I usually play 1-2 but I took a shot at the Aria 2-5 NLHE game this past weekend. This is in the early afternoon on a Saturday.

The table was mostly (ALL?) regs, and I think they could pick me out as a tourist. I wasn't an OMC, I wasn't a young Euro type wearing a scarf, or a cardigan, and I didn't have a backpack.

I bought in for $500, and I'm definitely the short stack, as most seem to have >1000. So effective stacks are $500.

I folded for an orbit and then see QQ in early position.

I raise to $25 and get one caller, an older middle eastern man with glasses who has been playing a lot of hands.

Flop ($57): AT4
I'm not happy about the ace, but I c-bet $50 and he calls

Turn ($157): Q
Now I have a set, but it's also a super wet board. Possible broadway or broadway draws, and the flush got there. I bet $75 and he makes it $200. I had two thoughts. One is that he has the flush, but I have outs. The second is that maybe he's trying to push me off of a TPTK type hand, and I just turned a set. I call.

River ($557): 6
Suddenly there are four diamonds on the board, and I don't have one, plus I put him on a flush. He checks.

What do I do? What does he have?

Check behind and you can find out

You can't bet for value at this point, as two pair hands aren't going to call very often. So the question is, is it worth betting as a bluff?

I would say V's range here consists of two pair (QT, AQ, etc.) and low flushes. Very rarely, if ever, would V check on the river with the nuts. Based on the short description and read you have of Villain, I wouldn't expect him to fold to a bet on the river with a hand like 7d8d, but maybe if you shoved?

Because V's range has a lot of non flush hands in it that we beat, I would probably just check back.

Flop is close between a check and a bet. I think a bet is fine because of the possibility of the flush draw and the gut shot draw. 45. On a less wet board, i.e. A94r, it's a check.

Betting the turn is fine, and I don't mind betting somewhat small as the value is thinner. Yes, he can have a flush, but you can also get value from many different hands like Ax, Ax with a diamond, Tx with a diamond, something like JdJx, KdQx, QxJd, QT, etc.

Not happy to get raised, but calling is fine getting 3.5:1 with 2x the bet left in stacks.

After he checks the river, we have a half pot bet left?

Shove as a bluff.

You're getting a great price to bluff (250 to win 550 = you need a fold ~30% of the time), and it's hard for him to call with low flushes. When he checks, I don't think he has the Kd, and I think he recognizes that hands like Td9d, Td8d, Td7d, 9d8d, 9d7d, 8d7d, 8d5d, 7d5d, 5d3d, 3d2d, etc. are bluff catchers vs. your shove. I'm not sure he folds the Jd, regardless of how similar it is in relative value to worse flushes, but he may sometimes. And there may be a handful of other hands that rivered weak flushes, like AxTd, QxTd, or TxTd that he may now fold.

I don't like checking behind because I think a bluff is +EV.

I think you should check the flop. Any Ax, broadway hands, sets, and two diamond SC will continue, which is a majority of villain's flop calling range (any PP/broadways/some SC). If you choose to cbet, I'd cbet smaller to $30-35.

You should bet the turn. The board is far too draw heavy to check. You should call the c/r. 425:125 odds are almost exactly the direct odds you need to hit a boat/quads.

Tough river decision. Villain would bet with Kd. You can try to represent a nut flush by shoving. Villain has to think you have the Kd in your range based on all your actions. I think Jd and Td hands call. 14 combos of AxJd/KxTd/QxTd/JdTx/Td9d would call. You should fold KJ and 9d8d/8d7d. It's hard to say how many KJ combos are realistic. I see only 2 likely SC folds. You need a shove bluff to work about 30% of the time. I'd probably check if Td hands would call and shove if Td hands would fold. I lean check because I expect all Td hands to call.

First off, I misrepresented my position in the hand. I clearly had position on the Villain as I know that he checked first. I must not have remembered exactly where I was on the table but he must have had to act before me because he definitely checked first on the river. Sorry for the confusion.

The action by Villain must have been check-call the flop, check-raise the turn, and then check the river.

