Reads: Mid 20s or so white kid who I've played one previous session with. He's a fairly decent to good player. He will semi bluff, he once check/shoved for about one buying with a flush draw and open ended straight draw. His aggression level is very reasonable and he seems to bluff with decent frequencies. He's looser than me pre flop, and most 2+2ers have told me I should be folding in certain spots pre when I'm not. I've been attacking his limps more than usual due to simply luck (getting good cards when he limps). My image should be fine against him, a decent to good TAG.

He open limps UTG 9 handed. I make it 15 with JJ from UTG+2. Player to my immediate left calls, villain calls.

3 way to the flop, $45 (after rake) in the pot, $185 effective against both players.

Flop: 432. Checks to me and I bet 35, only he calls.

Turn: 432Q. He checks, I bet 100 into 115. He shoves for only about 50 more. I call.

Per usual, after some replies I'll share my thought process.

I think this spot's fairly interesting, here's how I view it:

In Stove, I looked at some ranges -- the big question I have is whether this villain will call with 77-TT on the turn. From your description of his preflop play, I think 22-TT, A2s-A5s, and 65s are more or less the range he c/cs flop with, although we can maybe discount the sets a bit because he might want to play them fast to prevent As and 5s from coming and killing his action (or causing him to lose the pot). If he does have all of that in his calling range on the turn, then sure, bombs away, we have 62% of the equity. If bombing eliminates all the hands that you are beating, though...

The most outs he can really have on this turn if he's behind is 10 (55), or maaaaybe 17 (A3/A2cc exactly). He won't have these a ton relative to the rest of his range, and a lot of the outs you can easily get away from (As and 5s, anyhow). He'll have nine outs if he has A2-A4s, six outs with 66, and two outs with 77-TT.

If you're behind, you're crushed -- best case is two outs. So I mean, we're not quite WA/WB, but we're fairly ahead/way behind.

Given all that, I think I either want to check (and call non-A non-5 rivers up to ~$75, bet $75 if checked to), or bet an amount like $60, intending to bet/fold the turn. Checking's the best way to extract another bet out of a hand like 88, and also should prevent us from playing for stacks in a spot where we're almost always demolished if we do.

Incidentally, we're pretty shallow, any particular reason for that? $200 in a $3 BB game seems like a weird size to me, it's neither shortstacking nor fullstacking?

I don't think the Q on the turn is a scary card, but I'd check back to let him bluff the river.

A lot of thinking, aggressive players will put you on AK/AJ when you check back the turn and they'll fire the river with their air. With this guy's aggression, I would expect him to bet a lot of rivers if we check the turn.

Either we're already behind on the turn or else he's drawing very thin. After he calls the flop, I would weight his range towards the 65, 54 type of hands with sets and mid-pairs possible. If he binks a straight or trips, so be it. I think there's more value to be had by letting him bluff the river.

BlindingLaser, I agree with your first paragraph's main points of his range and of it being not clear if he calls a shove with weaker pairs. I'd say his range at least includes the hands you mentioned.

I also mostly agree with the middle two paragraphs. If we're behind, we always have only 2 outs. But if we're ahead, sometimes he'll have only 2 outs but sometimes he'll have much more (perhaps 10 on average).

The final paragraph is what I'm not quite sure if I agree with.

If we're ahead 62% of the time on the turn and he plays perfectly on the turn (always folding when beat), then the EV of shoving = .62*115 - .38*150 = 71.3-57 = +$14.3. Note this is a worse case scenario and in reality the EV will be higher, not lower, due to the possibility of him calling with a worse hand. Keep in mind that I will try to make sure I'm bluffing about 30-40% of the time on the turn here (i.e. usually ace high hands) and by always folding 55-99 I can exploit him in the long term with my bluffs.

The EV of checking turn assuming we're ahead 62% of the time, he has 8 outs when behind, we play perfectly on the river (folding if beat), and villain never turns a small/medium pair into a bluff = .62(.1818*0 + .8181*115) + .38(.045*115 - .9545*0) = 58.33+1.9665 = +$60.3. But note that this is a best case scenario, and if he will bluff the river it lowers the EV significantly. The EV of this scenario is less clear, less accurate, and tougher to find than the EV of betting turn.

I have only $200 since I just lost a medium sized pot and haven't rebought yet. Max buying is $300.

But what air can he have? The only air hands I can think of are AK (unlikely since he didn't raise pre) and 5-X (some such as Q5o or J5o are very unlikely). I think his range is much more heavily weighted towards modest pairs or pairs + straight draws.

