How thin is this river call?

Villain hasn't done anything too eyebrow-raising but he's very loose preflop (45/25-ish) and has very high river aggression. I suspect him of being the type who hangs around in pots until other people give up, but I have no hard evidence (i.e. no specific prior hands where he showed down crap).

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (6 handed) Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

CO ($50)
Button ($94.20)
Hero ($53.10)
BB ($100.75)
UTG ($75.35)
MP ($85.80)

Preflop: Hero is SB with .
1 fold, MP calls $0.50, 1 fold, Button raises to $2.25, Hero calls $2, 1 fold, MP calls $1.75.

Flop: ($7.25) :Ad: (3 players)
Hero checks, MP checks, Button checks.

Turn: ($7.25) :Ah: (3 players)
Hero checks, MP checks, Button checks.

River: ($7.25) (3 players)
Hero checks, MP bets $5.5, Button folds, Hero calls $5.50.

Final Pot: $18.25

I don't really know tbh. I think I fold but calling can't be terrible.

I would call and make a note on him to have more information the next time he does this.

I call these a lot and enjoy seeing him flip 77. Lately in these smaller pots I've been trying to just let them go.

Originally Posted by bjsaust

I call these a lot and enjoy seeing him flip 77. Lately in these smaller pots I've been trying to just let them go.

Heh - luckily for me he had king high. But I've done this and been shown 77 and the like, also. I'm always surprised that they have the balls to make that bet with that kind of hand.

Its not a matter of having the balls. Or more to the point, I dont think they're thinking "thin value bet". They just dont understand that they're turning a hand with decent showdown value into a bluff. They just think since noones bet they mustnt have something, so they bet. Which of course makes no sense since if noone has anything they wont get a call.

Unless we get a level or two ahead of them and make this call .

I just noticed that actually 77 would be a boat on this board. I assume you were thinking like me that it was just a slightly higher pocket pair.

Well you played it preflop as if you are set hunting because playing this hand oop against 3 opponents on a flop of all overs = check/fold all the way to the river unless the 6 falls.

Especially if any of the opponents have loose preflop ranges.

i would just fold it pre honestly. lo pokats dont play well oop. but as played i think its a fold.

i would prolly 3bet pre with 22-66 to try to take it down cause they play shitty oop and bu should be isolating the donk with a very wide range. On river i would probably call and make a note vs this particular bet size. If he potted it or bet smallish I would definitely let it go.

Lol yeah. I just meant you correctly read him as having a weak hand, its just that his weak hand is stronger than your bluff catcher.

Raising > Calling?

Originally Posted by nutsinho

i would prolly 3bet pre with 22-66 to try to take it down cause they play shitty oop and bu should be isolating the donk with a very wide range.

That's interesting. Someone around here recently said he 3-bets more with hands that have low implied odds (e.g. Ax, KQ) vs. blind steals, and calls more with high implied odds hands (pairs mostly). Do you disagree with that? Actually I feel like poker is dividing into two philosophies right now - one that does some snake-in-the-grassing (set-hunting, calling in position with suited connectors, flatting with big pairs sometimes) and one that plays a raise-or-fold game pre-flop, and never likes to see a flop without initiative. Do you think that's accurate, and do I read you properly as preferring the more aggressive approach?

I tend to alternate, personally - if the table tends tight/passive then I raise a wide range and seldom just call. If it tends aggressive or donkish, I'll call more in position and let people bluff off some money here and there. But it seems like in the latter situation a lot of people take a different approach and focus more on punishing the people raising a wide range. (I do some of that as well, but not as much as I'm guessing you do.)

Originally Posted by nutsinho

On river i would probably call and make a note vs this particular bet size. If he potted it or bet smallish I would definitely let it go.

Thanks - that's just what I did. On a later hand he bet a little less than 1/2 pot in a similar spot and I folded it. I don't know if he was adjusting to my presence in the pot and based on the previous play, but it smelled like a value bet more than this one did.

I'd like to see discussion on that too Dale.

I think you're missing a key concept in the 'snake in the grass' approach though. I see Fnord as very much in this category, and try to base a lot of my game on his, and what you're missing is that as well as playing those 'implied odds' hands hoping to hit big in position, he's also planning to take away a lot of pots postflop that he misses. To my mind a lot of it is based on most players overestimating initiative, since Tag-fish (the guys I'll do this against most often), have had it drilled into them to c-bet like monkeys when they have initiative. Since we know they only hit the flop 1/3 times, we know they're c-betting 2/3 times with air. Likewise if we have a somewhat solid image, our range for raising them appears to be very small, usually monsters (overpairs we slowplayed PF, small-med pairs that setted, QK type hands that hit TPGK, etc). Their "initiative" ends up donating us extra $'s that we would lose out on if we 3-bet (or folded).

Of course conversely the raise/fold game generally makes postflop play much more straight-foward, so theres more variance in the former approach than the latter.