Hero ($1200): Younger reg, probably seen as somewhat aggro in this game. Have been raising to $30-35 pre fairly often and 3b a few weaker hands already to iso a whale or two that's in this game playing almost every hand. Have not shown down a hand yet. Game is playing pretty crazy, lots of big pots so far.

V ($715ish): Probably late 20's white guy, seems kind of like a reg but only bought in for $500. Have seen him limping hand like J9s/QTs instead of opening them. Not much history going into this hand.

Hero raises J8 $20 from MP, V calls next to act, folds to whale in BB who also calls.

Flop ($62): K99

Whale checks, hero bets $40, V calls pretty quickly, whale folds.

Turn ($142): A

Hero leads $95, V again calls pretty quickly

River ($332): T

Hero checks, V takes about 5 seconds, grabs two stacks, puts two reds on top, pushes it over the line but doesn't say anything. Hero c/r all in for about $350 on top.

Yes or no? Do we have enough FE here vs 9x or possibly AK? What hands are you calling with as V?

I don't think you have any FE, unless he's completely bluffing. It's not a terrible play, but with so little history I'm not sure I'd make it. If you knew he could/would bluff here or would fold w/o the nuts, it's OK.

I think you need to have some special insight into this villain being weak (and able to fold AK or 9x) in order to do this. In my experience, the types buyin in for $500 and limping Q10 hands are also going to be too sticky to fold what it looks like he has. I just don't think he folds enough to make this play, then add in our aggro image.

As V without reads on hero, I'm personally probably folding everything but boats since the vast population at 2/5 or lower is never c/r ai on the river as a bluff. If I've seen hero 3b and open often and indicate any kind of creativity, I'd be more inclined to call off as weak as Kx since you're so polarized.

wj, are you playing the hand up until river the same if you had a 9x like 89 - Q9?

I don't like the c/r.

I think he has a value hand and he's not folding for 350 more into 550. He's not bluffing in that spot.

One of my tells is when someone buys in for 500 if the max is 1K, they're not going to be pushing people around. He's never folding if he has AK. He will call and say "you probably have a 9 but I gotta call".

one of the golden llsnl rules is big river bets from unknowns are usually never bluffs.

Yes

Some history on the 3b hands:

1. MP limp, whale open $20, hero 3b $60 with TsTh, BB cold calls (hadn't seen him play a hand yet), limper calls whale calls. Flop 2c3c4c checks to whale who leads $200 with $50 more behind, I fold, BB calls, limper also calls. Turn 8h checks around. River 9d checks around. BB had 45, limper had 34dd, whale said he had Ac.

2. Whale $20 CO, me $60 button with AA, whale calls. Flop QQ3hh he c/c $50. Turn 6h he leads $100 I call. River Q he leads $300 I call, he has QJo and I don't show but should be fairly obvious.

So is the golden rule that river c/r shove is always the nuts on a paired board. Which golden rule will win?

As V I'm calling with any 9x and Straight.

Only hand that's gonna fold is Axcc that he value bet thin. I'd check back that hand as V but if I bet it I'm def not calling this c/r on the river.

AK I'd most likely check back but, again, if I bet I'd most likely fold to a river c/r.

Props, pretty sick bluff.

I don't think there's any way V can have a straight here when I have Jc

yeah but the problem is the bet size is not enough to get him to fold though. he's already committed by that point. It will only fold out bluffs or hands turned into bluffs which I don't think that type of player will pull based on the info provided.

fwiw the open was a little on the light side see how these hands get you into trouble

And therein lies the question...but I think some players are folding AK, random Ax they called flop with that may try to get me off a chop, and maybe 9x since I can have AA/KK/A9s/K9s/9Ts here.

What made you c/r instead of leading the river as a bluff?

V just calls too often with whatever he calls flop and turn with.

so he's passive? another strike against you...

How does calling river when I lead instead of him raising/shoving in this spot equate to being passive? V is a young reggy lookin guy, surely he has a wider range than 9x here?

well you made him sound more stationey but the main factor here is once he makes that big bet otr, the c/r is just over a min raise. It's not enough to get him to fold except for his air which he won't have often enough.

I might call as weak as Ax if I've seen some creativity from you

I might fold as strong as 9x here if you are a nitty and never check-raise bluff river.

However, I lean towards the first option as you are young and aggro and being capable of doing tricky things.

I do think check raise would work better if V had 500 behind.

332 + 200 + 200 + 350 = 1082

It 's 3:1 to call.........

I'm interested why you prefer a c/r to a river bomb, either for value or as a bluff. VS a weaker reg/rec player who most likely won't be getting out of line, I wouldn't expect him to value bet thinly (I can imagine him checking back AQ or even AcTc), which we hate when we have boats or 9x.

I'd probably hate life and fold AK and 9x for the reasons that Donkey stated (with 98s being my only 9x that's not a boat).

I find it too common that people flat twice with trips here and too uncommon that they find a fold on the river for me to bother having a x/shove bluffing range here (it's a neat value play to make with our boats that don't block 9x though). Having an obvious draw bust, and you hold the obvious draw, and you're trying to fold out trips, and you're giving them a good price to call, you're just not exploiting the game's population tendencies very well.

