I was involved in a hand like this:

200bbs+ stacks.

Villain1 opens MP to 3bbs
Hero calls in CO with QJ
Villain2 on the BTN calls.

3-way flop:

A T 8

Checks through. I believe this board is not good for bluffing (more on that later) so I decide to check with my gutshot.

Turn: A T 8 K

Bink

Villain1 bets 7bbs into 10bb pot, we just call for trapsky (probably should have raised imidiately but that's not the point of the hand), Villain2 calls as well.

Pot: 31bbs
River: A T 8 K 5

Villain1 bets again - 18bbs, we raise it up to 60bb, villain2 folds, villain1 almost snap calls, took him like 3 seconds. He had AK for top-two.

Why did he snap call? Because "he's seen me bluff-raise river in the past and the draws bricked". I guess in general terms it can be a good reason to look me up but what I realised is I don't really have a bluffing range on that board in live poker low/mid-stakes games. Mostly because this is not a board your average villain will start barreling with nothing and so I know to be up against a strong range on the river. Even more competent villains won't get out of line much for similar reasoning to mine. I don't know what I would really hope to fold out. I know I'm bet/folding this board with AK every time. Do you agree with me on this?

Other thing is that I probably lost some value with this hand, I didn't raise the turn and my raise on the river was maybe too small. But oh well, you live and you learn.

Ck bet ckc would be a good line against yourself w AK

He’s likely calling bc he thinks he underrepped, draws missed, you ‘just called turn’, and he’s not polished.

The thread is not really about his call, I'm more interested in strategy and player tendencies. I think this board texture is trully under-bluffed and I can see myself making big folds on this runout. I would muck AK quickly (without showing anyone of course), even against a player that I know is capable of bluffing, because I just don't see people bluffing these boards enough of the time.

I just fold my busted flush draws/straight draws for sure and won't make any plays in that spot and I don't expect others to do them.

So top two pair is not in your minimum defense range on this board? Really?
You could be raising with KTs or K8s.

I agree that this board is under-bluffed and that it takes a fantastic laydown. But I think there's 1 player out of 20 in my pool (perhaps my pool is particularly poor) who could make this fold.

Well yeah, people just don’t raise bway board without bway. For the most part it holds true. They also tend not to make for great bluff boards mostly because even when holding a nut blocker, the nuts is still a big part of an opponent’s range because high card hands appear more often.

I expect this to be bluff 1 out of 30 times if I'm being optimistic. But even if it's a bluff 1 out of 10 times it still doesn't make the call anywhere near close to being profitable on low/mid-stakes.

And if it's only a value raise from the villain then:

1. I don't expect villain to ever raise for value with worse than AK here.
2. T8 bets the flop, AT bets the flop or raises turn vast majority of the time, same thing with KT. And if villain doesn't raise the turn then they almost certainly won't raise the river either - two-pair is not a hand to be slowplayed, if villain doesn't raise this board with these hands on the turn then he's clearly worried about being beaten and will just call it down.

Concluding, nothing worse raises here for value imo therefore it's a standard bet/fold against an average villain. Would only call against a guy I know to be a VERY aggressive, almost a maniac, I know pretty much only one guy like this. With the rest of my player pool I'm mucking, calling with AA and KK hoping to beat TT or 88.

This is one of the boards where I think I can exploitably fold a very big part of my value range even against aggressive opponents.

I consider myself to be aggressive and I bluff quite regularly against certain players but I choose much different boards than this one where I think it's counterproductive.

Fold pre.

The flop you have a double gutshot, not a gutty. C/c is a fine flop line. Dislike the turn flat.

I'm raise/folding A5s and KT 100% on the river for value and expecting to get paid by AQ, so bet/folding your AK will be a huge mistake against me.

Bet the flop

Then it had to be a lower card than an 8, my bad. I'm sure I just had a gutshot.

I dislike the turn flat as well.

First of all you're probably playing A5 and KT differently on previous streets. Second of all, this would be a very thin value raise, especially 3-way with a player to act behind you. You're basically targetting one hand and the player betting is completely uncapped, he can have all the nut hands.
Villain is betting around 70 combos if we include even AJ in his betting range. 45 combos beat you and you beat the other 25. We're already behind much more than 50% of the time. Add to that the fact that people prefer to check/call top pair-good kicker on semi-scary boards like this and A5 and KT become way too thin to value raise.

3b
bet flop
raise turn

I almost certainly would not play A5 any differently on flop/turn as the IP player. I likely would play KT differently on the turn as a raise. But of course I would play QJ differently on the turn as a raise as well. So it's somewhat of a moot point. Point is if I do end up with QJ on the river as the IP player, I also end up with KT and A5.


