We are playing £0.05/£0.05 DC. We use an on/off blind structure whereby the SB position pays a blind and the BTN pays a blind, "to ensure the BTN pays for their own game"

I pick 4 card PLO8.

I am sat with around £35. Other players have between £10 and £60.

There is not a lot of raising and there is very loose play preflop. There is also seldom a 3-bet, and they are usually done for value. Raising preflop, even 3 betting, does not discourage the players from calling.

UTG (£10) straddles, MP (£25) open limps, CO (£60+) raises to 45p.

I am BTN with KK75 and call.

Other blind in SB position (£20) and all others call.

Flop: QJ4.

Checks to me. I bet £2. SB quickly calls, all others fold.

Turn J.

SB checks, I bet £5, SB quickly calls.

River A.

SB checks quickly. I do what?

Thoughts on all streets appreciated.

I would quickly bet £10. I might just muck this pre but you are in position at least. Flop and turn seem fine although i would change sizing on turn.

Gotta go to value-town in low-stakes home games. Bet £10 and fold to a shove

I'm value betting here, you want a crying call, but you don't want to over bet and convince villain that you got there. 1\3 pot sized bet or a little less than half, made to look like a blocker.

What's wrong with the turn sizing?

Sizing is something I'm really trying to improve.

Previously I was a pot or check guy.

Also what am I trying to convey with the quick bet? I usually take a long time before betting trying to think about the hand more, most often I am just thinking how much I want to bet, working out pot size etc. Often when I take less time I am bluffing!

What do you think of betting the same amount as on a previous street? What does that normally "mean", how will it be perceived?

I would bet 1/2-3/4 pot and feel pretty good about it.

I do wonder what he calls turn with that I beat, but I felt i had to bet because i don't want to give a free card.

I'm pretty sure he knows not to call with straight/flush draws when the board pairs.

Would he just call the flop with a set and be tricky enough to check the river?

I'm thinking worse flush draws mostly.

What makes you say the bolded? Unless villain is fairly tricky, I'm value betting here.

Actually, I'm ok with your turn bet as you didn't just pot it like I originally thought, and there aren't many turn cards you hate. Generally I just bet smaller, especially on a board-pairing turn, since it makes your bluffs less costly, and makes it harder for villain to get away from his hand when you're not bluffing.

Exactly - I want him to think I'm bluffing here when I quickly throw out a tenner.


In my experience, normally it means nothing has changed; villain is still betting a low draw or flush draw or trapping with quads - whatever he was betting on the flop. I raise turn more than I raise flop against this type of villain.

And I agree with Rich regarding the turn. I think he has the J quite a bit. So maybe you're not always beating him on the turn but by the river this turns into a value bet often enough.

Yeah, I ninja edited but a naked J is def possible too.

Is the reason to bet legitimate in a cash game?

1) I am quite sure he is not going to call with a worse hand
2) If I don't bet I risk losing the pot because I gave a free card, meaning villain might now put money in on the river when he otherwise would have folded to the turn bet

In essence I am bluffing even though I have showdown value, but at the same time I have the best hand a lot and know it.

It's weird. I think I am value betting against hands that he won't call with haha

BTW I do think it possible for him to have 2 pair which turned a full house but when he doesn't raise the turn I think he has trips/draw.

If you are that sure he is never calling with a worse hand but he never raises the better hand on the turn then your bet size is mostly an ev calculation based on how often he has a full house.

And then are you always folding when he raises the turn in this spot?

pretty much

he is a smart guy, i'm friends with him.

i have a tight image and he's observant.

Did anyone even bother to calculate that there is ~16 in the pot and ~12,5 behind?

I don't really know how bad people play in these games, but I don't think you can really value 3 streets with a hand this weak. Checking the turn makes a lot of sense. As played what worse hands are calling your bet on the river?

Playing low stakes on Ignition, I imagine I've somewhat cornered the market on seeing how bad people play. Since he can't really c/r effectively here with less than a pot-sized stack, that makes it more likely to me that he doesn't have the nuts or anything close to it when he checks again on river. He could be slowplaying quads, but mostly I expect him to call with lesser flushes and trips often enough to bet here.

Given Lucius' read on his friend that he won't call with worse, check/check is fine I guess. I wouldn't really want to show down my hand here, so that's one more reason I bet.

I agree that this is probably something that goes on in lower stakes. People might randomly slowplay some hand and then lead out the river. His range is horribly weak if he doesn't have any normal "slowplays", even like bottom boat.

I guess in a way you still realize how insane reason that is to bet?

bet 3 quid then call his river check jam...

True - I overlooked bottom boat as a hand that could be checked for 3 streets.


Been awhile since I've played anywhere it would really matter (i.e. non-anonymous poker), but if villain is never calling with worse and we don't want to show, why check back?

I understand this, in a way, but it's still insane. Why does it matter if we check it down and show this hand? What kind of useful information do you think villains can extract from this and how valuable do you consider that information to be?

On the other hand for betting to be as good as checking (assuming that "Given Lucius' read on his friend that he won't call with worse" is true) your assumption that he never has you beat either needs to be true.

It doesn’t really matter what hand we have here if he's not calling with worse. Would rather check and show some hand like T 9 3 2, which has about the same equity on the turn against a J that our actual hand does, but looks much worse at showdown. But against this specific villain whose thinking is mostly on the level of “can’t beat a boat or a flush”, it probably won’t make any difference to him what flush I have. Not sure I would call it insane, but can agree it probably is pointless.

Right, which I’m pretty much assuming as only 4 combos (44/JJ) really beat me here. I'm assuming he would have raised everything else on the turn that beats me since he can’t wait to c/r me on the river due to stack sizes. It is interesting to me that you would check/check here as hero. Easy for me to check 2 streets here with boats as villain since I'm up against aggrofish so often, but since that isn't Lucius' image, I wouldn't think his friend is employing that strategy.

A weak flush loses to higher flushes though. Just saying that it's not the same at all imo.

I underlined "looks much worse" as i find it interesting that you still feel that has some significance. To me you are overvaluing the assumed meta-game implications at the cost of technically sound play, especially considering that this game is a 5c/5c home game.

Also note how bad raising every value hand (as villain) on the turn is. When he calls, his range will be so weak by the river that Hero can bluff a lot. If we repeat this spot infinitely, villain realizes that Hero is bluffing a lot on the river and starts to call wider (but at the same time villain doesn't realize that he makes a mistake on the turn by fast playing all his strong hands), we have reached a point where I think Hero's actual hand becomes a clear value bet.

I am not surprised at all if a dynamic like this is normal in a low stakes game. So I think that it's possible that the river is a good bet for value, but betting "because I don't want to show my hand" is still nonsense to me.

What is so interesting about it? It's a hand that very often wins if we check but very rarely gets called by worse if we bet. To me, at first sight checking is the only sensible action, but as I already presented betting might be better exploitatively under some circumstances.

Still, my advice to all low stakes players would be to try to start thinking more technically instead of drowning yourself in assumptions that might lead you to make some good exploitative plays but deteriorate your "normal" play.

I assumed (maybe wrongly) that not calling with worse meant he wouldn't call with a flush on a paired board, so either hand wins the same amount here.


That's why I check/call here as villain. OTOH I should send you some hand histories to see if you can find any villain that seems at all concerned with his range by the river. It does seem like stack size is relevant here as you pointed out - villain gii on the turn can't be that exploitable here.


To be clear I am betting for value here because I think we will get called by worse more often than not, which seems to be where we differ. This exploitative strategy is highly specific to this scenario: friendly low-stakes home game where we have such a solid read on villain. Much more concerned with my technical play so that's why I'm interested in your checking.