5k +/- effective. Villain is one of the better regs in the room. He's balanced in a lot of spots that most regs aren't and I know he currently beats 500z

Someone posts missed SB in EP and folds, I open HJ with KQ to $75, good reg calls in the CO, everyone else folds, villain calls in BB.

Flop($245) 339

BB checks, I bet $120, CO folds, BB calls

Turn($485) K

BB checks, I bet $240, BB calls,

River($965) Q

BB checks, I bet $500, BB raises to $1700

I'm having a hard time figuring out my calling range on the river given that flop was 3 way. His value hands seem clear, 33, 99, Q3s, K3s, A3 ish at some % of each that didn't raise and he can find his bluffs pretty easily by choosing some 9x.

Curious to hear what others think, but KQ seems like bottom of our calling range (blocks sets / beats AK and K9). Can fold all bluffs, which might be 9x, AT, AJ, and thin value hands like AQ... and fold worst value hands like Kx that bet river. Call with all 3x, sets, KQ, AA, and JT.

Do you size 1/2 pot on most flops with all your OP hands? And if so, does V know this? If yes to both, then I think is an easy fold to the CR as you could have KK and QQ in your range for sure here so it would seem a very strange spot to bluff.

If you generally size different for those hands, then I think it is closer. But in general, when we bet 3 streets as the PFR on a board like this, we have a good value hand a ton, so I can't imagine a good reg choosing this board to try to bluff you off. In fact Ad9d is really his only good merge/bluff hand here.

how can you possibly fold this vs a competent villain

this has to be the absolute top of our range, no?

If he really is competent and he sees you as that as well, then you should be folding here. The issue of course is he doesn't have a ton of bluffs outside of 9x. OOP he won't have a ton of turned draws here. TdJd, etc... are unlikely. It's a good CR honestly vs. your triple range in a missed blind pot.

This depends on how he perceives you. If he thinks you make a lot of thin value bets (so like would he think you bet Kx here?) then he knows his 9x is no good to call, and can raise you off your hand, but you would also need to triple barrel bluff some of the time. If you dont make a lot of thin value bets, then he would either call or fold with 9x vs your polarized range depending on how often he thinks you have nothing.

if he has 77 or 88 i win this thread.

Flop sizing is 2 big. 75-85 otf
Turn looks ok I’d go bigger
River id be betting 75% again
As played river is a silly spot and I think I’d rather call w ak or aq blocking a3.
This is a super common value line though and I think finding bluffs might be hard for our villain. It’s a pretty tough spot- calling can’t be terrible folding as an exploit can’t be that bad just thinking he’ll have a3s/999
either/its a low ev spot either way

We can have A3, 99, KK, QQ, JT right? So we can fold this I think.

^ yea tru dat

Hahaha, what about shove? I'd be grossed out if I had A3 or 99 and faced a shove on the river. It has to be QQ/KK all day from us right? We block Q3 and K3 too... . K9 would be the best bluff shove here right though? Cause we'd block 99 hmm. I mean if you are known as a nit to this guy, then yeah...

Ya I thought about this but I think our 9x might be a better bluff. But if we're folding this then maybe this is a better bluff than K9 (unless we're folding K9 as well)

Not sure how useful blocking sets is here as villain shows up so rarely w/ QQ/KK that it's negligible. I agree w/ the poster above that it might be relevant if we ourselves elect to 3 bet bluff jam

OP what's your range to value bet this river? I lean a little more towards overfolding here since even a good reg will have a tough time finding bluff candidates (J9 comes to mind as a fun one).

really wish we were like 50-100bb deeper, but if you have a clean tag image I think I like rip > fold > call. I'm not doing it every time, but KQ and AQ are p much my fav candidates to b/3b for a lot of reasons and we need to have some bluffs in there, even if they are funky.

^ yeah and we have to be super selective; even if we used all our K9 and KQ we'd be overbluffing by a fair amount

thx for replies. I agree this is a spot we should consider overfolding

If we pretend he's all in he's risking 1700 to win 1450 so we need to call with ~43% ish of our hands that beat a bluff if we want to MDF.

So if my value range on the river is something like 33 (1), KK (3), QQ (3), 99 (3), JTs (3), A3s (2), AA (4), KQ (2), K9 (2), AK (12), KJs (2), KTs (2), AQ (4? not sure I'm betting AQ otr) that's 43 combos.

So MDF would be something close to 18.5 combos.

33 (1), KK (3), QQ (3), 99 (3), JTs (3), A3s (2) = 15 combos

So which 3.5 hands are the best calls? I dunno; it could include KsQs. But if we this is a spot we think we should be over folding then calling A3+ seems totally fine. Of course, he's not all in, he's got money left so it becomes a bit more complicated but whatever.

TL;DR Can fold KQ and I've learned from this hand to remember that in narrow range spots where we are "only" calling with full houses/trips sometimes the combos are so tight that 10 combos of quads/full houses is relatively a lot of combos and pretty damn close to all we need to be defending.

river analysis looks good.

is it standard to bet the flop here? my flop betting range is something like AT+ and small cards with backdoor draws.

So, V cannot have Q3s, can only have K3hh, A3hh, A3ss, 1 combo of 33, and I'd imagine a strong reg will 3b 99 pre against HJ open and CO flat, so his value range looks super narrow. That is, unless you believe he will call the flop with JTs in everything but hearts, in which case JTdd can be added to river c/r range for V (guessing he c/r turn at least sometimes with JTss and JTcc). That's still only a handful of combos he can have for value. So, think up like 2 bluff combos and call.

What he thinks of you, how your current session has been going (winning/losing, playing loose/tight, any altercations with said opponent, etc..), how he has been playing this session, and vs you, and his current mental fortitude, will drastically help decipher a much more accurate pre flop range.

Without this info we tend to default to working a hand backwards for analysis, using deductive reasoning as our crutch rather then allowing ourselves the luxury of a 30,000 foot view of the present, and injecting inductive reasoning. This averts our ability to truly delve into the hand, playing it as though we are at the table, forcing us to recreate our opponents range as the hand unfolds.

What happens is we get a glimpse of how the action plays out, and the ranges we attribute to a given spot is obfuscated by knowledge we wouldn't have had at the time in question.

To my point, is it really out of the question that "one of the better regs in the room" is relegated to a range of "His value hands seem clear, 33, 99, Q3s, K3s, A3 ish at some % of each that didn't raise and he can find his bluffs pretty easily by choosing some 9x" ?

I'm not saying your range is wrong. I'm proposing the question, "is this truly an accurate assessment"? Because the logical arguments that ensue are predicated on this premise. So, was this range created at the time of the BB pre flop call, closing the action looking at a pot of $185 and owing $50, 200bb deep to continue?

Not to mention, it creates the always exciting (dare I say most intriguing) proposition of a 3way pot where players play off each other more than any other dynamic? The impact of psychological nuance, range flexibility, and manipulation of norms is never greater then when this family/intimate dance gets played. Any more people involved and cards often dictate the action. Any less becomes a heads up situation where one has to rely on his reads/ability to gain the edge. The opportunity to put a player into uncharted territory is drastically reduced.

The only relevant question I'm left with after my above spiel, is wondering if your betting pattern has any relevance on how your opponents would alter your supposed range, and if it would thus alter their range/approach to the given situation.

I think that analysis is wrong -- the combo breakdown. I am pretty sure you would want an overbet range when 200bb deep on this board. And that messes up your value combos for a half pot bet. as long as you take that into account, it should be fine imo.

i'll call this all day long, villain wont check on the river if villain think he have a better hand here