Without reads I don't think you should 3-bet flop nor do I think you should fold. On the turn, shipping is usually bad without reads, folding and calling can both be justified, but I like calling better than folding(my natural tendency is to be a calling station tho). On the river I am mostly clicking fold, but you can def justify calling a decent amount of rivers.

I'm calling.

ok, i suck then.

Well, here's my thought process, for what it's worth, presented as an unholy wall of text for which I'd like to apologize in advance:

We're kind of operating in the dark as far as knowing villain's tendencies, since it's hand two. So we're basing our actions on what some average random from the population might be like, plus things like basic hand-reading and hand frequencies heads up.

So we call on the flop to encourage any pure and semi-bluffs to keep barreling, rather than blowing them away. And also because if villain checks turn, we can proceed profitably from there and exploit that part of his range further -- an eventuality we may not reach or exploit by 3betting flop.

On the turn, he bets again, and a similar logic motivates us to call. Our hand is sorta underrepped when we call again on this texture -- it looks like we might be drawing or have some second pair + draw type thing. If we jam, we get owned by better, he maybe gets away from his semi-bluffs, and he def folds his more pure bluffs. Also, by not jamming, we get to see a river in position -- that is, play yet another street and make yet another decision in position -- which favors us more than him.

Now if the river falls ugly and he has our A8 beat but is equally unhappy on said ugly river (since a draw is in our range), then we sometimes see a check or underbet by him, saving us money. If he jams on an ugly river, then we correctly fold to his semi-bluffs that got there, while incorrectly folding to his pure bluffs if he felts them too. But the thing is that an ugly river will have somewhat of a depressing effect on him in general when it doesn't improve him. So even his would-be third barrels with air are reduced on such rivers by some percentage, since completed draws are in our range. Some people will still jam air on those rivers anyway and cause us to fold. But others won't, and so we essentially cut down the chances that an average unknown will make us fold a winner by ensuring that we play a river together, and knowing that that river will sometimes be scary for both of us.

Whereas on a blank river, more villains can ship their air, because they see that any draws we had have whiffed, and so we'll likely lay down our 2nd pair or worse.

To return to an earlier point: By calling on the turn, we open up another street of play. This means we give villain a chance to check on some rivers, which gives us options like pot control, not playing for stacks, maybe making a smallish value bet, and so on.

And finally, let's look at another dimension of what to think about when villain ships on a blank river. Remember that we're playing in a relative information void. So: Either this guy is incapable of three barrel bluffing on a blank river sufficiently, and we're getting owned when we call his third barrel on safe rivers. Or he can be bluffing there sufficiently and we make a +EV call.

However, if our call of his river shove turns out to be -EV, that necessarily means that his range for three barrel jamming a blank river is quite narrow. Meaning he can't jam blank rivers very often, given his strict hand strength requirements. So if you imagine replaying all streets the same a thousand times, and putting a blank river out there every time, a guy like that -- let's call him a River Nit -- will mostly not jam those rivers, except when he happens to be nutted. Keep in mind, after all, that just because the River Nit will only three barrel shove on a blank river with nutted hands, this doesn't at all mean he can't check/raise this rich flop texture and follow up on the turn J with far less than nutted hands, including a bunch of hearts and such. So against a River Nit, very often after we call his turn bet, he's giving up on blank rivers and we pick up the pot (+ maybe an extra vbet.)

Thus if we calculated our EV over the whole hand, my argument is that we'd likely discover that we can afford to mistakenly call an unknown who only shoves blank rivers with a nitty range and still holistically show a profit over the sum of all flop, turn, and river situations. Assuming our default reply to normal bets or raises on non-draw-completing streets is call/call/call.

And obviously if it turns out that our opponent is not a River Nit, then he's likely shoving blank rivers with too many bluffs, rendering our call by itself +EV. We only really run into problems calling on blank rivers against a guy whose river shoving range is well-balanced -- as are his ranges on the previous two streets -- and thereby tailored to exploit a calldown like ours with Ax. But we're playing a 5$ unknown. So we use position, our hand strength, underrepresentation, and the other things I mentioned above to maximize this unknown's characteristic propensity for subpar play in the key street-by-street spots this situation contains.

Sick post lagdonk. I was already going to say +1 to call down, but after reading that my opinion means nothing compared to your well articulated thoughts. Thanks for putting in the time to write such a wall of text, well worth the read.

Nice post lagdonk. How often on average do you think we will see a villain ship or c/f a wiffed FD on river instead of calling on the turn? I realize this isn't an easy question to answer, but my concern OTT is that the most obvious flop draw may call a turn shove and c/f the river if missed. How bad is a bad enough river card to fold? How about 2h?

holy jesus wall of text.

but so much gold.

post like yours, lagdonk, is what i look for when i make topics .

