Playing a 5/5 game, stacks ~$2.5K effective. Hero dealt JTJT on button.
Villain in question is a regular - plays probably 40 hours/week at this place.

UTG raises to $20, two calls, hero raises to $80. UTG, two other players call.

Flop ($330) Q8Q
UTG checks, MP bets $125, MP folds, I call, UTG folds

Turn ($580) J
MP bets $400. I call

River ($1380) T
MP bets $700.
It feels to me like he's value/block betting Q8. I feel I'm never good on this river, so alternate between folding, or....Given I block QJ, QT, is it too spewy to bluff-shove here?

If there was a candidate to bluff with here this would have to be the nut bluff combination imo.

Have you seen MP bet three streets and fold in spots like these before, since you mention that he is a reg that plays 40 hrs/week here? How has table dynamics been for the last hour(s) or so? Also is the game uncapped buyin, is Villain used to playing this deep? Is Villain properly rolled for this game?

I mean, since you feel that you are never good on this river (he doesn´t have 88/TT here ever or something like AcXc with some sort of sidecards that just say **** it, I got to get him to fold on the river?) I assume you have some sort of reads that this play has a good enough chance of working, and since river jams in such live games usually are very nutted I actually think this might work, but on the other hand you often get the "****, what a cooler, you have QJ don´t you, **** how can I run this bad, **** my life, but still, iI can´t fold now, so I call" in live games as well.

Since it is live though I say go with your read and play accordingly.

How often do you checkback QJ on that turn?

IMO it is a call on the river.. i don't think you want to let your opponent get away with turning a bare Q or garbage into a bluff himself. You are only representing a bare Q by calling the flop and turn.. so he might think AQxx or even AKxx is value.. or he might simply be overvaluing any bare Q.

on the flop with a single nut out, no Q and 4 players seeing the flop, I am probably letting this one go and not getting myself in this spot.. if you are calling here it should be to bluff turns.. but when you make a hand you are in a difficult spot of not knowing if you are up against a bare Q or Queens full.

u did 3 bet pre which means you are more AA heavy in your range, but 500 bb's deep this may be a moot point, as AA probably starts to shrink a lot in value and the suited connectors go up. Anyway, your perceived range is more AA KK, so he could widen his bluff range trying to rep the goods on this type of board which means calling could be just fine. it is the original flatter who is now leading the flop, who probably has the widest range overall(eh, I'm sure it would be something similar at least to the original opener's range). In theory, his donk lead should probably be atleast a little wider than the original raiser/flatter, so once again, we have that going for us. I guess, it depends heavily on the villain here. If it is a rock solid tag who never loses at showdown you probably better fold, maybe call, I mean 3 to 1, seems like you just call no matter what versus anyone lol. I like your read on his line. small on the flop to induce/value, then gets bigger on the turn as the board gets wetter, then, perhaps value/blockish on the river like you say, pry call unless he never bluffs, but there definitely has to be some merit to jamming(I guess to get this answer we would have to start answering how often he has hands that beat us at showdown and he folds them and how often we are good and can just flat, and pry some other stuff, **** that sounds hard to figure out lol)

no one checked back, why are u asking that?

Mental mislick. "How often do you flat QJ on that turn" is what I meant.

I flat QJ on the turn 100% of the time if I have AQJx or KQJx

That feels like flatting when you turn the nut straight with a flush draw. I tend to like raising when I might be freerolling someone, unless my opponent likes to bluff too many scare cards.

You have to go with reads on this hand. If it's a blocking bet, it's more likely to be 88 than Q8. I feel he would either bet larger on the flop or check with Q8, unless you have seen him bet this small with the nut boat before.

If MP is a reasonably tight player, he shouldn't have too many Qxxx hands that don't have a J or a T. If he is sophisticated enough and you're not an idiot, he should recognize that your 3betting Qxxx range should include a lot of cards that are close in rank to a queen, so you should often have QJ or QT yourself when you don't fold, so you should be a bit concerned that he doesn't seem afraid that your range should have a lot of queens full hands.

However, I don't necessarily hate a bluff because if his range is QJ/QT, he might fold 50% of that range to a significant raise. It's just a question of whether you can find a profitable raise size that gets him to fold QT.

LOL if he has quads, though.

