It doesn't matter. Play your range in a less profitable time once or a thousand time, it's still gonna be less profitable.

Now if you believe villain to be overfolding so that betting > checking then go for it.

Personally, I'd want some solid evidence that villain is overfolding in order to pass on this +EV check.

This basically sums it up. Nice post Ojune.

You're ignoring the fact that people play poker in certain patterns, as if the anonymity of the site somehow means that everyone is balanced in the lines they take and, e.g., in this hand adds in some 0 equity turn semibluffs so that they can have bluffing hands on rivers such as this.

As I was saying before, unless the spot is pretty cut and dried, it doesn't make sense to apply theoretical solutions to hands that very likely departed from the theory-correct parts of the game tree several streets ago.

Say we're BBvBTN, we defend 53s, and check 78ATK to the river. Clearly our hand is now a bluff.

This hand is a completely different scenario. Villain is using large flop and turn sizings on a texture that is really good for Hero's range. IME the population mostly just plays the nuts this way, and it's not balanced at all. Why would it be logical in this river spot to consider where we are in our range instead of simply considering the EV of the different options with our hand based on our reasonable assumptions about V's range?

Yes, that is exactly what I mean.

I guess what Ojune is saying is not that we should play a theory-oriented approach on anon sites to avoid getting exploited, but that in an anon environment it makes sense to play a theory approach because in doing so we won't ever make a significant mistake against the unknown average of what everyone does. It's the anonymity that should cause us to be cautious about departing from the theoretically sound branches of the game tree.

Personally I think this is only a factor in some discrete cases, for instance in hands where ranges are ill-defined. Because despite the anonymity we can still observe population tendencies, just like on any other site.

with AhKx/AhQx, you mean? i think most people check AQ on the flop and AK on the turn (if not the flop). that would be the most intuitive way to group those hands. intuition is guided by our most common experience, though, and our most common experience is playing 100bb deep with wider ranges. this is also a unique board in that it's difficult to immediately come up with the best hands to bluff - either we turn hands with a lot of immediate SD value into mergebluffs on the flop & turn or we use hands that have almost no equity vs. villain's calling range as bluffs. personally my gut turns when i do stuff like that even if it's correct. isn't that true for everyone? i'm just skeptical that most people are good enough to show up with enough bluffs on the turn, especially when we know he's not super good because of his line, and especially on ignition where everyone is weaker.

maybe i'm going out on a limb too much here since apparently i'm the only one advocating folding KQ on the turn. i realize i'm not providing any evidence for my position - just my personal incredulity - but my experience is certainly that most people struggle to stay balanced in a spot like this.

I really don't, I'm just not making strong assumptions. And people don't need to be balanced for a balanced strategy to destroy them. Quite the opposite.

yeah... it's not about avoiding getting exploited - it's just admitting ignorance and employing the only strategy that makes sense in the face of that ignorance

and btw ralph, just because we can make an exploitive read on earlier streets (it seems we are in agreement about him probably being imbalanced towards value with his turn bet) doesn't mean you don't want to locally apply theory to later streets when an exploitive strategy is unclear - as, in my opinion, it is here on the river

second btw, i'm laughing at calling one of the greatest philosophers in history "ralph"

2nd point 1st...just say "RWE" (instead of "ralph.")

1st point 2nd...if we acknowledge GTO as being (at least) the closest approximation of a strat where we are always perfectly balanced, then we all should unanimously agree that villain has unquestionably departed from a GTO strat with his turn bet. The sim i ran had villain betting the turn <1% (which is a freqency that is almost unheard of in a Pio sim without a forced action.)

Once we observe such a radical departure from GTO strat, it would stand to reason that there might be an (exploitative) counter strategy that could produce EV > the std GTO response.

There really is no debate as to whether there are isolated, cut and dried situations in poker where employing exploitative strategies will yield a greater EV. A generic example would be taking a very aggressive line to get the most money in with a strong hand vs a fish.

Imo if you summarily dismiss the existence of a viable explo counter strat in favor of a safer/proven default strat, you are (potentially) sacrificing EV. In situations where it is clear that your opponent is not employing a balanced strategy, you should at the very least, undertake the effort to analyze the situation, identify the relevant variables and attempt to determine the EV of an exploitative counter strategy.

Why not bet small like 1/3 with whole range to put his KK QQ KQ KJ hands in though spot

Doesn't make sense to go small when our opponents range is predominantly bluff catchers, we have a pot sized bet left in position, and our range contains the nuts.

True but if we bet big its hard for us to have enough bluffs to balanced out our value hands and V probably expects that we either jam or check beck.

Even if we're in a scenario where we're lacking in bluffs it's still better to jam, especially if it's a nut/air spot. Though, the point you are stating is kind of why I believe jamming JJ here (as a bluff) could be reasonable.

Yes but that way V can fold all of his bluff catchers,so we should not be able to gain any EV by betting

You're overthinking it.

Hmm a lot of advice in here seems... questionable. I think a lot of you guys are doing yourselves a disservice by dwelving too much on what is GTO. Thinking about GTO in isolated spots can often lead to bad decisions since the way you got to this isolated spot was not played in accordance with GTO, which kinda ****s up the calculations. With that said, I expect villain to bet flushes on the river and check Ax. Obviously we need Ax to fold here a decent amount for us to ever consider bluffing. It's a sick spot for him if we shove, but I tend to believe people don't fold Ax enough if we bluff, so I'd probably like some reads or indication about our opponent before I turn this hand into a bluff.

Only problem i see here from an exploitable point of view is that some players bet the turn with Ahkx and AhAx combos for protection/merge bc they know they wont be raised off their equity. I know this makes 0 sense and those combos should check the flop, but it happens w some player types who undervalue hero's range and dont balance in big pots. This turn bet actually makes so little sense that everything is possible, but still most likely its QQ-KK when taking sizing/playerpool into account, so i think shoving should be good. Really doenst make any sense for him to have a straight here, but those assumptions have been wrong in the past vs random btnclicking regs.

Yes agree, and yeah this player type def exists on Ignition, but I wouldn't say it's that common at 2knl.

Why? Isn't ATs a common 3bet pre? 3b ranges when deep get more weighted towards nut-making hands like AXs. T9s would be in there too a decent amount.

u r right, AT is a concern here on this runout, but i still like a shove bc most likely this opponent is not thinking very much and playing somewhat straight up (what i mean he most likely doesnt take those combos into account that should shove the turn vs his bet to punish like low flushes when calculating ur river valuecombos). Sure, he'll hero those rare Ax if he has them, but will still be underdefending (which is also normal given the situation he has created here).

I agree that you probably not getting to the river with most optimal range,but that dosnt mean that you cant figure out what is most optimal strategy with rage you got to that spot esp if its a river.Yes probably GTO bot get to the river with some garbage hand that he floats twice so he can bluff with it and it dost need to turn his SDV hands into the bluff and his strategy has higher EV,but imo that is not the argument for not playing river as optimal as you can.

Jam that ****