Overpair live

[soah]

Venetian 5/10

effective stacks $1500

Huge fish openlimps, decent/mediocre dude limps after, I raise to $60 with KK in the CO, tightish older guy calls from the blinds, fish calls, other guy folds.

Fish is playing tons of hands, generally pretty passive and very straightforward, and will payoff too much. The money seems to mean nothing at all to him. He sat with a big stack of bills ($10k?) which has been dwindling. He got $4k in with the nuts and lost and it didn't seem to affect him at all.

I don't have a great read on the other guy although there was one sorta bizarre hand where someone straddled to $20, fish called, and this guy raised to $55 total from the sb with K9o. I haven't seen him do anything else weird like that. I think he reraised me preflop once, and it was a normal reraise and not some dinky minraise crap (I folded). So we'll label him a TAG, although not a 2p2 TAG.

I've been playing tight and fairly aggressive. I've been playing very ABC for the most part because bluffing most of these guys is hopeless. There has been at least one time that these players have seen where I raised preflop and check/folded the flop (against three callers). They may have seen me do that more than once but it's hard for me to keep track of when they joined the table in relation to all the random/boring hands I've played.

So anyway, flop is J94 rainbow and they check to me and I bet $120. Old TAG raises to $240 pretty quickly. Fish calls pretty quick. I think about it a bit and call.

Turn is a rainbow Q and Old TAG grabs a couple stacks of chips ($400) and moves them around a bit but then ends up betting only $250. Fish thinks about it for a while and then reluctantly calls. I'm almost certain that he doesn't have better than a weak jack.

Action on me. Pot size is like $1420 and I have $1260 left, they cover.

The size of the turn bet threw me off here and I'm confused at what he has. Can I call here and fold river to a big bet? Should I raise here to protect my hand?

[dnh83]

I'd just call and fold to a big river bet. I think folding here is out of the question and old TAG could be trying to take you to valuetown with QJ so you don't want to value-stack yourself by raising here.

[soah]

ok I'm gonna bump this one time.

On the flop I'm getting like 8:1 to call his minraise. I think it's safe to assume he has a set here a pretty large percentage of the time due to all the various factors. Normally when I think I'm probably up against a set I'd just throw my hand away because of the reverse implied odds (effective odds for showing down my hand, etc). But the fish in the hand here changes the dynamics a lot, because the fish goes too far with his hands (he's not gonna stack off with middle pair or anything, but getting him off TPGK or better is extremely difficult). So my plan is to call the flop raise and then see how much the guy bets on the turn. If he bets like $500+ then I'm toast and I fold. If he checks then MHIG and I'll bet it when they check to me. His $250 bet was halfway inbetween these two things that I thought might happen.

At this point I'm dealing with two conflicting thoughts: the first is that given my preflop raise and then my flop overcall, I'm basically saying that I have at least a big jack, or an overpair. My opponent does not seem to be braindead and I think he can realize that I have to have some type of a hand here. Not to mention that the fish could very easily have QT or T8 or QJ or maybe Q9 when he calls on the flop. Would he bet the turn at all for any amount without better than a lone jack?

The second thought is that if he has better than a lone jack, then why is he betting so damn small on such a coordinated board vs two opponents? From the hands I've seen from him, we know that he's made a very weak raise when he had a very weak hand, and another time he made a normal-size preflop reraise when he presumably had a better hand.

Calling here and folding to a river push is a safe option obviously, but it's not very elegant. If I'm ahead then my two opponents collectively have quite a handful of outs most of the time, and this is a huge pot at this point. Letting them see one more card costs me a lot of EV. Also, what happens if I face a stupid bet of like $350? Do I have to go ahead and pay it off? So if I'm going to take this line, I'd like to have a better reason for it than simply that it will give me an "easy" river decision and I won't ever go broke.

[Dan BRIGHT]

Ive been really conditioned in aggro 5/10 6max online games, but id 3bet the flop. Getting to the turn id wanna fold if he bet any more than what he did.. that bet is so stupid though hes prboably got jt/aj. The fish probably has a weak middle pair that picked up some outs.

Calling the turn bet and folding to a river push is a fine plan. Hell, if its a 4 on the river you might be able to shove for value against these donkeys. If its a deuce though youd have to bet a silly small amount like 300 (assuming tag doesnt seem capable of cr'ing the river)

[wpr101]

The calling of the turn bet seems like the best idea. I feel like the guy who minraised is going to have a set or AJ often. The fish could easily have QJ.

[RiverHebrew2]

Dude i'd fold old guys rarely bluff. I think old guy is just a bit scared because I think he has a set but this card makes some straights. I think you're ahead of fish but I'd say old guy has a pretty good hand... MAYBE AJ but wouldn't AJ not bet this turn because old guys are rarely aggro with a hand like that in this spot? I think you can jus fold here; I'd say calling is floating because I'd say old guy has you beat and you'd have to take the pot away from him later, or you'd have to hit your 6 outer for straight or higher set.

[Woolygimp]

Yeah. Against most old people in live games you are drawing to two outs on the flop, and I can find a fold.

[Riverrun]

do u think AA is in old guy's range here? that also might explain him slowing down a bit if he's scared of QJ. old guys fiddling with their chips then checking or betting small always scares me. i really think he's better than AJ here, like, almost always, otherwise he's not leading this turn. QQ a real possibility here too, explaining the smallish bet.

[soah]

Thanks for the replies.

I actually had QQ but I posted it this way because I would have been in a very tough spot here if I hadn't made a set and I'm not sure what I would have done. I went all-in and they each folded pretty quickly so I assumed he must have had AJ.

But later he initiates discussion of the hand and I won't say what I had but he keeps prodding and asks if I had three queens and says he made a big laydown. So I'm like "oh you had a set?!" and he says he had three jacks. So I'm like "no wai" and he's like "yarly" and seems proud of himself (at this point I've neither confirmed nor denied that I had him beat, I've only said I had "a good hand"). It seems kinda hard to believe but on the other hand I don't know why he'd strike up a conversation with me just to lie about his hand late in the session when we'll probably never see each other again.

Going all-in on a bluff here is something that absolutely never would have occured to me... but (assuming he really folded a set) I guess it follows the line of thought that if he's betting weak, it's because he's scared that his hand is no good, regardless of how strong it is in reality. He mentioned that the Q was just about the only card he really didn't want to see because of the straights and stuff. fwiw, later on the guy on my right brought up the hand by saying "on that hand where you took a card off and hit the nut straight in the huge pot.... well I assume that's what you had...." so maybe I'm just a tellbox or something. I'm just rambling now though, so I'm gonna stop.