3/5NL Live: River Trips Faces Big Overbet

[beset7]

Last one and I'll respond to 5 to 10 hands posted by others.

3/5 NL 9handed. Stacks are about 800 on this one.

SB is loose agressive. In PT terms I'd say he's like a 50/20/3. He's been check/raising me on the flop a lot. I've never caught him bluffing but that doesn't mean much as we've only played about 20-30hours together.

Its folded to me in the CO with KQo I raise to 20 (my standard pfr). Only the SB Calls. Flop comes 9 6 4 rainbow (suits unimportant). SB Checks, I check behind. Turn is a Q. He checks, I bet the pot, he calls.

River is another Q, he bets 400, I look at the little pot out in the middle and the four stacks of red he just pushed over the line and I...

Need to know anything else about SB? I'm really interested to know what sort of things run through your mind in spots like this. How do you reason towards your decision in this most annoying of spots?

[jhall23]

Well first I try and remember if I have ever seen him make any huge overbet's in the past and if so how often and on what type of boards. That's obvious of course. I try and pay attention pretty closely to odd things like overbets, so if it has happened I should have some idea of how the action went down in previous hands. Hopefully some have been shown down and I have some info to work with.

Then I'd probably be asking myself how in depth the villian is thinking. How capable is he of realizing the Q may have given me trips and hoping his bet looks like a bluff to get a big call. Is he capable of making this big bet risking a fold to get extra value if he is full? Or is he just overagrro. Does he overvalue hands at all and think a weaker Q is good here? Would he typically call or re-raise with AQ pre-flop? That's probably what I'd be going through at the table.

Then I'd check him out and see if his body language adds anything to the mix of info to determine if I call him or not. Not sure if I have enough from a post to say so or not.

Is the 20-30 hours over mulitple sessions? If so how long in the current session and what's the dynamic been like so far between you? Does he typically bet in relation to the size of the pot?

[TheWorstPlayer]

Online I usually just instacall. Seems to me like well over 50% of the time he is bluffing the river scare card especially since you have basically shown no hand so far. If you only call his bet with trip queens or better, his bet will be profitable since you so rarely will have trips or better.

Your action so far has been so weak that he should have absolutely no expectation of getting a call here. So he probably wants a fold. So I call. But live, you can often get much more info like did he look at the scary river card before deciding to make this bet or was this obviously already his intention on the turn? In any case, his line makes no sense for a big hand. Why would he check the turn again after you checked behind on the flop? If he thinks the queen is likely to have hit you, then he should lead into you on the turn so that you can raise.

I call barring a rock solid read that he is very strong.

[bkholdem]

He's a checkraiser. He didn't checkraise the turn. He didn't checkraise the river.

If he puts you on the queen on the turn does he think your going to fold to a checkraise from him there? If not, why not get the extra bet in there to build the pot if he's got a whopper?

If he puts you on the queen does he think your going to check behind on the river so he is scared of loosing a bet? Why not checkraise all in there? Your still going to be shaken up by him (big checkraise given his laggy aggro moves), but you might be more likely to call the checkraise on the river given his aggro/likely aggro bluffing more than the lead overbet so he get's paid more often on the river by letting you bet it. That is unless he has you shaken up to the point he thinks he can get a frustration call from JJ or better here, for example.

If he has the goods there and knows you so well that he set you up for a call/push when he has you here he owns you. Does he own you?

Can he read you for a queen on the turn?
Has he put you on the verge of tilt and know that he has done precisely that?
Does he see the overbet on the river as a a +EV play to get your stack because he reads you for the queens or feels that you will make a call out of frustration?

Does he know your scared of big bets/power poker?

What hands would he do this with?
Does the big overbet tell you something more than a smaller bet? Would he for instance bet pot/a little over pot on a steal and fat overbet to suck you in?

This is definately a guy that I would want to get in line. I also think at this point, damn, why didn't I reraise his ass big a few hands ago.

