Hi guys played an interesting hand today at a 2/5 NL table. I was holding J J UTG so I open for $40 on a straddled button. SB and BB fold and then it gets folded around to the BTN who calls.

Hero: $1000
Villain: $1000

The flop comes: K 8 9 $87 in pot

It goes check check.

The turn brings a 7

I opt to bet $40 for value and also to charge club draws and gut-shot straight draws containing Tx hands. Villain calls.

The river brings a 9 $167 in pot Hero????

Villain is a fish LAG. He limps a ton and calls raises after limping with suited connectors and some marginal holdings regardless of position or number of opponents. Villain also limp 3 bets with big hands. I have seen him limp with AKs UTG then 3 bet a MP open raise. He also bluffs with air whether in or OOP. If it goes check check flop and turn he tends to attempt to steal.

Now against such a villain I would opt to make a blocker bet to get to a cheap showdown mainly because there aren't many hands that I beat in this spot except for busted gut shot draws excluding T9 and busted flush draws. If I check the river villain might bluff me off the pot with a big bet.

Your feedback is highly appreciated fellow 2+2er!

check/call

Please put Villain descriptions in the beginning of the thread.
OTF it's hard to get called by worse. Especially so considering you have blockers to many of the SDs, but I still prefer a Cbet here to fold out all this guys junk that has decent equity against us.
As played, I bet turn since V has shown no interest in the pot and to charge draws.
As played OTR I'm torn between C/Cing to induce, and value betting. Since the board paired OTT I'm leaning toward a C/C.

Check call probably on river, maybe check fold. Against maniacs, it's better to check call down here, even on three streets. Betting flop and sometimes turn is better against most players. You protect from 3 and 2 outers, get value from worse, disguise your range, etc etc. also heads up, you have the best hand a big % of the time

Since our plan is to check call river why not make a blocker bet on the river to dictate the river bet size and save money the percentage of times we are behind here?

I'd probably check call as well. If you bet and he is truly LAG then you will fold when he raises which is what he should do a majority of the time is he is LAG. I'd much rather give him some rope to bluff off to me instead of putting my self in an awkward spot of trying to talk my self into calling a raise that would cost me more and ultimately just fold. I THINK check calling is cheaper and more profitable .

I generally don't make blocking bets. I either bet for value, or check because I have trash or am trying to induce. Blocking bets function to prevent being bluffed or to save a couple dollars. Against the right opponent I'll take the loss of a couple bucks in order to allow them to bluff at the pot. Why would you ever want to make a bet that prevent a V from bluffing when he's not bluffing at a GTO frequency? That said, I'm basically responding to your post generally and didn't review the hand.

Because his bluffs are never calling. If we blocker bet we miss value from all his missed draws etc. if we check call we let him value own himself some of the time and other times we get extra value from air. In your description you say he bluffs, and your line if check bet check looks super weak.

Not to mention a portion of the time he may raise your blocker bet and blow you off the pot.

bomb river and get hero called.

The bolded are a bunch of very good reasons to check/call here. We're against a range that includes a ton of air, and we beat essentially no hands that have any SDV. If this Villain is likely to bluff air here, as it sounds like he is, we lose tons of value by leading out. (And it's a disaster if he ever bluff-raises our blocker bet.) A blocker bet MIGHT save us some money when he has Kx or 9x, but if we check, our hand is pretty face up as <Kx, so often his value bets are going to be small-ish anyway.

Check call.

40/call

Bet flop, bet more on the turn. As played, check river and if the villain bets big, fold. Alternatively, bet full pot or close to it and make him figure out if hero has a 9. Hero is ahead of LAGs range here. Any decent LAG is going to come right over the top of a blocking bet and put the hero in a crappy spot.

Don't like gaybet/call because he could have trips, in which case you pay off his big raise.

I prefer to save the gaybet/call for spots where they're unlikely to have anything.

thats true, but 9x is such a small portion of his range, which is very weak on this river. i think hes gonna get to the river this way with a ton of p+draw stuff, Tx, and even 22-66/some Ahi, and i think he will check back a many of those hands that he feels have a small amount of sdv, whereas facing a small river lead he will be tempted to start clicking buttons. even when he doesnt decide to bluff raise, i think he will be tempted into making a super light call with something like 67s, and the profit we gain from these calls also helps to offset the extra we lose when he has 9x.

i agree with most of this.

i don't think going small is a bad choice... i say go large only because I like to use polarized sizing against villains that try to think, in pots where i can't have the nuts due to the way the hand was played/ my range.

Check/call.

T9s or something is possible, but expect to see a lot of AT, QT, 66, etc.

LAG description makes check/call a pretty clear choice.

Also, blocking JT is nice.

I actually think both check/calling to bluff catch and check/raising as a bluff with the blocker to the straight and facing a range that is almost never nutted are both profitable.

Check/raise bluffing is a little FPSy, and you need to be sure he folds trips, etc.

I dont normally check/call the river vs typical llsnl villains, but when I do, it's in a spot like this

-many missed draws/floats described lag will likely bet with

-value betting is very thin and a hand like JJ will probably not be called w/ worse >50% of the time.There is also the non 0% we get bluff raised

-If villain was loose passive with a low bluff frequency in this spot I'd most likely ck/fold

I agree.. tempted to block bet but this allows villain to play correctly with a large portion of their range ... ie raising with air and calling with hands that he is priced in with... I honestly don't see him folding better or calling with anything other than TT that is worse... and I think he raises Tx/TT on the turn ... which brings me to issue I have with you calling a limper 'LAG' seems more loose passive imo

Check call.