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Alright, last night I was a bit tired and have had more time to look at this hand. Let me give you this piece, because there is actually a LOT happening here.
Commenting first upon LAGG description. This person has not raised pre-flop over sample you gave. He can not make up for his leaking pre-flop play by playing slightly aggressive on the flop (i.e. donk betting a flop)... A7o even on the button 4 handed is marginal... but the fact that he called an UTG limp cold while short-handed is a HUGE leak. He needs to raise or fold this hand, and I'm folding 95% of the time unless stack-sizes or meta-game dictate otherwise if I'm him. In terms of generally picking spots, I would wait until I am button and he will limp whatever, if I have a +EV hand I just raise it standard or even a bit more to really hedge it once I have position on the man and better cards than him.
When I think of LAGGs, I'm speaking of a more truly aggressive player. One that will make you make decisions for your stack. Let me say this completely honestly to you as somebody who has played through the microstakes and I only say this with experience. This person's play is very passive to be honest on every street. If I have two pair on that turn, and I consider myself a LAGG / TAGG mix-up depending on the table, I am getting much much much more money into the pot unless I am putting you specifically on A8 and then bet/folding the turn (and even this hand-reading would probably have to be over 75% reliability, and I'm never really that sure I'm beaten over the internet in this spot, because like I said, there are so many A10, AJ, AQ, AK combination out there that don't beat you but would be right to be betting, c/r or c/c from the big blind depending on the game on the flop and even the turn.
This is key to identify that this is not a good player for a few different reasons, because it dictates the rest of your play in this hand and the rest of your matchup. For example, a true LAGG will let you know when you have the worst hand generally by raising his two pair when he actually hits it, because you'll be thinking he's bluffing and make a bad call even if you think you're beat.
The flop play of this "LAGG" is SUPER weak here unless he has you read on a specific hand. He should raise the flop to a) get you to fold out certain aces and draws that can counterfeit his hand, and b) get value from AK, AJ, AQ, A10 / JJ, QQ, KK, anything else you are raising the big blind with if you are playing tight and he thinks you're bluffing at the ace. But he calls, which means you could have bet 910s, and when you hit a straight on the turn he is still calling, right? So he is playing against your theoretically optimum range poorly in general here (unless there are metagame considerations). This is a mistake you must recognize and take advantage of, they are everywhere in blind play at this level.
You asked for help in putting together his range here, and to do that we should look at a few things. First, his pre-flop play. He calls from the button, we're not sure if he is positionally aware, but we can start with what somebody might play four-handed from the button. His sample is enough to say some things about him (http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...on-t90178.html). You've done good in listing some candidates. But let a true LAGG put together a range for you similar to what I might play from the button (if I was bad and calling and not raising... lol.  ) That way you can possibly apply this later against a true LAGG and not a looser player. For now we will ignore the fact that the UTG player limped because apparently he was only kidding about playing in this hand.
Judging by the pre-flop play, I'd also include the range you did of KK-99,T9s, JT... but this is too limited. This is a positional play essentially, and you are not realizing that he will call basically any raise based on position alone here. So preflop include into this range T8s, T7s, JQs, JKs as well as KQo and Q10o, Q10s, Q9s, Q9o, Q8s, Q7s, J6s, J7s, J8s, 34s, 45s, 56s, 67s, 78s, Kxs,, etc.. Also, he really should only be playing A8o+ and A2s+ of course, but if you want, you can think of a7o as "air" and it becomes playable.
As you can tell, his range is really wide at 31% and he is right to do it if he can do it with raises and you'll fold out worse to CBets. But we're not going to give him that much benefit of the doubt as a thinking player because of his pre-flop action, to be honest, so we are going to play a more straight-forward game based on +EV and definitely NOT get in a cock-wagging war with this guy, because that could be disastrous. You want to take more flops with this player and play them better than him while in position. I promise you this.
So the flop comes, and an ace is there. Well, that is really cool for you, because a huge portion of his range is NOT aces. So he should be folding or raising more often than not here. So a standard lead bet of the pot should define his range a lot more, which is what we want so we can make the more profitable play. In terms of the technical aspects of the play, the reason we bet this is to a) define his likely range, b) because we could very well have 80% equity, and c) because we have a backdoor straight draw if we are behind, and if that six hits, we are going to be able to play the turn and river very strongly, getting him to fold out a lot of hands with our bet-sizing and stack off when we hit our draw.
"The point is that he's agressive with his marginal hands and capable of bluffing with air while he immediatly starts slowplaying when he does hit a monster."
Cool, good to recognize. So he has a leak. Exploit it by value betting, which is all I'm really recommending here. This two pair is not a monster, especially on this board. He needs to raise the flop unless he has you entirely read on an ace or lower pair, which he shouldn't if you are playing a +EV game from the big blind that is mixed up enough to include a drawing hand or two every now and then. Calling is +EV for him in this situation, but also +EV for you in general as long as you make the right decisions. From his perspective calling can really only have a greater expectation if you fire 3 overbet barrels on a bluff or losing hand. He needs to be getting more money in the pot, thinning out draws that can be priced in through calls, etc..
Okay, in putting together his calling range now we need to take a quick look at his AF. It is 3.0, so if he is calling rather than raising here, he is likely not calling loosely. He is betting and raising 3 times for every 1 call. So out of the times he invests, he is betting or raising ~75% of his range and calling only ~25% of his range that continues. This is CRUCIAL. It means he is probably calling fairly tight, with a combo draw, top pair good kicker, medium pair good kicker, two pair, trips or perhaps an open-ended straight draw (all of these, would better use a raise here most likely.)
