effective stacks 9kish
blinds 150/300/25
Vill seems like reg, sizings have been decent and had some in depth conversation with another play about some hand earlier on etc.

MP opens 700
Hero Calls 700 in bb with K4

Flop(1700): K33
check, vill cbets 800, hero calls

turn (3.3k): 9
check, vill bets 1.4k, hero calls

river (6.1k) : 9
check, vill bets 2.1k, hero is all in for 7.2k


Obv this kinda seems spewy to bluff with an ok bluff catcher, but i felt like we had alot more 3x and 9xcc that we would play like this.
i definetely would not consider this with like K9+ but given we have the worst K is it that bad?

I think this is pretty reasonable. Would use K2 for sure, how many combos is 9xcc? Could also have Ac9x.

While I always tend to bow to gregz advice, I just don't get the range of hands that villain would 3-barrel, that would fold to the river raise and that we don't beat already.
Basically what I'm saying is that I'm hypotehesizing that villain wouldn't try to get 3 barrels of value with a king. Less than a king and we beat him. More than a king and he calls our raise. The only hand I can see 3-barreling for value and folding now is AA, mayyyyybe AK.
The only way the bluff makes sense to me is if we think villain is going for 3 barrels of value with KQ or worse and/or he's capable of folding a 3 in this spot (but there are merely any 3s in his range anyways)

PS: after some thought, I guess the 3 value bets with a king could happen. But what kinds of villain would do it? More like the advanced and GTO regs (because he has to do it to balance his range) or the bad button clicker (because he has top pair and doesn't think about what we could have)? Would those "populations" be tempted to call with a better king, for very different reasons?

This is a situation where our opponents value range isn't particularly nutty. He won't be opening many 3x, and 9x is not always guaranteed to bet turn.

We're in a spot where, as the BB, we can have a bunch of those hands that our opponent can't have. It's good to make this play with a K, because the only hand that can really feel comfortable about calling would be KK, which because of card removal, is only one combo.

We actually have a lot of boats here. If we're flatting pretty much every suited 3 out of the BB and maybe a couple of the stronger offsuit 3x, we're going to have a lot of combos on this board. Throw in some 9xcc and 99, and we're have a very value heavy range.

Gregz, what is your perception of villain's range after the river bet?
I totally agree om your analysis of our range and that it's stronger than villain's with this board, I'm still unsure abiut what the raise achieves, given the range I'm assigning to villain (devoid of single king and almost 3-free)

folding pre cant be bad here.

As played, I can also see villain continue barrelling almost all pocket pairs that are in his opening range here as well as any FD's and you beat a lot of those combos. I don't think villain can really put you on 3x because wouldn't you raise flop or turn? Also hard to put you on 9x unless you're floating flop with A9? Although you could be trapping with some 3x hands, I think you can fold out most lower pocket pairs, maybe AK, KQ, which is likely what villain has. I don't hate the shove, but I think you'll get looked up a lot by AK, KQ, KJ hands

Probs important to mention we also played hand v villain earlier from similiar positions, where i defended AJs in bb, board ran out A99-6-2

where he had Q9o and got 3 streets. Hense why i defended v him, and i still think this is a standard defend v most?

Dont think it would be good to raise 3x here, whatever bet/calls us on the turn is going to bet anyway?
Do we not have all the 9xcc like gregg mentions

It's very unlikely he has a boat.

Regardless of what his range is, we're going to have a decent value range here of 55 combos:

9h9c, 3d3h, Ac9c, Qc9c, Jc9c, Tc9c, 9c8c, 9c7c, 9c6c, 9c5c, 9c4c, Ad3d, Ah3h, Kd3d, Kh3h, Qd3d, Qh3h, Jd3d, Jh3h, Td3d, Th3h, 8d3d, 8h3h, 7d3d, 7h3h, 6d3d, 6h3h, 5d3d, 5h3h, 4d3d, 4h3h, 9c2c, Ac9h, Ad3h, Ah3d, As3d, As3h, Ac3d, Ac3h, Kd3h, Kh3d, Ks3d, Ks3h, Qd3h, Qh3d, Qs3d, Qs3h, Qc3d, Qc3h, Jd3h, Jh3d, Js3d, Js3h, Jc3d, Jc3h

Our opponent is calling like 5100 to win 13300 which equates to needing 27% equity. This means we can be bluffing with around 14 combos. It doesn't really matter what our opponent does from this point onward; we're at a point of equilibrium. That's to say, we expect to win the pot whether he calls or folds.

