Did a quick analysis on it and unless i messed up something its pretty clear that c/c beats b/c. And it seems be around a fourth or a fifth of a BB better (disclaimer there as im not 100% how these numbers are derived).

The only way to make b/c even slightly better is to make him call river with ~100% of flopped pairs or pp`s and then have him only raise river with the nutflush (would make a pretty big difference btw), but that ofc wont happen. Or to have him bluff-raise a river bet way way more than he bluffbets when we check river.


to try and put the results into words it seems to me there just arent enough worse hands that we have to worry about losing value vs to make us want to bet. We have the worst hand too often basically and will then get punished by the tune of one extra BB a not too insignificant part of the time.

Interesting, I did some really quick analysis in my head and I couldn't figure out what line was best. I'm going to do it in some more detail at some point (making assumptions of course) and will post what I come up with.

Also, interesting no one considers bet/fold, I understand from a balance standpoint it's terrible to fold that hand in our range but I'm more of an exploitive player so I don't really care where the hand stands in my range - I think the people thinking along the lines of balance have a very valid argument though. I do think this opponent is capable of turning a made hand into a bluff on the river (I have no idea how often) but there are quite a few players that I think are very rarely doing it.

Anyway, really appreciate all the responses and good discussion. I don't want to ruin it with my thoughts so I'll post in a while with what I think.

Happy Holidays everyone.

Only dont consider bet/fold because good players bluff raise this river too often (maybe not to call, but enough that it reduces the value of bet/fold)

Obv if you have a read that they aren the type to do that bet/fold is by far the best line.

I would c/c. I feel like villain:
-will give up a lot of his light call down hands on the this turn
-will still be raising a decent amount with his overpairs (read on this aspect notwithstanding)
- pretty much has every single club he would open with still in his range
-will bet the 2c and 4c
- is not showing down super light

So basically I am discounting at least a little everything that hero wants villain to have and not discounting at all what he doesn't want him to have. There are so many times where c/c is not preferred, but I would feel ok with it in this spot.

you forgot b/3b/fold as an option!

I feel like for me if I'm running good I bet call and if I'm running bad I check call because it's close enough and my emotions are probably subtly altering my play in spots like this.

Ha yeah, I'm semi-ashamed to say I've been in this mindset all too many times.

But this particular river card probably puts his range ahead of ours... Over half of his turn call range has clubs, and if we always play 888 like this less than half of our range does, although we have a few full houses that's not enough to make up the difference...

Hero's river check range is so wide now I think, as some other posters have said, it's fine to have this in it. Villain's betting worse for value sometimes and you give him a better price on a bluff so he should be doing it at a higher rate so you actually profit more than from picking off bluffs with b/c.

well then bet call against good players. bet fold against bad players.

even vs someone who never bluffs when you bet, b/f should only be marginally better than c/c tho. And then add some bluffs to villains raising range and it quickly goes from marginally best to a really big mistake

I wrote my response without having read your read on the villain.

And after thinking for a few minutes, I think the best answer, is to do all of them, with varying frequencies, but I'd say best is bet fold, but you can only bet fold it once, then they might taking shots, so you adjust to bet call for a while, long enough for them to think you always do bet call now, then you bet fold one again.. and every once in a while, you check call one..

but i get run over