Home game .50/1, six handed.

Villain's limping and flatting range is a little loose pre, but he is aggressive with premium holdings. Plays post more aggressively when he has initiative. Does well in our game, but it's not exactly murderers row. $375

Hero is perceived TAG, covers villain.

UTG limps, Hero raises UTG+1 to $7.5 with QJs, folds to Villain in SB who calls. BB folds, limper folds.

Flop is K83r. ($17)

Villain checks, Hero leads for $10, Villain calls.

Turn is K83 Qx completing rainbow. ($37)

Villain checks. I could have checked here, but I feel my pair is mostly no good and want to continue to tell the story of a premium hand. Hero bets $40, Villain calls.

River is K83Q T. ($117)

Villain checks.

Now, I bet turn with the intention of bombing the river. My question is, should I have slowed down when I picked up equity on the turn?

I think that I have no SDV, so checking back river seems bad to me, but if anyone thinks otherwise I'm all ears.

With the line as played, what river sizing are you using here?

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Trying to blast guys off Top pair with pot size turn bets is losing strategy.

Especially with decent hand that has showdown value.

Turn is an easy check.

River is suicide, if you constantly try to rep AK or AA. Guys will start to pick you off.

My turn bet was not to bump him off top pair, it was to set up a big river bet. I had SDV on the turn, but I believe he calls flop mainly with Kx. By the river, I am never good with second pair.

The river is not something I "constantly" do, not sure what gave you that impression. It is a pretty low frequency play that allows me to also make large value bets.

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You know his range better than us. Plus his calling tendencies. But board is dry. Him calling pot size bet on turn suggest Kx.

12 combos AK not folding (may 3 bet some)
6 combos KQ not folding (not likely)
9 combos KJ
9 combos K10 (not folding)

K8 not folding.

If he plays k7-k-2, likely not folding because he is fish.

Also not folding a set, his other likely holdings.

So I hate bluffing this runout.

Turn bet is to big for both bluff and value IMO

Really dislike turning a hand with a lot of showdown value into a bluff. Good that we block a lot of Kx, but once we make strong 2nd pair. Let's see if we can showdown a winner.

Possibly (very likely I would) go for thin value on river

He is never flatting AK, KK, or QQ.

KQ is always calling river but will raise turn some amount.

88/33 has a tendency to donk lead or raise turn, but can't rule out. TT is folding turn.

KJ is always folding river.

K7-K2 is only calling pre if suited, and is going to try to bluff catch when he hits top pair. Often folding the turn. Always folding river.

The interesting part of his range is K8 and KT. Can he make a call with those if I bomb the river?

If we look at my range from his perspective assuming he has K8 or KT, the only hands I can bomb the river with that he beats are AA (6) and AK (8). The rest of my range is KK (1) QQ (3) 88(3/1) AJ (16) KQ (6).

Maybe I'm just trying to justify my decision after the fact. I felt like he had Kx and would fold if I bet turn and river but would call me if checked back the turn. I also thought an overbet would fold out his lower two pair hands, but maybe it was overly ambitious. I'll sleep on it.

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I mean sure, you can just go pot/pot/pot with bluffs and hope they fold. Sometimes they will. But at these stakes, over-folding is not a mistake many players mistake, so trying to force them to do it plays right into their calling tendencies. You will run into the occasional player who likes to make big laydowns, and by all means bluff away, but nothing about your read says this is that guy. Why try to bluff at a GTO level when you're playing against calling stations.

Aside form bombing turn & river hoping to get Kx+ to fold, you have a couple other options for playing this hand. Check the turn and play the river accordingly is the standard play. Another trick for the toolbag is to keep the initiative with a really small turn bet. Something like 1/4 pot or less. You can hope it earns you a river check so you can either take the free showdown or value bet if you improve.

This villain is not a station. Also, balance is more important than typical LLSNL because of the regularity we play each other.

All other points are duly noted. Will think more on it and check back later.

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Balance /= making -EV bluffs

Good luck balancing pot turn bets, when your betting with 2nd pair.

Think how we can take advantage of guys calling k-4 pre.

I will give you good start. Don't bet pot on turn. Find more advantage's route. His range vs our range.

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but we have a pair, so we want to save our bluffs for when we have air.

Results:

It's good you are blocking some of his best KX combos with your QJ.

Out of interest what's your opening range here and how frequently do you cbet flop?

This type of play works for me often, but I'm considered pretty tight and if I bet three streets, the players I will try this against are folding anything less than two pair. A few players in my game are stations, and I don't bother with them.

I would have gone a bit smaller on the turn, but if you know he can fold a weak K, I'm OK with the hand. Totally villain (and hero) dependent.

I was probably opening suited connectors as bad as 98s, opening all suited broadways, all suited Ax hands, ATo+, and 77+. My perceived range was probably much tighter than this, based off of my typical play style.

Cbet % I've never really tracked, I would guess no higher than 66%??? I know most players in my game are either very ABC fit or fold types or cbet 100% of the time when they are the PFR.

