1/2, 9 handed, three hours into the session. Hero is TAG and a big winner in the room, villain knows it. Villain is a solid LAG, though a little bit tighter than the traditional LAG, 2/5 is his normal game, where I hear he is a small winner. $600 effective.

OTTH

Villain limps UTG, hero makes it $15 UTG +2 with A K and only villain calls.

Flop ($33): A 7 5. Villain checks, hero bets $20 and villain calls.

Turn ($73): T. Villain checks, hero bets $50 and villain calls.

River ($173): 2. Villain checks and hero bets $70. I wanted to go for a small value bet to ensure I get value from an A or a hand trying to hero me on the missed flush draw. It's hard to think we're ever behind here, and villain might see my bet as weakness and raise/raise with a missed flush draw.

Is this line fine, or are we supposed to go for the polarized overbet here on the river?

If villain is actually solid you need to check behind on the river a good portion of the time. A good LAG will be calling you down sometimes with two pair/sets because you hand looks a lot like a good AX. It's a good situation for him to let you value own yourself.

That said, if you think villain's range is mostly whiffed draw then the small bet looks good. It's hard for villain to have any showdown value if he was on a draw so trying to get him to call with weak single pairs or bluff raise makes sense. He won't have enough hands that can incorrectly hero call for a big bet to be good.

I’m a fan of sizing up and sizing down like you did. If villain is making exploitable folds, this is a good way to exploit it when you have like J9cc or 98s


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk