Middle 2 Pair Live

[FireStorm]

X-Post. Sorry, but MSNL offers no responses to live play threads, I should have known better.

Poorly played but not entirely out of line 5/5 NL club game. 9 handed. My stack size is just over 600, I cover both Villains, my image is tight, solid "plays two hands an hour" (I actually see a decent number of flops but this is commentary from a guy with like a 75 VPIP).

Qd7d in the SB. Someone in MP opens for $15, BTN calls, I call (bad, I know), BB calls. 4 to flop, $60.

BB is a maniac who plays every pot and shows down any two. BTN is a bit of a nit, extremely tight, never shows down anything bad.

Flop AQ7r. I check (good? bad?), BB bets 45, BTN calls 45, I call 45.
Turn 5, puts backdoor heart draw up. I check, BB bets 45, BTN suddenly pops it to $145. Hero .... ?

If you call, what is your plan on rivers of:
Q/7
Low Heart
Total brick (3d?)
Broadway Card

[AlexB182]

I think you should have either bet/3bet flop or c/r flop. Problem is that chances are very good you're ahead now, but in a live game, every A rag that's in the pot right now will stay in the pot when you don't put on a lot of pressure. Because of that, close to every card is scary and could give someone Aces up. I'd try to finish this hand and get my money in ASAP.

[FireStorm]

I actually checked flop with intention of CR'ing the BB maniac, but the TAG BTN entering the fray confused me.

[AlexB182]

Wouldn't TAG Button raise here if he had a real hand like AQ? Only scary thing could be a set of 7s. Would he call a PF raise with 7s here? And don't forget you already have one of the 7s.

[PoppaTMan]

Check is definitely the right play on the flop. Leading into the maniac is wasting our good relative position. However, there's not enough information on the flop to justify not following through on your plan to C/R.

The PF open was only 3x, and even for a live semi-nit, he's going to be calling probably Axs, ATo+ on the button, especially with the maniac in the BB. Simply put, there's way way more combos of random aces he can have here that he's going to flatcall with than there are hands that have us beat (crushed). You really need to execute your plan and C/R to 200 or so. Shove virtually any reasonable looking turn if BB calls, and almost certainly shut down if BTN calls.

On the turn as played, I'd have to fold. In the rare case that the nit is value-towning the maniac with AK/AJ, he still has ~20% equity. When he has us beat, we're obviously drawing super thin to only 4 outs. There's always the possibility that he peeled the flop with a gutter and turned a FD, but that's not really a move a nit is going to pull on the turn regardless.

A few pieces of information that aren't available in the OP:
- Other player stack sizes. The shorter the BTN is, the less likely he's making a move.
- Is the A on the board the Ah?

[FireStorm]

No, the A on the board is not the Ah, which opens to possibility of AhXh. As for stack sizes, to start the hand I have them covered by maybe 100, 125.

[PoppaTMan]

This certainly increases the number of hands we're potentially ahead of, especially due to the size of his raise. If we had a read that BTN was more TAG then nit, I think we could weight the AhXh hands more heavily, if we assume he knows he's behind us (certainly a reasonable assumption given our overcall on the flop). But with the live nits that I'm accustomed to playing, they're just going to call behind with the NFD, fearing that they might scare off inferior draws.

I still like a fold on the turn. If we got outplayed, it's because of a lack of a better read, and we'll just have to adjust in future hands.