1/3 live

Villain (covers) is youngish MAWG. Probably an average rec player, but not a complete station with one pair. Plays a little too wide of a range but nothing huge. Seems to be on the nittier side post flop but I don't have a huge history to go on.

Hero ($300) is probably perceived as being tight pre and moderate post flop if he has any image at all.

Hero opens to 15 UTG, villain quickly calls UTG+2 the rest fold.

Pot: 30

Flop 9s8d7s.

Hero checks, villain bets 15 and hero calls.

Pot 58

Turn 5d.

Hero checks, villain bets 25 hero calls.

River 3s.

Pot: 108

I think I should actually lead river here for like 70 as a bluff with the Ks blocker. He just has a 9 pretty often here but he's not going to bet it so that's a wash. He probably has about 11-16 combos of flushes that I lose to and 22 or so combos of two pair and 6's that I lose to but I think will fold. I know some people will say I can't rep a flush since I checked flop but check call check call lead on the 3rd flush card is a pretty common line in my experience from rec players with a flush.

Is it too optimistic to say he would fold 78 here? He has to know he's never beating anything I would bet for value.

I guess it also depends on how I would react to him betting. If I'm plannning on folding to a bet, which I think is correct, checking also lets his bluffs beat me. I don't think he has many bluffs on this runout but maybe there are a couple combos.

Fold to turn barrel and check/fold river. This is an awful run out for you and it's ok to lose this hand. It's very unlikely V folds a straight to a single river bet.

I bet flop and check/fold turn myself. Let the guy run you over here and wait for better spot.

don't lead river, if you're going to bluff c/r river

My concern would be the amount of check backs he has. Most of his betting range will be flushes and I don't have the As blocker.

your hand has sdv, you don't need to be bluffing with it

you also don't need the As to get him to fold straights/lower flushes

Not a good bet to fire pot. The line you took it okay honestly. But on the river you need to decide if you are check folding or check calling. Firing pot here is literally value owning yourself almost always.

Sets, straights, and flushes all are within villains range and can make a call. AT, AJ, AQ, A6s/o all got there not to mention little suited aces too. Heck QJs, QTs are there as well.

You are lighting whatever showdown value you have against hands like QQ, JJ, TT on fire with this bet.

You only got into this spot because you didn't cbet OTF. Bet this flop man.

As played you now have to check/fold river.

He definitely has some flushes, I would guess in the ballpark of 11-16, but he has more two pair combos than that. Assuming he bets a worse hand like JJ or a bluff five percent of the time, if I bet 70 and he never calls with worse, I need to get a fold from a better hand 34 percent of the time for this bluff to be profitable. What percent of the time do you think he's calling with a hand like 88?

The only hand I would ever play this way is a flush or a bluff and I think he knows that. Maybe he will be more stubborn with a set tban two pair but they aren't really different.

My plan if I check would be to fold unless he bet insanely small. If he does bet an overpair here, then that would be bad for me.

Well let's say I bet flop, he is going to continue pretty often on this board as it hits his range pretty hard. So I bet and he calls. Now the turn is the 5. Do I bet again? let's say he calls and now that 3s hits, what's the plan?

This is also the kind of flop where I'm just ****ed if he raises and he should have a lot of semi bluffing candidates as well as strong value. I'm pretty sure I'm just folding to a raise here.

This is not a great flop for you. Bet like 25, maybe 30.

AP, x/r to 70.

Turn is obviously terrible. One of the reasons to bet large or x/r the flop is to avoid a turn and fold hands like A6.

If you're planning to bluff the river you should bet the turn. You have a lot more credibility if you lead like 35 OTT then fire 100 OTR. I like leading better anyway unless we think villain is going to raise.

AP I think you should just x/f the river unless bet is super small. Villain is not likely on an overpair (JJ+ probably 3-bets pre-flop). Very likely has 2p or a straight, maybe a flush. He's not going to fold any of that for 70. All you're likely to fold out is hands like A9 and TT which you already beat.

If you had bet the flop and he had called, whats os bad about the turn... you think he called flop with 6x to draw to 4 outs and the low end of a 4 card straight? id bet turn, and if he called again, id probably check and expect him to check back and lose with 9x or Tx, and id fold to a bet from the flush draws that got there.

Betting flop lets him raise with 2p+ on flop and then you know youre ahead when he calls. Same wth turn.

^ Did someond above just advise OP to c/r a 987ss board with KK because OP checked instead of cbetting? Nice way to light money on fire.


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this. I agree.

I'd rather lead but x/r > x/c

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That's too optimistic. Your hand wasn't played like something that beats two pair.

If you're concerned about being bluffed out then think about whether check/call could be correct. Betting to stop a bluff denies you from making money by catching bluffs.

I could see betting as a way to set your price against a range that may be heavy on one and two pair hands. Against the one pair hands, you'd like villain to call where he'd check behind, and against two pair hands you may be able to set your price lower than he would. However, based on the way he's played the hand so far, it's likely he'll bet small again.

Betting doesn't deny me money from bluff catching because this hand is a pretty clear fold if he bets river. He doesn't have that many bluffs. That doesn't change the fact that betting usually accomplishes the goal of not getting bluffed. It's a small part of the reason to bet.

With these stacks he can still jam over a river bet of 70, and not sure you have much fold equity given how you played the hand (if you were the aggressor up to now you have more fold equity). I think x/c is better as this guy's bet sizing sucks. If he continues his trend he'll bet 35 into 108 which is any easy call. If he suddenly pots it it's an easy fold.

And if villain doesn't have many bluffs, what's he been betting so far? If he doesn't bluff much, he's likely betting a made hand like JT/98/87/65. Everything else besides A9 and TT+ is at least semibluff territory. Do you think he was possibly betting a spade draw? If he can be betting a spade draw he can be betting something like T9 / QT maybe even some weaker. If that's the case he does have bluffs in his river betting range.

