CO was a pretty active opener, had either around 80% or 100% fold to 3-bet over a small sample. I decide to 3b Q8s here since he has a fold button pre, and I tend to defend my blinds more aggressively with 3-bets. I like 3-betting here a lot since we some better Qx to fold (QJo/QTo/Q9s), we fold out all his broadway/Ax equity that can't continue vs 3-bet, and our hand has a lot of playability postflop.

OTF, we have a GS + overcard. We're checking most of our range on this flop, but I did not want to x/r this hand neither did I want to x/f.

The turn brings another backdoor draw and the K overcard. I thought about x/f'ing here, but thought I had decent equity vs his flop calling range. My Q is most likely good, and my gutshot is almost always live. I also planned to bluff-shove spade rivers and give up on any other river.

River is a spade, and I'm at the bottom of my range. I think it's a no-brainer shove at this point. I think I accidentally didn't go all-in, probably had like 2.3bbs left lol since the CO had me covered.

Thoughts?


iPoker - $2 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 154.98 BB (VPIP: 32.00, PFR: 12.00, 3Bet Preflop: 6.25, Hands: 25)
Hero (BB): 130.25 BB
UTG: 98.13 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
CO: 132.1 BB (VPIP: 35.71, PFR: 35.71, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 30)
BTN: 120.58 BB (VPIP: 39.29, PFR: 28.57, 3Bet Preflop: 6.25, Hands: 30)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Q 8

fold, CO raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 9.5 BB, CO calls 6.5 BB

Flop: (19.5 BB, 2 players) 7 4 5
Hero bets 10 BB, CO calls 10 BB

Turn: (39.5 BB, 2 players) K
Hero bets 22 BB, CO calls 22 BB

River: (83.5 BB, 2 players) T
Hero bets 86.47 BB

Give up on the flop so you don't have to force yourself into a 3 barrel bluff out of position with little to no equity.

Think giving up OTF is a little too nitty, esp when we take this line preflop and since we can fold out all his whiffed hands like suited broadways/strong Ax/whiffed SCs, which make up a lot of his 3-bet calling range. We also don't need that many folds to make this flop c-bet profitable. Looking at my flop sizing though, I think I should have made it 11-12bb since I'm checking a lot of my range here.

I planned on checking and giving up on a lot of different turns. But the K scare card plus, my likely live gutshot & live Q if he just flats the turn (I seriously doubt 200NL players are not jamming 2pr+ OTT here), and river spades I can bluff, I thought it was a profitable barrel. Sometimes my 8 is even live here vs hands like spades or backdoor hearts. I don't see how we have "little to no equity here" when called OTT.

Also, I think in this exact spot I'm going to have quite a heavy value-range, so I need some bluffs here. I'm 3-betting 44, 55, 77, 75s, 54s preflop, maybe even 74s. 99+ without a spade I'm also barreling as well on this turn. A lot of my spade hands like AKss/AQss probably aren't betting this flop and x'cing.

i dont like shoving a spade river without blocker when our value range shrinks and villain has all the flushes. shoving a blank would be nice tho because as you mentioned his turn calling range is capped

I like the flop and turn bets. We can definitely get better hands to fold on the flop. The King is a scare card we can continue on. I don't like the river shove though. I think it's more likely that we are shoving into villain's range here. It's hard for us to rep a flush when we don't have a single spade. I would give up on the river.

In a vacuum, I thought 3-betting pre vs this specific CO opener was going to be more profitable than flat-calling. I probably 3-bet here vs most active LP openers who have a decent fold vs 3-bet %, and flat if they just never fold to 3-bets. I.e. nits or stations

I think my value range is going to be super wide here, and that I might actually not have enough bluffs. In this exact spot, I'm going to have 15 sets here, 86s, lots of Axss/Kxss/Qxss/Jxss, and a lot of SC flushes, most 1-gappers & 2-gapper flushes, and 3-gapper flushes like 107ss/96ss.

I'm at the stone-cold bottom of my range on this runout, and I think bluff-shoving is pretty mandatory. I also think that besides hearts, I don't really have any other bluffing candidates here.

Not sure bluff-shoving a blank runout is a good idea because I think a lot of decent regs here are going to think, "Well 6x, spades, and hearts all missed, he's repping super narrow & super polarized, I cawl." Also, I don't see what type of hand we can choose to barrel flop & turn with, and still have a spade bluff-jam on this river??? . It's not like I have AsQx here or bluff-jam AsKx on this river.

I think his range OTR combination-wise has way more one-pair hands/bluff-catchers & backdoor hearts than spades. I'm also assigning him very few slowplayed hands because I'm pretty sure most 200NL regs are raising flop or turn with 2pair+ almost always. Also, it'd be very unfortunate to x/f here vs a bluff-shove from missed backdoor hearts, which he has a decent # of combos of. A jam here only needs slightly over 50% fold equity here to show a profit, and I think it does get through quite often.

Here's what I think a reasonable turn calling range looks like for him:

https://ibb.co/dym3Qk

Most of the suited hands I omitted clubs/diamonds, or hearts/spades if not applicable. I think he folds way more than 50% of those hands to a river jam.

Ofc he may have some slowplayed hands like 86hh/86ss or very rarely sets/two pair, but combination-wise there shouldn't be that many to tip his river calling frequency that much higher.

I'm surprised 3 betting some of those hands would be more profitable long term than flatting them and trying to play postflop. Seems like you're 3 betting a ton of hands even if you only do that vs targeted villains.

Another thing that I would say is that sometimes runouts are going to come where it may not be possible for you to fit enough bluffs in to your range based on the action on previous streets. In theses scenarios, it's sometimes fine to bluff everything but I would want a scenario where villain is more capped. I think ranges in this particular example intersect more and as much as you're supposedly 3 betting I think just trying to fit enough bluffs in your range to balance is a bad idea.