Villain seems overall weak-tight but based on stares and glares, and a higher propensity of calling my opens, I think this guy wants to get back at me over a hand he thinks I might have bluffed him out of...

Early in my session V was a short stack and we were in a 3way pot together with him acting first and me being in the middle as the pre-flop raiser. I c-bet ~2/3 pot on a 567 2tone board. Turn was a blank deuce. Him and other V had less than 3/4PSB left in their stacks and I went AI OTT and they both folded. Since then, V's been lookin at me weird and moved to get position on me. I'd been playing aggro nitty since then.

We're ~1k eff.

V limps UTG. I raise to $25 w/ KK in MP. We go to the flop HU.

$54

K43

x, Hero $25, V calls

$103

5

x, Hero $55, V calls

$213

6

x, Hero?

Size up all streets, esp turn tho.

Yes bet river. Pot

Bet more flop and turn. Bet as much as you think he'll call on river. If he raises, you really need to think about it, but I can't imagine he check/raises here w/ worse than KKK.

Yeah... my turn sizing is pretty crap. OTF, I went small b/c I'd been c-betting heavy this session with ~1/2 sizing each time. Didn't want to set off any alarms. It was a midday Wed. session & table seemed pretty observant. Maybe I leveled myself into "no sizing tells" when I should have been exploiting more.

Flop sizing is good.

Turn sizing sucks balls.

River is fairly close. He can have a lot of 7's, only few flushes. And beside those hands. He really doesn't have many more hands to call with.

If you think he will flat with 2 pair, I would bet. If you think he is raising 2 pair. I would check back.

Getting raised just puts us in awful spots.

Betting $120

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Curious how did he know you bluffed him if they both folded OTT , did you show?

I'd raise a little more preflop to 30 but 25 is fine. I agree to size up a little bit on the flop and turn, you are at the top of your range!

The correct river play will differentiate between different V's and this is why: I would construct a range of hands for V and then out of those hands decide which he will call with and which he will reraise with. You then also have to factor in the amount of times he reraises you and have him beat(missed flush draws bluff or value owning himself with AK). Based on described V who is looking to play back at you I just check because the 100-150$ value bet you are missing out on from the small amount of hands he just calls and you have him beat (AK, KQ maybe QQ-99) is less than when he does reraise bluff and you have to fold or he has you beat with two pair or somehow made it to the river with a backdoor flush or 8.

Did you have the Kc in your hand?

I said he thinks I might have bluffed just based on how he was mad-dogging me. He don't know 4sure.

Duh. Help with that is why I posted.

Yes, but that's one part of it. I also did describe him as weak-tight so I don't know how much he'll want to play back since this board might scare him as much as me.

Great question. Should have included in description, but I didn't because I absentmindedly left it out my notes. 80% sure though I did have K. Recall both black & red. Less TP+FDs in his range.

+1

Pot is not good on the river. I'd keep in line with the bad sizing and bet 100

+1

Maybe even a pinch smaller at $80 and calling a reasonable raise. Hopefully he backed into 56s.

I think I'd bet that much only if I were hoping to induce, but he doesn't seem the type to be able to raise here as a bluff, so probably fine. I would have bet $100, so not too different.

Didn't look at spoiler yet... If you bet river, I think should be on the small side in part b/c except for missed club draw, he might have some passively played pocket pairs or TPGK and he might be ready to give up on those to a big bet but not a small bet if he made it this far.

And more importantly I think you have to call a x/r b/c he might think he's best with a worse set. B/c of that I'm not really sure about value betting the river at all.

Man, unless he just had a missed flush draw like AQcc it's hard to put him on a hand but I guess if he flopped/turned/rivered a set that could sorta make sense too.

Btw, this guy is "weak-tight" and UTG so that's ruling out SCs worse than T9s or so, right?

Or 55 or 45 or 66... but I still want to size an amount that can't get raised by worse, ever, while still collecting value for hands above or whatever he's got. Also, clubs whiffed, and he has far less clubs when we have the Kc (not that we know anyone in this hand is thinking about it at the time)...which translates into a wider calling range, and perhaps he even is considering calling more when he doesn't have clubs because than hero does.

Bet 105 and fold to a raise? Your range isn't capped so I don't see why he'd just spazz bluff on the river and it's so easy for someone to level themselves into a hero call. Maybe even call the raise? V raising would be weird.

Hero's sizing looks like KQ/KJ. It's reasonable for villain to raise his two pair+ as well as his bluffs and put hero to a difficult decision. Luckily we have top set so EZ game.

Guys I think it's important to remember backdoor flush and 4 card straight on the board. I can't clearly count number of combos of backdoor flush and hands with 8 he may have here. When he does raise it's a **** spot and u have to try to hero and u will have a hard time finding a call. The 100 dollars in my opinion isn't worth betting.!bluff or not if he jams here who finds a call?

