Played this hand tonight with an interesting river decision.

Hero (~$450) in CO: Mid-20's reg at Red Rock, the other regs know I'm a solid winning player. Probably seen as relatively aggressive, mostly in position, but table has only been open for about 30 minutes so not much hand history and only one other reg at the table.

V ($300) on button: Mid-30's black guy with in-ear headphones, never played with him before. The hand right before this one he was the PFR and bet flop and raised turn on a Q789 board, other player shoved over his raise and he was hesitant to call off the remaining $45, but said he "had to do it". Did not show his hand, but other player had a straight with 56 and river bricked. I folded 99 that hand on flop, good thing for me. V reloads to a full buy-in of $300.

Side note for this hand - Red Rock has a royal flush promotion where if you hit a royal with the ace in your hand and using both cards, you win $5k, so a lot of players will not raise their ATs-AKs hands more than $6-8 because they want a shot at the jackpot. Rules require $10 to be in the pot for a jackpot hand so many players limp with these hands instead of raising.

Hero dealt AQ in the CO, couple of limpers, I raise to $14. Three players call, including the button and two in MP.

Flop ($59): QQ5

Both limpers check, I bet $25, button calls, other players fold. I probably should have bet at least $30-35 here since a Q is never folding after I raised PF, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Turn ($109): 6

Hero bets $60, button calls again. At this point I figured he has a Q with crappy kicker, flush draw, or is floating me because I just have to have AK 100% of the time and he can steal on river. After seeing the hand before, I would not put that past him. Pretty sure any Q or boat is raising the turn here. My plan was to shove any non-spade river which may look more like a bluff since it would be roughly a PSB. Anything but a spade...

River ($229): 10

Villain starts stacking chips looking like he's going to shove before I check, so I check and he does insta-shove. River is definitely one of the three worst cards in the deck. I throw up in my mouth a bit and weigh the decision. Call or fold?

Bet more OTF, which you already said. Betting $25 there (making pot $84) gives him the appropriate odds to chase if he is on a draw.

How did it look when he was stacking his chips prior to your check? Was it a subconscious thing, or did he glance in your direction while doing it? If the latter, in my experience this means generally that they are weak.

By my calculations, Villian should have $201 remaining, correct? So we would have to call $201 to win $430. What flush combinations vs. what Q combinations do you think he would call PF with?

I assigned Villain a range of (A7ss+, K7ss+, KQs, QJs, QTs, Q9s, J9s, AQo, KQo, Q9o+) which I think is fair given the tendencies you've described. If this range is close, it puts your equity at 50%, making it a call here given the 2.2:1 odds you've got.

What hands does v have here where v is calling down and shipping river?

55, flush draws and kq/qj/qt maybe q9

Seems like a fold here

Don't know if he looked at me since I was sitting directly next to him, but he stacked his two $100 stacks on top of each other and as soon as I checked he pushed them over the line. Most people won't chase a flush on a paired board and then shove river when it gets there though. He obviously could not have flopped trips with a flush draw since the Q was one of the spades.

55, QT, maybe AT/AJ/AKss, but I think any of the made hands are raising turn . I debated on the flush draw getting there but unless I have a Q he is never getting paid off on a shove anyway so a value bet of $100-125 would seem more reasonable on river in case I have AA/KK.

Can certainly have more flush combos than this - and based off of reads perhaps some floats which could be pretty tempted to take a shot at this river. Not sure how good those reads are, or if they are paranoia but its worth mentioning I think.

In any case if hes shoving worse Qs - and may even have some river bluffs - then I think you gotta puke call this - if he shows you like K5s 95s then the call was bad.

Not sure what to make of the chip stacking thing, but the majority of his hands are gonna seem pretty strong when you check river.

This is 1/2, which means two things. The way this hand was played, he *almost* never has a queen here. And, he *almost* never river bluffs here. Looks like AsXs most of the time. Is it possible to be something we beat a third of the time? I don't think so. It is close though, but not quite.

I think you can fold on river. Your opponent can have flushes and full houses. There shouldn't be a ton of Qx or missed draw type hand is range to bet on the river. Also, it would seem unlikely that your opponent would turn a hand like 88 into a bluff on the river.

Fold.

spades are going to make up a huge part of his range. Villain flats the flop and flats the turn. We give him no chance to have a queen. Less than 10% of his range is bluff we may be able to reckon' after recent re-buy with speech.

Did he look like a possible spewtard with multiple buyins at the ready? Did he pull out a wad of hundreds to buy back in or is it more likely he a local (Red Rock) with a day job and less than dime on him and no intention of hitting up the atm?

I'm sure you call and win

i think he´d valueshove QJ/KQ, or maybe an inferior Q, other than that we only beat bluffs and i dont see many bluffs in his range, if at all. looks like a close fold; if he floated you with air twice to shove the river, nh to him, but i dont see it happen

btw, as played i´m valueshoving river myself

either they think Qx is the nuts or they don't. some opponents would think they were slowplaying the entire hand and are just now giving you the bad news. its very important to know if this is that player. without that info i'd fold. also agree with betting larger on both flop and turn.

I'd bet size bigger on te flop and especially the turn. As played I think this is a fold. His bet is pretty huge and he didn't even think before pushing his chips in.

cant believe everybody is checking river...

Ofc we are checking the river. It smashes our opponents range.

well, if it´s a check, then it is a very simple fold.

I checked because I knew he was going to shove. If I shove river myself and he is bluffing or has a marginal Q, he will fold or at least consider it. If he is FOS and I call, I win ~$200 that I otherwise wouldn't have. The second option seemed like a better idea.

he called your bet on the flop and the turn, not really indications for a monster, but also no real bluff line.
if we check the river, we do it to induce a bluff or to fold cause we believe we are beat. i dont see a check inducing a bluff in this situation, it just gives villain an easy check behind with pocket pairs, maybe even worse queens if he is nitty enough to check Qx behind...
if he valuebets qx, we might even get bluffed.

The way he was getting those chips ready, there was about a 1% chance he was not shoving river. I almost didn't check and let him bet out of turn, which is probably what I should have done but can't change that now.

Based on first hand sounds like villain overvalues top pair and is probably steaming. In my experience if they are stacking their chips before you bet they are weak. I think you have to call given the situation.

No it doesn't, unless it would put either player all-in.

*GRUNCH*

small bet on flop f's up this hand

increase your bet size / increase your winrate

pot size bet (or bigger) is fine because nobody is folding a Q or a FD to one bet

makes the rest of the hand easy to play, no?

Seems most people like a fold?

Results - Didn't think he'd play a flush draw, Q, or boat that way, so I called and V mucked. I did see a 3 in his hand, and I'm pretty sure he did not have a Q to go with it.

Meh seen results on accident before this post, but was gonna say based on the previous hand history I can see villain turning made hands into bluffs and value betting worse Q's that he decided to slowplay. Value betting the river is ok but given how aggressive villain is I think a check/call is the most +EV line to take here.