Tells, Betting, Style all seem to conflict.

[TakenItEasy]

First time in MSNL. I usually hang out in the MTT forum.

$2/$4 $400 cap Live play at Mandalay Bay.

Villain is an older gentelman who has been playing tight/passive. I watched him passively play strong hands several times. He would defend semistrong hands against Lags.

My image has been TAG maybe 18%/12% preflop, I have CBet a preflop raise 60-65%

Villain limps in LP with around $500 stack.
Hero raises in SB to $15 with AQs, stack is around $600.
folded to Villain who calls

Flop: Q, 7, 3 rainbow
Hero leads $20, villain raises to $50

This raise really surprised me given his style. I only call fearing a set of 7s. After the call, I can see that he didn't like the call. I am fairly certain the tell is real and he is not acting. I put him on a KQ or QJ given the limp call.

Turn is a blank putting 2 diamonds on the board. Hero checks and villain bets $50. This seems to represent the set but he is really breathing deep and hard and I can see he is nervous, not excited. My reads are generally right and this time I am almost 100% certain that this tell is showing weakness. The problem is I would never expect this guy to bluff and I have never seen him as the aggressor in about 3 hours of play.

I go into the time bank and am showing my confusion. I finally make a call still putting him on a weak Q or complete bluff.

River is another blank diamond. Hero checks and villain bets $100. Villain is still breathing hard but not like he was on the turn. My read is a little ambiguous at this point.

Hero?

[jjigglers]

well it obv. matters if the Q is a [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] or not.

[TakenItEasy]

Sorry, it's not.

[oakley77]

I'd just call here, raising wouldnt do much good. Im not laying it down very much as played.

[billyjex]

if you think he has KQ or QJ, bet the turn. you can easily fold to a raise, and he is likely checking those hands behind amd you're missing value.

[LordBaldrick]

Given that you have Called to this point, I think you have to Call on the River as well. Not much point in putting your money in earlier if you won't stick to your guns now.

[TakenItEasy]

As the Subject says, I found this hand to be a conflict in tells, bets and style but in the end everything made sense and I was mad that I wasn't able to figure out exactly what 2 cards he had.

The limpraise seemed to indicate some kind of middle pair or suited connector.

The raise on the flop showed strength on a dry board so I first thought set. The preflop action eliminated any 2 pair possibilities. There were no draws on the board. One thing I didn't consider at this point was that my lead on the flop was intended to look like a CBet with just the slightest hesitation on my part. This fact may have encouraged the normally passive player to raise with KQ.

The tell after the flop call indicated weakness but that seemed to conflict with his image of a tight passive player. Tells seemed to indicate a weak Q but image and betting pattern seemed to indicate set. This conflict froze me enough to not make a timely lead out on the turn. When I considered betting out, I thought too much time had passed and would make the bet look weak. I instead decided to check. I think Billyjex was correct that I should have lead the turn but as it turns out I think it would have cost me more since villain would surely have called. My standard lead out would have been $100.

The small bet on the turn again looked like he was representing a set but the even stronger tell of nervousness made me think he didn't believe he had the best hand. This was where I was most confused. I would never have thought villain to be capable of firing a second bullet with just a weak Q when he must have thought he was behind. His tell seemed to say he was on some kind of draw. At that point I should have known that he was on KdQd. Jigglers seemed to hint that he figured this out with his question about the Qd.

If I had thought about the KdQd this would have been an easy laydown on the river. He bet $100 which was not that large a bet but I suspect that it was huge for my opponent. He seemed a little calmer than on the turn, and the only draw, even though it was a backdoor, just got there. Instead, KdQd never occured to me and I made the call, more out of curiosity than because I thought I had the best hand even with pot odds.

I had been trapped like this once before in a $10/$20 limit game when a combination straight backdoor flush made the flush on the river. Since I play 90% MTTs I don't have a lot of experience with these backdoor draws. In a MTT everything would have been in on the flop and it ould have been just another suck out. I hope after this, I will be able to spot these backdoor combo draws more readily.