I've seen this villain pull the free card play from the button twice, and I've seen him checkraise to protect his hand/build a pot/whatever. He raises strong hands preflop and seems to be positionally aware. He limps prelop a little too often for my taste, especially in late position, but whatever.

4 limps including villain on the button. SB folds, I raise AKs in the BB, everybody calls.

10.5sb, 5 players, Flop A87tt none of my suit. I bet right out. 2 callers and villain raises.

This is a CLEAR 3-bet against a villain who has shown the ability to raise draws on boards like these, yes? He could easily have a flush or straight draw, and if he flopped a set or a two pair good hand.

As played I 3-bet. callers folded, BTN just called.

9BB, 2 players, turn is a 2 of a 3rd suit.

CLEAR bet here, yes?

As played I bet and he just called.

11BB, 2 players, river offsuit 9.

I feel like check-call is the right play here - his most likely holding is a busted flush draw that's not going to call a bet. The hands that improved to beat me plus hands that were ahead of me outnumber the worse hands that would call a bet (really, what worse hands that would raise the flop are calling here, AQ-AT, maybe? Really, what else? He's not crazy enough to raise KK through TT on that flop. Give him a chance to bluff his busted flush draw or show down whatever monster he caught to pull ahead of me.

Thoughts?
Thanks
DTXCF

I think you have played it standard up to the river. I think you should bet. Your hand is way too strong to turn into a bluff catcher. Give him a chance to make a thin call in what is now a big pot. He may have paired up the 9. He may have weaker A's. I think he is gonna call more hands than he is gonna bluff with in this big pot. I find people don't bluff as much as you think they would with busted draws especially after all the strength you have shown.

Bet the river.

It’s 4/8 and villain limped along on the BTN. He can have AQ-AT like you mentioned, but he can also have A6-A2 and 9T just made a pair.

It’s important to note the suits if the cards. If the A and 7 are the same suit, villain may have K8s-T8s, 86s, and 85s of that suit and raised the flop because a pair and a flush draw have a lot of equity.

Consider the hands you beat that will call and if there are more than the hands to which you lose, bet. It’s a combo counting exercise.

Very villain dependant IMO. If he is competent and respects your game, it seems unlikely that he will call with less than a pair of aces. And I agree that he's way more likely to have a busted draw than a hand that will pay you off.

This being the case doesn’t mean we should check.

It doesn't NECESSARILY mean we should check but it opens up the possibility that check-calling a bluff is worth more than a value bet.

That being said, I doubt that that is the case - we have exactly what people think we have, he's not going to expect us to fold what he expects is TPTK/TPGK. I predict he's not going to bluff often enough to outweigh the times he calls with AX.

I think it does, unless you feel comfortable with bet-folding. If you think he's bluffing enough that you need to bet-call, I think check-calling is better.

I disagree with this. The frequency of getting raised on the river here is so small that the missed value from value bets is going to swamp the times that you end up paying off a rivered two pair or something like that.

Also:

It's a clear 3-bet against basically everyone. Only against the nittiest of players would I even think about just calling.

The number of combos that fold to our bet are immaterial. What only matters is that the number of combos that beat us that call (or raise) our bet are fewer than then number of combos that we beat that call.

That is true. What I should have said, and also believe, is that the number of hands that beat you and call or raise you on the river here is fewer than the number that pay you off.

What do you think villain's range is after he calls the turn bet? I would think that there's only around a dozen hands that beat us, but there are plenty of weaker aces that can call.

I might even think that T9s pays off with one pair on the river in a big pot.

I think on the river he has lots of missed draws and lower pairs, a decent number of straights and 2 pairs, and a few weaker paired aces. I think sometimes he will bet the paired aces when checked to so you won't always miss value by checking.

I want to try this again:

I think it's plausible that you're over-weighting straights on the river because you see the 3-straight. In order for that to be the case, he would need to be raising the flop with JT (which seems implausible to me), or would be playing T6 or 65 preflop (both seem pretty unlikely).

I know you asked what he has on the turn but that's not where our decision point is. I agree JT is unlikely, unless it was with a flush draw. I don't think 65 is unlikely.

