Hey guys, been away for a while, but finally back playing pretty regular. Wanted to get some opinions on a hand I recently was in.

9-Handed Table, I recently just sat down. I know half of the players and their styles. The main villain, I have never seen play, although I have seen him limp a few pots. (I have ~500, main villains has ~300)

Random player straddles UTG to $6, 1 fold, Villain calls $6, I look down at JJ and re-raise to $26. Thoughts? (Pretty standard I'd guess. These 1/3 games are pretty loose.)

Everyone folds back to the straddle who calls another $20, and the Villain also calls $20. I'm certain I'm far ahead and not against any very strong hands. Pot around $78.

Flop comes 10h-9c-2h. (I love the flop, although certainly has a fair share of draws for loose players) They both check to me. I bet $45 into $78ish (thoughts?)

The straddle villain folds, and the other player calls the $45. Unfortunately, I have no idea where he is at. He could have a 9 or 10, straight draw, or a flush draw.

Turn brings a 10d. The board reads 10h-9c-2h-10d. A pretty scary turn card, but also a major blank for a lot of draws. Villain checks. This is a spot where I often check back, but elected to bet $55 into a $168ish pot. I figured it would give me some decent information, but in hindsight, might also induce a bluff. The villain goes all in for $234. (Thoughts?) (I feel it's a really gross spot, because it's a perfect bluff card for a smart player on the draw)

You probably figured it out already, check turn. That's like the worst card in the deck for you after V continues on the flop.

I wouldn't assume a random V is CRAI a draw here on the turn after H bet/bet. AP fold.

$26 is a touch small pre-flop. Thinking more like $30.

Well, sure, the Td blanks some straight draws. But realize that with JJ, you block a ton of straight draws - like you block 50% of QJ and KJ (J8 if you think that's possible). Something to keep in mind.

On the turn, yeah, check back. The flop was great because you can get value from many different made hands and draws. When villain calls the flop, sure he can have a draw (though you do block a bunch of them), but he's also going to have Tx quite a bit, and that's really one of the key hands we're targeting.

As played, betting $55 into $168 is pretty meh. Not sure that you're going to accomplish anything with that. I disagree that the T is a great card to bluff (and you certainly can have plenty of Tx... probably more Tx than JJ+), and I don't expect most randoms to check/raise shove the turn as a bluff.

That all said, let's see.. you started the hand with 300 effective, and the pot is now 457, and it costs you 179 to call, so 457:179 = 2.6:1.

So just fold now. Calling is pretty bad. You need to be good ~28% of the time, and you're not. The fact that you block all those draws makes it an easier fold.

In fact, check out the effect of blocking here.

Here's you with JJ - there are 16 QJ combos, and you block 8 of them:

Board: Th 9c 2h Td
JJ: 19.729%
ATs,KTs,QTs+,JTs,ATo,KTo,QTo+,JTo: 80.271%

Here's you with JJ - this time, I manually eliminated all 16 QJ combos:

Board: Th 9c 2h Td
JJ: 4.221%
ATs,KTs,QTs,JTs,ATo,KTo,QTo,JTo: 95.779%

Here's you with KK - Since you don't hold a Q or J, there's no blocking effect:

Board: Th 9c 2h Td
KK: 35.382%
ATs,KTs,QTs+,JTs,ATo,KTo,QTo+,JTo: 64.618%

Finally, here's you with KK - again, I manually eliminated all QJ:

Board: Th 9c 2h Td
KK: 4.221%
ATs,KTs,QTs,JTs,ATo,KTo,QTo,JTo: 95.779%

Point is, KK and JJ are exactly the same, except to the extent that JJ blocks QJ. Maybe you could put some J8s or or 87 out there, but I think that's really a stretch.

And that all said, I don't really expect to see QJ here that often, either.

So it's a pretty easy fold.

Pre is OK, but could be a little more. Flop is good. If you think you are ahead, bet more on the turn to commit yourself. If not, easy check.

Your turn bet was so small, he could easily be bluffing, but who knows? As played, fold.

I think the turn bet is so small that it makes you look scared. But the move from villain could easily be made with a T because it's a large pot and a lot of villains will greatly fear the possibility that one of the draws will hit. So they will shove, hoping you fold so they can avoid the possibility of getting a bad beat.

Edit: Equity isn't good on the turn so yeah, check the turn. I'd bet it if I was playing but definitely not right now after I realized that our equity is worse than I thought.

What Willy said is spot on, good analysis.

A little more pre is to my liking. $32 is what I would do. In these kinds of games I always bet closer to the amount of the pot. Against good player, I don't expect this strategy to work, but it works well in these games. This is a draw heavy board, and bad villains don't like folding draws, so they are pretty much calling the flop no matter what if they do.

I'd bet closer to 60. On the turn I'd just check. Keep the pot small. The bet isn't big enough to get adequate value from a draw,and it opens you to a c/r which sucks.

As played ya gotta give it up. He is just bluffing too infrequently IMO to make it worth it.

A little bigger preflop would be good but a lot bigger on the flop, too. You bet 45 into 80 on a board with flush and straight draws. You have to figure any 6,7,8,J,Q,K,A might complete a straight or give someone a higher pair (or two pair) and hearts are bad, too. That's more than half the deck. OTF, I'd prefer more like a pot sized bet, maybe 75.
OTT, check behind. You can bluff catch a safe river but the top card pairing hits so much of your opponents' range that it's a rough card to bet. When you fire turn and get check raised, it typically means he ain't afraid of the ten. So he is either making a great bluff or he has a ten.
Your small turn bet may have emboldened V to try to take this pot away but you can't call a check raise here. Fold.