Justifying calling the river by claiming that your flop and turn EV will make up for it is kinda bad imo. Each street should be analyzed independently. Saving money on the river is very important to your overall win-rate.

Overall, very good job analyzing the hand and I am sure your input was very helpful for a lot of the posters.

That's hard to say. On a question like that, where we're estimating what an average unknown does in a spot where it could logically go either way, I'd defer to the experience of people who have logged thousands of games against that specific population. But my larger point was that this question is overshadowed by all of the competing concerns we're trying to juggle in a hand like this. Shoving the turn for value is fine with a few reads and some history, and possibly even okay on average against an unknown, but the key for me is that it's not clear we want to play for stacks on the turn in that manner. Because the match just started and we know very little, I think prioritizing pot control of sorts, underrepping our hand if possible, encouraging villain's air (whatever it might be) to continue, and entangling him in awkward river spots -- where we have position and he can make mistakes like miss value bets or run poor bluffs -- is a better way to go.

I think 2h qualifies as bad enough.

I disagree with your outline of how an average $5 unknown/donk would think about our range (if he thinks about ranges at all) or hand when we start calling down. Now, I have no way of really proving that my own conception of how such people think is correct, but in my experience, an unknown at this level is easily capable of having such diffuse thoughts as:
- "Oh, he didn't shove over my c/raise on this drawy flop, he can't have TP."
- "He's not raising, he's just calling, so he must be weak."
- "He's calling down to hit his draw."
- "I put him on exactly KT. Yeah; gotta be KT."

See my take on average $5 unknowns above.

This I think is a more compelling characterization of an average micro stakes player -- their reputation for passiveness and timidity on the river especially -- and I buy it much more than your earlier description wherein a $5 unknown was thinking about our range and what he was repping. My experience at the $5 games -- which admittedly is not recent or super-extensive -- was mixed on this issue, so I'd prefer to let individual HUSNGers make their own evaluations. But if there's a broad consensus that the $5 population is on average incapable of bluffing enough on blank rivers in a hand like this, then I'll be happy to hear it and will retract my suggestion that we call on such rivers.

I agree that we should strive to give each street its own independent and full consideration. But we also plan entire hands and lines to some degree in advance. So there's a blend of both happening per street. And in the case of blank rivers in the OP's hand, I believe that my remarks respect that blend. And to be clear, I'm not generally advocating making avoidably -EV calls because our EV on earlier streets makes up for it. But since we're in a relative information void on blank rivers, if villain does shove, it's not that clear what the avoidably bad play is. It might be folding. So I pointed out that calling has the advantage of showing a profit just on that street against someone who bluffs enough, but is also a mistake that doesn't cost us our entire profit on the whole hand against a River Nit.

Now if it turns out that there's a consensus sentiment that the majority of $5 unknowns are River Nits in this hand, then like I said earlier, I retract my recommendation to call on the river, but would still advise calling on the turn and seeing a river.

Fair enough, your reasons seem good enough to justify calling the river imo.

i really think calling down river when it bricks is a pretty bad idea
yes, randoms are so unpolar in general to make call/call/fold the best plan here imo

if anyone has a good database of low stakes vs randoms, plz check and see how often a line like this is a bluff plz... even with 1000s of games you won't have a good sample on this if you're asking me; why? because someone checkraise flop/bet turn/jam river just happens infrequently enough that it's going to be a nuthand over 80% of the time imo; not talking about turn, but the entire raise/bet/bet(jam) line
especially on a board like this where IF he was raising with KJ/QJ/JhXh, he's more likely to check turn (and if not, check river imo)... or IF he's raising Tx on flop (which can happen), same thing, i expect either turn or river to get checked through

i'm definitly on the other end of the lagdonk spectrum in experience then, and i would need to be convinced of randoms raise/bet/jam lines to be bluffs a lot on any stake here by someone with a huge sample of games vs random losing to breakeven to slightly winning players

i think turn call is fine but i dont expect a river jam to be profitable to call, esp not on like 2/3/5/6/7/9 no heart because the chances of his semi-bluff or total bluff to have picked up a pair randomly now that wants to go to showdown are a lot higher now (you'd be surprised how showdown happy people are)

Thanks for chiming in. The weight of your experience means a lot.

I do play the fives, and one thing I learned, is to never, ever fold a good, solid pair on the first played hand. Idk what it is, but most players down here in the low stakes play the first hand to win the pot, and only to win the pot, as if they are steaming from a previous loss (which is very well possible). Just my 2 cents, from the trenches.

I agree with call/call/call. There are way too many spazzmonkeys at these stakes for me to fold. With more info I might fold at some point.

5 weaker Ax in villains hand range + FD-s and gutters/total air sometimes. call/call/call seems really solid to me.