5 limps, Tight H raises JJ $30 in SB, V in EP drunk but good-ish player and LP fish call

Flop ($100): T74dsc
H bets $45, V calls, LP folds

Turn ($190): 7s
H checks, V bets $100, H calls

River ($390): Ad
H checks, V bets $200, H ?

Bet turn here.


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You say he is good ish, but what does that say for his bluffing frequency or perceived post flop aggression from your time spent observing him to this point? I would lean towards call if he is the type that would bluff scare cards. But I would have to have strong evidence that he is aggressive post flop since there plenty of Ax hands calling flop if he is loose.

He was the "all talk" type who would keep saying that he's going to push all in every hand, shove and not give a f*** and bluff off his chips etc., but he was just limping mostly and playing decent overall. I saw him bluff only once in 3-4 hours where he bet flop big with middle pair bad kicker into 2-3 players and called a shove for a few more chips saying he'll get lucky. Besides that, I don't remember anything else.

I generally would but I wanted to add a bit of deception/look like AK that missed.

Your hand is not strong enough for deception. Bet/fold all 3 streets, imo.

Bet an A river?

Yup, if we had bet the turn.

I am having a tough time coming up with bluffs for him considering the action. The OESD's are even less likely because they had to call the big raise pre (and he was first to call). And as you pointed out, your turn check makes it look like AK-AJ that missed, but then it comes up on the river. I don't see him flatting on the flop with any hands that aren't complete by the river. I feel like there are zero bluffs here. Maybe 99 or 88 that decided to turn into a bluff based on your actions, but there are trips, boats, and Ax hands as well.

And as far as line check goes I agree with others to lead turn. As played check raise on flop could also be more profitable than check call if he is willing to fold top pair, especially considering an overcard is likely to kill action on the river when you are up against a T anyways.

I meant to say x/raise on turn. Flop play is fine though I probably bet closer to 65/70

Yes the A means nothing on this runout


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OTT being that villian is a good ish player what do you perceive his ranges at this point? Given that v is drunk I like the half size pot bet on flop and ott to pot control. Since its harder to bet a drunkard off the hand , v could have easily float the flop that turn his hand into a fd with the As. AP, I, would shoot out a blocking bet little under 1/3 pot and fold to a large 3bet. He's mostly to suck out on you with a call

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Line looks fine to me and I'm check calling two streets. Villain's bluff range is thin but so is his value range. Give him {TT,77,44,A7s,98s,87s,76s,65s} and we're good 40% of the time OTR. There are other random bluffs he can have as well - he can have called the flop with various gutshot + backdoor hands, stuff like J9s.

It does depend what you mean by "good-ish". For me, limping in EP then calling a raise is a pocket pair like 100% of the time, because those are the only hands it really makes sense to do that with.

This is definitely too passive on the turn. I utilize that second 7 as my chance to either lead strong or XR strong. It is very dubious for villain to have a better pair than hero on the turn as QQ+ likely 4-bets us preflop. How many 7's is villain honestly having in his EP flatting range to heroes preflop 3-bet to 30 as first caller? Basically zero.

JT (two blockers so unlikely),KT,QT,AT all suited combos are in villains range for this action. Thus, at point of the turn if we lead strong and get a call we likely go XX river, or if we go for a cute XR on the turn to say 250-300ish. Hero Almost always takes this down on the turn. We don't want to just call the villain 100 on turn since all of villains possible T's get one more card to make a better two pair than our JJ77 or BDFD come through. The XR is def my favorite play here overall on the turn for the exact reason that you need to ask what villains 100 bet on turn means from villains perspective. That bet does not represent a boat almost ever on a board this relatively dry. Here is why. IF villain just turned a boat TTT77 or 44477 why would villain bet here when a flush draw just opened up for his opponent to possibly hit. Villain with a boat on turn definitely checks back turn hoping his opponent can make a better hand to extract value from on river. We already said we aren't worried about villain having a 7. Villain doesn't have a boat. Villain doesn't have QQ+. So that leaves AT, KT, QT especially those who picked up a flush draw. They bet the turn to scoop the pot there or build it more if draw comes through. Should we call turn bet (we did) and miss our draw we can check check our top pair, or if we hit a higher two pair consider betting since hero from villain's perspective does not have a 7 ever either.

What happened on river? Ace hits and now we are in a **** spot where our two pair may have just been counterfeited to any A... Or villain could have turned his bricked draw into a bluff since our range now on the river looks EXACTLY like what hero has in a medium strong pocket pair of 88-JJ where villain can push hero off 3 out of 4 of those hands (not TT obviously but villain will hope for the best)

Villain was allowed too many options by hero. Real bad spot here.

Just too a shower and stewed more on this one, I really enjoyed this, and honestly... I feel like hero makes the call here and is good.
We really only lose to a double float by AK and AQ that had BD spades... and AT not floating that made two pair on river. Wish I knew if hero had J spades or not.

