Live 2/5. 1k effective.

UTG limps, HJ (very good TAG player, has seen him make hero folds and hero calls) opens to 25. Hero makes it 85 with Ah3h in the cutoff. HJ calls.

Flop: Ac 6s 4c. (Pot 200)

Checked through.

Turn: Kh (Pot 200)

HJ bets 125, hero calls.

River: 9h (Pot 450)

HJ bets 250. Hero jams for 800 effective.

What do you think of each street? I think I have the clear range advantage on the river but my exact holding is a weak bluff catcher at best. I do think that the HJ is a good enough player to go for value with AQ and AJ. I have all the AA and KK in my range and he doesn't have AK in his range. The real question I think is if I should call this river or go for the bluff. In the end, I figured that the bluff was the far safer option since weirdly, I thought he was folding 100% of his range. Thoughts?

Why are you light 3betting a solid TAG? Just call and hope fishy looking utg comes along. A3s multiway with fish seems much more profitable than iso’ing the best player at the table.

i would for sure call villain in this spot. i can see a lot of villains thinking this is a decent turn card to bluff two streets, like if we have pocket jacks or pocket queens we probably can't call two streets and we have a-3 which is nice to have to bluff catch with.


so i really hate turning it into a bluff just because it seems unnecessary. that said do i have a river bluffing range in 3 bet pots on this run out? not really.


hands he could have that call you set of 9s and a-k, set of kings, but as you say he would 4 bet you with ak and set of kings some of the time and with 9s most of the time he would just check the turn and pray for a showdown. so i agree most likely hands he has here are ak, aq, (is he really raising a-j two streets in a 3 bet pot) or a bluff. so if we raise we narrow his calling range quite a bit, because maybe every once in a while he heros us with a-q but usually he folds everything but ak.


so i do get the merit of the play. that said its too scandinavian crazy man poker for my taste.

I like this 3bet with a small frequency. We need to have some lighter hands we're 3-betting with against good players for balance reasons. Certainly don't want to overdo it. Ace wheel suited and hands like KQo are good candidates imo. Again, not every time.

Well played throughout imo. I wouldn't be surprised to see AK here occasionally but there really isn't much else he can call with. AQ would be a very impressive call.

This is way too general of strategy, especially for 2/5. If V is super loose and opening too wide, then this is fine, but we have no indication of that.


Why iso the best player at the table when we can go 4+ ways with fish, position, and high IO.

This is what Ive said in a previous thread. Getting into pro vs pro leveling battles at 2/5 is so stupid when there are fish waiting to dump their money.


To be fair, this is a great hand to 3-bet lite, and this type of opponent has a fold button.


I honestly think the hand is wp. Pretty high variance and I wouldn't do it against unknowns, but would absolutely have this in my repertoire if it's against a reg I will be playing with a lot.

If you are just 3! to get folds then choose hands like A7o or K3s. A3s is too valuable at a fishy table.


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Overall I agree. Although it is nice to have the extra equity when our 3-b gets called.

I would have flatted because I'm there to stack fish. Usually Im bumhunting tables with the loose fish so I don't find myself in this type of spot very often. Hero really doesn't need to be making these types of plays to beat 2/5.

With that said, pulling the trigger in these spots, pre as well as post makes him an absolute nightmare to play against. Having opponents scared of you makes them play face up and passive against you, which is super +EV. This can be highly valuable at a table full of tight regs.

Never doing this against people I know I wont see again though.

You played well preflop, flop and turn. Now just call river.

You're repping exactly KK/AA when you raise river, so villain is going to hero call you with so many AJ/AQ combos (you said that villain loves to hero call). I'm assuming you never check back the flop with AK/A4, so that narrows your value range a lot.

You have clear showdown value against QJs/QTs/JTs/diamonds/airballs, all of which you unblock. That makes this a perfect bluff catching candidate. You only need to be good like 30% of the time to make a profitable call too.

I'd rather bluff a hand like QJ which has much less showdown value, although that requires you to check back QJ in the first place, instead of Cbetting the flop.

Sorry to pick on you, HomelessPizza, but I strongly disagree with all of the advice you've given in this thread.

Iso'ing tight players in position is a good thing, especially when we have a nice Ace blocker in our hand. And you really overestimate the implied odds with a hand like A3s. Often there'll be RIO when we flop an Ace and pay off a better Ace postflop.

But you're assuming we can go 4ways+. You're assuming that no one squeezes and you're assuming that the fish always come along. These are very optimistic assumptions. You also overestimate the IO and underestimate the RIO.