How smart is he? How skilled is he? Is he playing momentum because he's been running the table or is this a strategic move to get your stack?

[swolfe]

have you seen this kind of overbet before? would he do it with any Q? AA?

i'd probably end up calling. my first thought would be "why would he bet so much if he thought his hand was good?" the only way i see that is if i think he has a good read on what i have. you said he's LAG, but is he tricky LAG? or just pushy LAG trying to bully people?

[bkholdem]

Oh yeah,
Since this is live can't you turn your cards up prior to acting in this case if you want? Like flash that queen and watch as his eyes speak to you...

Just remembered he's not all in so this might not be the best route. I suppose if it was only between fold or call in your mind you could consider this an option though.

[beset7]

I'd played 20-30 hours with this guy over the course of a few sessions. Though he is looser then me up front preflop we actually play very similar type of game.

He has never overbet like this before.

I, on the other hand, have an affinity for the overbet. During this particular session I had made two very big overbets, one which induced a fold and another which was called (a "big" call by a guy with middle pair) and my OESD got there on the river (I was gambling it up with a shortish stack. Low capped buyin structure. +EV to get deep ASAP.).

Things that made me want to call:

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] I have been running the table. He probably doesn't like this as taking down pots on the flop is a big part of how both of us make money. I’m agro, he’s agro. Slowing me down would be a good thing for him.

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] Like TWP noted, I've played the hand very weakly by checking the flop. Though when I checked we looked at each other and he smirked. Indicating to me that I probably dodged a check/raise.

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] If he's taken this line with a flopped set it's a strange line. Though if he planned on check/raising the flop, knowing that I'd call/re-raise with a wide range of hands the turn check doesn't seem as weird.

Reasons not to call:

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] The capped buy-in structure of this game (40xbb capped buy-in) makes it hard to build up a stack. Once you have one, it pays to protect it a bit especially when you have 3 to 4 absolute clueless donkeys at the table sitting with 200xbb who will gladly call off their stacks with TPTK.

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] He doesn't own me but he's working on it. He took a lot of time thinking before he made the big overbet. It wasn't the typical haphazard LAG type overbet. It was kind of like, "So you want to do the overbet thing, huh? Try this one out."

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] Physical tells were unsettling. He didn't seem nervous or over-serious. He actually picked up a keno ticket he had played and checked it to the board behind the table to see if he'd won anything. Usually trying to appear disinterested shows a lot of strength but I'm not quite sure on this one.

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] While he may semi-bluff a lot, I’ve never seen him pure-bluff. Small sample but it pays to consider.

Anyways, I really appreciate the posts. Nice to see what you all would think about.

[beset7]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh yeah,
Since this is live can't you turn your cards up prior to acting in this case if you want? Like flash that queen and watch as his eyes speak to you...


[/ QUOTE ]

I never even thought of this. Once I decide I'm not raising this might be a good idea.

[Hoopster81]

I'm calling. What are we afraid of here? The flopped set? He might check the flop to you, but what are the chances he checks the turn? No, I am calling this and expect to win more than 50%.

[soah]

I'm shocked at how eager everyone is to call this. I think you only win this if your kicker happens to be good. Very few people will bet 3.5 times the size of the pot on a bluff. This is the type of bet that's hoping you have a nice hand that you can't get away from. The fact that you think he was planning a flop checkraise makes the situation even worse. If I've got a wild image and I'm sitting there with the underfull on the end, I'd certainly bet huge (not 3.5x pot, but I'd certainly bet more than usual). With the way you've played the hand it looks like you've either got a queen or nothing... it's not like there are really many marginal hands you could hold on this board that I'd want to extract from.

On the other hand... what could bluff here? He called a big bet out of position on the turn. It seems pretty improbable that he would do this with any hand that he doesn't think is good. And if he somehow did feel that he needed to bluff the river, why risk so much? Trying to push someone off trips is pretty futile, and if you don't have trips then any moderate bet would be enough to take the pot.