Live $5/$10 at Bellagio. I have $1K, villain has $2K+.

I've only been at the table for 20 minutes or so and in that time, the villain has been fairly active (played 4 hands) without getting to showdown. He is early 20s, relaxed and talkative with his heighbour on his left. Villain has just asked for the food menu implying he is planning to be here for a good while longer yet. No other reads.

I haven't played a hand yet, although in only 20 minutes of play, difficult for that to mean much.

Hand in question, I open for $30 from hi-jack with AJ. Villain, on my immediate left is the only caller. Pot is $65.

Flop is 234 I check, he checks.

Turn is J I bet $50, and villain raises to $115.

What should my action be?

I re-rasied it to $230, with a plan of either taking the pot now, folding to a 4-bet or leading on a non-threatening river card if called. The villain called my raise. Pot now $525.

River 8 I bet $320 and villain shoves.

Can anyone find a reason to call?

Given your action;

Why did you bet the river? He didn't to your re-raise on the turn, so any of his missed draws or weaker hands will fold river, and you will get called or raised by better. If you think your hand has showdown value still at this point, wouldn't a check be much better?

I think it was bad to put 320 more out there and would be a mistake to put your last 480 in even considering that your bet of 320 bloated the pot to nearly 2k if you call off the last of your chips.

Thanks Arbar. I agree that the lead on the river was a mistake after the 3-bet on the turn failed to induce a fold. I do wonder though whether the 3 bet on the turn OR the lead on the river was the worst play. (I say that thinking that one of those bets had to be made).

fold to raise on turn. sheesh.

As Arbar said with the action you gave then check on the river is the best you can do!

You forgot to cbet on the flop. Hope he spazz raises so you can shove over----Ace high is the nuts here 65% of the time

i'm not entirely sure why, but OP asked me to elaborate so here goes...

if you call the raise on the turn, you're basically playing bluff catcher, and committing to continuing to play on most rivers.

maybe a lot has to do with the instincts of playing nlh for 10 years, but i just dont think this is very likely spot for your opponent to be bluffing, and he's raising you for value with hands you're ahead of like never.

if he was the spewtarded type to semi bluff the turn with something like a naked diamond or a diamond + a pair, he would probably have bet the flop when checked to. Also, the raise size suggests to me that he's looking for a call and doenst have a care in the world about the river - **** maybe this dude has the steel wheel yo.

much, much more likely to me is that he flopped a nut type hand and checked behind to hope to get some action, and now look what he's got.

Thanks DjSkyy. I fully understand why the lead on the river was a spazz mistake but I didn't understand why re-raising the turn was. In my mind, I figured a raise by K-J, Q-J, or even a naked Ad was possible, and that my A-J could be well ahead, but your instincts in this spot are far better than mine. (You weren't the villain in this hand were you????!!)

I was shot-taking at $5/$10 and am hoping to learn enough to improve my game and survive at this higher level. I came up short and am trying to figure out how much of the loss was avoidable. (I lost the rest of this bullet when AK<AA and AK<AQ, both aipf).

DJ pretty much hit it right on, even check calling the river is weak which is still far more viable than leading, villain is not going to bet a weaker j for value at this point, it is either a missed draw or flopped nuts..given villain's check behind on the flop its likely the latter seeing as he would probably have cbet an a high fd, given this and the min raise on the turn it seems that in most similar spots your top pair top kicker would not be good...

leading some rivers and and folding to a 3 bet is fine and quite +EV, since it allows you to extract value from some weaker hands despite occassionally losing to better, you will make money from the hands that would nearly always check behind. However given the action that took place its quite clear that this was not one of those spots.

Thanks dunc, that kinda made my day. nice to have a confidence boost after treading water on merge for almost a year in what have to be the toughest games i've ever seen.

also, meant to put in my reply that if said villain did have JT, JQ, or KJ, with or without a diamond, and he was not the type to bet the flop when checked to, then he's probably almost always just calling your turn bet rather than raising...like those are very standard pot controlling hands, and thus his raise is going to be polarized to nuts/air, and since it's a really, really bad spot to bluff, he almost has to be going for value.

I would cbet the flop a high percentage of the time.

I don't mind calling his turn raise and calling innocuous rivers, but I can definitely see the argument for folding to the turn raise. It seems like a good spot for him to get tricky with semi bluffs if he senses you are on a delayed cbet.

If you are going to raise turn, check calling river seems better than leading, because you get value from his bluffs. But anything involving raising turn is very far below calling or folding turn.

Your thinking process is bad.
Even if he raises QJ or KJ ott (which is really bad IMO after checking back flop) he won't call a 3bet with this hand ott.
You're totally overplaying your hand, at this point you only have a bluffcatcher so your 2 possible lines IMO are folding on his raise turn or call/call bricks but you could be already dead ott so folding isn't horribad, it's anyway way more ev than the "doesn't make any sense at all" line you took

fold to the turn raise, not really close.

I find in live a lot of people will raise small on turn here with a weaker pair to protect against flush draws and take down the pot now but usually this is a weirdly played flush. I would sometimes fold here and sometimes call and check decide river. Without any reads I would probably just fold though. However, I would never take your line with that hand.