Extremely weird situation

Lot of questions about this hand. This was 25 NL 6-max. Table was tight for the most part but villain was a very odd LAgg. He liked to min-raise a lot in position, which was stealing an unusual amount of blinds. When he did get called, he didn't follow the standard c-bet behavior at all. A lot of times he would check the flop and then hugely overbet a later street (for example $10 on a $1 pot). Only one of those hands went to showdown and he did have something - he had checked K8 unimproved on the flop, hit an 8 on the turn and then overbet like that. Ended up stacking a short stacked player who couldn't fold pocket sevens.

On this hand I was dealt :Kh: :Kd: in the big blind. I had a full $25 stack, villain had $50+. Folded around to villain on the button, who min-raised again. Small blind folded. I was just about to fire out a standard big pair re-raise when I thought better of it and decided I'd rather take a chance at doubling off him than just re-raise and take down a tiny pot, so I just called.

I got lucky with the flop, which was :Ks: . I checked it hoping for a c-bet, and also figuring that if I led he might just lay down. His play was so erratic that I was starting to think he only ever bet when he had something, no matter how weak a something it was. True to form, he checked behind.

The turn was the . I checked it again. Now he opened up with a $10 bet (again, on a $1 pot).

Question 1. With a player who is this all-over-the-place, is it sound to try to deceive him like I did pre-flop for a chance at stacking him? I knew from the outset that if an ace flopped or the board was highly coordinated, and he was betting huge again, I'd probably be forced to let it go.

Question 2. On the turn once my hand is obviously crushing him - and bear in mind I have no clue if he has nothing, a pocket pair, trip 4s, a flush draw, etc. - what is my next move to try to get all his money in? It seems like a smooth call is mega-suspicious, but it was hard to see how many hands he could have that he would call a push with. Really I felt like I was just hoping that somehow he had a 4 in his hand, or a flush draw that he couldn't fold.

If you have this read, I like your play. He'll back off trying the huge turn bets on you once you burn him good. I push all-in here and hope he has something to call with or thinks you are bluffing. If he doesn't call, he'll at least know that you are onto him and you will push over his big turn bets. I can't see how his standard turn play could ever be +EV especially with all the slow played sets at 25NL.

Originally Posted by Silly String

I can't see how his standard turn play could ever be +EV especially with all the slow played sets at 25NL.

I can't either - it's a really baffling thing to do. And considering that most of the boards he was doing it on were scattershot/uncoordinated, it didn't seem likely that his hand was that strong most of the time. I think he just waited to have a decent pair or something and then tried to get all the money in quickly.

Oh, one small tidbit of info I left out: on one prior hand he had limped in and three other people called, including me in the small blind with :Kd: :Qc:. The flop was :Ad: :Td: . I led out for half the pot, i.e. a 50 cent bet. Everyone folded including him, and then he commented in the chat: "50 cent bet? lol - tight."

The +EV in this sort of play comes from confusing and frustrating your opponents. Ie, he preys on the weak minded fish.

I like your read-based play. Not sure how to proceed. Normally you push, but he will fold then probably. Maybe time for another read-based move like a $7 raise? I don't think you can just call, as you're first to act at the river. Any sort of peensy raise is sort of a pressure point here (near potcommitting), so I think that play would be fine here.

Isn't the answer to your first question based on odds? Worse cast scenario odds of an A on the flop are about 24% so make it 33% of the time it's a bad flop and you fold to the $10 bet. The other 2/3 you're golden and win. Seems like it's worth slow playing to me.

To get the most from your opponent you have to play as "poorly" as possible, i.e. not alert him to your monster. That limits you to two choices 1) call and push the river or 2) push. 1) Looks like you were chasing, missed and are trying a bluff and 2) Looks like you are just getting into a pissing constest with him. Either way, the cards he has are irrelevant.

I'd probably either call and check to him on the river or call and donk push on the river.

And jack, you can't raise a $10 bet to $17...

Originally Posted by yorib

Isn't the answer to your first question based on odds? Worse cast scenario odds of an A on the flop are about 24% so make it 33% of the time it's a bad flop and you fold to the $10 bet. The other 2/3 you're golden and win. Seems like it's worth slow playing to me.

I don't know where you are getting your probabilities from but they are wrong.

I believe the odds of an ace flopping are about 20%, lower than that if you hold an ace.

Regarding the rest of this hand...

What I ended up doing was waiting a while (fake hesitation - I like to do this to aggro players, it seems to infuriate them) and then min-raising. Of course the min-raise was to $20 so I was clearly pot-committed, but I was hoping he'd just push the rest in or call, in which case I would obviously push the last five bucks on the river. He put me in, and it turned out he had 8d4d. Haha PWNED and all that.

Lukie: My logic was as follows -- 4 cards / 50 left = 8% x 3 cards on flop = 24%. I guess technically it would be
1 - [46/50 * 45/49 * 44/48 ] which is the likelihood of at least one A on the flop or 23%. If you hold an A it would drop to 1 - [47/50 * 46/49 * 45/48] or 17%. Since you'll fold if an A hits regardless of what you think he holds, I just assumed worse case that he doesn't have an A.

I just estimated what the likelihood of a "scary" flop is, and I could be way off on that. (The likelihood of a monotone flop, without taking into consideration your hand is about 1.5% x 4 suits = 6% and I figured a straight board would be about the same.)

I'm sure if my math is wrong, someone will show me the error of my ways.

By the way - if an ace hits I would have played this wholly differently, led the flop and folded to a significant raise, kept value betting accordingly if he just called. I had little fear of being slowplayed or bluffed by this player, which made my post-flop decisions extremely straightforward.

Probably call and move in on the river. It seems weaker than check-raising turn (if this guy even thinks in those terms), and gives him a free chance to improve. On the river, I don't want to allow him to check behind (not sure how likely he is to check behind on the river after making this huge overbet) or just call a smaller bet, so I go all-in.