Hi all,

300 effective

V1 has a lot. Seems like a better than average TAG. Has seen me show down AK and AQ when raising pre in the first hour I’ve been here

H: pretty dull image. Only been here an hour.

OTTH: v1 raises UTG to 12 button (fish) calls I call BB with Ac10c

Flop(37) As6h7d

I check v bets 20 button folds I call

Seems okay right.

(77) turn 8c

Check check

River 3d

I check v bets 25 which seems like a value bet with AJ-AK.

I check raise to 100 total. Seems odd but what do u think

Just call the river (arguments can be made for leading out as well). What's he calling with that you beat?

I just didn’t think he was bluffing here but thought he could fold a better hand

This is very odd indeed .. mainly because how the Board ran out. You are targeting 'only' AK-AJ and A4/A2 (if those even exists here). V is betting A9/AT on Turn so I'm ruling those out.

It's possible that you will get some calls from KK-TT since this does look very bluffy IMO .. so you have that going for you. Are you really checking two pair or better on both Turn and River?

He's only got to be right 30% of the time to break even when calling $75 into $200.

I don't mind the attempt since you will probably lose at Showdown quite often, but I just don't know if it will be effective enough to be profitable.

HOWEVER, V has not lived up to the TAG image in this hand one bit, so either you have them labeled wrong or he has an under-pair .. which means you are bluffing with the best hand or he's adopted to your play for some perceived thin value. GL

This is pretty spew. Don’t bluff with a +EV bluff catcher.

If you want to bluff use a worse hand like 97s or T7s or 65s.

Your range construction is way off.

To preface I used to play online 6 max years ago. Looking to start playing live and utilizing the forums to study/learn before I dive in.

The key here is to start with a range for opponent. You state he is a TAG so all PP's A2s-A5s and ATs, AJo-AKo & KQs?

Next is your range. Given the way you get to the river I assume he puts you on a pair less than Ax.

The final piece is one I am still working on. How do we calculate the expected value of your bluff line? I assume we have to guess what % of his range beats our hand that folds.

As played I think we beat a lot more of his value range which we would get to fold with our line thus I call and make a note on villains UTG range.

Preflop is quite borderline, imo. On the one hand, we're getting a decent price to see a flop with a decent multiway hand and a fish is trapped in the hand. But on the other hand, we're facing an UTG raise from a player that so far is only showing premiums (so our IO vs RIO against him are horrible). And on top of that we're OOP and only going 3ways. If the fish is beyond horrible, I'm ok with a call here (and will mostly only be continuing postflop if against him). But otherwise, I'd actually lean to a fold. But I'm a nit, ldo.

Flop is a good example of where our terrible IO vs RIO come into play, especially OOP. We're simply going to lose far more money when we have the worst of it than what we win when we have the best of it. With the pot semi-protected by the fish (i.e. UTG can't be blindly cbetting with air as much as he would HU), I actually wouldn't despise a fold here. If I'm calling, I'm not putting in any more money if he bets the turn.

His check back on the turn is either pot controlling a better Ax or he's simply got worse and trying to get to showdown. I would lean to a very small bet on the river for value to prevent him from checking back worse hands. As played, it's not impossible for a good player to go for thin value with worse, so I'd probably just call. My first reaction to the check/raise was clicking buttons, but maybe it isn't as bad as I first thought it was. But our line makes little sense (we checked the river after he checks back the turn with a monster?).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yeah it seems like a punt honestly but I think this guy is good enough to bet fold here

Idk I might not have any bluffs in this spot. It seems suspect that you would check 3 streets with strong value.

FYP .. Now all we have to hope for is enough KK-TT to break even. GL

Grunch

Bet 2/3 on the river to get cry looked up by KK-99 and all the worse suited aces that didn't become aces up.

Yes the river check raise is fps. I'd only do this against a proven LAG who bluffs too often and talks himself into hero calling weird raises too often.

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GG folding this is super nitty unless it's 9 or 10 handed then it's just pretty nitty IMO.