With KT we beat 24 combos of AQ and AJ and lose to 28 combos of AK, A5s and QJ. If we have a read that the PFR would usually c-bet flop with his gutshots and AK, then this is a pretty clear spot to value raise with KT. Putting you in PFR's shoes, I think you're betting AK and QJ close to 100% of the time on the flop (or at least you should be). Then KT becomes a slam dunk value raise OTR for the IP player.

Tl;dr You should very rarely show up with AK on the river as the PFR. If the IP player is thinking and knows this he will value bet with KT. Therefore those few times you do show up with AK on this river, you have to call his raise. Of course if you have a read that the IP player never raises river with less than the nuts then this is obviously an easy fold with two pair.

What about all the sets - AA, KK, TT? What about AT? Imo you're just overplaying your hand if you value raise that river with A5/KT.

I even gave you AJ as a bet from the villain and that's optimistic to think he would bet AJ there instead of check/calling. Also you can't expect to get called by AQ/AJ 100% of the time as some of the time villain will find a fold.

Both flatting and 3-betting are fine I think?

Flop bet meh with a gutshot, people's ranges are Ax heavy, any Ten will call, any KK-JJ, we can't expect folds enough of the time to start bluffing the flop 3-ways I think.

Raise turn I agree with.

KK, TT, AA account for 5 combos when we hold KT.

AT and TT should bet the flop.

Against a trappy player who incorrectly slowplays flop AT and AK, you should not value raise with KT here. Against a player who bets AK, AT, and gutshots on the flop, we're almost always good with KT. Just do the combo math:

We lose to AA,KK,A5s (7 combos)

We beat AQ, AJ (24 combos).

You can take away AJ if you like. We're still ahead 2 to 1.

This is 1/2. Most players aren't folding AQ to a small raise
OTR.

Conclusion: Against a typical 1/2 player who doesn't make weird trappy plays, we can justify a small raise with KT OTR.

3b makes more money unless you got some whales behind
double gutshot on flop. hits your range pre, got equity and blockers. seriously doubt oop x/c or x/r close to optimally
as for turn, look to build the pot with strong hands

I like a 3b IP if OOP player raises more than just the nuts pre and is somewhat loose. Think 3-betting more IP does good for image/metagame purposes as well. Flatting is alright too, but I 3b very wide OTB/CO vs later positions (3b this vs EP is spew).

Flop can is probably a bet tbh, esp if he doesn't protect his check range you can actually probably barrel off a lot and get him off his hand ott. I suspect most live players don't protect their check range so when they check here it's basically almost always an underpair or 10x, and often complete air that wants to give up (what do you do with 22-77 as the PFR? Probably not betting right?). Also even if he calls flop you get a free river assuming IP player folds. The fact he showed up with AK kind of surprises me. Overall vs most players betting here is just going to be way better.

Def raise turn.

Agree to disagree then.

Villain is a learning-thinking player, not super-straightforward. Also he considers me to be a competent player so not surprised he went for a "trap" with top-pair OTF.

Sounds like you just want pats on the back for over thinking trivial decisions. Your game is not the super high roller bowl, when you make fancy plays at low stakes you are burning money.

I appreciate OP’s POV on the board texture and under-bluffed nature. But I definitely agree with your analysis here. In a normal low stakes pool, folding to a raise in this scenario is FPS. Playing deeper it’s a different story.

Overfolding is not fancy play, it's something I feel I have to do at the games I play in becasue:
1. People don't make bluff raises enough of the time, certainly not on these boards.
2. They don't make thin-value raises as well, a few of them do, sure, but most of them I just haven't seen raise so thinly for value like KT/A5 on this board.

I want to learn so I discuss different scenarios and lets call it "my theories". I already acknowledged being in the wrong multiple times when someone gave strong arguments on this site. No reason to be unpleasent, after all it's "low stakes" section, we're not masterminds of the game here.

When I initially saw this post, I was like no way is folding AK here something anyone should be doing ever to a river raise. And although OP makes a good case for it, I still think it's too exploitive, and therefore exploitable, without having specific reads.

I think his points that this board is underbluffed are valid, but folding AK is veering way too far from GTO to be correct unless you have a specific read on someone. Folding AQ and KT are not. We can and need to make calls that we aren't happy about because we only need to be right about 30% of the time to be profitable.

Since the PFR didn't bet the flop and the OP didn't raise the turn, we're getting to the river kind of with a confused range of hands, so in my mind it's hard to say where we need to start making the call from PFR's perspective. However, given no flop action, I could certainly see someone easily making this raise with A5 and would be calling with anything that can beat that.

I don't think over folding is FPS, bet/fold is pretty much the rule of thumb in live low limit when we're betting for value. The mistakes I never get mad at myself for making are trying to bet too thinly and getting called by a passively played better hand or folding incorrectly when I've tried to make a thin value bet and find myself getting raised.