We are always left in all situations with various types of assumptions about how to assess the situation. But I would say that if the hands aren't in the turn range, they aren't in the river range.

Given the action up to the turn call, I think JT, T6, and 65 are all unlikely, so I conclude that it is unlikely that there are any straights in his range. I would also disagree that there are many two pair hands in his range given that he didn't raise the turn.

So I don't think it's likely to be true that he has "a decent number of straights and 2 pairs" in his range at the decision point.

Why do you think 65 is impossible? I would play 65s in villain's spot, and I'm the tightest player in most 4/8 games. I don't play it off suit but most 4/8 players do.

A9 and 98 are certainly decent possibilities as well, and AQ, AJ, and AT will possibly bet the river for us if we check. Aces with worse kickers will likely check behind and probably would have paid us off, but I don't think many of those raise the flop.

The flop raise plus player read weights his holdings toward draws and aces with good kickers.

I didn't say it was impossible. I said it was unlikely. But even if you include all combinations of 65s, that's only 4 possibilities. That's still not that many to be worried about.

Maybe. I'd expect two pair hands to give us more action here. Are you counting all combos of A9 or just A9s? You could have as few as two combos of A9s or as many as six combos of A9 (two available aces and three available nines). That's still not that many hands.

The same thoughts go in for 98. Suited? 2-3 combos. Unsuited? 9 combos. There still aren't tons of combinations.

Possibly. Or possibly they check through. An estimate for this would be good for evaluating the position. I tend to think that after being 3-bet on the flop, these hands end up checking through more often than they bet, especially given that the river is a scary-looking card.

If we look at AQ/AJ/AT, there are 8 combos of each. That makes 24 combos of hands that you beat that you expect to call your river bet.

For the hands that beat you, if you take all the hands listed above, it's only 19 combos. If you scale that back in any way, it's just going to get smaller.

Maybe. Maybe not. Even going with a 50-50 shot increases the number of hands that you'll be missing value from if you check.

I don't agree, but you're free to take whatever assumptions you want. I would just encourage you to do the exercise of actually listing the ranges and combos to see how this weighting really looks.

It’s presumptuous to expect a 4/8 player to bet AQ-AT on the river after we’ve shown such strength on previous streets. 4/8 players aren’t known for getting thin value on the river, rather they’re known for missing obvious value by checking behind. My presumption is that villain will check behind AJ and worse, but will call a bet with all Ax and will just call with all their two pair. This makes it a pretty easy b/f as I don’t think it’s likely this villain will ever be raising worse on the river.

A9 and 98 wouldn't have given more action when they didn't make two pair until the river.

I don't mind bet / fold here if you can do that comfortably with player read, as I said earlier. I think check call is better than bet call versus almost everyone though.

Sorry. I was thinking 87 and A8. But if you think 98 is raising the flop, then there is likely a ton more flop raising hands.

I disagree. The missed value is huge and the frequency of being raised on the river is small.

Let's say that villain is calling with AQ-AT (24 combos), and calling with A9/98s (9 combos) and raising with 65s (4 combos). We will win 24 bets and lose 17 bets (9 times we lose one bet, 4 times we lose two bets) for a net gain of 7 bets.

What happens when we check? If he bets all of his straights and two pairs, we lose 13 bets. This means that in order for check-calling to be better, we need him to bet 20 hands worse than ours. AQ and AJ only makes 16 combos. So that's not enough for this to be a check-call.

And the analysis above doesn't even take into consideration that villain can easily be calling with worse aces and maybe even other flush draw hands that found a pair somewhere.

I would save check-call for top pair hands for only the most aggressive of opponents. He needs to have a legitimate bluffing frequency before that starts to pay off because the missed value is huge.

Well I think he will bluff sometimes when checked to also. He seems aggressive for a 4/8 player. Seems he would have at least 4 bluffs from his large combos of missed draws.

This is grasping at straws. 4 combos of bluffs that might bet isn’t enough to make check/call better than b/f.

Just addressing Aaron's numbers. I think it would be more than that really.

Your position is a mixture of curiously optimistic (he will definitely bluff a lot) and curiously pessimistic (he's not going to pay off with lots of pairs).

He seems like the type of player who bets more than he calls from the OP read.