Me - hold 55 in mid pos with about 2800 behind
Villain - 2300 - He is a very strong reg

I have a fairly tight table image to villain. I've played with him a lot and have believed he's been reraising late in hands to push me off weaker holdings.

Preflop:
I raise to 40 in mid position with 55
Villain calls out of the BB

Flop:
A, 7, 4 rainbow
Villain checks
I bet 60
Villain calls

Turn:
6 continues to be a rainbow board
Villain checks
I bet 120
Villain raises to 280
I tank like I would if I had a huge hand or weaker I was trying to figure out my options. I re raise to 680.

Here is my reasoning and I would like feedback. I know my imagine to my opponent. I feel like if he has an strong aces to two pair combinations he's going to have a hard time calling. I also know that because even if he's has an extremely strong hand he has a hard time shoving. I feel this puts me in a good spot. I have great creditably which will make him lay down a lot of strong holdings and hopefully forces him into only calling my reraise with his really strong holdings. So now I can win if he folds and if he calls gives me the opportunity to hit my open ender. Since I feel my hand is completely disguised I feel I get paid off huge if I hit on the river.

Unfortunately the river was a brick and goes check check. I know If he called my reraise on the turn there is no way he would fold to my bluff on the river. He turned over 77 for middle set.

Would love some feedback.

A few things:

Your raise isn't as credible as you think it is.

Getting him to just call a raise with his strong hands when you're bluffing isnt a victory.

In that vein, if you do want to raise the turn, you need to follow through on the river. I wouldn't recommend this line but its certainly better than what you did.

I don’t think it’s a victory. When he calls I know I’m crushed. It means I have to hit my draw to win because I know I’m beat and there is almost no card in the deck that comes on the river where he’s going to fold. I feel my value here is the hands I get him to lay down right there with that raise and from the times I hit the river. Just my thought.

If you’re taking this line you absolutely need to bet river. That being said youre representing an extremely strong and narrow range and I would have to give villain a ton of credit for being able to lay down 2p+ in this spot. Whether it works or not it’s just not a spot I like to bluff at. I have a hard enough time getting people off tpgk

Lol wow this is some next level ****

If you wanted to bluff, I'd prefer you call the turn raise and then raise all in on the river with your 85 and 53 blockers. That is, as long as 85 and 53 remain the (nuts) on the river, no board pair, no flush card. It seems pretty good as a bluff because you have excellent blockers and it really looks like you have either AA or the straight.

If you had value you'd want to take the same line to capture the maximum amount from his bluffs.

Agree with the bolded. Not sure how relevant our 5 blockers are when a strong reg defends our 4x open. I don't think either of them should have any 85 or 53.

OP, I'd check flop or just bet small to (usually) win the pot vs his random overs to your pair. Betting 2/3 pot OTF and barely over half pot OTT just doesn't make much sense with this holding. As for playing vs the turn raise, I'd start by thinking about what kinds of hands you think villain would take this flop/turn line with. From there, decide how you should play back with the various hands that you can have.

If I was in villains shoes and had 66 and took this line and bet river, I'd hate my life so much when shoved on and would probably find the fold button. I mean I'm taking an obviously very strong / polarizing line and I'm still getting shoved on. What else am I supposed to see here besides AA,77 or a random straight? So yeah, I don't like the turn bet you made, but now that you made it, call and look to make a sick bluff on the river, as long as your opponent is smart and not losing horribly this session.

Lol but everyone’s forgetting that you never have 53 or 85 here

I would play my continuing range on the turn as a call FWIW. 55 could be a call given that small raise sizing.

If I'm in villains shoes I'm confused as **** but not folding my value hands at all. Not sure what you're repping besides a bluff. If you jammed river it would be a weird spot for villain because you should never really be bluffing or value betting lol. But when people get confused I think the general tendency is to call more.

This was my thought too. We aren't a total drooler or a sLAG and villain knows this so I really doubt he puts these hands in our range no matter how the hand plays out.

I guess I don't like the turn bet (and especially the RR) because we are exposing ourselves to a xraise (which we got)/then a shove (which we were lucky we didn't get) when we hold a hand that is disguised that has good equity. Based on stacks, if we just call V's CR, there will be $960 in the pot with ~$1800 effective behind and V will likely lead $400-$600 and then we can shove.

