5/10 Live:

V in hand is early 30s Asian guy, seems decent and playing a LAG style , not much history vs him.

Eff stacks: 3k

V opens 35 UTG, utg+1 call, I call with A♠️Q♣️from HJ, B.B. calls. 4 ways.

Flop: 8♠️7♠️3♠️140)

Utg bets 65. Only I call. (270)

Turn: A♣️, v bet 275, I call (825)

River: 6♣️, v bets 650. (1470)

call/fold?





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V bet 1/4th pot OTF, so he likely doesnt have a set or a low flush. Turn still sort of looks like a blocker bet or small value bet with a pair like maybe Ksx or 8x or maybe 7x, but could also be a bluff or a weak A.

Kind of surprised by the river sizing being bigger, maybe A6 shows up a decent amount here? or maybe Ts9 or Tx9s? or 86/76? I feel like a weaker made hand than you would c/c or c/f or blocker, and a stronger made hand than you wouldve bet bigger otf or ott... so I guess youre mostly only beating bluffs or maybe spazzed out tpnk, but the line seems like a very small number of value combos, and seems generally FOS, so probably not super far off neutral EV but I would probably call.

Why not raise turn?

Cause it would be a silly merge play? Get better to call and worse to fold, not good.


How about shove on the river as played? Assuming you play the nut flush as a flat flat shove line then you have a good bluff candidate here.

Because you are repping the A-hi flush only and this isn't PLO. Also people don't fold flopped flushes especially once emotionally convincing themselves they have the winner over multiple streets. Also you look very much likely a K-high or A-high miss when you only put $65 in on flop. Also LAG players also tend to be more likely to pick off suicide bluffs than others.

Raise pre, it will appear as if you are squeezing since you are conveniently in the cutoff.

As played raise flop, bet modestly big turn, and ship river might be the most profitable line and one that could potentially fold out sets, two pair, and small flushes if you make it convincing with your sizings mannerisms and timing to this player type.

I like the third option that isn’t listed.

All in > fold > call

I'd 3 bet pre, but as played raise flop. Based on his betting, I think vill bets this size pretty wide, and pot size on turn is most likely at min ak with the spade. On river calling is probably your worst option, followed by folding.

Yeah I certainly don't mind a raise on the flop his 1/2 pot sizing does make it attractive to us.

Fold. 3 bet pre against a lag.

OP your HH transcript is awfully confusing in the parts with (pot size). Just type the pot size next to the cards rather than in line with the betting history.

OP wrote it oddly. The $65 bet was into a flop pot size of 140, so its more like 1/2 pot than 1/4th.

That wouldnt be a good idea because if he is bluffing spades, lets let him continue. He can still have flopped flushes and sets and AK, all which call or reraise, and hands like 99-KK that we beat, all which would fold. This is basically what someone above me said.

This is actually not my preference. Its AQ and we are 300BB deep. Getting into a reraise war here is questionable at best. Another key thing to keep in mind here is not to confuse a high first-in open frequency with a high call 3bet frequency (which OP didnt mention and usually this gets overlooked). What do we do if he 5bets? Id rather take my AQ in position against a wide range and look to play more spots postflop and pressure his weak open range that way.

And with that in mind, I agree with all in and I dont think we have any other option. Our stack depth on river is good relative to the bet size and the pot so nothing awkward there, his range is so weak that we are less likely to run into a him actually having a callable hand here, plus we have the A.

fold > all-in > call

Shoving all-in is cool and all, but I don't think most people fold their flush here. They assume that you would raise either the flop or turn with a flush and might even convince themselves that you could be pushing with a worse flush or something similar to the hand that you have.

As the hand played out, I think you played it perfectly given that you folded the river. If you were to shove, you would be risking 1975 to win 1470. You need him to fold 57.33% of the time in order to be breaking even on an all-in bluff. Shoving all-in here will make you more difficult to play against, but not necessarily more profitable.

Calling is definitely a mistake though.

I'm not a fan of 3-betting this hand either. It isn't suited and there are two EP players in the hand. AQ needs to be suited in order to be considered for 3-betting imo.

so what are your bluffs on the river for when you have Axss? Cause you're definitely gonna play (or should be) a decent amount of your Axss like this. For AsXx combos we only have AsQx and AsKx that didn't 3bet pre, cause I'm probably folding AJo pre so like wtf it's like a mandatory shove on the river.

