Hello all,

I'm not positive I misplayed this hand, but I'm writing to see if I'm playing bluff-catchers right on this board.

We're playing $1/$3 with $300 effective stacks and I think we're seven handed this hand.

Hero: UTG + 1
V1 (BTN): Tight player, not super aggressive but willing to put money in the pot when he has a good hand.
V2 (UTG): Loose player whom I've see raise PF UTG with hands like A6s, etc

Hero: 88

UTG limps to me, I raise it to $10 since the table is seeing very few players to the flop and very few three bets. My goal here is to fold hands like K9o on the blinds/button and to build a small pot if I hit a set. Folds to BTN who calls, as does UTG.

Flop ($25): 9JQ

Not a good flop for me. We check around. I'm not interested in Cbetting since it seems like there are a lot of hands calling 3bb that could have hit this.

Turn ($25): Q

A harmless card, but I check when it's checked to me since with three players I'm not sure this card is scary enough to fold for someone with T9 or Jx, etc. BTN checks too.

River ($25): 2

Total brick. UTG bets $20. I can't imagine the two helped, so I see this as either a bluff with a hand like AK/AT or it's a bet for value by someone who's trying to get a little extra money with a hand like TJ or T9.

Do I call here and look him up with my 88 or just fold and move on? Did I play too passively on the turn?

I think you played the hand well. I call. Villain can make a bluff with complete air after two check throughs. At the very least, you gain some information about UTG limp/call and postflop range. If you win, you show you can't be bluffed when you miss the flop. The information alone might be worth the ~6BB.

I think the oddest part of this hand is preflop but if your table is that tight then OK.

After that it's pretty straight forward. You hate the flop with your hand and are pretty much giving up on the flop. You could bet the turn but it's a marginal play on this board. River is a pure read on villain but I would mostly fold and move on. Villain can be bluffing and might be betting 77-/AK thinking they are good but there are a lot of JT/T9 type hands in range here for BTN that can bluff catch and villain bet into two people.

Yes, I'm not usually raising PF with 88 UTG +1, but short handed and with I think only 1 three bet in the last hour+, I felt okay about doing it. It's possible I was just getting antsy, though--I'll have to think about the raise more.

Firstly OP I appreciate you posting this. Not every decision we need to think about is a $500 river call, and thinking about smaller decisions and their meta impact is important.

You're getting slightly better than 2-1, but I think he shows up with something better 80% of the time, so I suspect t's marginally -cEV, so then the meta game comes in.

On the pro side for calling, you get info, and you show you won't be pushed around.

I definitely would not show if he beats you, and if you do win, people might be quite surprised that you raised 88 (I'm actually OK with it), so you might not get as much respect for your raises in the future.

I think I fold, and mutter something about AK never hitting. Completely understand a call though.

My 1/3 NL table plays totally different than yours (where after a limp and a raise to $10 in EP we'd be going 11 ways to the flop because the dealer would be playing too). So I'd just overlimp. You seem to know your table regarding what will narrow the field, so I guess the result is ok, but 88 is going to hate most flops and we'll most likely be OOP to at least one player, so I'm not totally in love with it.

I'm either/or on the flop. Even though it's an ugly flop, if watching many hours of Live At The Bike has taught me anything it is that many people can whiff the flop insanely badly. Being that we are only 3ways, it's possible we have the best hand, and perhaps even the best draw. I'd probably lean towards a 1/2 PSB and see what happens.

I would probably bet the turn. The Button is unlikely to be checking any pair behind on this drawy board when it's checked to him, and ditto for the EP player once the flop checks thru. So again a very good chance our hand is good here. If players are super aggro and realize we never have a Q here, I don't hate setting up a bluffcatcher nearly as much.

As played, I'd probably look the guy up on the river. One thing to keep in mind preflop raising mediocre hands like this OOP is that we'll be faced with a lotta decisions like this postflop, so if we're not totally comfortable in these spots we might want to rethink preflop a little.

GimoG

All seems fine, I'm basically giving up on this post-flop with 88.

On the river, if I were closing the action I may call, but with someone still to act I fold.