10/20. Villain has been tight ABC. Hero has a LAG image.

Pre:
Hero opens BTN with 9TQKss for $70. SB pots it $230. Hero calls.

Flop ($480)
AJ3r. Villain bets $200. He has $1000 behind, Hero covers. Hero has BDFD. Hero calls?

Turn ($880)
AJ3 6r. Villain checks. I'm pretty sure villain never has AA. Hero checks?

River ($880)
AJ3 6 A. Villain checks. I'm pretty sure villain never has a FH. Hero bets 2/3 pot?

All your ?'s seem fine vs a tight abc.

Seems you block the hands you want him to have. Not sure what your bluffing range on this river would be though.

Not really sure what you would be trying to rep on the river, ak?

hard to imagine you checking back 2p on the turn vs a villain who started the hand with 75bb

Its not clear how good a hand reader villain is, if he is strong he might look you up with qq/kk but probably not the j

I don't think you will fold him off any ace but if you think he takes this line with kkxx despite really not hitting the flop go for it, idk enough about villain to be confident, against a good player It seems like a losing play

We could also fold him off a similar wrappish hand like kqjt but that's optimistic, especially given his line it seems unlikely

I think 1/2 pot is sufficient on the river.

I will go even smaller

I think if you go smaller than 1/2 he can start seriously considering both calling and jamming his Jx.

Really? To fold what part of our range?

When we bet river really small, our range starts to become heavy in thinner vbs like KK/QQ/A875 since the AK+ portion of our range would prefer to bet larger. All of these thin value hands would be in a tough spot against a river check/jam. When you add in the possibility that he may start bluff catching some non A hands to a smaller sizing, I think strategy of having a single 1/2 pot bet size on this river is going to do better than splitting our range into say 1/3 pot and 2/3 pot. When you bet some goofy sizing with a narrow and capped range, you don't know if or how he's going to adjust his own ranges.

Against a creative thinking player you are obv right but villain in the hand is described as an ABC nit so I think betting 1/3 or 2/3 pot is going to do the exact same thing. He's gonna call Ax+.

We also get to this river with a lot of valuehands and very few blufhands.

The only thing that might advocate for a 1/2 or 2/3 potbet is the very real possibility he has kings and you have to decide if he'll fold that specific to sizing.

seems fine. think I pot or near pot turn or raise flop w/ this exact holding and stack sizes though. don't really know what I take this line w/ that's a bluff though guess I should have something in that range but probably not this. Maybe I just don't have a c/x/b bluff range on this runout.... don't think I just float this board in 3b pots at all and your <100bb deep so maybe not too exploitable

Is there a mathematical way to figure out the best play here?


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You can build a range and figure out the ratio of value hands to hands that have showdown value to air that is giving up and figure out whether you have a profitable bluff against that range. If he mostly has air/ give ups or weak bluff catchers you can bet often but if his range is super strong give up up often.

As for the hand itself, you're going to have a lot of Ax+ in your range although your hand blocks a lot of the hands that he'd be cbetting flop with (assuming he only ever cbets with equity and gives up with complete air). I think against a player that is generally straight forward I'm betting turn and probably river as well, given that you'd expect him to barrel turn with his good 2p and better. I don't think villain can bluff catch very wide at all OTR since he'd expect you to never be floating this flop wide at all given stack sizes and SB's range advantage on A high boards so your range is mostly value hands (Ax+) by this river. Overall I think this is a decent spot to bluff river against this particular opponent.

A tight TAG 3 bet. Why can't hero be xb hands like AKT6 / A3xx on the turn for pot control?

It's rough to bluff w/ this 0 blocker hand, but it's also tough for PP to get to this river w/ worse (maybe something like KQJ3 is motivated to bluff now?)

Probably just break down Sb's range into calls, folds, and elastic. Given vil's range, though, I can't imagine 2/3rds pot is best and would probably bet smaller when I do bet (maybe like 1/2 pot).

The way I see it, what am I calling on the flop? I should have 3 types of hands: Axxx, maybe KK/QQ/Jx + GS, or wrap no pair. Mid pair wants to see a showdown; there are way more Axxx hands than wrap no pair hands; how the eff did he call me with KKxx?

I'm calling with KK here all day as villian as never did i see pressure from you so it looks like a miss draw. What are you repping with rover bet A... lone A that never paired up and now you got super lucky on river?

If you are sure he doesnt have AA then you should bet the turn as you have redraws and he has bascially none, he's OOP and you have some fold equity. Expect him to call this street. You then have to barrel river and hope he folds.

A lot of people will fold AXXX with no 2 pair here also if you barrel turn

What are effective stacks? When a tight ABC checks turn to me, I'm betting pretty often.

