Checking a boat makes sense as villain. After the flop c/r, hero's range is mostly big value hands (ie having a boat himself or the occasional AT) and draws. Once hero checks turn, it's weighted even more toward the draw portion, and he is probably checking to c/f; it seems better to check and let him catch up, or possibly make some weird bluff at the river.

I would not check a boat as hero. Most of villain's range is weighted toward Ax and other boats (said this before but I doubt he tries to semibluff FDs on the flop into those calling stations very often), with the former making up most of the combos. The board can only get scarier for Ax, and betting turn reps a draw better than checking turn and betting river imo.

Hero check raised the turn. We should be up against nutted hands and strong draws. We bluff out all the stuff we beat which will lead a ton of rivers. If I am playing as Villain in this hand with a boat, I wouldn't be checking though. Hero's range is mostly hands that will definitely at least call a turn bet.

I guess this is the same thing I'm always on about, but why would someone with a boat waste a street of value? Hero is going to miss the draw the significant majority of the time, and a Villain with a boat wins no more money.

I guess my real question is, shouldn't Villain sometimes be betting this turn? Or should this turn just always go check/check? The latter just seems really wrong to me, and if Villain is ever betting this turn then he should be betting his boats.

And this is the rare case where my question isn't solely about this Villain; it's what we would do in Villain's shoes. But it's also a question of, for a villain that we think won't bet a boat here, what should we make of a turn bet (if we check)?

Nothing should always be any one line. Villain can definitely bet a boat here some of the time. I just find calling stations to tend to slowplay more than go for value. He may think he can check back the turn and have us call a river bet but is scared of us folding to a turn bet. It's fishy logic but a lot of live players do tend to miss a lot of value.

I feel like most 2+2ers would bet this turn with boats as long as we assumed the villain we bet into has a range that is weighted more towards nutted hands and not just flush draws.

Pot is $365 and we have $410 behind. If OP has a draw and hits river, we as villain are getting his whole stack prettty much every time. Given the lack of implied odds, OP is also likely to just c/f turn with his draws if we bet any reasonable amount. Due to these factors I like checking is think.

I'm checking my entire range here as villain, unless I have some bare FDs in it, which I wouldn't because I wouldn't have bet flop with them in this situation. I guess you could make an argument for betting AT/AQ just to charge OP's likely draw or take the pot down, but given that OP can still have some boats/AT here sometimes, I checking behind.

As for your last question, just because a lot of us wouldn't bet boats here doesn't mean villain wouldn't, so if he bets his range is like 22/TT/AT/maybe the occasional AQ or something)/the rare FD that he spazzed the flop with

I was referring to otf, not pre. But yeah, I'm never folding any sooted broadway king (unless some jackass raises to $16 or something and makes it too expensive for a king-high spec hand lol).

This all day.

If you check/raise me otf, and I boat up on the turn, I'm giving you every opportunity to check/raise me again. Also, why would I let a hand like Op's get a free street? If he misses (which happens ~80% of the time), there's 0% chance he puts any more money in the pot.

+1

If I'm Toby, I'm betting my boat 100% of the time here. Probably not a huge bet, but I'm betting it.

Well, there is still a non 0% chance Op will bluff when he whiffs, but yeah, I agree with the rest of this statement overall. Op will have an extremely hard time folding to a ~1/3 PSB here and Villain really shouldn't be passing up on that huge value; and if Op is then unlucky enough to hit his draw, he'll have < PSB left for the river, I don't see how he'll possibly be able to fold at that point. Toby should always be betting his boat here, imo.

I think that's the optimal play in theory but it seems a little too transparent for reg-on-reg slash you won't be able to balance it by playing any other hands that way

I'm doing some FE calcs on this turn and it's pretty amusing. Surprising conclusions.

First i dont check raise the flop, i lead out the flop. I raised pre im taking the lead in this hand trying to take the pot on the flop, ur hand is strong but needs to improve to win.

As played, after u check raise the flop and get called i would normally check, a blocking bet wouldnt be too bad if ur sure ur opponent wont raise and its smaller than the amount the villan would bet had u checked.

If u check and ur opponent bets large, u either have to fold or ship depending

Depending on what?

Some math with likely calling and folding ranges. AA discounted some. I assumed he'd call with all AK combos and 1/2 his AQ combos due to his sticky nature.

Current pot=$365
My stack= $411
Villains range=
AA-1
TT-3
22-1
AK-12
AQ-12
AJ-12
AT-9
A9-12
Q9-1
===63 total
calling=32
folds=31
0.492 folds
.508 calls
Equity when called= 0.176

Villain needs to fold ~36% for BE.
So, the question is, is there another turn line that is better. It seems shoving is +EV.

Let's suppose we both check. What do you do with:
5
4
Q

EDIT: think I did this wrong. Rework later. But the hypothetical still stands.

Equity when called is actually 21.7% making break even fold frequency 30%.

So, what happened?

Rsults:

If when he had called you, he instead had said, "You would have bet all your value hands on the flop so I knew it was a bluff", would you still be saying it was a bad call? Because he was right this time. And be honest with yourself--how often would he be correct to call here? What hands are you check-raising the flop with in this situation?

I'm not debating how I played the hand, just that his comments revealed that he wasn't thinking nearly as well as I thought he does. He's never seen me bluff a big pot. Until now.

If you somehow knew that his comments were truthful, I would agree. Since I don't know that, I can just fall back on "was the actual decision to call a good decision". Without any further input from you, it looks like it might have been. While it's easy to say that normally when you put your stack in, AQ is no good here, in this case you did something weird and check/raised the flop. Would you ever do that with a value hand? (And also, if the answer is no, this hand suggests you might want to start, which you've pointed out already.)

I concede all of your points.

He's a pretty straight shooter. While I can't be certain he's not saying BS I got the impression he was trying to justify himself.

I will c/r some value hands there but inviously its not my default play. Usually not much need to get fancy. I have taken some b lines with him in the past.

At least I was able to shrug it off.