Hero just sat down with $300. No reads on the table but it's Saturday night. Noticed some looser than usual shoves from other players but not from the Villain. He has me covered.

2 players limp and Hero in MP2 with KcKh. Raise to $20. Button calls and one limper calls.

6s 4s 4c ($60). EP limpers checks, Hero bets $30. V1 calls and EP limper folds.

9c ($120). I figured the Villain could have a wide range of draws, overcards, PPs, so I fired off another $60 bet. He calls instantly.

2d. ($240) Hero checks and villain shoves all-in. Would cost $180 for a pot of $420.

I checked the river thinking a missed flush or straight might bluff but didn't expect a full shove. Would it have been better to do a $50 blocker bet and fold to a raise?

AP do you always call this raise or do you give him credit for a 4 or a set, based on the fast flop and turn calls?

Snap call. A blocked bet/fold would be horrible.

yea i guess i would call here. but if i played it myself he wouldnt have that much left to bet on the river. i scale my bets to not let him have pot odds and not to leave him with a bluffing stack on the river if a bad card comes and i might have to fold.
you decided to play this hand far along so play it so he doesnt get the best of it.
there is a good chance he has an overpair and now may think its good or a bluff of course.

Snap call. Well played. You cannot fold.

Blue horseshoe likes bet river.

Snap call, but I would of sized bigger otf and ott

Yea unless he’s particulalry bluffy we should just shove river a lot of the time here but check isn’t terrible. As played trivial call.

I'll get flamed for stating this (as usual), but preflop has setup an awkward spot. Even though it only went 3ways, and even though we only made very small 1/2 PSBs on the flop/turn, we still got ourselves into a spot by the river OOP where we only left ourselves with a 3/4 PSB left (and yet gave 2 opponents okish 16+ IO preflop). Increase the amount of preflop callers, or the size of our flop/turn bets, and we become even more trivially and yet very uncomfortably committed.

The river is a tough spot. But we get blinded with attempting to make the correct river decision, when maybe the real decision was whether we can do something better earlier to avoid gross spots.

FWIW, almost no one will agree with me on that.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Jam river, as played obviously calling and losing to pocket sixes/nines

Great feedback everyone, thank you. Yeah so seems like I could have made life easier with some larger bets, especially PF.

Maybe shove the river versus a check call. Will keep that in-mind, thanks!

I do agree. I think the hand is fine as played, but hero could certainly have bet 2/3rd to 3/4th pot on the flop and turn to trivially jam the bricked river themselves. As played, we're already committed the moment we have the second best hand in poker and we encounter a low paired flop and the draws bricked out. We simply have to payoff the 4 (or a boat) every single time.

I like the check/call way better than shove. Shove just lets him call with better and fold worse.

We're not quite on the same page.

I agree that we could tweak our postflop sizing. In fact, in an SPR 4.5 pot, we could actually overbet the flop to setup a turn jam. And yes we could also size larger on flop/turn to setup a trivial river jam. And against opponents of yesteryear who would hurp durp off with TP / small overpair, this might not be a horrible line. But once our opponents start becoming just a little bit more cautious about stacking off for $300, or unless we have an uber 4barrel-with-air image (I'm assuming we don't), then this spot becomes more and more sucky.

Preflop we got in just 6% of stacks, and yet it set us up for where we have to play for 94% of stacks postflop. The more terrible our opponents are, the more this will be an okish spot; the less terrible our opponents are, the more this becomes a very meh spot.

So I would have either (a) opened much larger to prevent our opponents from getting okish IO when we're committed ($30, although in some games that is admittedly pushing it) or (b) limped to limp/reraise.

GcluelessNLnoobG

check call can also mean we dont get paid off with hands we beat, and pay off all the hands that beat us.
the only thing that usually applies is what is the correct action for the given circumstance against this individual according to what we know about him.

the less we know the more our play has to change, thinking backward of course.

I know you are thinking backward, but I'd love to know a hand that calls a river shove that we beat?

(Or are you thinking "in general"? I agree that it depends, but in this hand I think check/call is better.)

possible ace nine of spades, any overpair to the board. maybe any pair putting you on ace king. depends on the player of course whether you bet or not. and whether you shove or make a smaller bet. those are hands that may call but might not bet.

i never like check call unless i know the player bluffs a lot and, or, will bet marginal hands that i beat.

Plenty of pocket pairs, As9s As9x plenty of 6x. We will be perceived to have so much AK/AQ/ missed flush draws here. If he’s only calling down with hands better than KK we should be bluffing a ton in this spot.

If you or villain ever have a pot sized bet left behind on the river then you should always be expecting that stacks are at risk. As played you have to call, he has way more combos of missed draws than 4s anyway.

Snap call.