Venetian during WSOP, late on a Weds night, 2/5 game. 3-4 young pro-ish young guys, 3-4 older rec players, and me - 48 yo solid rec imo... just joined the game about 30 minutes ago, so haven't played many hands yet.

Villain - mid-20s British kid. Quiet, biggish stack between 1,500-2k. Hands of relevance: as I was sitting down he made a big bet on the river vs rec player. When he heard 'call', said 'nice hand' and was caught bluffing (I didn't see the hand otherwise). Also, he 3-bet me pre-flop one time (he was two to my left), and I folded.

The hand: I have 1k, villain covers. I open to $20 from HJ with Kc9c. Villain calls on the button.

(pot $40ish) Flop: K-5-2 rainbow (1 spade) I bet $25, villain calls.

($90) Turn: 9s (2nd spade) I bet $40, villain raises to $140. I feel a bit uncomfortable here, but nothing to do but call, right?

($370) River: Ax (feel like my hand very much *looks like* it could be AK). I check, V bets $340... feel yucky.. thoughts?

Fold pre, turn bet is too small. Needs to be at least 60. River is sigh call but can maybe fold getting crappy price.

All sounds good to me, though I'd open this occasionally from HJ.

Agree with this, although I'm OK with the raise pre from HJ.

He's obviously somewhat capable of bluffing from a recent hand you mentioned, so it comes down to what potential bluffs he has compared to his 7 possible value bets in 99/55/22, with 99 being less likely due to preflop action. If he floats flop with hands like QJs, QTs, JTs, 76s, 64s, that gives him some potential turn bluffing hands, especially the spades combos.

Against an aggressive player, sometimes we just have to grit our teeth & call down when we're decently up in our own range. If our range distribution going into this river was something like {AA (3), KK (3), 55 (3), 22 (3), AK (9), K9s (2), KQ (12), KJ (12), KTs (3), spade draws}, we have 21 hands better than K9s, and 27 worse if we ignore our draws. Villain's near-PSB on river forces us to fold 48% of our hands on the river, so theoretically K9s would be a call if we were playing GTO strategy.

Given your assessment of the game, I would also say to consider requesting a table change in the future.

OP: which is the Spade on the flop - K, 5 or 2? I think it matters. Thanks!

Calling one pair hands ott after dbl barreling and getting raised is prob one of the biggest leaks.

AK is a snap fold ott vs any non crazy spewtard and so is KQ/KJ/K10.

As played, I'd call. Besides his value range, these are a few others taking this line: A3s/A4s/87s. There are also 4 combos of the same hand.

Turn - I'd lean toward 3b for value. His raise could be setting up a cheaper river, i.e. checkback.

You say "looks like it could be AK" except for the small fact you didn't bet it, so in V's shoes I'm 99% confident you don't have AK (in fact against described V I'd have taken this exact line with AK, expecting him to value-own himself OTR). Your line looks a lot like KQ or maybe a KJs/KTs that picked up a BDFD (assuming the board K isn't the K).

This is a bad runout for him trying to rep an Ax two-pair or set (he'd have 3!'d AK/99 pre and would have had to float with air to catch A9). You need to be best ~30% of the time to call this and IMO you're closer to a coin-flip.

Your turn bet looks weak so he is trying to get you to fold IMO. Fist pump call and he’ll roll his eyes at you when you win.

Marsh

Agree... but I forget -

So...

Results: I crying call and he has 22 for flopped set, sigh.

Thank you for the responses... I really felt like I called without thinking it through, and have been kicking myself thinking I should've folded. I just had a hard time finding bluff turn hands for V that would be willing to fire since my turn call of the c/r looks pretty strong. Not sure if I'm being results oriented, or the 'live read' thing where I just knew I was beat.

I think a lot of the bluff hands mentioned involve floats on the flop that a lot of players would dump, so I still kinda feel like finding a fold makes sense here..? (and as noted I'm not sure if flop K was a ... if not then KsXs hands make some sense also... but then V checks back river or bets smaller?). Plus, I feel like his failed river bluff just a little while ago makes it a little less likely to happen again, so soon.

Wonder if leading river as a true blocker bet for $200 woulda made sense... certainly not many hands will call that lose to me, but I could fold to any raise, and some of his strong hands would just call (like set of 2s maybe?).

If you were just sitting down when it happened, he may not have even realized you saw it. I wouldn't use that as a data point.

More to the point, remember that your bar for calling isn't "more likely than not". Calling $340 to win $710 means it'd still be right if he was bluffing 2/3 of the time (!) and I can't find a range for him on this board with 70% bluffs in it.

Not in this scenario. Your opponent is already polarized between hands that had top pair beat (which are all hands that also beat K9 on this board) and bluffs of some form. Blocker betting lets his bluffs off for free and is still a payoff of his made hands in this scenario.

Blocker bets are more for scenarios where you can beat some of your opponent's value hands, don't expect those worse value hands to bet, but also expect those hands to call the bet you choose.