UTG limps 5$
MP opens 25$ (white male ~late 20s, hasn't played many hands, no reads, starting stack ~$1000)
Fold to BTN who calls 25$ (black male 45+yrs old, sat down recently but showed 83s in a hand before, starting stack ~$1000)
Hero with KcQh in SB 3Bets to 105 (male 21 yr old hat on hoodie on, pretty dominant and aggro at table, starting stack ~$1700)
Folds to MP who folds
BTN calls

Flop: 9cTs4c

Hero Bets ~135$
BTN calls

Turn: 8h

Check
Check

River: 8s

Hero bets ~435$

Pre: I think pre is 3B or fold

Fold: I think flop hits BTN's range decently hard but given my backdoor FD, GS, and semi-relevant blocker, I went with the cbet. I think decision is close between cbet or X/f

Turn: I think it's a pretty bad card for me to barrel. Def better for vill's than mine. However vill checks back, which I think really caps his range. In his spot I'd expect him to bet with his over pairs, two pairs, and sets.

River: given my reasoning for vill fast playing almost all his good hands on the turn I went with a huge bet to attack his capped range

Thoughts on hand? Feel free to comment on any or all streets

Are you 3betting for value or as a bluff pre-flop? I'd probably just call in that spot and keep his range full of all the hands that you dominate like (K9,KT,KJ,QJ,QT,Q9). Although 3betting isn't horrible.

As played I'd probably c-bet the flop and give up on the turn unless it was an A,K or Q.

I hate your river bet, this board hit's villains range and you don't rep much since you checked the turn. Also the villain sounds like a typical calling station so he's probably not the guy we should be trying to run a complicated multi-street bluff on OOP.

A capped range is only exploitable if the villain is folding everything but the top of their range. I don't think he folds any piece of this board often enough for the bluff to be profitable.

I think river is too big, as his calling range is probably pretty bet-size inelastic, as long as the bet isn't silly small. I think $300 folds out pair <88 and A-high, and better hands than that aren't folding to $435 either.

Other than that, I like it.

I guess if you think he folds some Tx?

i don't like b/c/b bluff lines vs apparent fish especially when we really do rep zero

i suspect even this river sizing is gonna get looked up lightish wayyy too often, absent further info

fold pre

Don't know if we can ascertain if the V was stationy in the 83s hand; that would be important.

I try to stay away from a B/C/B line, prefer instead a C/B/B bluff depending on the player and board. Hero has a blocker to nut straight so I think betting the turn may be better. Betting (line) clearly reps an over pair.

Agree that pre is fold or 3b.

I used to do stuff like this when I first stared playing 2/5. I had some great initial success, but then it started getting real expensive real fast. Given your read on MP, I would just be pitching this into the muck OOP. KQo looks nice, but has pretty poor playability OOP in a 3! pot. I know it "seems nitty," but it's a marginal bluff and you'll likely have a better opportunity to squeeze within the next two orbits. Patience is a virtue I am learning to employ more at the table.

Pre is fine. Flop is good. Turn is good. Bluffing big on river is bad. I am usually checking river or maybe bluffing river small ($175-$240) if Villain has shown a tendency of peeling flops lightly with underpairs and folding rivers a reasonable amount (not sure if this makes sense, but there are Villains who peel cbets very lightly but have a fold button on the river).

Can we talk about OP's ~40%PSB c bet? I feel like this is a huge sizing tell. On a wet board like this aren't we always betting a lot more with value hands? If I was V I would very likely float with my entire range, planning to take the pot away with a bet or a bluff/semi bluff raise on a lot of turns. Hero's range is capped and V can rep a lot of stuff.

I actually think that his $135 cbet into the $240 pot is a 55% pot size cbet not a 40% pot size cbet.

FWIW, I don't think that we need to cbet much larger than $135 with our overpairs (don't want to derail thread with a discussion of how big I would size my cbet here with JJ+), so I don't think that cbet bluffing KQ-high gutter here is inherently bad.

If we thought that Villain thinks that a 55% pot size cbet is weak because Villain expects us to cbet 70%+ pot with overpairs (maybe because Villain sees that from the rest of the player pool or maybe because Villain tends to cbet 70%+ pot himself with overpairs), then there is a case to make a larger cbet bluff sizing that is PERCEIVED to be more like an overpair sizing.

In this case, however, there are no reads to indicate that Villain is going to perceive a 55% pot size cbet as weak. All we know is that he is a 45yo black guy who likes to play trash like 83s.

fold pre.

Why are so many people recommending to fold KQo pre?

