blonde poker forum

The hand is nothing exciting, we flop top pair in a 3 bet pot. There is a really interesting dynamic between me and the opponent though, it was late last night, we are pretty much on every table, a lot of them are short handed - we are playing a lot of pots together.

The player is a reg - he plays 50nl/100nl for a living.

He is mostly tight, but definatly has moves. I'll break the whole hand down street by street, would be interested on other views down the streets.

5 handed

We have  Ad Js (£85) UTG 3x to 1.5

Folds to Button (£95), who 3 bets to £4.5 total.

I called. Pot is £9.75, blinds fold.

Didn't really want to 4 bet, folding out all his junk.

Flop:  Jh  7d  8s

Check, he bets £7 over 70% pot.

Just call, I expect him to continuation bet here almost always. The pot is £23.75 - We have £75 behind.

Turn is a brick  4s. I expect him to check here a % of the time.

He fires £17. Over 70% pot again.

I was thinking on the flop we have the best hand most of the time, this turn bet is really interesting. He's pretty much repping an over Pair or Better.

910s, set of 7s/8s/78 suited.

He also has 99s 10s. 10J suited, hands like that.

I called the turn. Not to sure if I love the turn call. The pot is £57, we have £58 behind.

This is where it get's really interesting to me. My hand is really face up when I call the turn bet, to me it pretty much looks like I have a Jack.

The river is the  8h

If he bet, bet, jams - in my experience he just has it, especially since I only have a pot sized bet behind.

He bets £38.50, every street he's pretty much clicking 75% pot, and reducing it slightly.

I am not loving life here, the 8 is a relative brick OTR, i'm gettinga  great price and am really surprised the river hasn't been jammed, if he jams the river I think i'm seldom ever good.

We call.

Honestly i doubt your opponents range is quite as wide as your giving him credit for tbh. Would fold river. Everything points to us being beaten quite comprehensively, barring a thin read that he is capable of making a move, but there just isn't enough else to go on for us to call.

More or less this hand highlights the difficulty in playing these sorts of hands oop in 3bet pots against competent opponents. Could fold pre, or put AJ into your 4b bluffing range instead if you think he's light enough.

Fold pre. Or 4b, I know you say you don't want to but people really don't/shouldn't 3b that wide against a utg open and anyway AJos plays terribly postflop oop without the betting lead, villain is just going to win this pot like so much of the time postflop. Like I'm certain playing this way pre is not going to show a profit. As this hand kinda shows, this isn't a bad board for our hand and it isn't a bad run out, and I still fold river.

Also I think you've assigned the guy an unrealistically wide range. In fact, I don't think a single one of the hands you said he could have (apart from an overpair) should be in someones btn vs utg 3b range. Maybe 78 ss. But yh, the same arguments for folding turn and river just contribute to the argument for folding or 4bing pre.

Think U played it fine if u fold river. I'm not in the fold/4b pre camp.

Would fold pre vs most Sky regs, 4bet vs a few, rarely call unless i know they are bad and capable of 3-betting light here a decent % (I don't think many good/ok regs will have a very wide 3bet range btn vs utg, so it will be very difficult to profitably continue with AJo vs a strong range, which has the initiative).

Once you've peeled, flop is standard, turn is close... but if villain is perceived to have a fairly wide 3bet btn vs utg then calling is fine... kinda sucks though as it just feels like he's betting big to get get value from all pair + sd, Jx stuff, likely with an overpair. You also find a lot of players who may choose to 3bet bluff something like KJ,QJ, JT kind of hands pre will take a check-bet-check, or check-bet-bet line when they flop top pair... rarely bet-bet-bet with weaker top-pair stuff compared to overpairs, certainly would expect a lot of check-backs from 7x, 8x and Jx otf or ott.

River he's just repping 78s, 9Ts, JJ, 88, 77, QQ-AA (probably never has 78, 77 or 88), but I think he's just going to show up with QQ+ the vast majority of the time. Not overly surprised to see a 2/3 pot bet rather than a jam, he probs want crying calls from Jx. The 8 is a great card for him, I think a decent amount of people check back overpairs on rivers like K,Q,J,T,6,5 (for good reason on some of those).

Definitely folding pre as standard. AJo is far too weak of a hand to call in this situation, I don't think it can be profitable vs a reg at all.

Also, as other people have mentioned, the range you have assigned them seems way off. I wouldn't expect a reg to be 3betting TT, JT, 88, 78 etc on the BTN vs UTG. I'd give them a far more narrow range, like AA-KK, AKs (maybe QQ) and bluff combos like A5s, A4s and AJo etc as opposed to suited connectors because vs UTG, the BTN will want to have blockers with their bluff 3-betting range due to UTG's range (presumably) being strong.

River is also an easy fold imo. Pretty ambitious to think you are good here often enough.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

I hated the turn, maybe close, but feel it's more of a fold than a call.

There is the chance, if bluffing, he checks behind on the river. But it's quite a bad board to be bluffing on, that's why i'm really surprised he bet the turn.

I won the hand, villain had K high (K6 os). I hadn't realised by the time of this hand, but it was soon clear, he was playing a bit spewy/ tilted.

But still feel, overall, turn is a fold.