But then again V might call u with two pair so back to my original post.. the correct answer in a vacuum will differentiate with V. If u think he'll call u with two pair or worse set then go for it. U could also be value own urself when he has an 8

Just food for thought

Me personally easy check back it's the ****tiest feeling when V go all in u fold and he shows missed clubs


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Reminds me of my mom always say to me better safe then sorry


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I would size up a lot more otf/ott.

Grunch. River is really close, I'd probably check it back. With us blocking Kx, not too many sure worse hands will call. Backdoor flush gets there, 77, 7x (pair + straight draw). If he had a lower set, I think he would have raised before the river. Same for two pair, obv at a lower frequency since he might just nitcall ott with two pair.

Not to mention, you have very few 7x here and once a blue moon you get yolo bluff shoved on

Agreed. Flop I just generally default to $35 with most of my range here unless I have villain specific reads/tendencies that cause me to deviate. Maybe we can get away with $40 but I often feel (possibly a leak of mine) that the first digit of the bet acts as an anchor mechanism that can lead to villains over-folding, especially when the dealer verbally announces the bet (stoned commentary).

• ie: calling an announced $40 bet feels intuitively bad/leaky but $35 you can kind of justify it to yourself in real-time ("oh i've got implied; oh i can bluff later; oh he must be weak for sizing down").

We are 1k effective and have only put in $105 (10.5% of stacks), so it would be very difficult/stupid for villain to jam another $800+ over our modest river bet of $75-150.

With us blocking Kx - yah it's unlikely he has a king (but not impossible). Weak-tights are terrible enough to limp hands as strong as AK up front.

So in a neutral case scenario he's got:

We Beating:

(4) AK
(4) KQo or (1) KQs
(4) KJo or (1) KJs
(1) KTs
(3) 66:X
(3) 56s

We Losing:

(2) A7 and A2
(9) AX
(3) 76, 78, 79

This is all very rough back of the envelope combo guesswork at 530am but without getting too deep into an unknown's range (like how he plays 77x facing an uncapped double barrel on a wet board) [weak-tight read would indicate folding] it's hard to add more of the wonky combos.

That said, it's fairly close between combos we beat and combos that beat us (we beat ~13-19 combos and lose to ~14). I can't really see him showing up with 55/44/33 and not raising at some point prior to river. Nor can I see 34/35/45 for the same reasons.

So since the combos are fairly close and we have a ton of AK/KQ here and can't get any value from his busted draw range since we are IP, I lean towards a moderate value bet that can capture curious calls from the widest portion of his range which are those same combos.

I often find ~1/3+ PSB's quite effective when I feel I'm ahead and that my opponent is weak but I'm just not quite sure exactly where he stands.

As others have stated, I severely dislike your turn sizing. I do understand why you sized down OTF though, no problems there. That said, terrible bet sizing is pretty much a staple in LLS, and very few players in-game notice it, let alone have the ability to exploit it.

OTR, I'm betting against the V you described, but I'm going very small to target his range that we're ahead of. I think if we make a "correct" bet size based on the size of the pot then we're likely to only get called by better from a weak-tight V. I'd bet/fold something like 65-70, as I'm not expecting this type of V to c/r bluff, or to attempt to exploit your sizing. I don't think V should have many 7x hands except for clubs with a 7, and with the BDF coming in and you being the aggressor I wouldn't be shocked if V just called even if he does have a 7.

In a HU pot that's smaller that it should be due to bad sizing, top set is just too strong to check back river IMO, even with this runout. I guess I'm just of the belief that if you're not willing to value-slice yourself sometimes then you're not going for value enough OTR.

Great well thought out responses from Minator and Johnnybuz

Minator: I like your reasoning and agree that V will raise before river with 33,44,55 so lower sets are less likely. I also like u included Kc blocker which will give you extra 1-3% equity vs his flush draws

Johnny: your given range for V here is fairly accurate, however you have to consider that V will fold KQ, KJ here because of the wet and scary board, and even some two pairs(V dependent) which would weight more combos that we are losing to.

I still think check is best play. Even though our hand strength is extremely strong in absolute terms (top set) our hand is pretty weak in relative terms to this exact board because of run out. Any random 8 or 2 beats us and V will certainly never fold to a small river bet with a straight.

Again heres the problem I see if we do decide to bet river: we set ourselves up to be put in a vulnerable position when V raises. Imagine you bet here with KK and V raises you. I promise you will have an extremely hard time finding a call. Even if V bluffs us off our hand here 1 out of 5 times its disaster and will poop our win rate

In my mind I'm thinking this river please don't lead I just want to get to showdown

My gut initially said check, but now I think a bet is the better option. The only hand I'd be scared of is 77, and I think you can get some value from lower sets or hands like TT or JJ, as well as lower sets. I don't agree on a full pot sized bet as I think he folds a lot of the hands that you're beating in that situation, but I'd say about 1/2-3/4 pot. Give him more incentive to call with marginal hands and bluff catchers.