1/3 NL - Effective stacks ~$600

Middle position makes it $20 to go, folds to me with 45ss on the button. I call. We go heads up to the flop.

Pot size: $44
Flop: Jd 7s 4d. Opponent bets $20. I call.

Pot size: $84
Turn: 3s. Opponent bets $60. I call.

Pot size: $204
River: 9s. Opponent checks. I bet $160.

Thoughts?

Fold preflop.

If I was villain I would call your bet with any hand that I wouldve gotten this far with other than total air.

Preflop: You are scraping the bottom of his range, if not buried under it.

Flop: You flopped a pair [~32% of the time] & a BDFD & call getting 2:1 on your money. You have 10% chance of 2pr+ OTT & your BDFD.

Turn: You hit your flush draw [21.25% of the time] & call $60 getting 2.33:1 on your money. You're a 2.29:1 dog to improve on the river.

Your V checks the river, either with AK etc., or, maybe AJ etc., looking to c/c cheap.
What do we do if you don't hit the river & he bets $100? What if you fold & he tables AK for you?

I would have folded pre-flop to this sizing.

Flop is standard.

On the turn, I would need more info about the villain and hero's image. If he can lay down TPTK/overpair hands and/or can double-barrel with air, and your image is clean, then I think there is merit to making it $200 on the turn with a possible plan to fire on all rivers.

As played, I like the river bet.

I don't mind the call with the 45ss on the BTN, normally we would prefer to be multi-way to a flop in this situation instead of heads-up, but we do have position after all.

$160 into $204, is going for almost max value I think, your hand is definitely disguised though with it being a BDFD that came in, nobody ever expects someone to have it in that situation. I would have probably sized the river bet down a little, but that's just me.

Calling with bottom pair on the flop is not something I would do in most cases, but sometimes you have to float (Villain could be just c-betting cause he was PF aggressor) and pick up additional equity, and that's what you were able to do here.

Nice hand.

Paraphrasing an excerpt from Ed Miller's book "The Course": A large bet OTT is serious & a large bet OTR is even more serious.
Unless you're known to bluff this size OTR, or V is ridiculously sticky, not much chance of getting called IMO.

EZ call at 30-1 IO preflop. Not sure what others are thinking.

Flop is fine.

I raise this turn a lot since you just picked up a lot of additional outs (flush and gutter str8) and can apply a good amount of pressure to one pair hands to lay down as you can credibly rep a set on this board. I would make it $180 so that I can comfortably shove the river if called.

River- With a flush and your opponent checking to you, you can do a couple of things depending on opponent. You can v-bet smallish or you can make a huge bet to look bluffy. This will depend on how V responds to these types of nets. Some players are very suspicious of big river bets and look up light, some don't. So size accordingly.

Really need some info on images, both Hero and V. Calling pre depends on V range. In general, I'd fold pre, preferring 35-1 min IO going to the flop.

Flop - ok.

Turn - Hero picks up a lot of equity, so if the V has a fold button, a click to $190 might be optimal.

River - maybe $225, repping a missed diamond draw. Again, need more on player profiles.

Are the IO 30-1, or is it just that the SPR is 30?

If V calls the river & Hero is good, it will turn out that Hero's IO in this particular run out ended up being ~15:1

Fine. OR turn 155, shove riv.

pre is six and one half dozen of the other but if I call it's not to play fit or fold, so I would wanna know if I can play creative against this player and get away with it.

Flop is fine but when he bets 60 into 80 ott on a card that shouldn't be helping him, fold.

River why turn your hand into a bluff when you have SDV? what part of his range are you trying to fold out? He may be giving up on the hand.

How is he turning his hand into a bluff? He has a flush

Looks fine.

I thought he had a 4 I guess that would change it

That is why I would have raised the turn and likely shoved the river. And even 15-1 is in the range of good enough to make the preflop call given our position which gives H extra ability to likely steal some pots in position where board misses V's range.

Which proves the point that many people miss backdoor flushes completely. I didnt see it at first either which is why I wouldve called his river bet that looks like a bluff.

Honest question: When deciding whether to call a PFR with a speculative hand, as far as the sizing is concerned, is the only thing we should care about the IO (essentially SPR)? Should we also care about the size of the PFR in relation to the blinds? For example, if we are twice as deep (effective) and V had raised to 30 pre-flop (still in a 1/2 game) would that change anything?

I guess I usually weigh the IO more than the size of the PFR in relation to the blinds, but I still weigh the latter to some degree. Maybe I'm not thinking about this right.

It is a good question for sure. For me, I generally look at the size of the PFR more in relation to what the standard has been for the table as well as for this particular player (to try and see if the sizing gives me any info on his/her range). But in terms of making the decision to call or not with a hand like 54, I am mostly making sure I can get paid enough when I hit and V wants to go all the way, so the blind size isn't that important anymore (to me at least). Obviously most hands won't go like that, so clearly the average IO in these spots is lower overall. However, when in position, I will call with many more speculative hands when stacks are deep simply because I think I can outplay V's on a lot of boards that might not hit their range (and certainly I may over-estimate my ability to do so for sure, so this could be a leak for me).

I am not as big an SPR guy as a lot on this forum, so perhaps I am not the best to answer. But to me it seems this is more important when we are the aggressor in terms of deciding how to size our raise so that we can either commit easily (and profitably versus a given range) or make sure that we aren't committing ourselves too early. But to answer your question directly, if we were twice as deep, I would think I could still call a PFR of ~$40 and make $ long term.