Hi there OmarRD7, thank you for posting and sharing your hand! Very nice hand!
The first thing I would like to say is that we should play accordingly to the pool: I can see that you have played only two hands with the V in the Big Blind, but it seems that it just called 50% preflop.
When you see players ahead that love very much to call preflop to hit their exquisite equities, make a bigger preflop raise, without risk of they fold too much (the risk here is that they call too much, so we want to inflate the pot ASAP to play against a player like this one). However, expect a bigger sample of hands before making decisions.
In Position we can make a 3x raise, 3,5x, if the player really loves to call we can raise even 4x or 4.5x, because this guy is not likely to make a preflop 3bet and because it defends the Big Blind versus Button in a high frequency, something like 40%, 50% or more.
What I say it is not a mistake at all to raise 5x or even more preflop when you know you have a calling station ahead. We don't need to play GTO against players who barely read their hole cards! What happens when we raise low sizings against fishes ahead (both passive and aggressive ones):
A) To call you preflop with a wider range, including a bunch of suited connectors, low and mid pairs, and bluff you out of pot and many scenarios, where we would be out of position in relation to the player in the BTN, and we might risk thinking that the Big Blind may have a capped range, but the Big Blind will show more a dynamic range than a capped one.
B) When we give such a good price for a player in position, for the times we raise just 2x or 2.5x, we are opening the door for more 3bets lights because many players will see smaller raises and a weak point that can be explored, and it makes logic, because we can only continue in a 3bet preflop with the same hands that we could be 4betting or jamming, and those we can't find most of times.
I know that in the specific scenario you had AA from the CO, but from the CO your range is never capped, your range from the CO is dynamic which turns the reading and the exploration postflop completely different. We can have AA, KK, AK from the CO, but we also have a lot of J9s, KTs, 98s, 22, 44, 77, etc.
When you raise preflop 2.5x from the CO you will have in your range:
all the pocket pairs: 22+ (5.88%)+
a bunch of suited connectors: AKs, KQs, QJs, JTs, T8s+, 97s+, 87s, 76s, 65s (3.32%)+
a lot of suited aces, strong suited broadways, off suited broadways, some strong off suited aces, etc: AQs-A2s, KJs-K9s, QTs-Q8s, J9s-J8s, ATo+, KTo+, QTo+, JTo (14.78%)
Thus, we observe how dynamic our range from the CO can be in single raised pot. It is the same for the Big Blind's defense range, it will be very, very large depending on some players.
When do we face players we don't know:
For as boring as it seems, when we are in a cash table against a player that we barely know it, a player that will have a sample of 0 and 10 hands played. It is a very short number for decision making.
IMO, the best solution when we are playing against an unkown, is to treat it like a good regular. We gotta respect our adversaries, specially when we have no information about it.
Assuming that this player also have no information of our game it is a little bit strange when this players bets or re-raises us, because we are completely in the dark. (how can I guy in the dark could be trying to bluff us out of the pot?)
Flop situation:
Flop ($0.77): 6♣ T♠ 7♠
There were 15 blinds in the pot and you bet 9 blinds ? What do you want to represent here, and when you bet so big in the flop which hands do you believe could be paying you?
Because the Big Blind called, our range from the CO most of times is very weak, and with our 18-23% range from the CO we are not always C-betting more than 1/2 pot in a kindda drawie and wet flop like this one. We bet mor than 1/2 pot when we are sure the player in the BB is a calling-station that will defend anything it hits and will try to float us out of the pot with crap.
This flop connects both to the CO's range and the BB's range which will have a lot of pocket pairs and suited connectors.
I believe 1/2 pot here will work just fine, for value and for protection, because many turns and rivers are not going to be good, and if we put a lot of blinds in the flop, we are almost commiting ourselves to the river. It is going to be hard to fold pocket aces in many rivers, when you bet so strong in the flop. (assuming Villain is a good regular, not a recreational).
There are other reasons that makes me not c-bet flop more than 1/2 here:
A) We are deep stacked and V. is just 100 BB. If we bet too much flop/turn we will be commited with a very strong value hand.
B) We don't know anything about our opponent, so why risk that much when we don't have the nuts? If you had pocket T's in this situation, which would be nuts, even so it would be hard to play many turns and river that could connect to BB's defending range.
C) As John Anhalt states in his book "Polished Poker Vol 1" (available here at the forum:
https://www.cardschat.com/forum/cash-games-11/polished-poker-vol-i-study-group-227214//)
there are some players that we call "flush chasers, OESD chasers, gutshot chasers, etc"
At the micro stakes there are thousands of players which will never fold a flush draw flop/turn and many will go all in river trying to represent their missed draw.
We want the pot to grow postflop because we have a very strong value hand, but by the same token, we don't want the pot to grow too much out of proportion, in some board textures, because we know that it will be hard to leave our hand, and when we leave the hand we will feel like we should have called.
The Jack of Diamonds in the Turn is a real strange card for our range now, because it connects too much the board, making the reading extremely difficult. For many reasons I would be checking this turn, so I would not give my opponent the rope to hang me.
IF we make the pot grow again here, it will be very strange if Villain float us with a all-in river. Now, following a rational line of game, betting 1/2 pot flop for value and protection it's okay, but the J in the turn connects the board even more, because we were losing for some combos of 98 in the flop, and we continue to lose for these combos at the turn. But in the turn some levelers are going to float us a lot with strong broadways that connects to this turn. We will never now if V. really has Tx in its range or some weak Jack that it decided to flop river because CO has a weaker range in this scenario most of times.
It is not because that we have AA, KK, QQ, JJ in a low board that we should be C-betting a lot here. Remember we will have many bluffs on our range when we open raise from CO and C-bet a drawie flop with a double barrel turn: we will never have TT, JJ, 98 on our range, because if we had these hands we would make a more soft line postlfop, to induce Villain's bluffs to level against our range and we trap them. I hope it helps you!
Are you sure that folding in a spot where you are winning 68% of times is plus EV?
Regards;
Carlos 'Aballinamion' Barbosa