With limper having a $300 stack, I'd raise to $30+ (which is not outrageous at my 1/3 NL table on a straddle) so that we can stack off with an overpair postflop easily.

I'm not in love with the fact that we went 3way and for slightly cheaper than what I'd like, but the bottom line for me at this point is that we have an overpair on an extremely drawy board with and SPR of 3.5. This is not a situation where we should be playing 3 postflop streets which a small flop bet sets us up for, imo. My plan would be to bet large on the flop (~PSB) to setup a turn shove.

As played, gross spot on the turn. The board is so drawy that I'm not convinced many villains would risk just calling the flop with two pair+, or even not donking trips themselves on the turn. But we've also left ourselves in a very awkward stack size spot thanks to not planning the hand out preflop/flop (where we really should have left ourselves in an easy commitment spot here for < PSB on the turn). I still might even feel committed as played and just shove.

Gplanthehand,imoG

So if we check the turn, what's our plan for the river? If villain checks are we betting/how much or say he bets 120$ are we calling?

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Use position and reads to evaluate river to make a decision if we call a bet, bet for value, or check behind. All so dependent on river card and V

As played easy turn fold in a vacuum

I would much rather bet-fold the turn and check behind the river than check behind the turn and call a bet on the river. Notwithstanding the fact that we block some draws, there are a lot of other draws out there, and they're not too likely to bluff the river, but they'll go for a bet now. Against an unknown villain who limps a lot, I'm not going to let fear of a bluff c/r scare me out of betting.

I would bet a little more on the flop and on the turn though. The turn bet just needs to be big enough to discourage a river bet and not induce a bluff.

The flop SPR is 3.5. How big a river bet are we planning on leaving ourselves with?

(FWIW, I'm totally on board with bigger flop/turn bets... so that we're all-in by the turn)

GcluelessNLnoobG

Why are we betting turn ever here. You say because it's a draw heavy board but in order to value bet we need 50% equity or more vs whole continuing range. Saying he plays every Tx this way which seems reasonable I don't think there is any chance we have that. I think we are much better off checking behind and calling blank rivers since he can bluff all his draws thinking we C-bet gave up or he could try to value bet a 9 he would have folded to barrel.

We don't actually need 50% equity because we don't have the option to show down. If you're planning to call a river bet, I think you'll find that bet-folding the turn instead is a lot better. First off, you get to size the bet, which is huge. Second, you get better value/protection against draws, because all those draws have to either call a bet or fold. If you check, those draws will sometimes (maybe often), check/fold the river. A 9 probably folds to a turn bet, but it's pretty far-fetched to imagine a 9 bets the river either, so that's breakeven. The only real reason to check the turn is if you are afraid of a bluff or semibluff c/r, but I see no reason to believe that's the case.

If you want to argue that you should check and fold the river to a sizable bet, that's reasonable, but I think you can profitably freeze the action and get to showdown by making a moderate bet on the turn.

Playing at the table right now so only doing a quick response will do a more complete one later, but in terms of you saying a value bet doesn't need 50% that's entirely wrong. If his continuing range his 51% vs us he makes .01 for every dollar added to pot on turn and we lose .01. In that case then we are betting as a bluff because him folding is a better more profitable result

I think given the size of the pot, there's a decent chance that V comes out betting OTR no matter what our turn bet was. And we don't know if he's doing it with Tx or a missed draw. You'd think Tx would c/r OTT but who knows what's going on in the mind of a trappy fish. Also, he knows that our range is mostly capped at overpairs with that preflop squeeze so there should not be many Tx in our range barring reads/history/our play style.

The turn bet is just bloating the pot and making the river more complicated IMO.

i agree it makes river more complicated and narrows villians range as well

although i do think i need bet fold more often in these spots because i hate missing value against draws and im super interested in this turn discussion, it seems to me a check back in this particular spot and river bluff catch is better

one big reason is that villian often folds a pair of 9s and even lower pairs to a sizable turn bet, but often value bets it into us on river once we check turn

hence narrowing villians range versus keeping it wider when faced with such bad turns

what are we doing when we take the bet fold turn line and we are called and villians leads river into us, on many river cards we are in a pretty tough spot and in a bigger pot and likely have to fold

its also very important to remember that when we take the check turn and bluff catch river line we can still easily fold to bigger bets, and most of the hands that we lose to will be sized bigger

i think a better card for a bet.fold line on turn is an overcard, which is specifically what i mean when i say i need to bet.fold more often in similar spots, i check back and bluff catch rivers too often i think when overcards turn

im also still worried about missing value from draws but i think its a necessary sacrifice on such bad turn cards in order to keep villians range wider and pot smaller so we can use our SDV

to restate this, i dont think checking back is better because i want to preserve our SDV, (i think charging draws is more important and villians will almost never c/r bluff)

but im super worried about putting ourselves in tough spots on rivers when our bet.fold is called and we are led into on river

The pot is around 210 on the turn, and the Villain has a little more than a pot-sized bet remaining. I don't think it makes sense to bet-fold at this point. It you're committed to the hand, and choose to bet, then bet 2/3rd pot or shove, otherwise check.

Don't bet about 1/4 pot and then fold.