Quick history on this before we hit the 5/10/20 hand as its semi relevant.

Hero as playing in a 2/5 game for about 2 hours before the game broke. The random button-pushing villain giving all action quadrupled up, felting half the table in a single hand, and picked up as they were re-buying back in. Table broke immediately after he picked up. While it lasted, Villain loved the gamble, constantly straddling. He clearly is a rec, who loves the gamble. While playing I got into several hands with the V, most of them never went to showdown, except for one late session, where I show jack high air on a small river bluff after he called with queen high (q2o)

Looking at the rest of the tables, i noticed the V move directly behind me, to the only 5/10 table running. It was not a very good table -- 5 handed, with the other 4 being regs. But I decide that that 5th spot was too good to pass up, pick up, and quickly trade in my chips for orange $10 dollar ones.

Buy in 5/10 game (6 handed) for ~$1300:

First hand I post $10 in the CO, villain ($850) above straddles UTG to $20. UTG+1 folds, CO (hero) sees J6, raises to $60, folds back to V, who calls.

Flop ($135): J52
V checks, Hero bets $85, V announces "raise" and hamfists 2 half stacks of orange - $200. Hero calls.

Turn ($535): J52K
V checks, Hero checks.

River ($535): J52K7
V checks.

What frequency and sizing should I be turning my hand into a bluff on the river against this villain, vs a competent player? Do I ever go for thin value on river against this sort of V, or is that lighting money on fire?

Against a competent player, I'm assuming I want to be able to fold out low diamonds and possibly some better one pair jacks at some low frequency from his perceived range (< 15%).

Thoughts?

Seems standard to me.

I think the preflop raise is pretty bad. I don't know why people see the need to compound the EV giveaway of a post by raising really bad ranges with it. The gambly straddler who's out to get you is going to play back a lot and the 4 5/10 pros will very often see right through what you're doing and attack your raise with 3bs.

But praise be, you made it to the flop and spiked top pair+BDFD+BDSD. Flop should probably be smaller (even if you're range splitting here, J6hh makes a good case for the smaller size). OTR, I expect him to spite call you with any diamond and I think he has some weird 5x/2x/total air stuff here enough to play for SDV.

1. Don't post pre-flop. Wait 3 hands and post your big blind in its natural position. Maybe get up and stretch or walk around for 3 minutes if you want.

2. Fold pre-flop.

3. What is villain like post-flop? Does he never fold to bets? Is he super aggressive himself? The way you describe him I get the impression that he is really aggressive (but maybe not). If he is, then I may check back flop and call his turn and river bets with a hand like top pair of J's with crappy kicker. Actually, I think I kinda like just checking back flop here. If he calls way too much, then betting is fine, but I'd make it smaller; I think $85 is making it too tough for him to call with stuff like A high or KQ or QT.

4. I like calling the flop raise and checking back the turn.

5. I'd just check river. It kinda sucks the times he then flips over Ax4d, but I'm not even convinced he'll fold it. If you're going to try to bluff I think you'd have to overbet. I'd just check back. (Value betting didn't even occur to me - there is no thin value here.)

TenHighCallDown: I certainly did not think J6s was a premium holding by any stretch, but for a 6max in CO, I did not necessarily believe it was horrible given the dynamics. If BTN reraises, I'm folding this 95% of the time.

Lego05: Villain randomly clicks buttons post flop, but straight forward call station with 75% of his range pre. Post, he's all over the place.

What would you downsize flop bet to? This board is textured and is draw heavy. The V is typically not continuing with a naked K high that gets to this flop this manner. V strikes me as a person who doesn't know how to adjust for this being a 5T nor 6max game.

Lastly, I'm with you -- not betting river for value here, ever. I'm looking at merits of folding out some of his better range. I feel his range is capped on the river, and I'm hoping for some suggestions in constructing a strategy for river situations like this from a theory perspective. if it was a full ring game, and somehow I ended up here at this river with this villain in this manner, then for sure i check back, because I dont block diamonds and block some other non-diamond combos.

But given this situation, I remember sitting at this table tanking the river with a bunch of permutations flying through my mind.

Pre is fine you wanna be playing hands with the supposed weaker player and j6s from co is ok
Flop is fine sizing. i kind of think you'll wanna use a small size 1/3 or so with this kicker.
Peel raise is fine
I'd probably go ahead and bet again for 1/4- 1/3 vs turn check for protection against two cards w random fds
As played I'd just check behind and expect to lose a lot and win sometimes

I think even with the post and the fish in the straddle its going to be hard to profit with this hand. Could be wrong. On the river you have a reasonable candidate to bluff as its hard to think of really any worse hands you can have. That said, I would never bluff here against the villain you described. You can probably get better J's to fold but I doubt you're ever really folding out a diamond.

I mean pre is Probably losing I guess ur right lol

If the game is time-raked then I think it would be a mistake not to post in the CO (assuming the game is any sort of decent). If the game was full ring then I would post even if it was raked. But whatever.

Preflop is a close fold. Given that you posted your raising range should be widened and given that there is a whale in the BB your raising range should be widened further. That being said, I think it's still too wide. Additionally, you're only 45~ BB effective with the BB and J6s is a really garbage hand at that depth, especially because he's likely not folding his straddle. You want to choose a more linear range focused on high straight equity.

Flop bet smaller.

Turn is good.

River is meh. We have basically one of the worst hands we can have aside from maybe 34s but even that might want to bet the turn.

The question is, do we wanna be bluffing this guy when there's still a non zero % chance our hand is good? I'd xb

When we raise, our discount from the post is only 17% for a 3x open, which is more than made up for by the pros attacking what they (correctly) perceive to be an unsustainably wide range. The second half of that sentence is population dependent, obviously, but it's true of my games and I imagine especially true for the type of 5/T pros who play short-handed against mostly pros.

If we want to play a lot of hands here, I think the best bet is to have a robust limping strategy, which includes often limping strong hands.

Solid post

Game is indeed time-raked.

Jarretman -- the commentary about taking a more linear range makes sense.

So if V was solid TAG reg instead of whale, what frequency should we be attempting to fold better? Ultimately whatever range one constructs for V, is it unrealistic to think that people who are looking to improve on their game would actually sit there and grind through this math while tanking the river? (e.g. "Because i am looking to fold out his bottom 1/3rd value range which is {JxXx...Ax4}, i'm looking to bluff 2/5th pot with a 16% frequency, or a 2/3rds pot with a 8% frequency")

I would just check back river in this case. You were given the opportunity to show down... might as well take it. You could be up against a whole bunch of pocket pairs lower than Jacks. If so, he's not folding the ones with diamonds. And I don't think you should be betting for value trying to get him to call the ones without diamonds.

Looks ok