2/5 game, villain is a very strong TAG who opens to $20 in MP, loose-passive fish in CO calls, hero in BB calls with A2hh. Pot is $60. Effective stacks around $1200.

Flop is 7h 6h 3d. Hero checks, villain bets $40, CO folds, hero calls. Pot is $140.

Turn is an off-suit 8. Hero checks, villain checks behind.

River is an off-suit 2. Hero considers betting $100.

My thoughts are: Villain is very unlikely to have an overpair as that should have bet the relatively safe turn. A set or flopped straight isn't check/calling and checking again with this much money behind. Only 87s and T9hh calls the flop bet and overtakes an overpair with this turn; villain should not be in pot control mode with an overpair.

I'm thinking villain's most likely hand is overcards that are giving up barreling as the board is getting less and less favourable for an MP opening range.

With the 2 on the river, my default play is to check and hope for a free showdown to beat 2 overcards, buuuuuuuut, here I think there is a very real chance that villain bluffcatches with ace high knowing that the flush draw missed and I'm not likely to be betting a single pair for value. Ace high is never betting itself - no worse hands will call, and it beats busted draws at SD.

Thoughts?

Did he have the 9 10 hearts?

Maybe I use to and should recommend bet folding the river pretty much for the reasons you mention. I played against some really tough players recently though that put in raises to a river bet as a bluff...so now i’m All confused.

You have quite a few 8x combos that can bet for value. River bet seems fine though I would have just x/r the flop and barreled as you have all 9 flopped sets plus the three remaining 76s combos.

I did consider a check-raise on the flop but I didn't want to risk being 3-bet off my hand by an overpair or a combo draw. In hindsight that was too conservative as I think overpairs mostly just call, and there are very few combo draws in villain's range, probably only 98hh and T9hh. Agreed that check-raising flop and betting turn would've been a better line.

Lol

Thanks for posting, lol

meh, I think it's probably best to check this card, it's never a good value bet vs ace high imo, people won't call off here in general

I'm bluffing a heap of cards on the river but when we get this type of showdown value i think this is a card to check, also, I think we get into autopilot mode and check the turn too often when we probably should bet. I've been using a check/call, lead turn line lately to offset people checking too often on the turn

this flop is really good for our range and villain has to think about calling 2 bets instead of 1 and closing the action, so lead turn imo, this should be a particular good card for your BB defend/flop calling range

here is where it's particularly useful to call flop and lead turn
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...d-lag-1733753/

Although I don’t see the correlation between the situation you linked vs this threads hand...I will say I absolutely like your recommendation for this hand...very, very pleased with this type of thinking.