$1-$2 Live 9 handed. Hero gets dealt AT in BB with 5 limpers in MP/LP. Hero raises to $20/$250. Folded to CO who calls $20/$600. Villain in CO is a good regular player. Probably best at the table and has played with hero before. Villain knows how to extract max value and reads boards well/plays post flop well and often calls light pre-flop with ATC to take it away on later streets. Villain is able to fold his weak hands to pressure but often requires three barrels. He probably views hero as a TAG player leaning more towards nitty as Hero has been card dead this session for a while mostly folding pre-flop.


Flop ($48)

Q92

Hero C-bets $25. Villain calls as expected.


Turn ($98)

5

Hero bets $65. Villain tanks and hesitantly calls.

River ($228)

K

Hero:

A) Check(fold/raise)
B) Bet

Appreciate comments on all streets.

Don't raise pre.

I would flat more then raise pre. Depends a bit on villains and stack sizes, but ATs generally isn't strong enough to raise over that many limpers OOP.

I like the flop, c-betting a bit small on a dry board because your planning on barreling later. Turn is obvious, card looks brick but actually gives you more equity. River is a OK card to bet, villain shouldn't have much KX in his range and you could be betting KX and QX at that point. You probably have to shove bluff but it should get a lot of folds. Just be careful not to barrel air very often, you should give up on flop some of the time, turn some of the time and river some of the time.

I admire your aggression, but I recommend checking ATs in the BB. I just think raising is likely to get us in some sticky spots, such as playing OOP against our toughest opponent, which appears to be what happened.

As played, I think c-betting is fine, and I think following through with the second barrel when you pick up the heart draw is good too. However, I don't think either bet is large enough. I'd c-bet 35 and then bet 85 into 118 on the turn.

Under that scenario, we have 110 on the river and the pot is 298. Getting 3.7:1 might be too difficult for him too pass up. I actually think a river shove works out better the way you played it, because you'd be shoving 160 into 228, which is a tougher decision.

I don't love that river card, because JT got there and KQ improved. Unless he was calling you down with QJ or 88 or something, the shove probably isn't going to work.

I think I'd just give up.

I vote spew.

I would be checking this pre.

On the turn, the sizing is way too small if you were trying to get a fold. Unless you wanted to build a pot in case you hit your flush, which I don't condone in this case.

As played, we are only beating bluffs. So if you think you can get him to fold to a ~2/3PSB OTR, go for it. I don't think he is, and we should be c/f, learning our lesson the majority of the time.

If you are going to raise this pre, I think you should c/ship the turn. If he is lag he will be probably betting most of his range, including gutshots, OESD, and made hands to protect his equity. Your range will probably look like an overpair or AQ+ trying to end the hand ASAP.

If it backfires and he checks back the turn, he probably has some SDV. I would only put money in on the river with a flush and maybe Tx, Ax rivers.

If disaster occurs and you run into the top end of his range on the c/ship, you stil have 20-26% equity. This check ship allows you to get value from his weaker draws that would otherwise fold to most medium sized double barrels.

I'd C/R turn. Get him to bet his atc to take it away/ fold 9's and possibly weak Q's which I think he'd bet to protect against AK, flush draws gut shots etc. If it checks through you got a free draw at your flush.
edit: it also seems like you play with him a lot and this is a good hand to balance out your c/r with sets, etc.

I think C/F turn is best.

We are facing the best player/good reg, albeit relative. A CR line representing KK+/AQ seems inconsistent with both SD/FD present. Think he would pick that off.

As played, C/F river.

He can't assume were making a large raise pre with jt, only a turned heart draw is present also, not many combos. He's also not going to have a made hand here always so we get value from that in which he may fold to a second barrel. If he bet/hero calls it off , we can just reload and adjust IMO

We have the nut flush draw on the turn. We can not say that a fold on the turn is correct without knowing the villain's bet sizing. Generally, vs a normal sized bet we will have implied odds to call and our river bet will not need to be very big to make our call +EV.

PF raise is ok some of the time, but not regularly.

I also like to c/r Turn here. Your c-bet on Flop is fine, maybe some value for Qx here on a 'nothing' board but then you follow it up with a c/r on Turn once the flush draw shows up. This should take down most pots since you have the nut draw and it looks like you are protecting against a flush. So you implying that you are protecting Qx when you actually are getting chips into the pot you may not get if you hit your flush on the River .. since you have to lead out or it will probably get checked through unless he has a flush also.

Turn AP, you could bet slightly larger here but I like the size to allow for some fold equity on the River for him if you barrel. I wouldn't recommend an all-in there ... but that's just me since I think shoving looks weak a lot of the time in these spots.

The K on River is ok to bet with since you couldve had AKh ... the only issue here is why did he hesitate on the Turn? Was it for his own draw or contemplating a raise of his own Qx?