4x pre is meh but flop sizing is really bad and turn is a check with most of your range.

turn is a clear flat per what plilliapina said

lol @ referring to 2/3 pot as "really bad". There's a school of thought advocating down bets on this board but not adhering to that is absolutely fine, especially when your strat is tighter then most so it makes sense that you can cbet bigger w/ a more narrow range.

The fact that V knows you're a nit and raising you on this board texture means hes got 2p+ fairly often, and you're only repping a set (which he blocks), while he has all the straights and you have none.

Blockers are beyond irrelevant aside from the fact you have equity which is obv ideal when bluffing but that doesnt make it a good bluff. If anything, you're actually blocking more of V's bluffs, making the line even worse as he's now even more weighted towards value. I guess if you're only going to be 3betting AA/77 for value then its ok if this is the hand you want to balance with but I think its more likely youd flat your value hands as you'd be blocking his value range and thus he'd be more weighted towards bluffs... so realistically you probably dont have a legitimate 3betting range, silly spot to randomly try to bluff just bcuz you have a good image -- much much better spots you can abuse a tight image with other then 3b turn on dry board

No, $60 into $80 w/55 on A74r is likely the biggest leak in this entire hand.

^ I think you're using hyperbole to make a point, but just in case you're not, if you think the flop sizing is the biggest leak in this hand then you got some messed up thinking my friend.

A 68bb turn 3bet in a spot where you don't ever want to be raising and a 12bb turn bet when you want to be checking. The 6bb flop bet is not the biggest leak haha.

60 into 85 but w/e, basically 2/3 pot

Again, I repeat, lol @ you referring to that as a "huge leak".

It is a fairly big leak and I'm not using hyperbole. First off 2/3 would be bad, but its not 2/3.

Its 60 into 80 in a raked game, or 75%
Its 60 into 85 in a time rake game, or 70%

Cbetting A high dry boards with no equity for 70% pot is bad. Its bad for your whole range really, though in live poker you can get away with these face up value spots alot.

I say its the biggest leak bc it is the most impactful.

If we filtered a database for everytime someone bet 70% pot on A high dry with no equity, we'd see they were burning money compared to a smaller sizing filter of the same board.

If we filtered a database for everytime someome yolo'd an open ender, we'd see its meh.

Alot of people on the forums focus on the big $ decisions in a posted hand instead of focusing on the small $ decisions that have significantly more volume (we cbet A high boards alot)

This. Including a hand in a large flop bet-size range that has showdown value, but very little equity when called seems odd to me, but I would be interested to understand an overall strategy where this has merit. Most of the value of c-betting 55 here would be to fold out a lot of hands with equity that we are ahead of, knowing we are near-dead when called.

As an aside, I thought the newer "school of thought" that has come about that advocates down-sizing bets would call for a 15-35% pot c-bet on this board, rather than a more standard 40-50% pot c-bet.

Not sure the exact sizing but I think the consensus is somewhere around 1/3 w/ your whole range more or less.

However, thats "correct" under a lot of assumptions about your strat/opponents strat and mimicking it exactly in live play isn't always going to yield the best results, especially when you play tighter then optimal. Berkey did a podcast recently where he talks about bet sizing and I agree with some of his points, though personally I do downbet this flop because I'm likely opening/cbetting much more then the OP. But if you aren't, then it makes sense you'd want to use more polarizing sizes with a tighter range, even on dry boards.

That might not necessarily be true, but just because a solver says a balanced player should downbet this board does not mean its the most profitable play in every situation, esp in live poker.

pretty reasonable to have multiple sizings on this board, big bet with AJ+ and small bet worse Ax and worse pairs for protection. balance with mix of bd draws and 2p+ in both ranges. kind of nice to big bet our better Ax, but the added complexity might not be worth the gain we get in ev

I agree it's a leak but not close to the biggest mistake in this hand

.

How so? You could raise both of them preflop, 85s or 53s. Those are the type of hands you randomly deside to raise in mid-position when you are bored. It's not a total drooler play but something all of us do from time to time. I know I do and I'm a tight player.

But fair enough, we don't have value very often, fine. Also villain can have the straight. Yeah, it's a bad bluff.

Sizing is too big on flop .
Turn bet is kind of interesting. I don't necessarily mind the bet despite what others say, however, if it were me, I might overbet here and check back blank rivers depending on the opponent. Obviously it sucks that he has middle set which he will have almost never here.