Not sure you were following, but in what I was saying above is that he doesn't have overpairs. If he doesn't have overpairs then river is a check call or a check fold. Because as amanaplan and mahtza said he's either got an obvious bad/bluff (like AK) or somehow backed into it (A3/8s or 88). A check raise accomplishes nothing, and being proud that you folded out ace high shows that you have more to learn.

Yeah, I'll agree that 2+2 tends to be nitty. But I agree with the other posters this hand is better to just x/c. You're getting 4 to 1 on a call, and it's unlikely you're not good here.

He's polarized here to random two pair+/straights & spazzed out bluffs, so raising here accomplishes absolutely nothing. You're getting snapped off by his 3-bet bluffs pre that somehow made two pair/a straight OTR, and you're folding out all his dumb bluffs.

I like it

I don't understand this post. Do you consider this hand to be one of your wild plays that worked? You risked $400 extra to bluff him off the worst hand. Your play only makes sense if he can check overpairs on the turn and then fold them to your river raise. Some people would check turn here to pot control, but do they ever bet river on a scare card? All you've proved is that V is capable of bluffing river.

yes the 2+2 guys are nitty. big reason is they have played a long time and have seen most of the flashy players go broke blaming fluctuations or just bad luck.

all i got to say is check raise bluffs on the river dont tend to do so well.

I love how almost every hand I've ever read on 2+2 where hero bluffs gets the same responses. "Spew" "fps" "terrible line".

If you had 88 you should be betting river 100%. It seems like a super obvious bluff because a straight wouldnt check river. Doesnt necessarily mean he is happily risking this much money with 1 pair, but this raise is just relying solely on power poker, not actually representing a range. Its a play I do from time to time. I think "this is such an obvious bluff, but he doesnt have the heart to call me", but thats gotta be your read here, that he will fold even though he knows you are bluffing.

As an aside, calling here is almost certainly EV+ because his line seems like an equally nonsensical line to yours. I was not surprised at all by the results, which is to say your river bluff was entirely unnecessary.

Redskins- i agree that most bluffs are said to be terrible, but ill say thats because a lot of lines are just bad and dont represent anything. They are often getting posted because they are bad.

Bluffing with the best hand isn't success. It isn't even really a bluff. If he had QQ, would he have folded? If not, then your bluff was a failure.

This doesn't necessarily make it a bad line though.

If we get to a river and know that we will win 70% of the time if it checks through and 100% of the time if we bet (even if he's never calling) then "bluffing" is better than checking assuming villain will never bluff at the pot.

Whether or not villain is likely to bluff is what makes our bluff +/- EV here, even if we were to win 100% of the time when we bluff. So like Avaritia said, if we know he doesn't have overpairs then we should check and hope he bluffs with some frequency. I personally think his line includes overpairs and would prefer to bluff.

So since you spoiled you made all of us "nits" arguement for us.

Preflop: perfect pretty standard.

Flop: I would argue donking out 1/3 pot isn't a bad option. Another line is to check raise put the pressure on right there which would show a ton of strength.

Turn: is fine check check

River: IS A CALL. You put pressure on villain with the check raise on the river, but villain clearly doesn't have a hand you want to put that pressure on. You only get called here by hands that crush you. A8 suited (prob hearts), 88 if played weird for some reason, any set all of these can still happen even though you say villain's range is capped preflop. Think, what hands does villain make this $100 bet with. NOTHING BUT AK, A8, 88, or maybe any unlikely set.

Thus, the river is a call! Why would villain bet TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA in his range on the river? It would be silly, villain would check these hands that have showdown value in this spot and win right there.

Sure you lose to the unlikely A8, 88, or unlikely sets if they happen, but YOU SAID THEY AREN'T IN VILLAINS RANGE TO BEGIN WITH. The only hand in villains range you list is AK! Which you beat. So just call and win!

This is so right on.

As for the hand, let's put ourselves in the V spot with JJ. Value bet flop, check back turn for pot control, cause an opponent mistake, get another street (river) vs a capable opponent.

If we agree on the above, V ~never bets $100 into $277 for value. More likely tosses in like 9 greens hoping opponent puts him on AK. Imho.

As played, I'd just call.

I agree, which is why I asked if the villain will fold an OP under these circumstances. If the answer is yes, then it is a good bluff. However, the OP has never said one way or another. He seems to be too busy congratulating himself for getting the villain to fold a worse hand.

So since you spoiled you made all of us "nits" arguement for us.

Preflop: perfect pretty standard.

Flop: I would argue donking out 1/3 pot isn't a bad option. Another line is to check raise put the pressure on right there which would show a ton of strength.

