LHE, AQ vs. TAG

I didn't play this hand myself. Hero in this hand doesn't know what his image at the table is, but villain is a solid player.

Villain raises UTG, hero 3-bets AQo in the small blind, big blind folds, villain calls.

Flop comes K-Q-2, two hearts. Hero bets, villain raises.

Turn is the diamond ace. Hero leads out. Villain raises. Hero 3-bets, and villain caps.

The river pairs the K, making the final board K-Q-2-A-K.

What should hero do?

The pot on the river, btw, is 13 big bets.

And I don't think this decision is close.

I have 0 Limit experience tbh, but if i was in the same situation i'd be check-calling too far into the hand to give it up and there are too many hands that could be beating me to justify 4-capping again.

With what range does a solid player cap the turn, after we've shown so much strength?

F Paulsson said:

With what range does a solid player cap the turn, after we've shown so much strength?

Click to expand...

If we assume that this is not just a longwinded bluff cool then villain's range is actually fairly small

1) Although JT looks extremely plausible post-flop play, if he is indeed a solid player he would not have raised pre- UTG with J high
2) A flopped set of Ks or Qs is also fairly unlikely as he probs would have 4-betted PF instead of just calling the 3-bet

This means that the only hands I can really see here are KQ, AK and AQ or of course 22, but even with KQ I seriously doubt he would have 4-betted the turn when the ace came off - anyway it comes down to you not being able to beat anything but a bluff, but if 22, AK and AQ are just as likely as each other I think you check/call hoping for the split (ridiculous, I know )

C/C and, as you said, it's not even close. 13BB is a big pot and the turn cap means that we beat nothing but a bluff here (and a bluff doesn't cap here). Flush draw didn't make it (so if we bet, we're getting raised or not called by draw) and we're behind everything except Qx wich I doubt will cap here: this 22,, QQ, AA, KQ, JT and maybe AQ always. And if it is a combo draw + 1 pair, well, we only lose one BB the times we're in front instead of losing 2 the 99% of the time we're behind.

And as to the person who said that a bigger pair would cap preflop, there's much more value HU, IMHO, not to cap this because of the power of deception in position. Capping this after raising UTG basically screams AA, KK, QQ or AK (and maybe JJ) but if he's solid, I don't except much worse.

And is this FR or 6 max ? I'd say 6-max, but it'd be nice to know.

PS: I wouldn't three bet after getting raised on the turn if I was hero as JT got there and the flushdraw is pricing himself out by trying to make me fold a showdown bound hand in a HU pot. Three-betting against this player is not standard since I expect splits/being behind a lot.

The more I look at it, the less I like C/C here after calling the cap. This should be c/f I think (but it's a c/f nobody makes and this is why three-betting this turn was a mistake since it makes us put in a lot of bets while behind, wich we are more often than not against a solid TAG).

Sorry, this is 5-handed. That makes a huge difference and I'm glad you asked. JTs is definitely in his opening range two off the button (= UTG 5-handed), although JTo might not be (I'm not entirely familiar with this particular player, but I presume he has a 15% opening range or so in this spot). So is 2-2 and KQ.

I agree that 3-betting the turn might be a problem since the only hand we're realistically beating is KQ.

The answer, in my mind, is that hero needs to muck this river. The fact that the pot has gotten so big (which is in no small part hero's fault) makes the decision harder but there's almost 0% chance of winning here, barring villain misclicking when he capped the turn. A solid player doesn't cap the turn with AQ.

The reason I bring this hand up is the alarming rate with which players cap the turn and then proceed to raise the river, with hands like overpairs or weak two-pair. It seems that they take turn caps/raises/3-bets WAY too lightly. A solid player capping the turn means, in the vast majority of the cases, the nuts. Hero's hand is so far down the ladder from the nuts that continuing after the river is just costing us exactly one big bet. We beat nothing, and this is not going to be a split.

After posting the second time, I went to 2+2 and saw the post there and the beating that Hero took for three betting this turn (and then betting river wich is the definition of horrible): the player in the hand will not cap lightly on such a board and he has the nuts approx 100% of the time. Once we three bet and he caps, his range is so weighted towards hands that beat us that we effectively should muck this river UI and if we hit our gin card we should feel REAL lucky. An argument could even be made for folding to the turn cap methinks, since we're looking at two outs (two remaining Q since the A might not give us the best hand) and we're not getting the odds to peel off or SD.

Calling turn raise makes c/f UI a K river much easier against this opponent since the pot won't ge giaganormous and this solid TAG won't bet with anything other than FH, higher trips and straight after raising our turn donk. I probably b/f non K river.

Yeah, I didn't even want to mention the river lead since that's... it's... Yeah, "definition of horrible" is a perfect way to describe it.

Turn raise looks pretty terrible. I might even fold on the flop given it's a solid opponent, the pre-flop action, and 5 outs looking like a best-case scenario, and one with significant reverse implied odds.

This looks to be a right muck up. PF is fine but it starts to tank for hero on flop. Nasty play throughout. And killer river tops it. C/F