I unerstand I was pessimistic earlier in the post but for some reason I don't see villain betting that heavy with two pair aces up. And the action doesn't make sense for a boat which i suppose now on the river is more possible, but I feel like JT, 9T, 99,66 or 89 combos with flush and straight draws could pull this ****.

I hate this, but for some reason that bet on river doesn't add up to me. How much does villain have behind? It is half pot, but it is a large bet on a paired board, where villain likely doesn't have two pair now, and if villain did why would he bet? Villain only gets calls from monsters that murder him?

Something doesn't add up and I think crying call is right and we win vs 99, JT, 89 a lot here... Just don't know why villain would bet his ace at that point thinking that 200 on river gets called by anything worse than a set?

Who knows I'm prob way off lol

Anyway XR turn to 250-300 depending how much is behind maybe even just push

Good analysis, but I hate reading too much into bet sizing unless hero has been paying attention and has picked up a villain specific betting pattern because at these limits villains make bad value sized bets all the time. Agree we have basically conceded the pot and turned our hand up by our turn and river actions giving any decent player all the reason in the world to work up the courage for a bluff on the river.

RESULTS:

So.. I figured his $200 bet OTR was polarized to 7x or nothing.. I felt like he had some straight draws in his range that might bluff.. but I hated the fact that the A OTR may have discouraged him from bluffing again as my hand might have looked like AK/AQ. Btw, I don't understand how you guys like c/r turn, it's just bad as you're never getting called by worse and end up getting owned if V has 7x.

Anyways, I still called and V showed 87s.

The reason why myself and others think x/raise turn is more +EV than x/call is for equity denial purposes when we are still ahead, which we are for a huge portion of villains range on this turn. Plus if he is loose enough he could still be tempted to call with worse hands such as OESD or AT.

He's not calling with AT and J outs are dirty. Only a 6 gives him the straight.

Okay, so even knowing he will not be bad enough to call with AT, you are still trying to fade any A, K, Q, T, 6 for cards he could improve or bluff, this is why I'd prefer to x/raise for protection while we are still very likely ahead and avoid tricky river spots. Less likely he bluffs you with a worse hand on the river too, IMO, so if he bets the ace it makes it an easier fold. Just my thoughts

Yeah this, V3ttz3ao's post is basically advocating forcing villain off his hand.

The 7 is a much better card for villain's range than for ours, that argues for a bluffcatching strategy rather than a value betting/bluffing strategy. The only way betting would make sense is as part of a balanced strategy where we also continue to bet a bunch of unpaired stuff like AK. I'm not that excited about continuing to fire without any pairs here, which means I need to play at least some good hands as checks as well.

It's hard for him to have more than about 5 outs, which gives him about a 1 in 9 chance of improving the river. This means that at best you are protecting 1/9th of the pot, and to achieve this you are using a giant x/r which you could easily be ramming right into trip 7s or a boat.

Equity denial can be a factor in decision making but under normal circumstances in a heads up pot in NLHE, it is never a reason by itself to do anything.

The problem is that what you mean by "avoiding tricky river spots" is ensuring that your opponent never has any opportunity to bluff by trying to blast him off his hand instead, this means you get all the fun of losing a ton of cash when he has trip 7s or better and get nothing from him when he has nothing.

Okay, so the x/raise on turn vs x/call EV wise is probably closer than I think... But I think anyone would agree that leading the turn is the best of the 3 options if we are discussing a line check, we are losing out on value from lots of the villains range that called our flop bet and is still behind (top pair, OESD). I think it puts us in a spot where we are calling river bets way too wide when we go check/call/check from the turn on for any of the scare cards I mentioned... Because against many villains they could take the opportunity to bluff them and at the same time river cards like the A also pulled his range into the lead or close to it. Interested to see what range software thinks in this spot. Overall, I like betting when I'm 80% sure we're ahead vs calling a river bet when our pot odds match our likelihood of having the best hand.

Bet turn, bet river is a reasonable line as well. My issues with it are:

- Value is getting pretty thin if we try for two more streets. Something like this: { 77,44,ATs,A7s,97s,87s,76s,ATo }, JJ is just 50% against OTR (on a blank river), so there is no value. If I'm playing JJ by betting turn, then what does it mean when I check? It's going to mean that my hand is face up as no pairs. But the fact that there's barely any value for JJ OTR means that I'm not thrilled about adding bluff hands into my betting range and thereby weakening it. This is all a complicated restatement of the fact that the turn card was good for his range and not for ours.

- Against decent opposition, barreling into cards that improve their range and not ours is asking to be bluff raised. It's near impossible for us to have a very strong hand on this turn (TT and that's it) while it's very possible for him. By raising he can threaten us with having to put all our chips in miles behind, while that threat does not exist for him because our range is capped.