Button: Young asian guy joined table from broken 2/5 table. Seems to know everyone in the room. Tagged as sociable regular.

Sb: Middle aged white guy sitting with 450ish stack seems to play a very basic abc game. Doesn't seem to put other players on a hand and seems to get married to his hands often.Betting large when he has a good hand.

Button has a $250 stack and sb has $450 stack

3 players limp to to the button who raises to $7, sb reraises to $21, action folds around button calls.

Flop QJ2 rainbow.
Sb bets $20 button calls.

Turn comes 9 and the sb bets $35 button calls.

River comes another 9, no flush possiblity on board.
Sb bets $80,and button shoves for $174 and sb snap calls.
Button shows Q9 suited and sb shows T8o.

We agree that the call on the river was not very good. My friend and I don't think we would ever call the shove on that river in that spot,
but, was his bet there bad when a second 9 came on the river? We have different opinions on this situation where betting a straight for value might be situational.

I think that betting there for value might be thin because there are not many hands that we beat with the straight that would call on this river.
There are a few hands that may call a small bet on the river, such as QJ. All the other hands that would call are beating us. Such hands include the
higher end straight with K10, JJ,and possibly J9s. However, I feel that if we had K10, betting here on the river, although still marginal, can be argued,
"good" value. I feel that if checked, and face a bet, its ok to call to showdown or fold to a shove.

My friend thinks that if he was in that position, he would still bet the river for value from hands like AQ, KQ,T9,9X. This is because these hands would
never believe that I would have hit the 9 on the turn and a 9 on the river. Maybe even KJ and AJ, because they would be thrown off by my bet on river,
even though the running 9s have come out. For those hands my play looks bluffy and unrepresented, and may get calls from those hands. If facing a
re-raise, from players like the button, it is an easy fold on the river.

What do you guys think about this debate. Should you bet when the board pairs with a straight or a flush with such board texture and preflop play? How would you play this hand differently?

I don't think I would categorize someone as an "abc player" when they three bet T8o from the SB.

Players don't fold top pair type hands. You really need to make thin value bets to maximize your winrate. Betting with a straight on this board isn't even thin. A better example of a thin value bet would be betting AQ to get value from Qx.


BTW, LMAO @ the hand history.

Need more thoughts please .........

Sb bet way too small OTT, under half pot once he hit gin and BTN has already called a street.

QJ/KQ/AQ are still firmly in BTNs range, maybe 9Ts if it called pre. Very few sets are in his range, as they would likely have raised at some point, so the only hands we lose to are an unlikely Q9 or J9 that called the three bet pre. If I have a straight OTR I am always betting it for value here. Depending on reads, I might even be calling the shove. It's only $94 more and the pot will be $500. We only need to be good 19% of the time for the call to be profitable.

Of course, I would have bet at least $60 OTT, so pot OTR would have already been $200 and my river bet would have been a less than PSB shove.

Easy call on the river. T9/K9/98 are all in button's range, and we're getting close to 4:1.

What makes it even more of a call is $7 pre after a few limpers is usually not QQ/JJ, unless you have a special read on the person. Often it's something speculative, like a mid- or small pair or some suited connectors/Broadway type cards, maybe a suited ace. I also sometimes see these small raises with AQ and even AK, especially from older guys, but almost never see them with JJ+. His shipping range on the river is probably something like KT,Q9s,J9s,T9s,K9s,98s,99,22. We definitely have to call against that range, even if button is never bluffing.

SB has to bet river for value, because button gets to the river with all kinds of hands that a straight still beats -- KQ, AJ, KJ, possibly AQ (discounted bc of preflop $7), QT/JT, maybe TT, and K9/T9/89. BT could put SB on AK/AT that missed, and call with his whole range here.

One of the unwritten rules of 2+2 is that you don't bump your own threads to keep them at the top of the forum page. If your thread doesn't generate much interest, there's typically a good reason. In addition, more does not equal better.

As said above, no abc player is 3betting T8o and chasing a gut shot draw on the flop. Someone calling a 3bet at 1/2 with Q9 is burning money. You can't have a decent debate about the river when you don't have a good read on the players.

B/calling the river here totally normal vs a lot of opponents, especially if they have adjusted for his erratic? Style