So you want a free card on turn and then bluff river when the worst card in the deck for you comes, lol, pretty terribly played. 3 chances to bluff? Flop call is fine, allthough i see a case for raise on flop but you are probably not capable of that play? Turn is a must bet (and only bluff) after villain checks and river you just have to give it up as played.

Better turn semibluff then river bluff. These stacks sizes villain's not c/r turn and if he does no prob.

You described yourself as lag. People bluff catch lags.

Also you checked turn, proving to him you wanted a free card. If you bet turn, he probably folds, I'm guessing. Your line looks like a bluff.

I agree with many of the previous replies... Without a reraise on the flop, hero has set himself up- either AA or Bluff on river in eyes of villain. And since hero didn't repop heads up preflop, AA very questionable.

With a broadway draw and backdoor flush on a tight player, a reraise on the flop would provide better information for hero. If villain has KK, you're finding out on the flop. If villain reraises or smooth calls, the hero knows he's in trouble and can fold or play conservatively the rest of the way as well as potentially pick up the winning hand.

Key is to pay for information early, when possible. Not only does it help provide info, but it keeps tight players at bay with future betting because they are often reluctant to play big pots without nuts.

I probably give up on the river and see what villain played. He's probably calling most bets with KK, especially AKKx. But I may take a stab at it as well. It's got to be a scary enough bet though. A bluff here can set the table up for another river bet soon. As long as it plays the same way. It pays to keep them guessing.

Bet turn.

Most of your flop continuing range is going to want to call the flop (even strong hands like JJ) because (1) you're at a equity and nut disadvantage on this board (2) you want to protect the weaker parts of your range from being barreled off on the turn by including some strong hands in the range that gets to turn (3) as villain bets smaller OOP, we are less incentivized to raise. In this case, he bet 40% pot which will make us want to raise less often than if he had bet something like pot.

Putting that all together, you can have a reasonably strong betting range when he checks to you on the turn. As such, you are going to be underbluffing the turn when checked to if you are not including KQT in your range.

So, this hand becomes a mandatory turn bet.

The next question is what size to choose when betting.

SPR is around 1.1 so a jam is a reasonable option.

Now we can consider other sizes.The problem with most other sizes is that we can't really bet/fold that often, so most bet sizes end up being committing. If we bet 1/2 pot and get jammed on, we will be getting 4.14:1 (880 + 440 + 1000 / 560) so we'll need 19% equity to call it off. A fair amount of turn betting range will have this equity and be forced to call it off.

As a consequence to this, there isn't much incentive to bet a medium size since we (1) give villain better odds (2) have essentially pot committed ourselves to the same degree as if we had just bet pot. So there's definitely no reason to be sizing medium-ish here on the turn.

That still leaves small betting as a potential option though and so let's consider 1/4 pot. If we bet 1/4 pot and get jammed on we will be getting 2.7:1 (880 + 220 + 1000 / 780) so will need 27% to call it off. There are going to be hands that can bet and fold having <27% equity against villain's jamming range.

So from a range perspective, you can potentially split your turn range between potting, 1/4 pot and checking back. Note that in most cases, there is a bit of a penalty the IP player pays for betting small as it re-opens the action. However, given that we are at SPR 1.1, OOP shouldn't have much of a check-raising range, so the cost we face for betting small is fairly diminished. Also note that this 1/4 pot option is only really viable on drier boards, which I think this rainbow board potentially qualifies as.

All in all, I think this hand should be a turn pot. You can do the range splitting between sizing as I suggested, however I don't think the GTO EV difference between having a pot-1/4 pot strategy will be much different as compared to just having a pot strategy (there could be some exploitative EV to gain though). If you want to do that sort of pot-1/4pot strategy, you'll have to figure out on your own how to split your range and the logical reasons for why a given hand should be put in a given range.

^^ Good post, thanks.

As above look to limit the range of the 3 bet ...Put villain on a Axxx and then put him on other possible 3 bet sb hands. You'll get premium pairs and maybe a ds hand like QJT9 which is unlikely given your holding.

He cbets an A flop and checks a safe turn? Which rules out AAxx and proabbly all AJxx which means that he either has a weak A(unlikely given the turn check) or he has a premium missed pair like KK/QQ or a draw similar to yourself.


You should then bet the turn to setup a more believable river bet. When your hand doesnt hit river you can barrel and he has a much more difficult decision.

Also your bet size on the river screams that you want him to fold given the action before you. Would you have bet trips for this much given hes just checked two streets? If you had the A you want to be called and thus should bet lighter to induce a call or a shove?

When the story doesnt add up then it makes a villans call easier.