Hero: (500) somewhat TAG ish image but new to table
V: (275) MAWG Looks like a nit on the surface but he's willing to mix it up in spots and isn't just betting with only the nuts; seen him button straddle and raise every single time he did this so calling him a nit is a bit of a stretch


I open in MP with KQo to 12; 3 callers, F:QJX; I c-bet 30 on this board to thin the field and get value from worse hands; The V is in one of the blinds and he calls , other players fold

T: 3 ; I bet 70 into a roughly $100 pot after getting checked to ; I think there may have been two clubs on board at this point; I am betting for value against Qx, Jx; and looking to charge draws the max;


R:4 (offsuit) Complete brick and it is checked to me; i am pretty certain my hand is good here but based on the line I took and the size of the pot I felt like it was a bit ambitous to go for 3 streets of value here on the river; Some % of the time I am going to be walking into a trap; is it worth it to bet/fold this river for value? or is a check back here pretty standard; If I did bet I'd probably go half pot for about 120 and he may call with worse considering everything missed


I did end up checking back the river and playing it safe

Villain has exactly a 2/3 PSB ($162 into $240) left. All the draws bricked. Stick it in there. If he slow played a set of whatever 'X' is on the flop or QJ then say nh.

I think a river check is defensible. I don’t hate a bet either, keeping in mind V has $160 behind with a $235 pot so it’s Shove or check, no b/f. If H had AQ instead of KQ i’d Advocate firing the river every time. Q10 is clear check back, AQ is clear shove. KQ can go either way.

Bet.

This, AQ is a clear shove but KQ is pretty dicey, what are we expecting to get called by? AQ is a clearer call for him than QT is and I'm not sure what else there is. I'm assuming from V description that he folds Q9 pre and folds all his jacks OTT. In general I want to fire again in spots like this because it lets you have more bluffs on these kind of runouts, but I think this one is extremely thin.

thank you for feedback; I think this spot goes either way as well , that's why i posted this one; Had my opponent looked like the passive stationy type, I'd be more inclined to go for value here, It still hurt me inside to check this river

He actually did call turn with AJ

If villain thinks you’re bluffing he’s going to call with AQ and QT all the same. Villain’s actual hand would almost certainly have called a shove blocking AA, AQ and JJ.

If he thinks I am bluffing with a missed draw then any pair could serve as a bluff catcher or even A high; If he thinks I'm betting for value he could call more comfortably with AQ than QT

Yes, obviously.

Calling with A-hi would be bad because AK makes up such a big percentage of your three barrel range.

If he’s folding everything worse than AQ to a shove then you have carte blanch to shove AK, KT and 9T which would be way over bluffing this spot in theory.

David Sklansky goes over this situation quite a bit in "The Theory of Poker." In general, you want to value bet the river when you beat over 50% of his CALLING range.

You don't have this advantage, so it is a check. Making a villain fold a worse hand on the river is not a victory.

Grunch

Starting with the end first - I think you've put in 112 by river and V therefore has 275-112= 163 left while pot is 250ish. With less than a PSB behind I don't think you can countenance a bet-fold.

Going to the beginning - your raise is quite large at 6X but it goes 4-way with SPR of 275:48 or 5.5:1 giving you a horrible spot for top pair.

I'm thinking in this game you need to tighten up your preflop open range and go even bigger on your sizing or open wider and smaller or incorporate some open-limping if they'll let you get away with it. Aim being to avoid 3 and 4-way pots with SPRs between 4 and 9 while you frequently hold top-pair-goodkicker or worse pairs or just two big unpaired cards. Those are some of the most difficult to play and least profitable situations in holdem IMO - best avoided if you can figure out a way to do so.

As played you flop TP2K but TP3K is 2-pair and there's no guarantee any of your opponents raise your 6X preflop open with their AQ so all combos of TPTK are potentially in play. You also block some combos of the nut-straight draw (KT). Therefore with the bloated pot the value of this hand isn't all it looks to be at first glance. I think you need to go smaller on the flop to target QT- and expect to only get two medium sized bets (1/2 pot) or three small bets (1/3rd pot) called unless V is a station. I think most of your possible value range is thinking the same on this flop: your AA blocks AQ, your KK blocks KQ and KT. None of your range has much reason to bet this flop bigger than half pot IMO.

On the turn same logic applies - no need to go bigger than half pot really.

On the river: because low stakes players will see little reason to raise you with AQ at any point preflop or postflop you can't discount it very much just because he took a X/C-X/C line. Thus you're never really sure whether a river bet is getting called by worse or just value owning yourself. Against a real station I can see betting river working fine but against a somewhat tight opponent in this bloated pot I think you're river value bet with KQ is pretty thin. You're repping AQ+ so V has to be in bluff catching mode to call < KQ here. Therefore I think I check behind here too.

As a counterfactual imagine you bet just under half pot on flop and turn: 20 into 48 on flop, one caller, 40 into 88 on turn, river is 168 with around 200 behind. In that scenario I feel a lot more confident V can have QT/Q9 or JX and I can go for a small bet/fold around $40-60.

This is clearly bad if we intend bluffing this river with any frequency but given that the flop was 4-way and bloated and we're IP I don't think we should have much need for a lot of bluffs here. With my KTs/T9s draws I probably take a bet-check flop-turn line to get a free card and avoid getting blown off my draw. With AKs/ATs with BDFDs I'm probably one and done on the flop when I don't turn the FD. So when it runs our blank like this and I'm in position and bet twice after flopping multiway I don't have any bluffs on the river. Therefore my bet size should be small with my whole river betting range to induce sigh-calls from as wide a range of V's pairs as possible.

I think that makes sense but I may have even confused myself here lol!

Reading others -

JohnnyBuzz is definitely a more aggressive player than me so I can well believe he could get away with shoving this river as played due to the fact he can be more balanced on this river than I would be comfortable being.

Otherwise (if you aren't triple barreling KTs/T9s and some AK/ATs) Venice10 is concise and correct IMO.