5/10 live, 9 handed home game.

Villain is TAG, have not played much with her.
Hero is perceived as LAG, have shown bluffs and gotten caught bluffing in past games.

Effective stacks ~$1100

Villain opens in CO to 40. Folds to hero in BB, wakes up with QTs, calls.

I give villain credit for being one of the very few actual TAGs at the table, doesn't get out of line PF.

Heads up to flop, $85. Not very common in this game to go heads up to the flop in a non-3bet flop, game has been aggressive.

Flop comes 986r, we have BDFD.

Hero checks, Villain bets $40. Hero Calls.

Turn ($165). Turn card: 8. Board reads 9868. Our BDFD bricks.

Hero checks. Villain bets $60. Hero x/r to $175. Villain tanks. Villain calls.

River ($515). River card: 4. Hero bets $240, aiming for value sizing.

Is this a good spot/hand/line/board to bluff against TAG or is this spew?

As PFR I’d be checking a ton on this board. You can play the leveling game, but just feels like they have a monster if double barreling here.

I agree. just feels like QQ+ and people don’t fold often enough to be worth trying to bluff.

That said this hand, KQ, and QJ are probably your best river bluffs so it’s not bad hand selection. Maybe we could size bigger with those bluffs and all the stuff we have from the BB that actually gets value on this board?

To state the obvious, Villain has to have double barreled and called a turn c/r with air/draw pretty damn often for your river lead to be correct. And that seems unlikely from the player you describe.

flop you can mix between c/r and call
turn is fantastic to donk ap. bb vs co flatting range has more 8x and co is only cbetting a few 8x, while you call flop w/ pretty much all non 2p 8x in your range
would rather c/r turn if flop went x/x
unfortunately, you don't get to the river with any boats or straights, unless you've slowplayed flop, which you shouldn't do in these positions
so there's no case to be made for having a thin value range with your 8x for 1/2p and an overbet range with nuts or air type of hands
obv, you are allowed some bluffs with all your river betsizings, for 1/2p you should be bluffing 25% to make your opp indifferent between calling or folding. if you know he overfolds, increase this number, if you know he underfolds, bet lighter for value and bluff less. regs will typically overfold in these spots, but you still cannot go way overboard with your bluffing
since you will have about 10 combos of 8x (A8s,K8s,J8s,T8s,87s)x2, I think you can go for 4 or 5 bluff combos. best candidates are the ones with the best blockers. your 7x would be best bc they block 75s and 87s. if you play 76s the same way, these are your your best bets. then, A7s and 97s.

If flop goes x/x does 8x check again on turn? Shouldn't all 8x be leading on turn no matter what happens on flop?

I figured she could put me on 7x (which bricked, no straight) so I chose a very intentional value sizing as opposed to greedy/bluffy looking size to rep an 8/boat.

Agree turn lead is more standard/correct than check-raise. I considered it, poor planning.

When she calls I just figured her range is bloated with overpairs, TT+. Hard to give her credit for anything else besides 99 or 66, so maybe the better hands to bluff with are 97s, 67s. We also block JTs which could be calling our turn raise (not a good thing).

Agree? Thanks, helpful to think through.

the main reason I prefer a c/r ott with 8x had the flop gone x/x is that your opp is incentivized to delay cb after you've checked to him twice, so you just win more money if you c/r all hands you would want to donk. get some of the hands that fold to bet. also, not a disaster by any means if you get a free river with your drawing hand

I also don't think ppl balance their flop c/ range in this spot to the point where they c/ overpairs so I assume he mainly checks weak hands and whiffs and some of these will bet turn when checked to twice

I wouldn't rule out A8, 89, 8T, or 9T either, depending on how wide open she thinks you play. Any holding of yours that blocks a boat is probably a better hand to bluff with than QT, but that's not really my point.


Villain has fired two barrels AND called a turn C/R in a spot where you very easily could have a made five card hand. That feels to me like a Villain who has decided to call almost all blank rivers unless you do something unexpected like overbet shove the river. If even if you overbet shove, I doubt you would narrow Villain's calling range enough to make that a better play than your "value bet" bluff.

His turn sizing is small for wet board. Have any clue what his normal bet sizing is?

Our raise size is also fairly small. So I can see him continue with some draws (did board bring BDFD) 10-J possibly QJ.

But not many combos of air.

So likely just give up on river.

1/3 is what overpairs should vbet thin for. nuts and big combo draws can bet turn bigger if you want to have 2 bet sizes, rest of his range cannot on a turn that favors bb's range
if we raise to 1/2p rather than bigger we can profitable raise combos like this one. we're also targeting the weak part of his range that folds to any aggression , his overpairs or better are in-elastic to the size of our raises barring 2x potting or smth crazy like that

Thanks for responses. Villain shipped over my river bet and I made it look like I had a decision and folded. Villain showed 88 for quads, just my luck.

Still not sure if this is +EV line to take against solid TAG. I think most will fold their overpairs here, but overall maybe not as profitable as I thought.

just don't overbluff and pick the right blockers
that's all you can do
a well balanced range will always win you the pot

What would you have done if turn goes check check? I think once my turn cr is called I shut down, vill is going to have a lot strong single pair hands that will call you down. Personally, if I'm against a solid tag that knows I bluff a lot I will mix it up. Lead pot/pot and shove river given stacks sizes will be pretty profitable as long as you have it sometimes. In general this line should be for value except in spots that favor you're range over there's. Realistically except for flopped sets, vill is capped at AA as she probably almost never has 2p or a straight. Most of the time this hand should go cc and then cfold.