Also side note if you're villain facing a river shove this is a good spot to exploitatively overfold because the aggregate population of 5/10 players aren't bluffing this river (imo), but whatever

Theoretically, I agree with you. In the game theory aspect this is the perfect bluff hand. However, I don't believe the average person in the population will be able to fold a flush here.

My bluffs on this river would be zero, until I learn they are capable of folding a flush.

I agree with you if you only range villain on flushes and that he's never folding a flush obviously... but I don't agree with you that they would never fold a flush and I don't agree that their range is only flushes.

Raise flop a solid % of the time
River is kinda interesting but probably a pretty easy fold

^ as played how can this be anything but a jam

As Jarret said, we’ve got to bluff here because we are rarely going to have hands that reach this river and make sense to bluff. I am assuming we always 3bet AK against a LAG, at least I would. That leaves us with AsQx for 4 bluff combos, maybe 8 if we have AsJx (but I wouldnt jam those always, unless my image allowed for it). If we always jam here with AsQx we want something like 8 value combos for mathematical balance (if we shove its 2:1 for opponents odds). This is a bit of a problem for us because we may only have 3 suited aces here, but this is offset by the fact that he has a lot of hands in his 3 barrel value range here, some bluffs, and really not as many flush combos as youd think (unless hes going crazy opening UTG with like 45s type hands). Its quite hard for him to call with most of these, impossible with some. And for what its worth I dont think people just close their eyes and call a 260BB river jam with any flush here. He should also be discounting our AsXx combos because lots of people just autopilot and would raise with that kind of a hand on the flop.

That all said against some LAG players who look for spots to call constantly, you have to be careful and maybe adjust by eliminating some AsQx. Consider your own image too and adjust the frequency up or down accordingly. In big spots like these it can be an in game judgment call.

Correction, 3 bluff combos of AsQx and then “mathematically” we target 6 value hands and adjust this according to our image, our opponent, the difficulty of the spot for our opponent, etc.

Preflop: Agree with the flat. Personally I flat many good, non-nut, hands in this spot as UTG range is usually strong (assuming 9 handed table) even for a LAG. Also, this disguises our hand well.

Flop: Agree with the call.
Makes no sense to turn your hand into a bluff at this point, you beat almost all his bluffs and he is calling with all his value hands (9x9x+, sets, flushes)

Turn: Agree with the call.
You can't fold because your hand is way too strong at this point. Even if you are beat now you still have equity in the hand. Raising here makes no sense because I think he calls with everything that beats you and folds all his bluffs.

River: I would fold.
Tough spot but at this point I think he has you beat. Most likely a flush, maybe a set. Unfortunately you have the key blocker (As) that he definitely can take this line with as a bluff. I just don't see any other bluffs in his range. I think all V's one pair hands (i.e. AJ+, 99-KK) check this river and bait a bluff.

Is it typical to turn top pair into a river bluff here? What offsuit aces would he have (with the A if we didn't have it) that would want to bluff?

Why not raise flop? As played tho I think you have to fold river.

I fold because 9/10 of spades is probably what villain had and hit his straight on river. Guessing. Either way I probably raise turn to see where I am so I dont have to call a river jam. I like a raise- you have top pr with a good kicker and the nut flush draw.

Exactly.

i think you are right in that villain will call flushes, people don't like to fold them. He has a big hand and got a great runout. it's best not to try to take people off their premium hands.

He can easily just put you on the As because he doesn't have it too.

I'm still confused. I understand this to be about a hypothetical: If our opponent could somehow have the A and another non-spade, for top pair and a missed flush draw, he might take a bet-bet-bet line as a bluff. But he can't have the A because we have that, therefore he's less likely to take that line as a bluff.

My confusion is because I would expect most players to see top pair as a showdownable hand that shouldn't be trying to force a relatively narrow range (better top pair, what else?) to fold on the river. In other words, not turn top pair of aces into a bluff. Indeed, Aces1085 said immediately thereafter:

But a hand with the A is at least a one pair hand. So are we saying Villian turns that into a bluff or not?