Very little history leading up to the hand in question: Hero has been at table for one orbit, attempted to squeeze AQss from SB over Villain min-raise of straddle, Villain called 109ss IP, Hero c/f flop, Villain value bet 1/3 pot having flopped the nut straight HU against another player, checked turn through, and called a 1/5 pot bet on the end with a possible flush and paired board. So obviously pretty cautious, possibly weak-tight but with a loose preflop calling range.

The hand:

Hero is at ~480, Villain ~600

UTG limps, Hero in 3-seat UTG+1 raises 16 with 99, HJ call, SB call, Villain in BB call, folds to UTG who calls.

Flop: (90) Q7Q

UTG check, Hero cbet 75, folds to Villain who calls, UTG fold.

Turn (HU 240): A

Hero leads for 150, Villain thinks, calls.

River (540): 2

Hero all-in for 138...

Thoughts on all streets appreciated.

Ok so I think your line would be a little better if your bet sizing is better; i believe it is a profitable bluff overall but its kind of hard for him to put you on a hand because your story is basically AA or a bluff. No way he can put you on a flush based on your UTG raise and 2nd barrel. Are you really betting KK with K of diamonds that way? no pot control. It is more believing if you lead out 60 then like 90, not so huge on turn. Here in most cases you either have an absolute monster AQ or AA, or huge bluff, in which if he has doubt he should call with any Q. This is just my opinion. That way your bet sizing on the river can become 150 after 60 on flop then 90 on turn. This would make any decent player muck a Q or a non nut flush for sure

EDIT: the river would be close to 180 bet instead of a smaller river bet

3 street bluff
Very little history
One orbit

The first shouldn't be going with the second and third. Pretty hard to see what he'd call a $150 bet on the turn that he's going to fold on the river to a $138 getting nearly 5:1. If you won or he folded, you got real lucky.

Preflop: I'll often/usually raise 99 also, but if you're in the sort of game where you can expect 5 players to see the flop after you raise from EP there's no point in bloating the pot out of position with a hand that will usually flop 2nd pair. This is especially true when you only make it 4XBB and everyone at the table knows they can count on UTG calling.

Flop: As played, I would bet also, but I think $50 is much better than $75. This flop is as dry as a flop with a 2 suited cards can be. If raised you can only beat bluffs, and you probably don't have enough info on your opponents yet to start picking people off. The post-rake pot should be $80, so $50 should be enough to get out all the hands that $75 gets out, but it allows you to save $25 when someone comes over the top of you. It's also slightly more scary to your opponents since very few people who flop trip Qs with a big kicker come out blasting for essentially pot sized bets.

Turn: When your opponent calls the flop he's representing a Q, 77, a flush draw, or maybe TT-88. Also, the rare times he's floating you the A looks scary to him because he'll often figure you just hit top pair. If you bet, the only hand better than yours that you fold out is TT. Furthermore, the hands that are worse than yours probably won't launch a river bluff because of what's on the board. Checking behind is the better play.

River: The 2 is normally a strong enough scare card to get a Q to fold if you bet, but since you made the pot big on all previous streets it will be harder to make your opponent fold a Q when he's getting 5: 1. As played, I'd probably make the bluff anyway, but it would be far more effective if you were betting $138 into a $180 pot instead of a $540 pot.

Just my opinion...

If your starting stack is really around 480 with villain covering, then didn't you mean 238 instead of 138 for your river shove?

It's certainly a better bet size if that's the case.

Starting stack size should read 380 - that's a mistake. Thanks for the advice on bet-sizing, all.

Obviously the flop cbet on this board is fine, and I know we all like to 2barrel the turn ace but I think this is an exception to that rule since a) it finishes the flush and b) a lot of what we're up against is actually hoping we turned the ace since they have a queen. Check-fold turn imo, time to give up and move to the next hand.

As played I actually think I like the river bet, villain will puke-fold 3/4 of his QK-QJ range here, which is I think just enough to justify the desperation bluff. This is one of those spots where the great pot odds we offer our opponent actually works to our advantage, since a possibly weak-tight villain isn't thinking about pot odds, just about how that $138 is still enough to buy something for his wife that will get him laid, and won't see how we could *possibly* bet here without a boat or big diamond. I also do kinda like what it does for our image.

River bluff is bad because its not a big enough bet. I'd certainly make a "crying call" with Q-X here and no flush if I were villain. Would probably call w/ A-X no flush.

Flop bet is fine, but you don't need to bet so big. I agree that we need to give up on the turn. If we are ahead, he'll check the hand down and we'll win.

Projection. It doesn't really matter what you would do, only what villain would do.

I think ideally we would shut it down on the turn. The flush plus the ace makes me think theres not much were beating and even less that are ahead and are gonna fold.

I do think after you bet the turn you have to bluff the river when the fourth diamond hits. I think its very hard for villian, despite getting 5-1, to call off ~$140 w/o a diamond or obviously a full house.

After you bet three streets and end up allin, hes going to start thinking about everything that beats him. I think you get a fold enough of the time that this is the best river action.

So generally the best course of action would be to decrease the flop cbet by about 1/3, and if called, c/f turn. Thanks for your analysis all.

Incidentally this is not the first time I've found myself in a river situation where the only possible scenario in which I drag the pot is sticking it in hoping that I've got (any of) the FE needed.

My follow-up question is: what is the leak leading up to this type of situation, and how do I curb it so that I don't find myself in similar circumstances again? I'm assuming it's finding an optimal cbet size that doesn't commit me to this type of multi-barrel bluff.

The leak is - and this will sound obvious, but I don't mean it quite like that - probably an incomplete analysis of why we followed through with the second barrel. I'm assuming your justification is at least as thorough as, the turn was an ace.

Aces (and kings and to a lesser extent queens) are generally good cards to fire a second barrel on, because poor players (most of LLSNL frankly) are often peeling off one street with one pair trash and will now believe that, if you were bluffing on the flop, there's a good chance you caught up on the turn and will give up. Problem is, that doesn't hold water here because a lot of what was peeling you off here does not care if you made contact with the ace, and in fact is hoping for it. He might have been trapping/peeling having flopped trips, and he might have been chasing diamonds, neither of which is folding. Accept that it's a bad card and just give up. Save your double (and triple) barrel bluffs for better spots (and frankly use them at LLSNL only with extreme caution to begin with).

I'm curious as to results.

I don't like it for Same reasons as above

That makes a lot of sense - I guess I thought I was betting a scare card when in reality it wasn't.

For Shaffer: the hand ended really weird - Villain thought for about 3 min and folded J10 face up after asking me whether I'd show - I said yes - he put me on AQ (according to him). I guess he was just drunk, or maybe planning to CRAI the turn and decided calling was a better option(?).

Needless to say I got some action from then on.

lmao you actually had the best hand until river. what a joke

OMG he said "I put you on AQ", then CALLED TURN!?

Bahahahahahaha. That is so unspeakably awesome.

I'm always harping on not projecting, and putting yourself into your opponents' heads, but in this case I think I'll make an exception as I don't want to cause any permanent damage.

ETA: I *really* hope you made yourself a mental "Do not bluff, ever ever EVER!" tag for this particular opponent.

Am i the only one that thinks cbetting into 5 ppl is really bad here since its not that hard for them to have a Q... I think the turn barrel was pretty bad to because almost every float just hit...Ax, flush draws and obviously Qx is possible. On the river i dont think u have much choice other than fire but as ppl have already stated it wouldve been better if u had more behind.

Turn is spew. Obviously we discovered villain is a spazz but we didn't konw that at the time. Therefore we are bluffing the turn. Can you think of better hands that fold? Hardly any. It is a completely pointless bet without reads on villain. River is just throwing good money after bad. Villains who flat that turn with those stacks are often full or have kxdd, and the ones who have qx are rarely folding.

Also what others said about flop sizing is true.

Haha awesome results.

On turn, I don't think this is a good bluffing spot since trips will probably go ahead and call one bet and re-evaluate river a ton of the time. A random is just too excited about his hand to fold to 1 bet here, even if it commits him (which he may or may not realize at the time). Not often getting a fold here.

River I don't know. This actually might be a profitable bluff since it has to work so rarely for you to turn a profit. With a lot behind, you can get some-what decent players to fold a Q. Conservative players will lay down to the small bet (stacks as played) with no diamond.

Really close on river as played. It will be tough to tell whether you get enough folds for profit. I would guess yes, but high variance.

Again, best results ever and you probably just about never get a fold from this hand when it magically appears in villain's hands on the river.

So bad.. calls turn to fold his 10 high flush with Ad Qd on board after OP led out on the Ad, this makes no sense. IF! IF anything you have AJd, but really, 10 high flush in this spot is good more than half of the time, after calling turn he had to call the river if the diamond hits, but he shouldn't have called the turn in the first place. OP got lucky, very lucky.