This quote got me thinking and inspired me to write this. The reason why the person who asked this question (who is a good 2+2er by my understanding) has never done this is because there are few, if any times where going for a check-raise on the river is the best line - here at 2+2, it has been ingrained into us if we have a monster and we want to get stacks in by the river we need to value-bet ruthlessly. That's the name of the game here at uNL, value-bet, value-bet, value-bet and guess what????



It has also been ingrained in us to (almost) never bluff (c-bets are exceptions to this rule) - this means c/ring the river as a bluff is expensive and generally -EV. Furthermore, c/ring the river with a medium strength hand is the same as bluffing (in my experience anyway).

Because of this, it is rare that we should ever wait until the river to try and get the money into the pot - our opponents, in general, at uNL are far more likely to call bets than to make them. That having been said, with an increasing number of aggressive regs at 25nl and 50nl, there is an increasing need to diversify our play (sorry 10NL and below this isn't really targeted at you, because there are fewer aggressive players). It's important to know that in order for a c/r to be good, we need to be confident that villain will be betting. This leads me to some general rules about when to c/r otr:
1. Against aggressive villains who are likely to bet when checked to AND are either very likely to fold (bluff) or who will call with worse (value-bet).
2. Against people with whom you have some history (as it forces them to respect your river checks oop a bit more)

If anyone wants to add some more, feel free.

I'll give an example hand of where c/r the river was clearly the best play.

6 folds to BTN who has ATS of 32% over 550 hands. 80% flop c-bet when stealing 40% turn c-bet when stealing (small sample size on this though). History is that he knows that I am more than capable of bluffing him and as such will call down lighter than usual and he also bluffs too often when stealing. He also knows that I can 3-bet light from the blinds.

100BB effective stacks - BTN raises to 3BB. SB folds. Hero is in the BB with A9 - this hand here is far too strong to fold to a steal from this guy and is far too weak to 3-bet as he will rarely call with worse hands. This makes calling the extra 2BB a no brainer.

Flop: (Pot=6.5BB, effective stacks 97BB). SPR=14.9. The flop comes down 725. This flop is a terrible flop to c/r as I can represent very little and I am far ahead of his betting range and so c/c is definitely the best line imo. (Feel free to dispute this)

Villain bets 4.5BB and I think for a while and call. I am planning on folding alot of the time ott as villain rarely double barrels his air here (even though he will db reasonably polarised on most turns)

Turn 3 (Pot=15.5BB, effective stack size=92.5BB)

This is a gin card here for me - I now have around 13 outs on average against our opponent's betting range (the aces aren't always outs and neither are the diamonds). My plan here was to c/c here as we have implied odds when he bets usually. C/r isn't bad, but we won't be called often by worse hands and we may fold out better, but not too often against this guy. I could lead out here, but again not much worse calls and not much better folds.

I check, villain checks.

River: Q (Pot=15.5BB, effective stack size=92.5BB). In this spot most people are thinking "I have the nuts!!! Time take this lagtard to valuetown!!!"

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......
STOP!

Think about what has happened here - villain has checked behind on basically what is the blankest turn possible.
Does he have a monster? No!
Does he have a draw? No!
Does he have a hand with showdown value? Possibly!
Does he have a hand he might make a value bet with? Villain is likely to bet with 88 here or QJ type hands for sure (because this is a spot where I could make a hero call).
Does villain have air? Probably.
Will he bet his air? Some reasonable percentage of the time.

All these factors make for a compelling reason to c/r here - his betting range in this spot is wider than his calling range. DUCY? Because he can bluff and value bet thin (he may call a bet with 88 but idk). He may even call a c/r with QJ.

Another reason to c/r here is that as he continues with his stealing onslaught here, he needs to know that just because I've taken an ultra-passive line that he can't just bluff me relentlessly. If I try and c/r here there are 3 outcomes. If he checks, he can see that I'm more than capable of checking the nuts otr. If he bets and I raise he can either call, which has the same effect as before, or he can fold and know that I can c/r the river.