I don't mind barreling here since its the only way to win the pot and you are now starting to dig into his stack a bit. He must have KQ/AQ or KhXh to call here IMO. GL

Unless a decent lag, he will check back JT/QJ/QTs imo. A bet here usually means we are behind, I can't see QX folding. While our range / line does not include many FD combos, he may simply be thinking ... TPTK / over pairs do not normally take this line.

Certainly, however we are facing a good player, so our IO are clearly reduced.

I didn't think about check/raising the turn initially, but I kind of like it.

First, we may be able to gain some useful information from the size of his bet, assuming he does bet. We may perceive a smaller bet to be a sign of weakness, and that's when I think we blast it all in. That may be the best way to get our chips in and apply maximum pressure. If we bet the turn and shove the river, he's going to be getting a great price to call. On the other hand, facing a big check/raise on the turn might make him feel differently. If he bets something closer to $100, we have the option of folding, since it's unlikely we'll be able to blow him off whatever hand he has at that point.

It's also not a tragedy if he checks behind.

If our IO are clearly reduced, that means he has a fold button right?
OP says this guy likes to call atc and take it away. This flop is loosely coordinated and also loosely hits lots of hands he'd limp call with.Like T9, JT,J9,98, etc. They caught a piece of the flop and he's got position. Doubt he has QQ or 99 (but we definitely can rep this)since no raise pf after several limpers. 22 and Q9 are the only reasonable big hands in his range and we have outs against both. Turn is basically a blank.Unless he picked up a FD (awesome), He's probably got the same weak hand as on the flop.We have fold equity due to his wide range and playing style and even our A might be good if he calls with say a pair and a FD or just thinks were bluffing and tries to hero call us. I'm check/shipping turn
Edit: assuming he bets weak/normal amount

X/jam turn imo . Nothing is folding OTR with your line

LOL @ x/f turn. Just shove and win

So he limp calls 20 pre ~250 eff as well as shows the ability to fold weak holdings but usually only after stationing off two streets

Wouldn't call that good

Check pre most of the time

C/shovel turn

Do not like check/raise turn. He will have invested 90-100$...we can't expect him to fold many hands that beat us for $100 more.

I like betting large on turn way more than check/raise. More so against sticky opponents.

You have good reads on Villain but you don't seem to use them at your advantage.

Preflop:

I think raising a bunch of limpers with ATs is a good value raise despite your positionnal disadvantage. You must pound on the limpers sometimes from the blinds and that's a decent opportunity.

Flop

If you expect to be called very often, why do you c-bet with A high?

You have a hand with a little SD value and potential BDs that typically could skip c-bet especially against an opponent whose tendency is to call multiple-barrels light!
That's precisely the adjustement you make vs this type of opponents.

Turn

A second barrel is appropriate when you have fold equity + some equity (i.e when the turn card boost your equity).

Fold equity wise, this is not a scare card and this is not the right opponent.
Equity wise, it's a very good card as you catch a backdoor.

So you fill only one of the 2 conditions that you're looking for.
Plus the fact that you have a positionnal disadvantage and it would be harder to extract value or bluff OTR, this should tilt the balance over a check.

Given your read that Villain like to steal pots on later streets, a c/r shove semi bluff if he bets could be very appropriate (plus the stack sizes are perfect).


River

Difficult spot...like often when it comes to 3 barrel bluff...

Villain has a medium range and the river is prolly not very good for him.
On the other hand, you can't rep a lot but also your line is very strong and Villain will be hard pressed to call an All-in with his likely middle strenght hand.

All in all I think it's a good opportunity to fire the 3rd barrel.
Your read on Villain to call light but fold to pressure on 3 barrels clearly tilt the balance in favor of a shove imo.

We are 20% to win on turn vs top pair type hand. If he bets 1/2 pot ($50) on turn we need to make 4 to 1 on our money to make it a profitable call. The pot will be $148 on turn and $50 for us to call. We only need to make $200 on our $50 investment to make this profitable. So when we hit, our opponent must call a bet of at least $52 so that we make $148 on the turn and $52 on the river for the $200 we need. The pot size will be about $198 on the river. It will be extremely difficult for villain to fold for $52.

If he bets more, such as pot on the river. Then we will need him to call a 2/3rds pot sized bet on the river to make it profitable. (he bets $100, pot is then approx $200, we need to make $400 on our $100 investment; we make $200 in immediate odds, so we need to make $200 on river. Pot will be $300 on river, thus we need villain to call a 2/3rds bet on river for it to be profitable against one pair type hands).

Thanks for the comments guys.
I haven't tought about the c/shove turn line but I like it.

Results.

In general I don't like 3-barrelling but if there is a good card to barrel on the river, then this is probably it. That being said, it's probably still -EV to bet this river so I think your river line was fine and pretty standard.