exploitatively fold a lot here and just deal with it because it's really hard for villain to have anything that isn't a really good hand. When you bet flop, especially into 4 players, you narrow everyone's continuing range, so that as well makes it hard to see what bluffs he can have. From a gto pov, if you're worried about folding too much etc, this is going to depend on what your range looks like, but this hand will almost certainly be a fold.

In terms of slow playing etc, I think a flat is totally fine in this position pre and isn't really to do with disguising or trapping or whatever, just because vs a utg opening range JJ isn't gonna be a 3b gii hand and it's dreadful 3b fold hand. Furthermore, you can still have all the flopped sets, 97, J9, 108, all of which can still continue here, and the only overpair you can have here is JJ (assuming you 3b QQ+ pre), and you've bet into 4 players on the flop. Basically, you can definitely still have better hands than this on the turn, you can and should have a pretty strong range here, and any competent villain would know this.

A comment to villain, I don't know why he's raising turn and then telling you you should fold, very well done in taking a line that even he recognizes is so strong it folds out basically everything, and his bet sizing sucks :p .  

With hands like this, in these sort of spots, i might check back turn, as its pretty grim to be raised on the turn. Hard to get 3 streets here by a worse hand, so can check to keep his bluffs in that might stab the river.

maybe im just a chicken and like to pot control here too!

Think you played the hand fine.

Preflop is defo fine, flop is defo fine,  turn is much closer you could defo just fold your hand looks like a Ten, and it pretty much is and playing a face up hand vs a good opponent is tricky.  If he is good enough to read the hand and situation correctly then he's also virtually gtd to continue the bluff into the river which will be a very very tough spot.

Certainly don't blame you for looking him up on the turn though although it is probably better to just fold.