Villain - $6000 - he plays a lot and just came to our table from a table change. He plays 5/10 so he is one of the better players in the room. He has good bet sizing and can turn hands into bluffs.

Hero - $1000 - Pretty card dead day for me, haven't had much to work with. He has played with me, so he should view me as decent. He has seen me 3bet Ah2h though.

Folds to villain - he opens BTN to $15 - hero 3bets $50 in BB with AhQd

QT4

Hero bets $65
Villain calls

Turn 8

Hero???

I would check/call turn and re-eval river

3bet bigger. Check turn

Check/call. That card helps his LP raise/call range a lot more than it helps yours. The only really strong hands you should have here are aj/akss and qq so if you bet too often on the turn you can get bluff raised by a smart player. Especially if he has the As and blocks your flushes.

You also don't want to bet too often because then you always have to fold if you check and he bets. AQ is strong enough to call turn and many non-spade rivers.

check/evaluate. Possibly just fold to a bet. Flop is pretty good for our 3-bet range. I doubt V is floating much here. is he going to turn QJ, QK into a bluff on the turn/river?

Situation is uncomfortable to be honest. Good, aggro villain is going to make our life difficult on most runouts.

It's obviously a check.
What benefit do you think there is in betting here?

3bet bigger is obv, we don't have aces

Check/decide turn. Telling OP to check/fold or check/call now without seeing villain's action & betsize, is an lol thing a ton of ppl do in here, why?

Grunching:

Not loving the 3-bet. Yes, he will call with many hands worse than AQ, but you'll be OOP at the bottom of your range against a tough opponent and it's nothing to be happy about. Once called, it still leaves you with an SPR of ~10, so it doesn't make your hand easier to play postflop OOP. Why bloat this against a villain you fear?

Flop: I like that you didn't go crazy with the sizing. I would even have 1/2 PSB if you don't think it might induce a raise. Charge his draws but don't bloat it. You may want to fold or call down future streets depending on what falls.

Turn: Scare card. FD's, 88, and J9 got there. Check. I don't think you get called from much worse on the turn. How often does V bluff IP when scare cards come? SD's and hands that picked up a draw will be tempted to bluff. Does he view you as tight? Definitely, consider calling him down, but I feel I need to know more about V.

I see a lot of people saying 3-bet bigger pre. I don't see it. To make the hand easier OOP, you really have to bump it up to $100, more than 6X villain's bet. Hero would completely value own himself with AQ.

To get value from pair + flush draws. Villain can certainly have more hands than made flushes here and his lack of a raise on the flop indicates lack of a nutted hand. Combinatorically there are simply way more combos of pairs than flushes and I'm not in the business of giving a free card here.

Gladly b/f the turn myself and probably x/c river on bricks given the read in OP.

In a single bet pot I could get behind this 100%, but I'm not convinced that's still true in a 3bet pot.

How many off suit hands does he even have in his raise/call range pre flop? And ones that also call a flop bet.

He might also do some work for us and turn some hands into a bluff that he would have just folded had we barreled again on the turn.

Haven't been in the lab in a while for hold'em but I like the 3-bet pre- vs. a BTN open, he should be fairly wide and you'll be ahead of his calling range and are only 200BB deep so its not like you are super deep. If he four bets its not the worst and if you think that hes going for a re-steal 4-bet you can make it 500/call (use sparingly). The flop is a bet IMO, you still have sets(QQ,TT) and big flush draws and some QT combos that decided to 3-bet light pre-, so it's not like he can blindly attack your bet...the turn is not a great card and I def think checking is the best option. If you bet and he makes it 400 you are in a gross spot and have to fold, and he can attack pretty wide here imo...

Hero checks

Villain checks


River 4c

Hero??

bet/fold river for $150. bigger sizing for this specific line is good

check/call IMO

bet/decide for $100

Make it at least $65 pre.

Turn is clear x/c

River is close between x/c, b/f and b/c. I'm leaning towards b/f or b/c though.

Bet $150-175. Id like to appear polarized here

Bet turn

I think the river is x/c. Your hand could look like a whiffed AK or JJ and he could go for thin value with weaker Qs. He might also bet his bricked draws as a bluff since you've checked twice. If you bet, you get called by worse sometimes, better always, and sometimes raised which would be horrible. Our hand is disguised and underrepped. I x/c any reasonable size bet.


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Good, now check-decide. I wouldn't be looking for a second street on this runout/this player. Good for him if he bombs it here with worse, you might be able to call, but it's close - he won't be betting small ever/shouldn't be.

OTT I'd be mostly checking vs good regs. My turn betting range is basically polarized to flushes and some bluff AKo combos w/ spades in them and all the KJ combos. Fortunately the board is suited to the Queen, which will reduce the flush combos significantly in a 3bet calling range. I think betting your AsQx combos is probably fine, but I'd probably just check w/ all my AQ in game. This hand is almost certainly a check vs. a good opponent. I'd be tailoring my decision vs a bet almost solely on my opponents betsize. AhQd is probably the worst AQ combo you can have so folding vs big bets is probably okay, but defaulting to a call vs normal sized bets and probably looking to fold on a lot rivers facing more heat seems good to me. Vs passive recs or whales the value in bet/folding this hand OTT is probably quite high.

I probably c/c because the value range we are targeting in a b/f line is pretty narrow. And whenever I take this line with air, villains bet near pot on the river.

Bet the turn we can get value from worse. C/c river.

My issue with checking river:

What hands in Vs range is he going to attempt to bluff with on the river? The flop is pretty good for our 3-betting range, so I don't expect him to have much air when he calls our flop bet. I think most of his range that calls the flop and checks back the turn is marginal value hands that are trying to reach showdown cheaply. I don't see him turning top pair into a bluff on the river, or betting for thin value. I imagine he takes the free showdown with a large percentage of his range. Are we hoping he has exactly KJ?

I'd rather bet the river an amount that makes us appear polarized and let him convince himself that we have air.