Bluff is bad here. If you shove pot will be 4000 with villain needing to call 1200, or he needs to be right 1 out of 4 times to show a profit. If villain has Q8 and you want him to believe you are repping QJ, that’s only 3 combos of QJ out there. Plus you would raise QJ some percentage of time ( you said you would flat 100% of the time but villain doesn’t know that). Most other players will raise with the nuts on the turn some of the time. So if you sprinkle in one combo of KQ and one combo of AQ, and the occasional spazz factor , that’s more than enough to justify a call. I’m going with a reasonable and certain assumption that no one in these games is ever raising QT for value.


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Because of your blockers, I think call is the best option. If villain is repping QJ, that’s only 3 combos of hands that beat you. I don’t think he has Q8 as he would bet more on the flop since it’s a fragile hand or he would check raise some of the time. Your line doesn’t look very nutted either so villain could think he is value betting QX. If you call you need to be right better than 25% if the time to show profit which I think is plausible here


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i feel like i took this line before in an almost exactly similar spot and they had quads and i never did it again... probably really results oriented though (i now bluff qkk or q99 type hands here if i want to bluff). Didn't think anyone would lead flop with quads or b/c river w/ q8 but probably just projecting my perceptions on others. River shove was bigger in my spot also... don't know if people fold q8 for your price often. Preflop tendencies probably matter a ton here too because almost every nitty player has qq or qj or qt in a 3b pot unless they have like akq8ds or like kkq8 so they have to be fairly active pre for this to be bluffable. dont think many players have a lot of bluffs in villains spot and like 88+ for value or probably q8+.

I hate when people do this but I now fold flop also cause live pokers turned me into a nit.

I can lead the flop with quads on this board against opponents who call too often with draws or overpairs on paired boards.

You think his sizing looks like a blocker bet, but he could be trying to get value from what ever he perceives your calling range on the river to be. Would you fold AAQx to this line, I'm sure some people would not.

I read too much into these river sizings when playing your average live casino game or whatever, and in my experience it is pretty spot on vs. recs/ avg bad regs. 9 times out of 10 (guesstimate) this river sizing looks like a *thin* vbet w/ Q8 or some AQ, and depending on the player and stacks left to play for can quite easily be bet/ folding or bet/ calling.

Here is my nickle's worth of free advice : if you put your opponent on an overfull, don't try to make them fold it.

You want to bluff with nut blockers but I guess you kind of have them. I still would rather have a random Q because we don't block quads - just the full houses.

Just because you have JJ and TT doesn't mean they can't have Q8 QJ QT and even if they have Q8 are they going to fold it for $2500?

This would have to work more than 3 times for it to be profitable and I would just pick on the weaker players at the table and try and stay out of a regs way. Why get a leveling war with a weak hand when you got fish in live poker?

I would say it's unlikely you're good here but that's just from reading the text. I've never played with the villain - and he could very easily make moves and blast his stack away. Just saying he's a regular though - this looks like a fold to me and I don't even know if I like calling the turn but I almost never fold turn in real time.

There are just as many combos of QQQ88 as there are QQQJJ and QQQ1010 and I don't think many players are going to fold Queens full of Tens given the turn action.

For me this depends on the player. If I know they overfold to river jams, or are especially likely to based on earlier bet sizing tendencies, I'll jam the river. I need to know specifically they can fold QQQ88 to a flat turn line like this however.

Otherwise call is best. You also beat 888QQ and there are bluffs here.

Extremely villian dependent. This seems more like you're saying that you're good enough to fold Q8 so they should be too. I've played with people who I think will always fold in this spot to people who wouldn't fold AQ.

He holds a pretty wide Q heavy range on the flop actually, on turn he is also repping a hand that you are blocking. River loks like blocker value bet but could easily be a blocker bluff river cbet with AQ, 88. We are underrepped somewhat and block hands that he is repping, his river bet is also kind of small given what he is repping all along and value he is supposed to be going for on the river here (unless allin?), Its pretty bad to fold fh there imo, call.

Half pot on the river seems like a normal value bet size one might make with the nuts.

Obviously I agree with everyone that thinking about raising here seems silly compared to calling and often winning.

if you are never good you should just fold, i don't think you can get away with a bluff here

i prob shrug call

^THIS.


Would villain flat QQxx to UTG raise and flat your 3b PRE?

I've seen a small sizing bet multiway like this PF many times quads.... And the half pot bet on the river makes me think he's nutted a lot of the time if its quads or a bigger boat.

Hero did not 4b pre.