RofcourseneverhatingGGheistherealdealR

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So I rarely do stuff like this or get out of like much.

But the reason I did was because I thought he could fold a better hand.


He tankkkkk called with AQ

I wouldn’t read into the tank. Sometimes people tank call even when they’re never folding. I would have been shocked if you got a fold from AJ+. The problem is your line looks kinda FOS and ppl don’t like to fold good top pair hands for a small dollar amount OTR. When they get curious about a strange line and the price is reasonable and they know they’re not going to have to face future bets they’ll often just flick in the call.

I do this quite often, hopefully not too much, so that I can 'log' the hand into my memory just in case I am surprised at the holding/result .. double checking how the hand played out. GL

If you are trying to get him to fold AJ+ I'd put in a bigger raise like 125.

It's not that the bluff doesn't make sense, the bluff makes sense, you can have a bunch of good hands here, although none really that improved on the river. The problem is the river bluff is marginal and calling is +ev overall. So not only does your bluff have to make money, it has to make more money than calling.

You're getting 4:1 on a call and you may well win this 1 in 3 (2:1). So calling is about +$17 ev. You have to make him fold around 3/5 times to make the bluff as profitable.

The other problem is that there are a lot of hands you beat that fold to your bluff and lots of hands that beat you that call your bluff. Only the very specific hands (which make sense, I understand they are likely holdings) of AJ+ are the ones that a bluff makes sense against. Those hands may fold, they may well call. So even if he has the exact range of hands we want him to have the bluff may well not work.

So just call the river and shrug when he has a higher ace.

nits won't even fold this pre.

PainecB

The only reason preflop is remotely defensible is because the fish is involved. Take him out of the equation and preflop is a trivial fold for all the reasons I argued, imo.

OOP, to a solid player, against what looks to be a solid range in EP against a full table, in a raked game, with our hand. I have *zero* chance of making this a long term profitable spot. Obviously I suck, but my guess is those who think this is a profitable spot are overestimating their skillz.

Gbutdoasyouwant,imoG

GG, just because you can’t play this hand profitably doesn’t mean others can’t. If you’ve done any training material you would know this is a standard defend in the big blind.

If you're an expert, obviously do whatever you want.

Otherwise, non-experts would be far better off completely removing "defending" from their playbook.

Gimo,obviouslyoutvotedG

I like how the hand was played, sans river raise but even that could pay off later as villain can't trust you to play straightforward and another, lesser player might get paranoid.

Like c/c on river, since vil seems like the type to find thin value with KK-99

I agree with not turning good showdown value into a bluff unless you have a good reason. I don’t think you got one here, I think this hand plays better as maybe a small lead/fold on the river or check call. V can definitely lead turn with good Ax so betting river yourself to get called by TT-KK or weak Ax that doesn’t have 2-pair has merit. If I think my AT is beat then I’ll make a tight fold rather than try to bluff him off a narrow thin value range. I think experimenting with spots like this might make you better at some cost, but in general I think not choosing good showdown value as a bluff is a good heuristic.

Folding ATo or even AJo pre. is whatever (assuming 7+ handed, and also assuming V doesn't have a limping range) ... folding ATs is just bad.

If we are trying to bluff on river we need to go _much_ bigger, like starting at 175, but I doubt we should bluff 100% of our range that has a T or 9 in it but and this hand isn't obviously drawing dead for equity ... would also have happily called 25 on the turn with the gutter, so I doubt I think about river much and just call.


And, again, if you start trying to play other peoples hands and not yours applying patterns like "v bets 25 which seems like a value bet with AJ-AK." it's not difficult to notice betting small makes you spaz raise everything.

Noob perspective:

Seems standard until the river.

After it goes check/check on the turn, why not bet river hoping to get called light?

You're targeting an awfully narrow range of better hands that would bet/fold the river there. Is AK folding? Doubtful. Maybe AQ or AJ? Bit of a stretch.

I think this is just a call for me. Or maybe leading the river myself.