I found myself in an interesting spot on the river recently and was trying to think of a range of hands that I'd call with. I wanted to post to bring some awareness to relative hand strength to both myself and other posters.


2/5 NL at a pretty good table, no crazy droolers but some good action and a table full of regfish.

Hero: Playing fairly tight. Has yet to go to showdown but has play all of his hands very aggressive. Mid 20s white male. ($800)

Villain: 40s Asian. regular at the Casino. I've only played with him a few times, all of which he's started with a stack well above the the max buy in and I've seen him leak chips. Nothing too fishy, picks his spots fine and is probably a level 2 thinker.

Hand. Hero opens UTG to $25, villain calls in the CO and the button calls.

Flop: ($82) 810K Hero leads for $45, villain calls, button folds

Turn: ($172) 4 Hero bets $100, villain calls.

River: ($372) 3 Hero checks, villain bets $250. Hero...?

Hand 1 - AQ
Hand 2 - QK
Hand 3 - A10
Hand 4 - pocket 9s

Of these hands listed, which do we feel comfortable calling with against villains range? I hope for some discussion before I post my thoughts.

Those hands have basically the same relative value since V should be fairly polarized. I'm generally assuming he doesn't turn a made hand into a bluff. And he should not have many made hands to turn into a bluff unless he's calling turn with a bunch of Tx. Only a very few combos like QTcc, JTcc and T9cc come to mind.

I'll start it off by saying I'm least comfortable calling with AQcc because that blocks all of villain's nut flush draws, a bunch of his broadway flush draws, and combos of whiffed QJ.

That all said, I might call them all. He didn't raise the very drawy flop and now he's betting river. He's polarized but his value range is tiny and his flop and turn range is very draw-heavy.

So I call a lot and don't make a distinction in terms of my own hand value.

My ordering of hands I prefer to call with, from most preferred to least:

AT (blocks almost no possible bluffs) > KQ (blocks most likely OESD QJ) > 99 (blocks less likely draws, though it does so more strongly) > AQcc (reason above).

At first glance I'm turbo mucking aqcc because we block a lot of combinations he's likely to be bluffing with here on the river.

Considering that he called the turn, given your description any missed draw he would have is a combo-draw of sorts, which would be AJcc, AQcc, QJcc, 78cc or 89cc. This is only five combinations of hands, compared to 6 combinations of sets (88, TT). If he is capable of turning an 8 with a FD into a bluff (very few players at this level do), then I think it's a call. If he is more likely to check behind the 8x FD on the river, then it's a fold. If he calls pre with T8s or KTs, then it's also a fold, however I'm fairly sure the V described would have raised at some point with these two hands.

With AThh I would actually prefer a c/r shove to a call, because he is likely to bet the missed draws described for hand 2, as well as Kx type hands. This is in addition to a flopped 88. A c/r shove will obviously fold out all his missed draws, almost definitely fold out all Kx hands, and given we block KT, T8 and TT, we can represent TT quite well. There is a non-zero chance he will also fold 88 to a c/r shove.

With 99 we have no blockers, and as mentioned above, there are only 5 combinations of hands we beat that he will bluff with, but now he has more Kx combinations in his range than he does in hand 2, and we don't block any sets.

In short, I think that you should:

Muck AQcc
Call/fold KQdd depending upon V's tendencies
Shove AThh
Muck 99

I would want to know what his specific tendencies are.
i know you prolly havent logged too many hrs playing w/ him the way it sounds?
Is he really playing optimally enough to bet this big on the river for value w/ his monsters and also w/ his bluffs/ missed draws?
that's the story he seems to be telling.
#1 AQ has enuf showdown value to call and is the equivalent of 99 if we are pretty much bluff-catching, and are giving his range heaps of missed draws.
his line does seem like someone playing one street at a time poker, and his river bet does seem a little out of place or like an afterthought? If he is repping a big hand like a set OTR and is bombing it and we think he has it @2/3 of the pot roughly then we should obv fold.
One would think he would have raised earlier in the hand tho, esp on a wet board.
The thing is, at this level you can easily bluff catch w/ a 2nd best hand if he is bad enuf to turn a midling hand into a bluff,something like A4cc/74cc, when he has some SDV vs. our range the way he played it. KQ doesnt do too well vs. his real value range here IMO; its pretty normal for so-so regs to even check back w/ a hand like KJ K9, or bet small.
at 2/5 in general, this is an all around fold vs. most players. I would need a concrete read on this player and his tendencies and would want to have seen him be capable of spewwing w/ a missed draw OTR before if i was to comfortably bluff catch.
cool OP.

2, 3, and 4 are the same to me, 1 is a bit thinner because villain could turn his busted draw with a pair into bluff.

Nevertheless, we would need some tendencies before making better assessment.

We are getting better than 2:1, once we get to the River we have to call all of them with the possible exception of #1.

The nut flush draw is the only debatable hand on the River.

If he has any of these hands then I don't think we are particularly worried about the outcome of this hand.

Need more reads, since there was no raise pre or post and everything missed, I'd bet KQ for value all things equal. I'd usually call AT. 99/AQ are tougher because we don't know if he would bet like 9T,TJ, in these kind of spots.

Regardless it certainly would seem like he has a hand that couldn't handle a raise and I think I'd triple barrel or check/raise AQ,99 possibly AT before I hero'd with it. I just think 2 pair plus is raising along the way, and I don't want to c/c and see JJ or whatever. This is just speculation of course w/o any kind of history or dynamics.

IMHO this depends heavily on your villain, his playing style and your read on him and it could be all or none. From your description I guess KQ is the bottom splitting it with AT but I think I'd just fold in the end.