Basically c/r here is the optimal line.

I check, villain bets 11.5BB. (Pot after call=38.5BB, stacks after call=81BB). I raise to 39BB (27.5BB more) and villain thinks for a while and calls with QK

Villain berated me for ages about this hand. However, this lead to two simultaneous adjustments from him which were awesomely contradicting. He tried to push me around more in bad spots as he thought I was a bad player and he also played more ABC postflop when the pot got big! I couldn't think of a more pleasing outcome for me!

Cliffs:
C/r otr is rarely the best line
Usually need aggro villain and some history
Use when betting range>>>calling range

1st


nice!!

i probably 3bet pre in this hand ,
also, i use aggression factor of every street to determine use CR-river or not, for example if villain is 5 3 2 (flop/turn/river) then never CR-river, but if it is 2-3-5 then it is more likely that he is going v-bet/bluff river. Also some fishes are overaggressive on river by betting missed draws, but reads are necessary.

I see your point about using street by street af, but after 500 hands, has it converged? This is such a specific scenario about which we don't have too much info.

Also, 3-betting pre-flop here is terrible imo. We have the best hand now, and 3-betting here will be +EV in of itself, but 3-betting this hand and being oop in a bloated pot with a hand which is crushed by villain's range is terrible - is it not? Anyway, that's getting away from the point.

for lagier villains this should converge quite fast

reason to 3bet is to steal not to play pot oop, to do it ir not foldto3bet% need to check

I think if you are going to mess with the guy on the flop I like donking. I hate c/c because we're OOP and will be barrelled off on the turn a bit on bad turn cards.

3betting pre is debatable. I mean if he's folding AJ to a 3bet then maybe it's good, but if he isn't then it's kind of bad. If he's calling all his big aces then we're obviously going to get owned a lot post, and OOP I don't like it.

But nice post overall, definitely got me thinking about when to c/r the river as a bluff and as a valuebet.

I doubt this above statement especially if villain is a laggy reg.

Also, playing oop is bad if you don't have a plan, and I def don't want to turn a hand which I can profitably call with into a bluff. If I had 22 or A5o, 3-betting would probably be better.

If villain is running 19/16, let's say he sees a flop half of the time he VPIPs, so 50 hands. Of those, he might get to the river 20% of the time, so 10 hands. It seems clear that river AF hasn't converged, and flop AF may have converged, but that's also somewhat debatable given other sources of variance. But I definitely see your point.

In general I agree with the first part, but he is unlikely to db as a total bluff based on his turn c-bet stats. But I do see your point.

Thank you D4! Glad I can be thought provoking on 3 hrs sleep!

BTW, I'm probably either 3b or folding pre, since playing oop with only A9s doesn't sound very appetizing. And I am never c/cing this flop, especially oop. I'm c/f this flop most of the time.

The thing is, these may converge overall (or be reasonably accurate), but they do not converge for given situations - rather than blindly using numbers like saying AF 5 is big, think about why their AF is 5 in a certain scenario. Think about ranges rather than just numbers. AF takes 1000s of hands to truly converge IMO just because AF is so board dependent.

Even though you crush a villain's range and he'll play straightforwardly ott? Lol this is turning into the cotw that I originally intended on doing - blind defense. I mean you'll agree calling with AJ is fine? What about ATo? and A9s is not ok? The guy is playing a third of all hands - every Ax, all pairs and broadways, lots of scs and other crap - folding pre even oop seems absurd to me if we know his postflop tendencies and how to exploit them isn't it?

decent post.

i think for the most part, at least when u hit 25nl+, river c/r are so rarely expected to be bluffs, that it's just the perfect spot to bluff against thinking regs who have a fold BTN. another aspect which you touched upon is that it a) mixes your play up and b) means that villain will be more reluctant to vbet thinner OTR against you in the future regardless of whether your c/r gets called.

