Villain is a mid 40's alpha male who has been the most active at the table by far. He plays about 80/20 preflop and I don't think he really cares about position. After the flop he pounces on any perceived weakness but will back off when pressure is put on him. Hero has been playing fairly snug but just went on a little heater the past orbit. Hero has 2100 to start the hand and villain covers.

Preflop: Villain limps UTG, hero rasies to 100 with KQ, straddle calls, villain calls. He has almost ATC at this point.

Flop is KQ9

Checked to hero who bets 175, only villain calls.

Turn is A

Check Check

River is 8

Villain starts cutting out chips, then adds more....then adds some more, and finally comes out with 1000, 9 blacks and a stack of red. Pot was only 665 at that point.

Who likes a call, and who finds the fold button? Does your answer change if we have Q in our hand? Was I lighting money on fire by checking the turn?

Thought's on all streets are appreciated.

Bet the turn.

Has he shown down any big bluffs?

i'd bet turn

as played, i'd fold unless he is really bad

bet turn.. alpha males 80/20 don't limp/call AK/AQ from EP

Pounces on any weakness shown. I guess it depends on how he has pounced before this. Overbets as bluffs? Pot size bluffs? Any overbets before attempting to rep a bluff?

Not enough info. really.

The diatribe he went thru building the building and building some more seems like a TV exhibition of repping a bluff to me. I fold and wait for a little more info. on the villain before calling any huge overbets.

And yes, bet turn and keep the pot a little more standard.

you ever see him take this line and get to showdown? might help you construct how much of his check turn overbet river is nonsense.

w/o that im probably folding, looks like he's just trying to use his image to get paid after backing into the flush.

holding Qspade and taking the same line i'd personally be tempted to shipitback/effectively cib on him here as there's a decent chance he's just getting cute here and with your image you should be able to get him to release better a fairly decent % of the time even though you're effectively minraising and math says its a call but i doubt his ego will let him vs that line. pulling the trigger on that isn't easy ime, but i am certainly tanking to consider it as a viable option.

and yes you're ahead enough on that turn to make it a must bet vs this dude.

My reasoning at the time for checking the turn was if he did have a little something on the flop, and I fired the turn, he was probably giving up unless he improved (in which case he could be ahead of me), whereas if I check turn and feign weakness, he would probably bet out on most rivers. Even if he checks back river, me betting screams bluff so he probably would look me up fairly light.

I know everyone here has said that turn is an easy bet. I was hoping you guys could expand upon that. It feels like you guys are right, but I can't actually put into words why that is. Thanks.

Never seen him overbet before. Typical stabs at pots, but once he met resistance, he backed off the majority of the time.

Because you're fixating on the weakest part of his range instead of considering his range in its entirety. Think about how a hand as strong as KQ on that board plays out against every part of his range (the AJ, the AT, the K+gutter, the Q+gutter, maybe a couple 9+gutter, the pair + turned spade draws, and of course the aforementioned pairs with no draws as well as a couple aces up and a flopped straight that have us beat) on every type of river. There's maybe a handful of hands that we have drawing dead, a handful of hands that are beating us, and a ton of hands in the middle that are behind but have a small amount of equity versus us.

Sure, a decent chunk of that middle range might sigh-fold to a turn bet whereas checking allows him to either turn a pair into a bluff (honestly, pretty unlikely on this particular board) or be more likely to hero call. But letting him realize that equity for free with that middle range is a complete disaster when we're ahead of such a large percentage of his range to begin with.

Yeah, turns an easy bet. I think river is a fold as played. Hard for you to beat much here.

+1 although as the hand played out I wouldn't be too surprised if he hit the turn instead of the river. Board is just too bad to call.

So if that's the case, then why is checking the turn that bad? The only hand I can see him calling the flop and calling the turn that I'm ahead of is like AJ or A10. I don't think he is calling the turn with KJ, K10, J9, etc... That's why at the time I checked back the turn, and the more I write it out, the more I'm convincing myself that it actually wasnt a mistake checking back the turn. I hate giving a free card, but I would hate even more getting check raised on the turn.

Why would you hate getting check/raised on the turn?

I wouldn't. Sure beats getting owned on a lot of bad rivers either by us hero'ing with the worse hand, or folding incorrectly with the better hand.

Ding ding ding

haha, i shouldve added some kind of frequency for that being nonzero but close to it. although im tempted to shove in a lot of situations as most live players start to nut hug except for the small handful of really solid ones, but against a really solid opponent this above scenario is a clear fold imo - therefore if villain is not solid and just an agro idiot who thinks overbetting rivers is cool because he saw it on TV and also checked the turn but now we're supposed to believe he has the nut flush here? I think he has a flush a lot of the time, i dont think he has a nut or near nut flush anywhere near a lot of the time and if your image is snug enough you can sometimes get a fold. i guess i'd prefer to be deeper still obviously but even if you lose this hand the advertising you get if you show to the other droolers at your table is worth the % of the time you lose 1 BI right now ime simply because there is a (hard to determine) % of time villain is getting stupid on this river w/ way less than a flush if villain is as described.

Turn is perfect, now snap his head off.

Flushes are hard to make, he has 3rd/4th pair a lot and you checked turn. You look weak, he's not gonna overbet his value hands much. If he does I think it's more likely JT that was trapping and is annoyed the turn checked through than it is a backdoored flush.

I don't think checking turn is bad, I just would prefer 3 barreling since our hand is still strong enough. I suppose checking turn could be better then betting if vill is going to almost always bet river. Again I'd rather just bet turn with the expectation of going for 3 streets. Fwiw I'd still 3 ball this river

He is a rare egg if made two pair on the turn, and then decided to rep a very polarized range on the river.

Who doesn't bet 2 pair on the river when turn isn't bet? The bet sizing is odd but I'd go so far and say that a river bet is standard with aces up, and obv flopped straight/set.

Results: I ended up tank folding the river. He did not show.

as played, seems like a pretty clear cut fold.

Snap call the spewy bluff

throw a single red chip across the line as quickly as you possibly can