Disagree with this. We c-bet, V flats. We check turn and v bets. We're in the exact same situation. This is a terrible flop for KK and it's OK not to c-bet. C-betting is fine sometimes too.

Doing some range analysis with this hand.

I give villain these hands flatting pre-flop: 23.87% {QQ-22,A2s+,K9s+,QTs+,J9s+,T8s+,97s+,86s+,75s+,65s,54s ,ATo+,KTo+,QTo+,JTo,T9o}

On this flop we have 65% equity so it's not quite as dire as we may think.

I assume villain will call or bet when checked to with any board pair, overpair, gutshot, OESD, straight, spades, 2p, set, or combo draw, which is roughly these hands: 17.95%: {QQ-55,AJs-A6s,KJs-K9s,QTs+,J9s+,T8s+,97s+,86s+,75s+,65s,AsKs,AsQs,Ks Qs,As5s,As4s,5s4s,As3s,As2s,AJo-ATo,KJo-KTo,QTo+,JTo,T9o}

After the turn card we have 56.83% equity. This card actually changes very little as our equity before the turn against this range was 58.08%. So less than 2% drop in equity.

Here it gets trickier. Which hands does villain check behind vs. continue to barrel? I'm thinking due to the 4 straight he might check TP - 2p and gutshots/OESD/naked flush draw, and barrels set+, strong draws like the NFD and combo draws, and previously weak hands that improved like A6s / 65s / 55.

This leaves a polarized range: 7.92% {TT-55,A6s,J9s+,T8s+,86s,76s,65s,AsKs,AsQs,KsQs,AsJs,K sJs,QsJs,AsTs,KsTs,QsTs,Ks9s,As8s,As5s,As4s,5s4s,A s3s,As2s,JTo,T9o}

After the 3 drops against this range we have 28.4% equity. Yeesh.

However, if villain doesn't polarize his range OTT but continues barreling with his weaker made hands and weak draws, after the 3 we have 64.36%

So I think our equity is somewhere between 28.4% - 64.36% depending how often villain will check the turn. The less he checks the turn, the better, as if he's barreling most of his flop continuing range, then we're still good over half the time.

Against a merged range of overpair+ and strong draws OTT we have 52.14% equity OTR: {QQ-55,ATs,A6s,KTs,QTs,J9s+,T8s+,97s+,86s+,75s+,65s,As Ks,AsQs,KsQs,AsJs,KsJs,QsJs,As9s,Ks9s,As8s,As5s,As 4s,5s4s,As3s,As2s,ATo,KTo,QTo,JTo,T9o}

But...if villain truly has few bluffs in his range we're in bad shape. But even 28.4% equity is enough to x/c a bet of $35, which would be the next size in V's incremental sizing strategy.

Interestingly, the 3 is actually a good card for our range and improves our equity relative to the turn by about 4-8%

Anyway, I have no idea how accurate these ranges are. I tried to approach the hand post-flop how I would play it if checked to by the PFR (though slightly less aggro OTF as I'm betting hands as weak as KQo when checked to by the PFR OTF). Hope this was interesting anyway!

Thanks a lot for the analysis, when I get home I'll have to run the numbers myself. I think villain probably isn't betting a super polarized range in terms of his made hands, in my experience villains are going to continue here reasonably often with top pair and the majority of the time with two pair.

I'm not exactly sure what the smaller sizing means. I would think it means he has like bad two pair and is trying to get hero called by a nine but maybe he's just giving himself a good price with a draw for his bluffs.

I think after reading this villain's range might be a little weaker than I originally expected.

I'm not surprised the 3 is good for us, there were only going to be 2 cards that strengthen our hand so we just want cards that complete straights or two pairs and of course an ace. A spade isn't ideal for our equity but there aren't that many spade draws out there given the mid sized spades in the board, the K in my hand, and that some of his aces will 3 bet pre.

I agree the five isn't a bad card but he has a few more sixes than you stating. He could have A6ss 76s, 76o, 86s or 66. Think about how many bad turns in general there are though. 6, T, J,A, any spade. Thats 23 turn cards. The 7-9 pairing isn't horrible but still puts us in a tough spot. Again, in position I feel very comfortable continuing on the flop but OOP is tough here. Maybe I'm just not good enough yet to know how to comfortably proceed on enough turns.

Your last sentence assumes he's going to be super face up and rarely raise as a bluff. I would also strongly consider flatting two pair in his shoes as it's going to be hard to get called by worse and two pair also risks getting blown off the hand if the PFR 3 bets the flop with a draw.

There are some people who we can bet for information but against other people we risk bloating the pot and getting blown off the hand. What's your plan if we Cbet 3/4 pot and he raises 3.5x?

Result: hero bet, I forget how much but roughly 65 and villain took a minute and folded. I have no idea what he had. I know I've been disagreeable but I'm definitely not posting this result as evidence that I was right. For all I know this was a complete donk move by me and he folded A9 that he was going to check back or bet so small I could've called. I just always post the results.

Maybe I'm just too nitty so I project my nitiness onto what I think others would do, but if an unknown player who hadn't been playing that many hands took this line against me and I would fold two pair fairly comfortably.

This assumes both that he's going to raise the hands that beat us and not semi-bluff his drawing hands. Not sure either of those things are true. In position he can pretty easily flat a two pair hand here, and he has a ton of great hands to semi-bluff with.

Again, there's some merit to c-betting here, but I would do it because we think we're getting called by worse rather than because we think he's going to let us off the hook by raising when we're behind and flatting when we're ahead.