*** and now the river ***

Hero bets $30. J/H (the original raiser) calls. The rest fold. Heads up with $100 in the pot.

River: < K 8 5 > 3 9

Action on Hero, bet or check if betting how much?

DrStrange

Check

Appears to be in J-mode ABC TAG. Pocket Pairs? Suited broadway cards?
Is he playing passive for pot control or deception?

With $100 in the pot, I'll fire $50ish and rep catching a piece. I don't expect to be bluff raised here. If I get raised, I'm OK releasing this one. I do think we can get better hands to fold (pocket pairs that didn't hit a set, Axs that paired).

I think I missed a street. But as played to this point, I like BigBlue's post. This is a coinflip situation, I fear. We might have to fold to a raise, or get called by a better hand.

I try to avoid this sort of situation when playing calling stations. There is much more value in actually having the hand you are representing.

But no criticism here. I invariably do play hands like this occasionally. It's not a total loss if we lose. Our overplay of AQs is going to stick in our opponent's minds, and keep them calling in the future, when we have the goods.

And hey, maybe he'll fold.

I think a more aggressive line (on the turn) could have been better maybe. Or maybe he ,JH, has been slow playing a set or a big PP and it would have made no difference. I give up on another brick on the river. Check and take my medicine at showdown. Fold to a raise of course.

Yeah, check-fold is not bad, either. But it is basically giving up, if JH is floating us with something weak. He'd love for us to check so he can fire away. But giving up may be the cheapest course to take.

I feel like a pocket pair between 88 and KK is a likely range for J/H here, unless you have more relevant insights about his play in this hand. There might be some drawing hands in there, but that TJ I mentioned earlier seems like the only one he might conceivably take this line with.

All things considered, our ace-high is beat too often to value-check it, unless we check and he only bets like 1/8 of the pot.

Some part of me wants to try to bluff him out, but a decent, thinking player will probably rightly figure he can snap us off with a pair TT or greater—never mind if he had 99 and spiked a set on the end.

Our draw whiffed, and this doesn't seem like a spot for any fancy plays. I believe it's time to give up. Check with the intention of folding to all but the tiniest bets.

*** almost done ***

Hero bets $70. J/H raises to $225. Anyone want to make a crazy Hero call or try a last ditch bluff? {it would be a tiny bluff though, the pots going to be $550 and effective stacks are $288.}

DrStrange

Well there is a chance this is Mr Hyde (as described in the OP) but the price for finding out is way too high for me! I would rather have checked -folded this river, but with the aggressive $70 bet being raised by a capable player I fold and take my lumps.

Fold

J/H's line is highly polarized. Bet preflop. Check flop, call turn, raise river is a strange line unless villain holds 67.

But Hero has ace high, not much of a bluff catcher.

DrStrange

I had decided to check-fold already, but since we've bet and gotten raised, it changes the picture a bit. Not sure if it changes things enough to call, but let's look at it.

That raise is either a very strong hand or a bluff. I'm only seeing two made hands that fit this line: a draw that came in (basically 67 only), or a set of 9s that J/H backed into.

I'm not seeing room for too many bluffing hands unless J/H's Hyde side opens his preflop raising range way up. We're only getting 1.54:1, so we need to figure him for a bluff about 40% of the time to break even on a call here. I don't think that's happening, so I'll have to fold.

Curious to hear what he had, though, if you saw it.

Yeah, what I thought and what some reflected in their play.

Fold.

He can be Hyde. Confounding if he shows a weaker hand.

I never thought about pocket nines but that is plausible. At the time I was thinking pocket kings or a weak one pair hand or worse.

As a side bar - J/H lost a $2,000 pot with a $750 bluff holding 55 on a AQT2 rainbow board about an hour after this hand. The winning hand was bottom set, but the $750 bluff into the $500 pot came when the ace hit plausibly giving J/H top set or Broadway made the guy tank for an extended period.

some itches can't be scratched -=- DrStrange

Wow, you have some gunslingers in your game.

I'd just fold pre; look at all the money we lost on that hand when we didn't hit.

Well Hero certainly would have done better this hand with a more passive line. . . . .

DrStrange

Or he could have gone all-in pre. But he chose somewhere in the middle.

If we ever get to the point where we agree on one way to play poker, the game is doomed.

Fold AQ clubs pre for $10 when we are that deep? Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?

I'm inclined to think that we got rivered... catching a set makes much more sense than hitting a set and letting the flush draw get a free turn card. As mentioned, even his bluffs have some showdown value, and we have A-high, and done a nice job of repping better than 2nd pair.

"Nice catch" or "Good Bluff" and I'm tossing them into the muck.

I'm with Breich. I fold this pre out of position this deep. We are easily dominated against a raise.

The more I think about this the more I have to go back to the literature. In Play Poker Like the Pros Phil Hellmuth says, "You want to call a small raise or make a pot-size raise yourself before the flop, and then hit your hand on the flop and win a huge pot" (pg. 142). I think we have to listen to Phil here and call that small raise. Where you went wrong though is you didn't hit your hand otherwise you could've won a huge pot.

*** Conclusion ***

Hero actually considers making a Hero call, but sanity prevails. Hero doesn't get to see villains cards.

Here is Hero's thinking:

Preflop: Position is the dominating factor in deciding raise or call closely followed the nature of the villains and stack depth. Everything leaned towards calling. Bad position, sticky villain (both pre and post), high SPR with a speculative hand. The last thing we want to do is fold out someone playing 9 3 with a big bet.

Suited aces are one of my favorite speculative hands when deep stacked, if I can get in cheaply enough. This hand seems priced right but I wouldn't have be so happy calling a $25 bet.

Flop: Hero varies his play here, sometimes passive, sometimes tricky, sometimes aggressive. Bad position, sticky villains and aggressive villains were a deterrent. The potential for deception later in the hand was a positive.

Hero was hoping for a multiway flop bet when he checks. It was surprising that no one bet.

Turn bet: If ever this crowd was going to fold to a semi-bluff, this seemed like the right situation. Hero's bet is plausibly quite powerful since a check/raise plan for the flop would fit J/H's aggressive style. (I wouldn't have led the flop with middle set either.)

River bluff: This seemed like a "first bluffer wins the pot" situation. Hero expects J/H would often bluff bet after a river check - profitable for Hero if he has a hand, but not so much holding ace high. Also good advertising if Hero gets called down since Hero value bets much more often than river bluffs in this game.

Dang! Didn't work as hoped -=- DrStrange