Thanks. Being able to c/r the river means that your opponents now fear your bets, raises and checks. I play live with friends and one guy knows that I can do this and so he checked back top 2 on the river on a dry as board when i flopped bottom 2. He was scared of what to do when raised!

this is true, therefore aggression frequencies of all streets can be nice add-on, but reads and table dynamics should be more important

river c/r is obv fine here, will be very close in EV to simply betting, and if it is profitable in future hands its definetely more +EV.

I'll spoiler the comments on the rest of the hand as they're less relevant to the topic at hand, but worth discussion:



hope the spoilered content makes some sense...tired as hell.

agree with everything in the spoiler

since we have the bdfd, it makes floating much much better. the turn comes our flush draw card and you can even think of check shoving the turn. obviously have to balance it.

Thanks OP

lol. i got killed when i first moved up to 100nl cuz i wasnt use to regs c/r the river. your right about it being ingrained in us. u dont see too many regs doing it at 50nl, because as u said, normally its better just to bet out.

Only thing I don't necessarily agree with is the dislike of the float on the flop. As long as hero believes he can win the pot without hitting then this is fine imo. The flop is likely to miss a ton of his stealing range, and OP has said that villain does not double barrel air. Meaning we can hit a turn card like we did in the hand and likely get to the river cheaply.

A couple of remarks to the guys in the 3-bet pre-camp.

If villain's ATS on the btn is > 40% or so it means that he opens WORSE aces, suited and unsuited; if these guys (incorrectly) defend vrs 3-bets too often with big suited aces 3-betting A9s as a bluff is rly bad. Therefore, calling with A9s is clearly way better and folding is out of the question. If you have a nittier guy opening on the btn say 25% of hands, I agree that this might be closer to a 3-bet since it's more top of our folding range.

Now for play on the flop vrs our agro BTN in the hand history. There are 3 reasons off the top of my head that I can think of for floating with A9s.
1) We have the best hand a relatively large portion of the time
2) Since he is an aggressive player, he will barrel a turn or river ace without one a large % of the time - we have implied odds
3) We have backdoor to the nuts

And, yes, if he continues to barrel and we don't improve some of the time we are going to have to be willing to make a play, but given how wide his range is - if we keep our bluffs and value hands well balanced he will not able to call us with down with 3rd pair...

I also think villain's call with KQo on the river facing a check-raise is lolbad - obviously the fact that he's a station goes into the consideration for what we will c/r rivers with (so vrs this guy never a bluff)

Couldn't agree more. This further explains what I said earlier in this thread. +1

sorry to derail further Lx...

but to the 3bet v flat discussion...yall need to stop thinking so much about hot/cold equity and start thinking about logical actions/frequencies/$EVs of the play rather than "omg A9 > his steal range"

- "if i flat and catch an Axx, then what?"
- "if i flat and miss, then what?"
- "how often do these things happen?"
- "if i 3bet, then what?"
- "how do i expect him to handle the 3bet? is that good or bad?"
etc.

that is all...

This is the way I saw it - he'll defend a 3b around 37% of the time. Which means his range crushes us when we 3b. Exactly - he'll check behind with a huge number of sdv hands like 88 ott. This means when he bets, he either has a big hand or a draw or a bluff some small percentage of the time. He doesn't have too many draws in his range. So my plan otf was to peel one off because he's likely checking back most turns - I'm c/f a K type turn if he bets, because if he does, he doesn't have like TT type hands (he might fire QJ some time there though). But the non broadway, non cards are def 1/2 psb because he'll fold pretty much everything. The reason for not c/r ott is because if he has a big hand, he'll shove on me which I hate. If he has a draw he will either shove or fold depending on how good it is and how he perceives me and he'll fold bluffs which I beat anyway. If I call, I have IO against his draws and monsters. This is why I wanted to call.

Otr, calling with KQo is bad but my line looks bluffy as hell so I can see why people would think about calling here.