1/2 NL - Blizzard conditions outside, small stakes no-limt table with mostly regulars.

Opponent, middle position, (covers) : Early 20s, he's a newer regular in the 1/2NL games in this room. I'd estimate he averaging 40+ hours a week in this room over the past month or so. We've had some horrendous weather lately and he is still grinding. I'd say he is more competent than most of the hoodies and headphones players infesting the small-stakes games. I've certainly seen him change gears and make some thin plays on both ends of the spectrum.

Myself, late position ($275ish) : Mid 20s. My opponent likely views me as somewhat conservative. Maybe he views me as a peer and therefore might think I'm capable of making moves. I'm not sure. I've been playing snug for three hours and have only chipped up slightly from my $200 buy-in. I'm drinking and being social.

PRE-FLOP: early position player limps, opponent in middle position raises to $10, I call in late position w/ 56, everyone else folds, heads up to the flop.

FLOP ($25ish) 35T - Opponent bets $15, I call.

TURN ($55ish) 2 - Opponent bets $30, I call.

RIVER ($105ish) A - Opponent bets $75, I go all-in, a raise to $225.
My thinking is I may have a tight image. My opponents betting range should be split between value hands and total junk. I think a lot of his value betting hands and all of his junk can't call a raise, as it's not a wet board to bluff catch on. I felt like I could put him in a tough spot and fold out all of his one-pair hands that beat mine, and I may be able to fold out some of his two pair hands too, although that may be optimistic. He likely splits my range into worse one pair hands he thinks he can get value from or push off the pot when he has junk and then strong hands like sets/straights/AT/A5 that he can bet/fold vs. at least in my opinion. Thoughts?

I would fold this pre-flop. Your doesn't sound like a nit which means that your implied odds go down in a situation like this. You are really just hoping to flop a big draw with this hand and you want either a huge multi-way pot or a couple of tight opponents who are not able to let go of their hands.

As played, all you really have is a bluff-catcher. I would rather semi-bluff the turn then river in this situation.

Have you seen this opponent barrel three streets with junk before? If not, I am going to be really hesitant to make a move on the river. I like the creative play here, I just give it a minimal chance of succeeding. He bet for 3/4th pot and it looks like it is for value to me. Further more, you are not deep enough to take your opponent off of a strong hand that he might fold if you had more money behind.

Your opponent only has to be good here 25% and I think he is going to snap here.

Easiest river snap fold in the history of poker.

weird hand. neither of your lines make much sense by the river. Is he really betting 75 into 100 with one-pair hands on this board? His line feels FOS to me.

Did you consider raising the turn with the intention of jamming some rivers? You bink a great card and can represent sets and a straight on the turn.

Fold pre.

Flop call is good. We have position and a pair with backdoor equity, it's a very dry board and standard c-bet spot.

Turn, I like the call. It's either that or raise to generate fold equity + pot equity. But then you're raise/folding, which sucks. I also like the call because you say villain is pretty good, so I don't think he's often barreling a 2x on the turn with air. The 2x is not a scare card, and your range after you call a very dry 3 color flop looks a ton like top pair Tx. People don't fold top pair, and good villains know that.

So I don't think he's firing very light on the turn thinking that you fold a ton.

So his range on the turn should be very value heavy with a few strong semi-bluffs that don't rely solely on fold equity to generate a profit - something like 22 (flop is a standard c-bet, then bink), 33, 55, TT, JJ+, AdXd, KdQd, KdJd, KdTd, QdJd, QdTd, JdTd, Td9d, 9d8d. I definitely don't like raising into that range. Calling is profitable, so call.

The river really does not improve you unless you hold AT exactly. Your range remains very focused on Tx. The vast majority of his range is now primarily sets, overpairs, top pairs (Ax). He could have a few bluffs with the broadway diamonds, but that's a fairly small % of his total hand combinations. And his bet size looks valuish.

I disagree that villain is very polarized. Not true. He can certainly be value betting middle strength made hands, like a rivered Ax. I think he's bluffing rarely, and when he is, it's probably only with ~8 whiffed combinations of diamond draws.

Well, you are a little right about polarization - I will say the river card + bet size does polarize villain a little, but he's certainly not super polarized between nuts and air or anything like that, because he can and will value bet Ax, especially against your Tx-heavy range. But you're right - the effect of the polarization is that he no longer has JJ-KK in his river range imo. So now we're talking 22, 33, 55, TT, AA, AdXd, KdQd, KdJd, KdTd, QdJd, QdTd, JdTd, Td9d, 9d8d.

Sets = 4*3 + 1 = 13 combos.
River Ax = AdXd = say ~AdKd, AdQd, AdJd, AdTd, Ad9d, Ad8d, Ad7d = 7 combos.
Turned straight + nut re-draw = Ad4d = 1 combo.
Air = KdQd, KdJd, KdTd, QdJd, QdTd, JdTd, Td9d, 9d8d = 8 combos.

So you definitely can't bluff catch the river. You're only good at most 8/29 = 28% (but certainly less, because he's not bluffing those combos all the time).

I do think he will sometimes fold Ax to a river raise as well as air, but nothing else.

You need him to fold ~56% of the time. If he folds all Ax and his air, then he's folding at most 15/29 = 52% of the time (but certainly even less, because he's not folding Ax all the time).

So yeah, river is just a fold.

Oh yeah, and you need to add in 9 combos of AT - two pair - in villain's range, as well, which I left out.

And the AdTd combo beats you, of course, and it isn't folding the river.

That just makes this even more of a fold. Wasn't really that close to start though.

Wow, and his broadway diamonds with tens in them aren't air, and they also aren't betting the river, especially with this sizing. They are now bluff catchers, and we can exclude them from his river range when he makes this bet. So it's even more, more of a fold.

So with those updates, his river range is now:

Sets = 4*3 + 1 = 13 combos.
River Ax = AdXd = say ~AdKd, AdQd, AdJd, Ad9d, Ad8d, Ad7d = 6 combos.
Rivered two pair: AT = 9 combos.
Turned straight + nut re-draw = Ad4d = 1 combo.
Turned straight = A4s = 2 combos (another new addition; not diamond or club).
Air = KdQd, KdJd, QdJd, 9d8d = 4 combos.

Not looking so hot, huh.

Snap fold.

Spew. Just fold river. Your line looks like a busted draw,which is exactly what it is. His calling range on river shouldnt be very narrow considering your line. I know id be snapping you off pretty wide.

Why does our line look like a busted draw?

How many now-whiffed draws do we have on flop? Not many.

2 pair + would raise turn most of the time. looks like op flopped a pair and picked up a flush draw on the turn.

The thing is, the # of combos that fit that description is close to 1 - our exact holding. We're not turning TdXd into a bluff. Ad5d rivered two pair. Maybe we have 7d5d pre-flop sometimes, or play a lot of random suited 5dXd hands, I dunno, w/e, you get the point. We're talking very few combos we might now bluff.

So we actually have very few hands we need to bluff. Although I don't love bluffing here, I don't necessarily hate the idea of a bluff because our bluffing range is so thin. Our river raise should mostly be a value raise, and it's certainly consistent with a good range of value hands, like AT.

It's really hard for us to call the flop with anything that also calls the turn and then need to bluff the river. Again, like 1-2 combos.

I don't know if villain is hand reading, but if he is, I think our line is pretty baffling and that we're going to have a value hand on the river very often.

But I probably wouldn't give villain that much credit.

I agree with you. I just dont give average villains credit for assigning reasonable ranges.

definitely raising turn and jamming river

as played, fold