[soah]

A leak of mine. I guess starting off playing SNGs and 50bb ring games didn't train me well for actually having money left at the river. I play timid in big pots. Here are two hands for consideration.... after I go through a lengthy backstory.

I sit down at a 2/4 6-max PL game at Party. On my second hand I have QQ in the SB. Unknown limps, unknown raises pot, I elect just to call because I don't want to play an inflated pot here against complete unknowns out of position. Plus, I stand to get paid off a bit postflop when I catch a friendly board. So I call, the limper calls. Flop is J9x rainbow.. I check, the limper bets $20 into a $55ish pot, the PFR folds. The bettor only has $250 or so left. I believe this is a bet of weakness, and the pot is big enough that I'm willing to stack off. I raise to $80, he calls. I push a blank turn, he thinks forever and calls. The river is a ten and I start swearing. Sure enough, he turns over JTo.

I quickly realize that this player is loose (duh), aggressive, and terrible (duh). He makes weak bets with marginal hands and with draws, and he bets more with stronger hands and bluffs. He usually has nothing much when he checks, he loves to bluff when he senses weakness, but he does mix things up a little bit.

I tried to get involved with as many hands as possible with him but for a long time I couldn't catch a flop. I'm certain he bluffed me out of more than one pot but it wasn't worth bluff-raising the river when I know I'll get called by any sort of crap at all.

Oh, and I also sat down at another table with him. Despite his terrible play, he built up stacks of $1200+ at both tables.

I had another somewhat frustrating hand with him where I was BB with J9s and two people had already called his raise so I called as well. Flop was QT8 and SB checked, I checked, he bet $25 (into a $60ish pot) which meant he was weak. One fold, SB called, I raised to $100 (maybe should have raised more), he called, SB called. 9 came on the turn and he split the pot with his JJ. (SB overcalled my push with 88 and missed, so I still netted a decent profit on the hand.)

I finally scored some wins against him... on one hand at the other table, I openraised from CO with 87s and he made a very small reraise from the SB with 82s. Flop was 875 and he bet, I raised, he pushed, I called, and he was drawing dead. Yay.

On another hand, I raised UTG with AKo, he called with KQo. Flop was Kxx with a flush draw, I bet, he called, someone else folded. I bet the turn, he called. On the river there was still no other broadway or flush card. There was $250 or so in the pot and I bet $125, he minraised, I took forever and decided he was so bad that I really had to look him up, and I dragged a huge pot.

So that brings us to the hands in question.

I openraise on the button with 7h5h. SB calls, he calls in BB. Flop is 8s3h2s. We all check. Turn is the 7s. SB checks, he bets $30 into the $40ish pot. I think he would have bet some $15 or something on the flop if he had a flush draw, and he may have also bet into me (bigger) with hands like 99 or 8x. And he loves to bluff when people have been checking, so overall I think there's a good chance my hand is good now, but I'm not sure. I want to raise, but I don't want him to call me and then bet again on the river, so I just call. The river is an offsuit 5. So the final board is 83275 and there were three spades by the turn. He bets $55. What's my action? (We're deep enough that there's no way all the money goes in here, so stack sizes are irrelevent.)

On another hand, I've overlimped on the button with 98s, and he raises to $18 (pot) from the BB. Limper calls, I call. Flop is Q88 rainbow. He checks (weak), limper bets $15 (weak), I call (slowplay), he minraises (huh?), limper folds (weak), I call. K on the turn, he bets $70, I call (bad?). River 9, he bets the exact amount of the pot (remember it was a PL table) which was like $260ish. I have around $700-$750 left at this point and he has me covered. Actually, the more I think about this hand, the more I realize I screwed up by not building the pot sooner. But he's seen me fastplay my strong hands previously so hopefully that's enough of an excuse for slowplaying this time. I have the worst possible boat on a drawless board, my opponent doesn't know how strong I am, but I'm confused about how strong he is also. My action?