Also note that since we want to be bluffing with air (I'm thinking AK or AJ) 30-40% of the time when we bet this turn, the remaining should be for value. If we only have QQ-AA for value, that's probably not enough to balance our bluffs with AK or AJ as there's only 20% value, 80% bluff here.

I think 77-TT bets the river for value against whiffed AK, or if he's on the higher end of them, against your 55-99. I think there's more value to be had from those hands with a check on the turn (because betting probably blows them out of the pot).

I think you're incorrect regarding your river assumptions after checking -- I'm not folding the river (unless it's a miserable card like an A or 5), because after keeping his entire range in the hand, he can now call lighter with it, or bet lighter with it, because you've created the right pot size to go with the hand you have.

Essentially a check on the turn eliminates half of our effective stack, which is precisely what we want to do in this situation...if at the start of the turn, a magical fairy asked you in your ear, "Would you like to instead be playing with $75 remaining instead of $150 right now?", I assume you'd say yes. We have to fade a little bit of variance to do it, but my turn check is about sculpting a medium sized pot for our medium sized hand.

If I have AK I'm checking this flop not expecting better to fold or worse to call.

If I have jacks I'm playing three streets hoping to get called by worse hands. Probably betting 25 on the flop. Probably checking this turn to make the Villain feel more comfortable if he has a pair less than queens.

Depending on the size, and how passive the Villain is usually calling a river bet. Probably betting the river if it's a blank and it's checked to us.

I only like your line if the Villain is a total spewtard and will call your huge flop and turn bets with 53o or whatever because you're barreling AKo here all the time.

That's a good point. I need to increase my double barrel frequency and decrease the frequency that I check the turn with pairs for deception.

With these effective stacks (especially knowing our effective stack against limper), I raise more preflop so I can stack off postflop with an overpair without any thought. I make it $20 preflop.

If we raised a bit more preflop this would make stacking off postflop even more trivial, but even as played, I think we have to stack off here. I would probably pot the flop to stack off on the turn. Not a fan of our betsizing (we were planning on leaving a $50 bet behind on the river in a $315 pot?), but as played we're probably having to get this in (although I'm guessing we're almost never good here).

ETA: I can also get behind the idea of checking the turn behind to get value / bluffcatch on the river (especially with Q showing up where he'll be less comfortable paying off 2 more streets). However, if we PSB+ the flop to commit ourselves (which would have been my plan) I think I would continue thru with it.

GcluelessNLnoobG

60bb effective with JJ im looking to get my stack in. Pre flop I go larger, what ever he will call 20-25. Vs a limp call we are always smashing his range. Do you have any idea what his preflop limping range consists of? Also what his limp calling range is?

Flop I bet a bit larger as played so the turn can be an easier shove. He seems like he is limping far to much. Even if he can get creative post flop that is certainly a leak of his. I honestly really can't get behind checking the turn. Our hand is vulnerable and villans limp calling range seems wide. Why do we want to allow him a chance to get there for free on the river. I am going for a straight forward value line vs this guy.

im ok, pre and flop.

OTT, i think the Q helped our range than the villains. I'm not scared of the turn but curious what he was calling us OTF. I normally check back / pot control limp pots with one pair hands and re-eval river if I can value bet when he checks or fold if he suddenly bets big and call if its reasonable on a non-scary river.

Deeper I'd bet otf, check behind ott, and bluff catch otr.

Here you probably need to size it so you get in ott like GG said. Or I'd limp pre if you don't like that plan. I guess you can call it balance. I'm not worried that raising all my big pp's pf will make me exploitable at 1/3 but I do it sometimes. If the player pool is weighted towards nitty/predictable guys eventually they'll realize you're a winning player and it'll be harder to extract from them. So if I limp with JJ every once in a while, they never see it coming and it could lead to an easy, big pot.

One day about 6 months ago I was sitting on ~$2k at 1/3 and a guy asked me the big hands I played to get it all. I won big hands that day with AA/AA/KK/QQ/flopped 666/flopped boat. The flops helped but it just happened to be against a few guys who I had played with a lot and I decided to underplay my hands pre that day. They were much more willing than usual to get ai.

Grunch:

With this SPR I think your play is fine. Once you bet the flop you have effectively decided to commit yourself to this villain on this board, which I think is reasonable. The Q shouldn't change much, but the club does give V some possibly combo draws. We can't check and give a free card, and we can't fold turn getting these odds, so stacking off is fine... Although we will be beat a lot of the time.

Crappy spot but played it fine I think.

Long overdue results: He shows Q5 and it holds up.