A3s-A5s are the perfect bluff 3bet candidates. We want some playability postflop and some opportunity to flop a nutted draw, so that we can continue to apply pressure. Think of this as a semibluff, rather than a complete bluff. We're semibluffing with A3s. We're not airballing with junk like A7o or K3s.

depending on your V, that is a very nice play. of course against some stations it is just lighting money on fire. but that is one of the best lines to combat against the superwide range of good LAGs.

I really like it since so much of a LAG's range is very weak.

but from a meta game sense, it will really slow down your LAGs when they know you have that play in your repertoire

"Iso'ing tight players is a good thing" alone says enough about how you are prioritizing poorly. We should be iso'ing loose passive players.

I just think there fundamental lack of understanding in how money is made at this level. 3betting the best player at the table is just not ideal. If you want to practice balancing your range and fighting back, then do it 50NL online. We have a clear fish who limped and likely will get calls from fish in the blinds.

Just because A3s is a good bluffing candidate doesn't mean we have to use it as such. To say A3s has high RIO is pretty sad at LLSNL. This means you are paying off way too often and unable to fold TPwk. A3s! has much stronger potential for over-flushing weak players who can't fold.

Result?

I dont really mind the 3b as I think A5-A2s are really good hands to do it with.
Doesn't mean I will go to town with it but there are 4 streets to play.
As played I coukd go either way preflop, I think a call is fine and a 3bet fine as well.
I think you played the flop and turn well.
It is pretty big bluff to run if villian is capable to hero calls

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In position against TAG: we want to 3bet a polarised range which contains some bluffs (eg. A3s) and some strong value (eg. AKo).
Out of position against station: we want to 3bet a merged range which contains many thin value hands (eg. 99, AJo).

I stand by my statement.

Independent of our 3! range here I would first see how out of line the TAG is here. Depending how soft the utg limp is the HJ tag could be open really wide and be folding to 3! very wide so this could be a great spot to 3! light. Calling seems like our worst option AP once we get to the river. Fold/shove > calling. Depends a lot on history/dynamic/gf but if he's really going for value @ that sizing w/ all of his AQ/AJ and your image is clean enough to jam rivers and get enough folds then shoving river seems fine but I would be surprised if that was the case.

I like the 3-bet bluff if this is a reg-heavy game. Having it in your repertoire is good, and a good TAG is exactly who you *should* 3-bet bluff considering they're capable of folding and you can't play as much ABC against them. My only issue preflop is that it's not worth it to pick up $25 if he folds - I'd much rather see more dead money, especially since A3s is a great hand to play in a multiway pot in position.

Postflop, I think it depends heavily on how you play AK, KK and AA on this flop. Assuming you'd check all at a moderate frequency then this play is much better.

Also I think our image matters a lot here. If we have a tight/nit image then V could show up with AK here on occasion (he's not always going to 4-bet with it), making this play a lot trickier.

On river, I think folding most of the time and bluffing occasionally is good. Never calling.

Seems like a whole lot of FPS wrapped up in one hand. I don’t hate it given how you got there though.

I feel like I should post results.

This was a reg-heavy table and there were a lot of TAGs. I was definitely not winning more than 4-5bb/hr in that lineup and wanted to try out some of the bluffs that are suicidal in any other lineup.

I definitely have KK and AA in my range as I'm checking flop with both and flatting turn. I would say that I almost never have AK as I'm probably betting the flop very very often with AK. I don't think he has any of those hands as he's 4-betting pre.

As for the results, I jammed and I could immediately tell that he didn't have anything. He fake tanked for about 15-20 seconds and folded (at least it looked like fake tanking). That's why I asked if calling was better, but in retrospect obvious jam is obvious.

I should also add that I strongly considered flatting pre. However, I've recently turned into a little bit of a station and have been calling with bad top pairs a little too much. That's definitely a leak in my game and I felt like the best way to remedy it is to 3-bet or fold my marginal holdings.

I like it
After reading this and your previous post with results sometimes when you try new things it can blow up in your face, other times it works out well.
As for the table if it is really that reg/nit heavy i would try for a table move

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If this was mentioned in the OP, then I would have been much more in favor of 3betting pre. I don't think flatting in this lineup is optimal since we are more likely to get squeezed and unlikely to realize our equity or IO. I always assume we have fish at the table, since playing in these reggy/Taggy tables is breakeven/marginal at best.

AP, I don't see any reason to turn your hand into a bluff OTR.

I think V has enough bluffs compared to value hands to make this call only needing 30%, especially since V won't likely be playing AJ, AT this way (He would bet much smaller to target QQ, JJ eg).