Is this a bet here, or am I WA/WB?

Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - $0.50/$1 (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (UTG): 27.72 BB
CO: 137.54 BB (VPIP: 64.74, PFR: 34.91, 3Bet Preflop: 32.00, Hands: 177)
BB: 74.51 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 16.57, 3Bet Preflop: 11.94, Hands: 177)

SB posts SB 0.25 BB, BB posts BB 0.5 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 0.75 BB) Hero has 9 A

Hero raises to 1 BB, CO raises to 1.5 BB, fold, fold, BB calls 1 BB, Hero calls 0.5 BB

Flop: (4.75 BB, 3 players) J 5 A
BB bets 0.5 BB, Hero raises to 1 BB, CO calls 1 BB, BB calls 0.5 BB

Turn: (7.75 BB, 3 players) 8
BB checks, Hero bets 1 BB, CO calls 1 BB, fold

River: (9.75 BB, 2 players) J
Hero ...?

I don't know what the stats mean, and I'm way out of touch with online, but I just call the flop.

I'd probably c/c to induce a bet from a busted draw. B/f feels difficult against this lag on a river scare card.

Why did you raise the flop? A tight player just called a 3-bet and is donking into the field. You've got to hope that this is something goofy because you're probably not winning. The preflop/flop play screams AQo to me, but I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable assuming that this guy just hero-folded that on the turn. If your flop raise did that, then you absolutely were right to do it. But if folded a hand worse than yours, you took the worse end of the deal.

As played, I check the turn. I don't like that CO took two cold on the flop (another Ax candidate), and the stats suggest he's aggressive enough to bet most anything he's got there if you check to him. Get to showdown for two bets or less and I think you're good.

But since you got to the river like this, definitely check-call and hope for a bluff from KQ

River is a clear bet as played.

What sort of range do you see villain on by that point?

If he's not ******ed, Ax. Hero's kicker plays.

River seem like a crying call imo.

River is not even close. You obviously are calling a bet, there are plenty of worse Ax combos. Trying to induce a bluff from K-high that somehow got to the river is going to be less profitable than trying to get a call from Ax, which seems far more plausible and is equal to the same number of bets (1 BB).

Sometimes you check OOP if there is enough probability villain will check behind a better hand, but this seems unlikely (except for maybe AT?).

How small of an x are you thinking here from the preflop 3-bet? I can see this being AK/AQ/AT that froze up facing two bets on the flop. I see a lot fewer combos of A7- here by a significant amount.

so you bet/fold river ?

We're 6-max... villain has 3-bet pf of 32 (don't know if that's hands or %). This isn't some full-ring game with super tight UTG pf ranges.

You're obviously calling if villain bets, so you lose the same amount to AK/AQ/AT by checking. Villain should probably bet AT as we didn't cap pf, so unlikely we have AK/AQ. By betting, you also gain a bet vs. smaller Aces.

Against a random, I just b/c. Take note and move on if he somehow has Jx+.

This assumes that those hands bet 100% of the time, which I don't think is true.

How many smaller aces do you expect to see here?

I can't imagine that you're winning more than 5% of the time if the river is raised.

I think that one bet is slightly better than zero bets, but both are significantly better than two bets. So I'll play towards zero or one and not open the door for two.

What % would you bet here? In CO's shoes, how often is AK/AQ good on the river here when UTG checks? It should be a slam dunk value bet if for some reason he didn't 3-bet the flop or raise the turn. Since CO did not, we have to discount these combos at least somewhat.

I thought I already answered this -- CO has a 3-bet % of 32%. Obviously small sample size, but at that rate it should be 100% of his Ax hands. We don't have any other data, so we use what we have to make the best decision.

I don't know where you're getting that number from.

How often does villain have Jx vs. Ax? There are an equal number of combos if he plays every Jx and every Ax, but obviously he is far more likely to 3-bet A2-A7 than J2-J7.

Betting is pretty standard OOP river play AINEC.

I agree. I'd need a read to do anything else.

Nice hand.

I don't see this guy checking behind on the river with Ax. I think he bets a lot of worse hands, which is why I like checking the river.

+1 but only because we've kind of overrepped our hand.

+1

[Quite]CO has a 3-bet % of 32%. Obviously small sample size, but at that rate it should be 100% of his Ax hands.[/QUOTE]

+1

That's fine. Even if CO doesn't bet AK/AQ just a few times, we're saving money by not putting in bets while behind.

I thought we didn't get to "all Ax hands" until around 40%.

It's too much to assume that CO's 3-betting range in the worst possible position to be 3-betting is the number that you see on the display. This is like looking at a full ring game, seeing that villain has a 3-bet percentage of 20% and assuming that because villain is in UTG+2 and is 3-betting an UTG raiser that he's 3-betting 20% of his hands.

So I'm a little skeptical of reading the range in quite that way. If he's 3-betting 32% overall, I'd suspect that his CO 3-betting against UTG is in the mid 20s% and that his blind 3-betting is much higher. I could be wrong. He could be one who flats a ton from the blind. We don't know. But I think giving him the full 32% for this position is ambitious.

It's just from a convenient orifice. There's no useful calculation that can arrive at any number. The basic position is that calling a raise here is in the desperate hope that villain has turned some random hand into a bluff. I don't see any hand that accidentally value-raises worse than yours.

This is a fair point. But I think you're assuming far too much about villain's 3-betting range here.

I'm not going to argue strongly that my position is absolutely the best. If you think that villain 100% bets hands that are better and checks all hands that are worse, but would call (and not fold) with hands that are worse, and that you're getting raised on the river extremely rarely, bet-calling could well be best.

I think it's coming down to a more optimistic impression of what your opponent is going to do here.

So many posts in this thread!

Am interested to know the worst A you will raise utg at this table.