MP isn't raising UTG or UTG+1. Especially since he is late 20s, I really doubt that he is raising a super-nitty range from MP even if he hasn't played many hands so far.

We already know that BTN is playing super loose because we saw him showdown 83s earlier.

Even if we doing slightly badly against the MP's preflop raising range, I think that we are often dominating the BTN's range. So why so much nitty advice about folding KQo preflop here?

I disagree with this being a bad spot to 3bet KQo. It is actually a very good spot to 3bet KQo.

I think folding pre > 3betting, but I just think 3B is still an option, and it's kinda close

I agree with most that my b/c/b line is pretty awk and not believable. Idk given the situation I thought my River bet could've worked.

As for reads on vill, not sure if he's a station but he seemed like a person who had a lot of experience with the game but never really studied it. When he showed 83s on 33x flop he said something along the lines of "sometimes you needa play those cards so you can hit those flops".

Anyways after my River bet vill tanked for ~10 seconds, counted out calling chips, and then pushed it in while saying "Ace King no good". Vill had 66

Imho, I believe the MP edge is higher. Additionally, even though the BTN is fishy, we are oop. Here is a potential range for MP:

http://www.pokerstrategy.com
Equity Win Tie
MP2 66.08% 65.73% 0.35% { 77+, AJs+, AJo+ }
SB 33.92% 33.57% 0.35% { KQo }

River seems pretty spewy. Everything else looks good.

Pre is fold or 3b. I'm fine with 3b if you're ready to play postflop aggressively. But I'd likely fold in this spot.

As played, On flop I'd bet a bit more. I'd also fire a turn bet based on likelihood of v peeling here. And consider a third shell on river based on reads.

As you know, It's a higher variance play, but sometimes necessary if you're 3 betting hands like KQos from the blinds.

Can someone explain to me why pre-flop is fold or 3bet. Do you guys have a calling range out of the blinds here? I think your ahead of the limper and the button and the raiser will play straight forward post flop. When you 3bet your almost always getting peeled and will need to barrel off which is high variance. KQo is the bottom of my calling range out of the blinds but maybe I need to tighten up even more? Is KQs a fold?

oops. I honestly thought MP called.

I think your example range (AJs+, AJo+, 77+) is probably too tight for a young 20s MP PFR who has played tight so far.

I think it is more likely that his range looks like: AJ+, ATs+, KJs+, KQ, 77+.

So, let's plug in the range that I just posted. If we flat-call and take the flop 3-ways against MP PFR and the BTN (for simplicity, we will assume that BTN is playing 60% of hands since he showed up with 83s in an earlier hand)...

PFR MP 45.6% equity
Hero SB 28.3% equity
Fish BTN 26.0% equity

Even though we have less than 33% equity in a 3-way pot, we should be willing to take a small card disadvantage in order to play postflop against people (random PFR and fish who played 83s in earlier hand) who likely suck at the live pokerz.

P.S. I like 3betting more than flatting here. 3bet > flat > fold.

FWIW, I really like Villain's river call against your FOS large river bet sizing after checking turn. Score 1 for the fish.

I don't like that river bet

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I definitely still 3! KQo quite often, I just stopped doing it at every opportunity available. I could just be temporarily gun shy since my last few resulted in me getting played back at or running into monsters.

It's also situational. Sometimes if I have been overly aggressive for awhile, I will "sit a play out" if I think my aggressive/FOS fuel tank is running out in the eyes of villains. If they are going to flat their entire range to our 3!, would you still 3! KQo OOP here?

Does 'hasn't played many hands' mean he just got to the table or he's mostly folding pre? I'm inclined to fold KQo oop when a tight player raises pre. If he just sat down, 3!/call/fold are all fine options.

Based on the above description, villain seems stationy. He probably has a fair amount of SC in his range, some broadways, and JJ-. The flop does hit his range, but you have 10 outs to hit something. I agree check/evaluate and cbet are close.

You repped a premium pair pre and flop. With QQ+ or a set on a wet board, you're betting again on the turn to extract value from all the drawing hands. If you check the turn, you lose credibility when you bet the river as a bluff. I think checking is fine, but you're really just hoping to bink a J or K.

I'd give up on the river. The runout is pretty bad. It's hard to get Tx to fold with this line because top pair didn't change. SC hands that called the flop, like T9 through 76, are never folding. Bluffing isn't terrible since you're almost never winning a showdown, but you should bet less. I believe the pot is ~$500. A bet of $200 is plenty to fold out random Ax and some PP.

Overall, I think you played the hand fine. I don't think there are any egregious errors other than the river bet size. Most of the decisions are pretty close.