^ yeah i agree they will perceive you as tighter than you are. It always amazes me when I'm consistently opening around 12% of hands from EP/MP and my opponents typically put me on JJ+ AQ+. I think most people are so loose that anyone playing fewer than 1/3rd of their hands gets labelled an uber-nit. Consequently I have similar experience to Javanewt.

In those conditions I think this line is fine because you know thinking opponents aren't calling you down light so you know you've got no showdown. So the standard line when you pick up showdown on turn doesn't apply unless villain is unaware of your image and calling down light because he's oblivious.

At the same time you definitely want to be bluffing to take advantage of your tight image. However on a board like this you're kind of stuck for good hands to bluff with because you don't want to cbet QQ-99 on this King-high board due to it being a bluff with your image whereas if you check back you can potentially get value from Villain's 8X and JJ-99 on turn and/or river. So all your flop bluffs are going to have to be BDFds and/or BD-straight-draws or your weakest pairs (98s 77).

Once you hit the Q on turn it gives your bluff more equity and it is added card removal for Villain's KQ combos - probably the most likely hand he calls down 3-streets. Obviously KJ is next best 1-pair and you block that too.

This is quite an informative hand for me because although I've kind of felt this situation occurring I've never fully rationalised it till now. Thanks dude!

I mean yea, if you think he honestly folds KJ on the river, then the answer to “should I bet turn” is yes no matter what cards you hold. We have an opponent playing too wide a range and over-folding, that means we should just barrel constantly.

In general though I think turn is a check.

I've mentioned this before, but in the right situation, I will not even look at my cards and just bet, bet, bet on favorable run-outs, and they fold usually before I get to the river. It's pretty amazing. (I don't do it often, but it works 90% of the times I do. If I get played back at, I look at my hand )

I'd snap you off so fast on this river if I got there with a king.

You're reping very thin on this river. All kings to this point are two paired now except AK and KJ. That means you're saying you have a set or KQ. If you're trying to say you have AA or AK I think those hands would check back this river because calling a check raise would be hard/suicide.

you 7.5xd preflop which is trying to say you have a premium hand, the only premium hand that should bet this river is a set or KQ suited.

I'd probably just check jam with Kj if I were villain. Just in case you do go for very thin value. But definitely at least calling because you're repping such a narrow line with a river bet on the ten.


That being said, very unlikely for me to limp call a 7.5x OOP with kj. So i'd never be in this spot.

Would you call river with KJ facing this line from a TAG opening in EP?

AJ will open pre, will cbet, will barrel turn with 0 SDV and a gutter, and bomb river when I get there.

KQ will open pre, bet flop, bet turn, and bet river.

88 will open pre, bet flop, bet turn, and bet river.

If villain has KJ, that gives us 12 combos of AJ, 6 combos of KQ, and 3 combos of 88. (EDIT: One combo of KK still out there, but probably checks a dry board or bets smaller.) Add in any overplayed AA/AK if you want.

Our natural bluffs are.... what exactly? If villain expects us to slow down when we pick up equity, we should be checking turn with all of our Qx. How often is a TAG player blasting off on 3 streets with AT/T9 or turning Qx into a bluff immediately on the turn? This bluff worked because QJ blocks all the best hands he could have called with and it is a low frequency play.

If you want to call down with KJ here, most of the time you are gonna get pounded because most of the time r/b/b/b is KQ+.

Villain is in SB. UTG limper folded pre.

Even less likely to play kj to a 7.5x out of the small blind, but anyway regardless that i'd never be in this spot i'm just saying that your line doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Also I said if I have Kj here i'm mostly check jaming you on the river, not calling. Calling with it would be the less optimal choice in case you do have AA or AK.

KQ, QQ, 88 or KK, is the only hand you're expected to show up with here. And thats a small enough % of holdings to check jam or check call. 88/QQ being the biggest threat because we don't block any of that.

You can't just expect people to believe your two-pair/set lines everytime. If you had taken multiple tripple barrel lines that session i'd be even more likely to call you.

KJ is even more reason to call/jam because it discounts AJ.

Over pot sized turn bet heads-up on a dry board didn't do you any favors either. Looks like you don't want a call.

Assuming your villain called you with kj offsuit on the river. Doubt he thought it through but even against someone who did think it through you still get called.

I bluff more than 80% of players in player pool below 2-5.

The 20% that bluff more often are likely all large losers. I will admit I bluff at neutral gain or overall loss.

Your line is aids. Way your shaping your range is bad. You don't even have suits listed. So breaking down combos is nearly impossible.

With this line. You are trying to get him to fold majority of his wide range. There are easier routes to take advantage of players who are calling way to wide pre. Than going bet, pot, overpot.

Sure it works. But they will get tired of folding Top pair and eventually call you down.

Most Tags struggle with entitlement issues. And what you are doing here is definitely an entitlement issue.

Still not understanding what you think my bluff range here is and why it is large enough to warrant a call or a jam versus a value range of AJ/KK/KQ/88 and I guess some QQ/AA/AK. I get that it's a narrow value range, but we're at the river with 3 consecutive bets, it's always going to be narrow. The bluff range is even narrower and the bet size means you have to be right a large % of the time to be a good call.