Checking the flop here, as a new, non-regular player in this game, is just asking to get bet into when I might be good. Maybe I could check-call the turn as the turn bet is likely going to be lower than $200, but hell I did hit my set, and if he has AK then I want him to bet or call me.

When he check-raised me to $200, then maybe he's trying to see if he can get me off TPTK, or to see if I was merely c-betting. But I wasn't, I hit a set. So I figure I can call his raise and try to improve, or see what happens on the river.

Check flop, shove river.

He either has no flush, or a vulnerable flush, with 10. If he had a king he would have bet it almost every time, so you can safely discount that. An A with the J or 10 makes sense for a turn raise, as does AQ. He's trying to get value from AK type hands, plus he might have a diamond blocker for the K in case you have AK with the diamond.

There's three hands that are beating you (AK, AJ, and A10). One of those is going nowhere. You're beating out only AQ and non-diamond combos of A10. We're obviously ignoring AA, since V is almost never going to have that here.

Out of the non-nut hands that are beating you, the J is the only real bluff catcher (hard to see him make a call with the ten), which means there's a slightly better than 1/3 chance he folds when he's holding a diamond. Add in the other hand combos that he's most definitely folding, and odds of a bluff working here go up past the price he's getting to call.

You should bluff here.

I think you are missing one hand that beats me.

Also I think you are right about the action. If you think that a regular player in this game would never put a casual player on a bluff in this situation (well it's not a total bluff right?), then I get some additional fold equity. On the other hand, if he has 1000-2000 (couldn't see his stack really), then maybe the additional 200 to call is meaningless and it lets him get valuable information. Given these competing issues, is he really likely to fold in this case?

How did he play in those hands he got involved in?

Dont mind a c-bet on the flop but check back is fine and more standard, but what's up with your flop sizing? potting it seems not optimal (at least not at this stack depth). On the turn I just ship as we are only 100BB to start, he is repping pretty strong but we have outs if he has a flush or str8 and he could have two pair or lower set, or even a high flush card + pair or + gutter making a move...as played check back river FFS (reading ppl's posts you all make a good argument for bluffing but unless I have better reads I have trouble getting V to fold a flush here) for a half pot bet especially if he has a big stack (yes obv it shouldn't make a difference to him but LLSNL)

This was the first orbit I think, I remember him playing several hands, taking down a couple, but not enough to get a good read.

Really like a shove here. Hard to do when you are taking a shot though.

I checked and lost.

He had

Flop bet much too large. $30 is enough to give his draws bad odds and fold out air.

When he checks the turn, you should ask yourself if you are willing to open the action back up by betting your set. As strong as it is, on this board a X/R puts you in a pickle as straights and flushes are both possible.

When he checks the river, clearly he doesn't have the nuts. With a smaller flop bet and/r checking back the turn, you can pot or more on the river and he'll have trouble calling with any non-nut hand - which he just told you is the case when he checked.

If you have KK with Kd or KdQx a line of 1/2 pot C-bet then check back the turn totally fits the story when you bomb the river.

Damn. Forgot to add that to the list of hands that would easily fold.

It's a shame you didn't pull the trigger. Oh well.

Right. But I thought when he check raised the turn, which put three diamonds on the board, that he had the flush. So an additional flush card coming on the river just seemed to make it even worse; alternatively, he could have been check raising a good hand with the nut flush draw, which hit on the river. For these reasons, plus the fact that I don't usually play 2-5, I thought shoving would be flushing my remaining stack. I should have realized though that he would be betting the river for value if he had a strong hand. But I couldn't get off of my read on the turn, which definitely should have been reevaluated when he checked the turn.

He can't check raise the river if I shove.

I think he probably would have folded to a shove there, but I couldn't discount him having a diamond and that the pot was big enough that he could make a crying call with his straight.

This is more problematic than how you played any street IMO. Having a big stack is never a valid reason to make a call on the river, and while the results of this hand make it extremely unlikely that villain is a good player, your read at the time of the hand was that he was a good player and a good player will never call just because he has a big stack.

I didn't think at the timethat I should check because he has a big stack. In retrospect, him checking when the fourth diamond came on the board should have been the signal to jam it all in there and win a nice pot, probably.