Turn: is fine check check

River: IS A CALL. You put pressure on villain with the check raise on the river with the exact hand you want villain to have. You only get called here by hands that crush you. A8 suited (prob hearts), 88 if played weird for some reason, any set all of these can still happen even though you say villain's range is capped preflop. Think, what hands does villain make this $100 bet with. NOTHING BUT AK, A8, 88, or maybe any unlikely set.

Thus, the river is a call! Why would villain bet TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA in his range on the river? It would be silly, villain would check these hands that have showdown value in this spot and win right there.

Sure you lose to the unlikely A8, 88, or unlikely sets if they happen, but YOU SAID THEY AREN'T IN VILLAINS RANGE TO BEGIN WITH. The only hand in villains range you list is AK! Which you beat. So just call and win!

We block the nuts (helps a tiny bit) and we dont block AK (helps a lot). So we dont want to fold. So check call or check raise?

Well, since villains range is JJ+, AK, this isnt a river hes gonna want to bet often, at all. He has zero strong hands. So we dont want to check raise our best hands because of the high chance it checks through. So we should have no check raising range at all, which means no bluffs. Check call.

as i said check raise bluffs do poorly on the river.

however if this hand was thought through his range changed from big pairs to just ace king or possibly tens or jacks. mostly ace king. so a small bet out on the river is in order.

or having checked and seen his weak bet a check raise for value can the play. but check raise say just 100. he might call with his ace king. here we have narrowed down his hand and havent taken advantage of it.

Grunch - I just call because we should have the best hand a lot. His line is real goofy for JJ+. Also $500 looks sorta FOS while $400 looks more value-y (and scary to a good player).

How long do you think I have been playing?

i dont know. i was replying to minator's post not yours about nits.
but you did say it earlier.
but if you have been playing a long time like decades not a few years in higher stakes games you would know what i meant about flashy players going broke.

ya your probably right - you ether move up and get better or go broke - or you stay at the stakes you normally play.

What would of made this a better play?

He has AK 40% of the time and you get the same result with a call. I doubt he folds AA, KK ever. So optimistically he may fold QQ a third of the time and JJ two thirds of the time. I don't think villains line is unreasonable for any holding in his range so all combos should be weighted equally. The math to find the best play isn't that hard. Let's consider the plays calling, the $400 raise that get the above folds, and a min-raise that gets called by all pairs and AK 50% of the time. There is $377 in the pot when the action gets to us.
Calling is pretty clearly +ev

($377+$100)*.4-100=$90.80

Raising might be better if we can get enough folds from better hands. Let's start with the above assumptions and see if it is close

(16/40) (377+500)(1)+(12/40)(377+500)(0)+(6/40)(377+500)(1/3)+(6/40)(377+500)(2/3)-500=
(877/40)(16+0+2+4)-500=(877/40)*22-500=-17.65

That seems pretty bad. We can however solve for how many combos we need to fold to this raise to be as good as calling.
(877/40)*X-500=90.80
877*X/40=590.80
X=590.80*40/877=27

We need Villain to fold AK, JJ, and QQ 5/6 times for this raise to be better. If this raise gets all combos other than AA and KK to fold then

EV=877*28/40 -500=$113.90

$23.10 better for 5 times the risk. (not really liking this play too much more risk for to little increase in gain. I don't think we can get enough folds from QQ and JJ)

How about a min-raise? Perhaps a raise that gets call be some hands we beat it better.
(16/40)(377+200)(1/2)-200=(1/5)*577-200=-84.60
not very good. Even if AK calls 100% the EV only goes to $30.80.

I think the best play is a call. There may be some sort of sweet spot of bet size and folds that is enough better. However, even if I went and found it it may be to specialized to be worth using live.

true rus but the premise unfolded that he cant have the biggest pairs as he would have bet them. i agree with you that many players would take this line as i see it frequently. but without the big pairs possible ace king goes way up and a tiny check raise may be better.
but the simple play is to just call here.

I like the line, if I was going to turn it into a bluff it would be all in, as you can have the nuts, you block the nuts and he isn't too likely to have the nuts.

I have to say though I think 99 is too strong to turn into a bluff and should be a sigh call, use a hand like T9s instead

I can't use T9s often here as I fold that too much pre vs a 3bet OOP vs a tight 3bet range.

okay at the start you got raised 40. so your stack is about 23 bets if you called that. so you have to break him to get 23 to 1 odds for the call. so i would fold to his pre flop raise.
since you know you are beat or are going to have a hard time guessing if he is paired or ace king. and are oop on the hand.

after the flop i guess you could have done what you did and he what he did and then your best play probably is to call on the end.