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P.S. In the future you can now make an adjustment after he calls your bet on the flop. Exploit this by defending some of his steals (not too many) with 10Js or 910s and firing two barrels for your draws and mixing in a lot of value bets with your better hands, because if he is not going to charge you for it when he actually hits, just set your own price so that you are controlling the pot size, not him.
P.P.S. You asked about checking this flop to induce bluffs, let me tell you why I disagree with doing that completely. I bet the pot here because the draws simply can not call profitably, so they need to raise, and you can fold this pretty easily to a semi-bluff if you don't think he's doing it too lightly. It *may* get out a lot of his 108s 107s sort of thing too depending on whether or not he thinks you'll fold to a raise, either way you'll see how this defines his range quickly and prevents that 9 or even a 5 from falling on the turn and leaving you stuck. I wouldn't be surprised if his aggression factor is actually a bit skewed because he min-bets supposedly, and I would guess fairly often just based on the general play at this level. Either way, betting actually induces better BLUFFS for you to call for value than checking, simply because if you check he will bet and you are out of position and at his whim and he can suck out or price you out with an overbet on the river where you will possibly fold the best hand. You can also bet the pot to 66% or so if you'd like and that may induce even more bluffs if he thinks that bet sizing is weak. It is situational and highly opponent dependent. Either way, if you lead here, you can pick when you want to run a bluff-catching hand better by betting.
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So knowing that he is calling pretty tight and combined with your prior read, we can now give him a fairly loose range on the turn of things he'd call a flop with. Note that there is a bit of uncertainty, because we're not sure he'll raise with his medium pairs to try and get you off a weak ace or not, or what he's folding exactly... So that is more of a read-based thing.
Let's look at what might call here and why and just group them that way.
Combo Draws / Draws / Low Pairs
J8s, 108s, 107s, Q8s, Q7s, K7s, K8s, 910o, 910s, 56s, 67s, 89s.
Medium Pairs
99, 1010, JJ, QQ, KK
Top Pair + Kickers
A2s-A6s, A2-A6, A9+
Two Pair
78, A7S, A8S
Trips
77, 88, AA
If you do some Pokerstove work on this turn, you can see that we are Win: 54.7%
Tie: 7.5%
Lost: 27.6%
Against this range. So we have narrowed it to here for the turn. I don't give him credit for raising his draws if he is not raising his two-pair, so we include some of those in there because sometimes you simply have to stick around and see how the turn is played.
I bet here to save money on check/calling two streets against the whole range including bluffs. So if I bet 60% pot and I am breaking even on the bet from equity alone, I may have him fold out some other things, but more than that, we are making it easier for ourselves on the river. I decide to bet the turn because I don't think he is clever enough to try and float two streets based on his aggression factor.
If he calls, or "slow-plays" here, we're likely behind and can check fold the river with relative certainty and still be making a profitable play, because we've likely narrowed his range to about 17 hands that we don't have great winning chances against but may have anywhere from a 1 in 4 to a 1 in 3 chance of winning at showdown depending on how skewed his range is toward drawing hands.
I would actually suggest that he practically eliminates a bluff possibility here by calling on two streets at this bet-sizing, and he will certainly be value betting a checked river which we figure he will only do with pretty good hands if we size the bets as I've suggested. We bet a bit smaller than the pot on the turn to make him think that something like j8s, q8s, 108s, 107s, etc.. may still be good and marginally playable here for that price, while still pricing out his 910s, 910o, sort of hands from drawing without a raise. So we keep some of the hands with showdown value in, this is probably 25% of his turn range for calling if he thinks you're running a bluff (so you should probably also be bluffing about 25% of the time, btw...) you have showdown value and he may be sticking around to see if a draw completes and he is showing down his pair.
I hope that makes sense based on what I've discussed so far. If he wants value to play his A7o garbage he really needs to have huge implied odds that we are simply not giving him with this line, because we intend to fold to a raise on the turn and likely on the flop as well. That is really the problem with these a5o sort of hands generally. If you have AJ, you can reasonably play passively here and check/call two streets and think you're good. But with the five you can't take that line. Which is why I suggest you play it hard here. If you check the turn you are letting him dictate the action here and probably calling anyway because you think he's bluffing. You are actually hoping he is raising or folding the turn to be honest, because your decision becomes really easy then, and we really like that when we have bad holdings out of position.
If he doesn't raise or fold the turn he is still looking to disguise his monster, he calls knowing that you think your ace is good and throws in a pot size value bet on a blank river, so a c/f is fine there... his line is not very good for extracting value out of his hands. You should be thanking your lucky stars basically any time in a pot with this player IMO.
So my recommendations:
- Value bet more if he will be calling and not raising, this gives you the pot control.
- Bet bet bet, nothing fancy against somebody who isn't thinking about these kinds of things.
- Out of position if you take my line, you have also set up for a check/raise on the river when you have trips, because he will be wanting to value bet the river no matter what anyway here.
-MORE HANDS IN POSITION AGAINST THIS PERSON!
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"PS: Don't think I'm trying to undermine you or anything, I just don't agree with this post."
-No worries friend, we're all here to learn! hope all goes well for you.
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A5o on button hits A against lag
, 5
, 7
, 8
(2 players)
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Originally Posted by inV1NCEble
7
