2/2 game is standard limpy passive pre. Only V and Hero are thinking players.

V1 standard bad reg, early 30s, arab, loosing passive limp caller, SB, 260

V2, late 20s, overweight. pretty good, thinking player. Claims he played higher, which I believe. ALways sits super deep, but never wants to play 2/4 or smtg, which leads me to believe that he lost in those games. Always has a tablet with him and watches shows and films once he gets bored. Have seen him about 20 times in the casino and he is definitely a winner over that time period. Always button straddles and almost always defends his straddle (heads up close to 100%). Really likes to see flops in position. Plays draws aggressively, and had to show Ahigh and Khigh a few times in session. Stack 600

Hero, white, late 20s, big beard. Raised a few hands in p to iso and took most down with a cbet. Stack 400

No real hand history between us, but he has seen me in a few winning sessions and the looks and comments seem to lean towards him respecting my game.

(Table 7 handed) Btn Straddle 4, V1 and BB call, Hero raises KQ 20 utg, V2 calls in BTN, V1 calls.

Flop 64
934
V1 checks, Hero bets 38, V2 calls, V1 folds.

Turn 130
9343
Hero bets 64, V2 thinks for 20 secs and calls.

River 278
93433
Hero checks, V2 thinks 30 secs and bets 52, Hero?

Can we raise here and make him fold his pps and 9x?
From my perspective this is such a good card if I have TT-AA, that check raising is a viable option to make more money rather then just betting.
A raise to 200-216?

As a rule, trying to get people to fold a full house is rarely a good play and unlikely to work often.
While the check/raise OTR is rarely a bluff rule may work in your favor. I'm just not ever counting on people folding a full house.

If you think he has air in his range then a raise wouldn't even be great as your K high beats all air but A high. Tough to put him on exactly A high in this scenario imo. Looks like 9x to me. Which I'm not trying to fold out. Unless my image is just super nit.

I like a shove here. V has a lot of 9s and draws in his range by river and very few hands better than a 9. You are repping a value hand that slowed down when all draws miss to give him a chance to bluff and are now going for max value against a possible small boat. With his small bet I think he is trying to get thin value with a 9 against a possible A high or under pair.

He should never be calling this shove without 44 or a 3 so I think a shove makes sense.

A corollary to Zeebo's theorem is:

Do not try and bluff anyone that you suspect has a full house.

However, if you feel you must (and I would NOT recommend it), you really are gonna hafta make it look like you want a call. Click it back to 104, and hope he really, really, really respects your game....

True to your username I suppose.

But your reasoning is flawed imho. I guess where we differ is I believe he calls with a 9 and you believe he does not.

A raise here does not serve as a value bet or a great bluff. He maaaybe folds 55-88 (which he maybe wouldn't even bet here if he wouldn't call a raise).But even that's not a given. If you put him on a draw then just call.

It basically comes down to your read on the villain. Hero indicated that he is a thinking player, someone who has played a bit with hero and understands poker. The idea that people never fold full houses is primarily a rule to deal with the 'average' poker player, that is to say a fish. That does not seem to be the V here.

The best way to think about it is could you get away from a 9 here given a river shove? I can't see myself calling with a 9 here because I know people are never check shoving rivers as bluffs and I understand that hero's range is stronger than Villain's, so as a thinking V I can get away from the hand. If you were playing with a rec fish this would be suicidal of course, but that's not the situation we face.

Calling is the worst of all options. First because his bet on the river looks super valuey and it is tough to see him taking that line with a complete bluff. It gets looked up by ace high way too often - you have to give him a hand with some showdown value. Second and most importantly, you lose to so many bluff hands that calling with K high here is terrible. You lose to A high flush draws and gutshots with an Ace (A5, A2). You only beat a few open ended straight draws.

I think you're beat, maybe you can bluff him off A high

Do we have to bet this flop? I'm checking here.

Pretty much mandatory when villain straddles, basically a valuebet

V "plays draws aggressively," so we can discount busted hearts and straight draws from his range, especially when he calls when the board pairs on the turn. So IMO his range on the turn is heavily weighted toward 9x and pocket pairs 55-88 and even some TT-JJ. Once he calls turn (and bets river when checked to), hands less than 9x should also be discounted.

Since he likes to see flops in position and usually defends his straddle, he can have a lot of mediocre 9x, maybe 96s+. A ton of that range just "improved" on the river as he no longer has kicker problems, so he's now chopping with a lot of your perceived value range.

I'd rather just keep telling our story (that we have an overpair and are valuetowning 9x) and bet the river if we're going to bluff. There's a really good chance he checks back a 9, so you don't ever get a chance to check/raise.

This really comes down to your read on V -- can he fold a 9 here once he bets? If V thinks it through, your check/raise lacks credibility as an overpair+ (that would have bet river).

If you're ever going to c-bet bluff, doing so when you have >40% equity when called is a pretty good spot to do it.

I did not Bluff, but this spot is stuck in my head, because I feel he is definitely good enough to fold a 9 there (as I probably would when facing a c/r).

But is it better here than a c/r , delay cbet turn line? I feel like those have more fold equity. Betting flop clearly is fine, but is it by far and away the best line?

Checking with the intent to delayed c-bet or x/raise is fine too, but I still prefer c-betting. X/call or x/fold are obviously both terrible. X/raise has more fold equity in a vacuum than a c-bet (obviously), so we stand a better chance of getting a hand like 9x, TT to fold. If we had a read that he was betting a lot when checked to, this would be a betterline.

The reason I prefer just betting is what happens when he checks behind flop and we bet turn. When we fail to bet the flop, we don't really represent much. On this wet board, we typically wouldn't want to check 9x+... even sets would prefer to bet to get value from draws (this is also a problem for x/raising, but less so). None of our value range would really want to risk letting the flop check through. If V is a good, thinking, and somewhat sticky player (it sounds like he's all of these to some degree), our line looks like exactly what it is -- whiffed overcards that are attacking the flop check, and he might call us lighter on the turn. Obviously the turn can also improve V's hand to something that will call (or raise) turn. Although there aren't necessarily a lot of cards unless he has something like 87, it's still a consideration (and we won't know what cards are safe apart from a K, Q, or heart).

If it's true that he's calling wider on flop (and then folding most of his range on the turn), we also win more $ (his flop call) by 2-barreling rather than delayed c-betting.

Betting flop also gets value from most of his draws.

Trying to bluff this guy off a 9 sounds like a really bad idea. Just c/f the river.

I think betting 52 into 278 with a 9 (or any boat) is a bad play on his part. If we do raise, he's not going to know what to do because he's induced with such a LOL size. Since V is not a terrible player, I think V has a 9 here very, very rarely. If he's bluffing, he's targeting our busted draws (against which he's already ahead if he has the NFD). He might be going for very thin value against exactly the hand we have, but wow that's a small needle to thread.

V is either trying the ridiculously small bluff bet (because it only has to work, like, once in his career to be worth it) or he's trying to get a raise here.

On the other hand, if we really had TT+ would we really check this river? If V has a FH, he's likely to call a decent vbet (though he might not like it). He's also likely to check back some of those boats because we could well have a better house (TT+ are definitely in our range). For the x/r to be a good play, he has to a) bet and b) then call a bet so that the total amount of money in the pot is more than we'd get with just a lead. If he checks back, we lose much value. If he leads smaller than we would have and then folds to the x/r, we lose value.

I can see either calling to snap off his bluff or maybe raising small to get him off exactly a busted NFD. I don't think he has a 9 here very often at all, and he might still call even if he does so I think shoving is distinctly negative EV.