From here, you can start to analyse what hands would make good calls from your opponents point of view. When he holds AK or AA, we wont have as many A3 combos or Ac9x etc. This would mean that our range is going to hold a higher proportion of bluffs. That being said, I'd use my worst Kx(K2 = 12 combos) because that way I'm consistent with my bluff selection, and I'm not going to start bluffing too frequently.

Greg I love your analysis in this thread. I am learning. Let me ask this as I am not sure I have seen it covered. Since our hand has so much show down value why not just call here? Are we really raising here trying to get him to lay down just a few hands that has us beat? Are we getting called here by much that does not have us beat?

Trying to learn so if these are dumb questions I apologize.

I think it's a good point, but the problem with just calling and villain has a better Kx then we are left with a pretty short stack and I think there's enough fold equity left with shoving.

All questions are welcome!

So in this spot, we want to do the following with our range from weakest to strongest.

x/f the weakest hands: These hands could beat some of his double barrel bluffs perhaps, or maybe we just had a strong flush draw that bricked.

x/r all in bluff: We have a hand that can win at showdown if it goes check/check, but we're not too comfortable calling a bet. This hand has good removal against our opponents best hands, meaning we're likely to get a lot of folds.

x/c: Kx will be the majority of the calling range here. We want to call top pair because it will be more likely our opponent is bluffing.

x/r all in for value: 3x/9x+ we have a boat and very likely to have the best hand.

So that's what we want to do. And yes, you're right that Kx will often be good at showdown, however, we have a lot of Kx when calling out of the BB. I'd guess roughly that Kx makes up > 50% of of entire range to reach the river, so we're going to be faced with a situation where if we call so frequently, our opponent can adjust and never bluff. Given that, we'll often be outkicked when holding top pairs in the BB, I think it's certainly reasonable to have a strategy that does something other than "I have top pair, I call."

I think I'd be OK with folding a few other weak Kx hands here as default and then look to call some of the stronger ones and maybe call if I didn't have a club in my hand if it felt really close.

Turning Kx in a bluff to foldout better Kx is overdoing it.
If we really can have 14 bluff combos we can fill that volume w/ unpaired stuff blocking good Kx.
I think having FDs is irrelevant since his range won't/shouldn't have many bluffs and prolly not balanced most likely.

As played I'd call or fold, people rarely fold better inducing otr when errything missed.

How do we get to the river with that stuff though? Busted club draws I guess?

Thank you gregz for this deeper analysis!
I like that your analysis allows us to not make assumptions about villain's hand. But to me it still just seems like the kind of spots where appropriate assumptions can be made and where I would then side with user12345 and never use one of my Kx to bluff.
Just an opinion, not a statement -> work in progress, my game needs a lot of tidying up ;-)

I'm curious what this stuff would be.

Some AQ, AJ, Broadway FDs/BDs, stuff like that

AQ/AJ are most likely folding turn.

Holding clubs seems bad because we want our opponent to be bluffing. Similarly, we want our opponent to hold hands like QJ/JT/QT, so again I can't agree with broadways either. When using a x/r bluff on the river, you want to block the value range and not block the bluffs. I think a weak Kx fits the bill for this perfectly.

9 ott doesn't help bb to make good catchers.

Not going into all complications - when you bluff c/r river you want to block top (b/c range) and unblock thin value hands (which b/f), blocking his bluffs is only relevant when we're bluffcatching.

Guess you overfold some street. (aside from std potential flop overfold)

Interesting hand and just trying to understand what Greg means.

Villain has polarised his hand by betting all three streets so our equity has decreased notably by the river.

Therefore calling would be the worst option out of the three because we are only beating a bluff.

So by raising we win if villain doesn't have a king and the fair possibility he'll fold a king against a BB range. Also we have a blocker against that king.

I think villains stack size would be important, if its going to cripple him he's less liekly to call?