$40-80 Bay 101

1) Villain is a decent TAG semi-pro, comfortable playing up to 80-160 but recently mostly a 20-40 player.

I open-raise mp 99, she defends BB hu. Flop J98hhh. She checks, I bet, she cr, I 3b, call.

Turn Ad. She check-raises, I 3b, she calls. (I intend to value bet non-heart rivers here.)

River 2h. She checks. Me?

2) Villain is a LAG, a decent player who errs on the side of aggression, and goes to showdown. But probably a slightly losing player.

I open-raise KQo bu, she 3bets bb. (I haven't played enough with her to know her range here, but I assume from her play that its good pairs and good aces, maybe more.)

Flop J93r. She bets, I call.
Turn 9. She bets, I call.
River Q. She bets, I ?

1) seems like if you can fold with confidence to a checkraise, and it sounds like you can, there's no reason not to bet. Hand really looks like aces up or maybe a straight, there's really nothing she can c/r you with now that isn't the Ah. If there's any chance she folds a small heart (almost impossible) or a straight (also very unlikely), then so much the better.

2) Seems like a super easy raise for value. Why are you thinking about *not* raising?

Hand 1:
I like calling flop, raising non-heart turns. As played, I think checking behind OTR cannot be a big mistake.

Hand 2:
I fold turn. As played, river is a raise-fold IMO. But because I can't raise and fold to 3-bet, I just call.

hand1: chk
hand2: call

xerok,

1) why? what does she have? what's she gonna do with it?
2) why? what does she have? what's she gonna do with it?

Presumably in hand 2, xerok thinks that we won't be > 50% against her calling range which is reasonable considering she can have AQ, AA, KK a lot here and we only beat AJ and TT which might decide to check that particular river. So doesn't seem like much value in a raise. Only value is against hands like QTs.

I'm not sure about hand 1. Probably fine either way. Checking makes sure we never get bluffed so I probably do that.

Agree in hand 1. On hand 1, I'm thinking villain will show you AxTh or a flopped straight. After jamming, she has checked river because she fears you have a (better) heart.

disagree on hand 2: I fear she will show you KK. Villain has shown no fear of AQ or KQ, which she has to believe is well within your range given the pre-flop action. You will make a crying call to see a big hand unfortunately.

1) I checked behind and villain showed QTo for the straight. Which got me thinking... When she checks the river, she never has the Ace of hearts (which I kind of put her on on the turn, which thought made me check automatically on the river). So she actually can have relatively few combos with a heart in her hand -- as one of the cards that make a flopped straight, or as a "counterfeited" baby flush. There seem to me to be more combos of straights with no heart, Aces up and set of 88s.

Could this be a spot for the mythical "value bluff"? I think TAGs like this villain might just fold this hand in disgust often enough to make a bet worth it. And if this player would NEVER fold, might she not also pay off Aces up on occasion? Thoughts?

2) I called and was shown AJo, which made me wonder if my call was weak. I think I could safely fold to a 3bet from this villain, which argues for raising, but also think she would be likely to check TT, which argues against. So there's not really a lot of combos I could extract value from. Possibly just this exact hand.

1. i would not 3b on the turn, seems like you wont get much value by 3betting the turn 'cos there are 2 straights possibilities, as well as huge number of flushes. jj is also possible. so you have 99, i really dont see many hands that you can get value from. Ah8x, AJ, 88, AK-AT with one heart maybe. I really dont think that you will see c/r from A9 (also its only 1 combo left) on that flop often. Also i doubt that J9/J8oo would be played this way, it would have more sense to c/r/cap it.
2. vs villain that i havent played much with, i would just call. if i know that i will never see spew/bluff 3b here, its an easy raise/fold

grunch

u put too much action on hand 1. with a set, u shouldn't turn that into a bluff on the river. one pair hands yes.

on hand 2 i would only consider aq... kq is too weak and u should just call.

I mean, this is definitely what I'd be thinking, but you gotta be careful with that, 'cause now you're thinking about what your opponent might have, rather than what you definitely have, and that's not what people are doing anymore. Also you're thinking that a bet could serve multiple purposes, and that's *definitely* not what people are doing anymore.

What happened to showdown-bound, errs on the side of aggro? If you're thinking things like that + that her BB 3bet range vs BU open is really premium stuff, then just fold the turn and we never get here. The whole reason we're getting to the river on this board / pot size is that she could have like pocket sevens here, and might bet/call them. Right?

It's a good thing people have learned not to be results oriented!

I agree with xerok, and also tend to fold the turn in hand 2 without a read that her bb 3 betting range is in some way shape or form balanced.

Hand 1 is definitely close, and the more I think about it the more I think betting kind of makes sense. But she has a flush and a straight a ton....

I really like his thinking process, and it looks like it's correct. When she calls his turn threebet she's got about 75 realistic combos - all the two pairs, all the straights, no straight flushes obv, both the sets and a few baby flushes that she didn't fourbet.

On the river, when she checks, making some pessimistic discount estimates for Hero, if Hero bets, and she folds 80 percent of her range that we beat, and calls/checkraises 80 percent of her range that beats us, betting is still way better than checking. The breakeven point is somewhere around 90%/90%, I think. I really think betting is the play here.

I don't know if I agree with that logic. What hands call the bet that she beats? What hands that she beats fold? It may be an easy fold if she raises, but I don't think there's any value in betting. I think I'm checking and expecting to hit the muck often.

Well, like I said, her line is consistent with any two pair on the turn board ( you might discount A8 or A9 a little), any set besides AA (though possible, the one black combo we'll say), or a flopped straight. I went ahead and gave her three tiny flush combos since it's unlikely that anybody who's even mediocre doesn't fourbet the turn with a flush.

When she checks to us on the river, she rarely has the Ah, and the only other hearts she's at all likely to show up with are the Qh, the Th, and the 7h - any others are even smaller.

This is about 75 combos. If we check back, we're a small dog to win an 11 bet pot. If on the other hand, we bet, and she folds 3-4 combos we don't beat - if she ever folds a set of jacks, or a straight with no heart, or one of her 'busted' baby flushes, -or-, if she pays off with 88 or one of her aces-up combos, and folds everything else we beat - all we need is one of these things to happen, and betting shows a large profit over checking.

To summarize, she doesn't have the nuts or a nuttish hand. The 4% of the time or whatever here that she has the Ah, she's going to tell us by checkraising, and we're going to fold. Occasionally she'll have the Qh or Th and snapcall. The rest of the time, she's going to be put to a tough decision, and she only has to **** it up every once in a while to make betting this river the winning play by a significant margin.

Interesting, I think I get what you're saying. Even though she has very few hands that can pay off or better hands that should fold, if we can get her to make a mistake with those hands betting should show a profit. And we can take away a lot of the hands would be waiting to snap call us here (medium hearts) because not many of them would play this way.

ur never getting called by two pair. only time ur getting called is jj,straight,flush. awful awful spot to bluff with set.