If you do think this is going to work, though, then do it with QT/JT with no clubs. You don't block any suited 9x (since the 9c is on board) and you do block clubs (though I don't think snap calling twice is in line with 87cc, JTcc probably doesn't bet the river and it's actually good to block QJcc, so I don't think this is a huge deal). That's already 6 combos where you're trying to rep like 12, and you're giving him a price that's better than 2:1, so you really don't need to be digging for extra bluff combos. These hands also fit very naturally into your river checking range because they picked up marginal SDV at the end, so they're not very heavily discounted by the, "What if I **** up and forget to take this line with those" factor.

Also, pre seems marginal, even with the whale in the BB, but it's close so whatever.

Grunch he's definitely capped under 9x and seems like scared money. I would imagine that a shove here is just fine, the only thing I'd be worried about is that your shove looks like your time trying to bet him off the Ax chop. But if your image is decent I definitely think that 9x and AK and boats are still in your range here. I say go for it.

for 3:1, I am calling everything. He has Ax

If we're trying to get him to fold 9x or AK, we presumably are thinking of our V as a "good" player who can see that the x/r on the river on a paired board is always a boat and therefore he needs to fold even getting 3:1.

How often can a good player have 9x (that isn't a boat) or AK here? The 9s that a good player would call pre with are probably A9s (a boat), T9s (a boat), 98s and 97s. Maybe he folds 98 or 97. For AK, there are 9 combos, but presumably a good player 3-bets AK a lot, so say he has 4 combos of that. Not a lot that's folding.

In theory he folds a huge portion of his range and it's a boss play. In reality, he folds only on Tuesdays at 8pm and thursdays if it's a full moon.

I played a hand the other day, I open 77 to 20, V in lp calls bb calls. Flop 995. BB lead 20, I flat, co raise 40, bb flat I flat. Turn 7, bb check I check, V bets 110, bb fold, I x/r all in for 550 total. V snaps with 9jo. He should never be playing a hand the way he did, and pretty much never call the x/r. But he knows me as an agro player, so I check raised knowing I could never logically get called by worse and I got called by worse because people are illogical.
In your hand, there's gonna be those guys who will call you with A3o on the river. And there's gonna be those guys who will fold 9T on the river. x/r bluffing here without knowing villain is like being a convenience store clerk being held up by a dude with his hand under his shirt. Do you say **** you? Or do you give him the money? Ranges and tendencies are so wide, so saying **** you in this spot is going to give you a huge range of possible EV's since you don't know how he will react with each part of his range. If you did it, I hope it worked. But I don't think you should do it again without knowing if the guy is a hand reader, hero, station, mubsy, etc.

*GRUNCH*

First let me tell you I know what the previous replies mostly were without reading them: "Don't bluff!" and "Bad bluff spot". They will also say if they are villain, they'd call you with top pair no kicker, though if you post a reverse thread where you have say trip nines with a bad kicker, they'll all say fold.

It's only a bad bluff spot if you'd never check/raise monsters on this river. Honestly ask yourself if you'd be willing to check/shove pocket aces on this river.

Also, when you check raise this river, you want to have a monster (i.e. nuts or near nuts) around 75% of the time and a bluff 25% of the time. Only monsters you can really have are AA, KK, 99, and A9. That's between 8 and 13 combos depending on if you'd raise A9o pre.

That means we only want to bluff TWO or THREE combos of hands. And you want to bluff with hands that block his calling range. K9 and A9 make up some of his calling range, indicating if you have K-x or A-X, they might be better bluffing hands than your busted flush draw. Also since you have two clubs its a bit less likely he has a missed flush draw.

Also, note that villain could have slowplayed a boat on the flop and turn since he'd know he has you drawing dead.

I think I'd use A-J as my only crai bluffing hand here actually, because I'd probably bet on the flop (if I have backdoor clubs) and on the turn.

I just noticed that you are allowed 2 to 3 river CRAI bluffing combos if you take this exact same line 100% of the time with AA, KK, 99, and A9. If instead you don't always take this line with any of these hands, we should have even fewer bluffing combos.

That's assuming you agree that something like AK or a weaker 9-X aren't strong enough to CRAI for value...

In reality it's probably fine to actually have zero bluffs, since we'd probably often slowplay our flopped/turned boats and quads before we get to the river.

the short answer: J8cc is not in your check shoving range unless you have a read that you can check/jam your full range. Ship it, but no check raise

The longer answer:
pre flop: How deep is the whale? i generally don't have J8s in my opening range vs whales 240 BB deep. Considering he is on the BB your range should be tailored vs him.

flop: again, your CBet range should be tailored to maximise EV vs whale. note that you have a pretty decent range to triple barrel for value vs him. You even have a decent barreling range but J8s is the absolute bottom of your range. You are 3way so just drop the J8 on the flop.

Turn: whale is gone, you are going to have to cut your triple barrel range and some value hands become bluff catchers vs V. Note that the A should complete your bluffing range and that your range contains little to no bluff combos anymore. Even terrible players pick this up.

river: your range is capped towards the nuts... i would therefore shove the J8, not check raise it.
In my opinion villain is trying to value bet vs the j9- part of your range, and you simply don't have enough FE vs that range, even if he tries to value bet vs your 2p (AK and AT) you don't have enough FE