Quack Quack Quack Live

[Fnord]

$5/$10 $500 buy-in NLHE We in that sunshine state with a bomb ass hemp beat.

I sit down with my rack of Sunshine State Yellow, post in the CO and fold every hand until I'm UTG with and make it $40. 2 players call.

Around $130 in the pot after the drop.
Flop:
I bet a stack ($100)
first guy folds
second guy with around $1300 or so tanks hard, asks me if I have a pair, blah. Then folds AK face up.

A couple hands later, UTG makes it $40 in the dark. 3 or 4 people call and I call with from the BB.

Around $240ish in the pot (I didn't count callers)
Flop: :Qh:

I lead $150 into the field. Same guy tanks, asks "why so much" (live players consider it standard to under-bet the pot, particularly in spots like this.) Then calls. He has a Queen here like almost always.

$540+ in the pot (although my opponent probably hasn't done the math) with $385 behind.
Turn: :As:

What's my play?

[Jack Sawyer]

gaybet like $150

[Erpel]

My gut reaction is shove, hoping he has AQ. Oh look at me representing the ace only to run into two pair Ooops!

But honestly - I think almost any line works. If he thinks you win pots through aggression and not showdowns any aggressive line will be called.

If you're a bit of an actor it's tempting to feel slightly disgusted by the A and check to him - hoping that it either hit him, or he wants to give you a shot of your own medicine and have him bet to represent the ace. Working on the assumption that he has a pair of queens on the flop he has either zero or four outs to improve to beat you. Checking and having him check behind doesn't seem like a lot of potential value to give up.

Seeing as he doesn't have much chance to improve I could see playing the set slowly here, or with small bets like Jack suggests to get him slowly pot committed and all in. The only hands possible on the board (by the river) that beat you are straights (low and high - both extremely unlikely - he won't have played KJ, KT, JT, 54, 53, 43 this way ever really) and better sets (trips would give you the full house) and two pairs on the turn (like AQ) that can river a better full house than yours. The only hands that could worry you are 66 and QQ, but if he has those - he's a good actor.

This may be the rare case where slowplaying a set is the way to maximise value with it.

[Fnord]

If you're a bit of an actor it's tempting to feel slightly disgusted by the A and check to him

Information leakage. A pause and rap of the table gets it done.

Seeing as he doesn't have much chance to improve I could see playing the set slowly here, or with small bets like Jack suggests to get him slowly pot committed and all in

Plan was to commit any Queen with my flop bet. Live players call too much with medicore hands. If I bet $100 on the flop I give them a chance to make a commitment decision with more information.

[Erpel]

Oh, I agree that by the turn he already is committed - hence the initial gut reaction to shove. However, he might not be mindful that he's pot committed and might fold to a shove. Since he has next to no outs I'd almost be inclined to jump through hoops to get him to give me the rest of his money. I love the flop bet that commits him - not commenting on that.

I think the main problem with slow playing is that it might unbalance my range - if I take a nut hand out of my A range my C range will have less fold equity in future situations. That is to say - if he's seen me slowplay the nuts then when I don't slowplay he'll know I don't have the nuts and is more likely to be bluffing or semi-bluffing. Any such observations would ideally be balanced by him thinking about whether I slowplay nuts in committed or non-committed situations, but is he discerning between committed or non-committed situations in his considerations of how he plays a hand and in how he analyses how other people play a hand?

To maximise this individual hand I think I should slowplay the set - but I think to slowplay the set will make aggressive stealing less profitable for me at this table - so I have to basically shove and hope to get called for.. metagame reasons I guess.

Actor comment: I'm not a live player and don't have a way to play live. I support the principle of minimal information leakage catatonic play and if I were to go into live play that would be the ideal I would strive for. I was just speculating (or daydreaming perhaps) what the opponent would need to think about the hand and read my feelings and strengths as for him to want to ship his last chips. AQ hands will stack off anyway, the question becomes how to play the hand to get non-A Q hands to ship it.

[Jack Sawyer]

Same guy tanks, asks "why so much"

BOOM, telltale sign of weaktightness.

Chars.: when faced with big bets, these guys make absurd folds (Like fold 63 on Q6637 board with 3 suits).

no real draws, only unlikely ones, therefore milk him

gaybet turn > shove imo >>> k/c >>>>>>>>>>> k/r

[Chopper]

$125 on turn lead, and shove river if he doesnt shove for you on turn. i doubt this board scares you, so you are looking to felt and this douche is already scared, so you have to tease him in slow or make him "take a stand" with stupidity. bet large/normal/shove and he thinks you have the A and drops his Q.

[Deanglow]

bet $150 on the turn and river

which sunshine state are you in?

[Fnord]

which sunshine state are you in?

Californ-i-a

Anyway I shoved because no one shoves a set on a scare card. QJ correctly put me on the hand I was repping.

[d0zer]

Anyway I shoved because no one shoves a set on a scare card. QJ correctly put me on the hand I was repping.

<thinkingAloud>

If you put him on a Q, then you're scared of virtually no rivers, the turn is a great card to double barrel bluff because a weaktightish player folds weaker queens a lot when you go crazy on the turn. So why use the ideal bluffing line here with da nuts vs a weaktight?

Seems that a turn check/river fire will get looked up much more often by weaker holdings. I've been playing around with tricksy lines with my sets vs tighter villains with some decent results...

"no one shoves a set on a scare card". This logic for shoving here assumes your opponent is good enough to notice that you're firing at a great scare card, instead of just being scared by the scare card.

</thinkingAloud>

[Fnord]

So why use the ideal bluffing line here with da nuts vs a weaktight?

Weak/Tight players don't consider folding AK in the first hand a big laydown.

Also, I dislike giving live players the impression they can showdown against me without paying lots of money. Once we establish that I'm putting a lot of money into the pot with a wider range of hands than the timid sorts, it sets up a very favorable dynamic for me. Particularly in these 50bb deep games for real $$$ where no one has the balls play anywhere near ideally aggressive.

[d0zer]

So why use the ideal bluffing line here with da nuts vs a weaktight?

Weak/Tight players don't consider folding AK in the first hand a big laydown.

Also, I dislike giving live players the impression they can showdown against me without paying lots of money.

Ok, so maybe he's not weaktight, but he's at least demonstrated some ability to make a laydown.

I certainly don't dislike your play, it's my default line fo sho ... I've just been thinking more (maybe too much) about turn play with my big hands when scare cards come after noticing how often the double-barrel bluff works in spots like those.

...And how often a flop c-bet that's called leads to a river call if you wait till the river to fire again -- a bad bluff line I've taken out of my repertoire, but have started to wonder if it's something I should be doing more often vs good candidates for double-barrel bluffs.

[Fnord]

Ok, so maybe he's not weaktight, but he's at least demonstrated some ability to call pre-flop with any hand other than AA/KK/air, then restrain himself from calling a committing bet without a pair.

FYP

[d0zer]

Ok, so maybe he's not weaktight, but he's at least demonstrated some ability to call pre-flop with any hand other than AA/KK/air, then restrain himself from calling a committing bet without a pair.

FYP

So you correctly put him on a queen. If he's calling a committing bet with a pair, but the turn brings a scare card, wouldn't it be better to weaker bet the turn to show some weakness?

By the turn, the SPR is well good enough that getting it in on the last two streets is easy enough with weak bets, and he seems to be the kind of player who thinks harder about the size of the bet in isolation rather than in terms relative to the size of the pot. He's already expressed apprehension about your 'massive' bet sizing, so shoving the turn seems to be just asking him to fold.