Extremely loose 2/5 NL game. Villain is new to the table, ~500 stack, I cover, seems like he may be loose but unsure yet.

I hold JJ and raise it up to 15 in the CO (a rare case of the action folding to the cutoff). Villain calls in the BB.

Flop (32): T53

He checks, I bet 25, he calls.

Turn (82): A

He checks. I think for a bit and bet 55.

I think your raise size is too small for an "extremely loose 2/5 NL table" even from LP. $20 or $25 depending on who is behind us. Possibly more.

Flop is fine.

Turn I check back mostly. This card is good for both ranges but it sucks for our specific hand. We have position, lets use it to get to showdown if we can. I guess I can get on board with b/f if that's what you are doing here, just not my default.

River if he called I'm checking back and I'm mostly folding to any bet barring live reads. We do have a decent bluff catcher if it comes to that, but probably a leak if we do it on the regular.

Grunch.

I assume the question is whether the turn bet is good?

I think I favor a check.

V called OOP getting 2:1 with ~33x the bet behind. He's likely doing this pretty wide. Broadways, PP, SCs, S1Gs, suited aces, maybe some other, creative holdings.

He didn't RR your LP raise, so I expect the top end of his range to be pretty limited.

To call the flop, I think he has some sets, 2P, a couple OESDs around 64s or maybe 42s. He might also have some A3s or A5s type hands, along with A2s and A4s.

The ace has probably improved around 25% - 30% of his turn calling range. 42s got there, as did A3s, A5s, A4s, and A2s

He's picked up a few flush draws, but not many since most of his suited hands either had an ace or were SCs and S1Gs that mostly wouldn't want to hang around OTF.

If you're going to bet, I'd make it small, only $40. There's a decent chance of seeing a x/r here and we still want to encourage calls from T's. He doesn't have many draws, so we don't need to charge them.

If we check it back, we'll have to eval a river bet.

If we bet here, I'm done with the hand, folding to a x/r or any real lead OTR.

very good thread imo.
I think turn is a bet. I strongly disagree that this card is good for both ranges, imo it clearly favours ours over a bb defend, and I think we´re gonna bluff this card almost always with picked up equity like GS to broadway or picked up fd. we´re likely opening almost all combinations QJ+ both suited and offsuit if it folds to us in the CO on such a loose table, and we´re gonna use those including picked up fds to bluff him off the weak holdings which make up the majority of his range here imo.
if we only balance those bluffs with turned Ax and c/behind our marginal SDV as well, we´re probably overbluffing a lot. Maybe c/behind Tx, but JJ seems to be too high in our range to play it as a bluffcatcher when villain likely doesn´t have much reason to bluff us if he c/c our cbet on such a bone dry board, more likely he´s got some sort of showdownvalue imo.

bet/fold turn c/behind river imo.

as a side note, I think these kind of threads would really do wonders for our improvement as players and for longterm winrates. standard spots instead of full house vs quads threads.

Yeah, the ace is better for our range than for his. We could easily bet every ace we raised with and he will have likely folded a chunk of his aces OTF.

But I don't think we especially need to be range v. range against this guy. Until proven otherwise, I'm going to assume he's not that tricky or aggressive and we can play our actual cards against his range.

I'm not going to make any attempt to balance against him until I've played enough to know that he might notice and that I'm likely going to face him for enough hours to matter.

I think there are a few likely scenarios on the turn:

• He has ace or better. We lose about the same amount whether we check or bet, but checking gives us a small chance to improve and probably win a sizable pot. Edge to checking.
  
• If he has air, but a draw to beat us (like a Q or K), it's better to fold him out; he's not putting money in the pot unless we're beat, so let's not give him a free shot to beat us. Edge to betting.
  
• If he has air with a draw to something that will pay us off, it's better to check. But I don't think there are any hands like this in his range.
  
• If he has something like a T, he'll probably fold now but may call a small bet on the river. Edge to checking.

Overall, I think checking helps us capture more value when we're ahead, gives us a small chance to catch up if we're behind, doesn't really risk much in free cards, and loses about the same if V is ahead of us.

I don´t really agree with these points. these are just assumptions imo, and I don´t say they are wrong or anything, might be correct for all we know, but we base these assumptions on a certain player type, and villain is unknown.

if we are playing against an unknown, I think we should not care too much about exploiting a tendency that might be there or might not. I think it´s better to just play our range the best way possible, and I think JJ is a bet in this situation for reasons stated above.

But I´m not sure obviously. I think it´s pretty close, that´s why I think it´s a good thread.

I'm in the check turn camp. If we are ahead, we might get a little more on the river if we check turn, but if we bet turn he's likely to fold now.

If we check turn and he bets a normal amount on river, we can decide. If we bet turn and he calls, we have to fold to a river bet (I think).

This makes sense to me, but not sure I explained it well.

This spot comes up so often....you really have two choices on the turn:

You can b/f turn and if you get to the river check it through or fold to a bet

You can check through the turn and then call a river bet from villan....

There are merits to both, but I prefer betting the turn, I like a bet around the 40-44% pot mark....this size bet Imo geta us to showdown the cheapest as often as possible... If we check turn and villan bets 80% on the river, we still have to call (vs most villans) equally if we bet the 45% pot line, we can fold to any villan aggression safe in the knowledge JJ just isn't ahead almost ever.....

Doh

This is a common enough spot and it might make sense to bet both those hands that are at the high end of your range (AK/AQ+) and the semi-bluffs and vulnerable hands (e.g. KQ, 88) while checking medium strength hands (e.g A2s, JJ). You bet your big aces to make money from smaller aces, check your medium-strength hands to get a river bet (either value or bluff catching), and bet your weaker hands to get a fold from hands that are better or have significant equity.

The question this brings up is when it goes check/check and you bet the river, is it too transparent?

Exactly my motivation to post this .

I feel like the standard for a lot of players is to check here, but when you're playing guys who play way, way too many hands, the opportunities to bluff and value bet are both much higher.

I'm not sure if I'd have a checking range on this flop texture, but if we're potentially checking back our mediocre A-high's on the flop (A6-A9), then we actually don't have a ton of value when we bet turn (A2-A5, AT+, sets). We probably don't have many other two pairs; potentially like 53s since I could be raising 64s here, but that's just 2 more combos.

So combo out value and let's pretend A6-A9 was a check.
Sets: 12
Two pairs: 29 (AT, A5, A3, 53s)
Top pairs: 60 (AK, AQ, AJ, A4, A2)

So we're at 101 combos. So what bluffs can we have? Let's be fair and say we check KQ back on the flop

The ones that come to mind include KJ (16), QJ (16), 76s (4), 64s (4), and turned spades (call it 10 more). So 50 potential bluff combos.

I'm obviously highly motivated to stab with all 50 of those hands on this turn card, but it seems clear that I'll have too many bluffs relative to the price my opponent is getting after a 2/3rd PSB (2.5:1). So we need to add some value, and sounds like KT, JJ, QQ, and KK make a lot of sense to help balance out our strategy on this turn card (which is to bet it. A lot).

Obviously, balance against a fish (I think it's safe to assume a weekend 2/5 NL player sucks until proven otherwise is fine) isn't exactly what we should be striving for, but I think having bets like this could be potentially beneficial to an overall gameplan in these spots. Like how often does a reg comfortably call a worse reg on this turn w/ like JT and win when the river checks through, because the BTN was bluff heavy?

Of course, I can always be sold that there's simply no dynamic here between two unknowns where I can reasonably expect to get value from a ten.