Played this hand last night and wonder whether I went for too thin value. Thanks in advance for any comment.

1/3 ok table, no one is particularly bad. Only staying because two of my friends who normally play 2/5 and 5/10 are hanging out here with me and playing for fun, then another 2/5 friend saw us playing together and sat down too. We are talking/laughing and having a great time. Rest of the table includes 1 aggressive player who 3b a ton and makes moves, and 4 seemingly ABC players.

H ($600) - Not getting many cards so barely played any hand. Recently won a big pot with full house vs. flush.

V ($400) - Young Caucasian, tightish, seems to be straightforward, haven't seen him 3b, haven't seen him getting out of line.

LP limps, V limps OTB. SB folds, H raises on the BB with KK to 16. Both call, three-way.

Flop ($48) J92r
H leads 30, only V calls.

Turn ($110) Qo
H leads 50, V calls.

Losing to KT JQ 8T but getting value from all other (combo) draws - JT, 8J, JK, 9T QK. Think I bet some of the time, and check some other time.

River ($210) A
H leads 80, V calls.

Don't think V would limp OTB with AJ, so I should be getting value from the same combo hands mentioned above.

Thoughts?

I think OTT we can bet more because some draws get there and he will surely pay for it. JT will definitely call a bigger bet, etc.

The ace river sucks because straightforward tight opponents are rarely going to pay us off here with worse. However, they will rarely bluff here, so I am definitely b/f'ing the river. AP I go $115... But if you would have made the turn bigger we can talk a different story.

Also, I would have raised more pre.

Um what?

River sucks because V's will not pay us off with worse.
I agree.

But then why are we betting?
To 90% of the time to get called by better?

Aren't we better off just check/folding as we expect them not to bet missed draws here. So, we know we are rarely if ever folding the best hand?

I'm confused..

I usually don't take a b/b/b line with just 1 pair.

If he never 3-bets pf than he might not be raising everything otb either. Just because he's young doesn't mean he can't limp AJo or AJs otb. I do sometimes if the limpers in front are limping everything suited under the sun for the chance at stacking them via the flush. Or sometimes to show down and if anyone's paying attention, now I can 3-bet wide because they think I'm incapable of raising AJ in late.

Now I realize I was too optimistic to expect a call from Jx on that board... so it was a bad river bet... esp against that type of V.

Dude does not have Ax in his range according to OP. I think c/f'ing here is no good. I think we can go for thin value and be alright. He probably folds most times, but he may look us up sometimes. I think we have the best hand here a large % of the time.

If he's not c/c/c that often with worse, you wouldn't rather c/c and let him bluff?

This is a tough one.

AP im probably taking the same line OP did.

Sometimes I will c/c something small

I dont think tight straightforward players bluff the river here, so if we check the river its too fold to a bet. I think it is possible to get looked up by worse though, even if its a very small % of the time aka very thin. Since we can take Ax hands out of his range per OP I think its safe to assume we have the best hand quite often. I prefer to stay aggressive here. I think it will help our future image too. We just need to stay aware of that.

Fwiw, I really hate the turn bet. We are missing value there.

This is pretty razor freaking thin.

Whenever we raise at this level, fish will always put us on AK and they then can call down with pretty much any pair.

When the Ace hits the river, even the fishiest of fish can fold their underpair...

However....

there are plenty of fish that will make a curiosity "I know I'm beat okay I call" type of call.

$80 seems about the right bet for this and I expect QT and JT to call that bet probably 40% of the time. They will then sigh dramatically and expose their cards so that the world can see how the poker god's wronged them.

The only argument against this razor thin value are the 2p+ hands in villains range. I think the range of 2p hands in V's range is more than the # of realistic underpairs that pay us off 40% of the time. Given that V probably folds those underpairs 60%-ish of the time and calls with those 2p+ hands 100% of the time I think if we did an EV calc on our river bet I think it turns out to be -EV. I think we don't get called enough by hands we beat and conversely there are too many hands that beat us that will call.

I think its close to breakeven at best but if I had to guess I would guess ultimately it's -EV.

HOwever, with all that being said, I do like the mindset and going for thin value bets. Value betting and thin value betting is what separates the average winners from the big winners.

Occasionally, when we value bet so thin, we will occasionally value own ourselves. But that is actually okay as it enables us to fine tune our value betting abilities.

You need to make it bigger pre, like 20ish.

You also should be b/f huge on turn, like 120ish.

Finally, you can vbet river and get called by J10/Q10 a bunch, and lose sometimes and have him fold sometimes.

The first step in value betting correctly and optimally is doing so in spots such as this.

80$

The line looks good. But bet sizing is far too small pre-flop and on turn.

And yes, value bet this river. I think your sizing is good.

I'm sensing you did not like the results. You said it was a "bad" bet.

It's not a bad bet, imo. You need to remember that when you're value betting incredibly thinly such that you will LOSE 49% of the time villain calls, then it's a good +EV value bet.

Said again, if you're not losing with some good frequency when you're value betting, then you're not definitely not value betting often enough.

The biggest mistake you can possibly make here is to let negative results in a hand like this one affect your opinion of whether you made a good value bet or not.

If we are b/f, why so huge? Can a cheaper amount achieve the same?

Are we folding ott, with draws to higher straight and higher two pair?

Good analysis. Looking back, I think this V might fold underpairs more than 60% of the time on a scary board like that. So this is almost certainly -EV.

Thanks dgi!

Thanks for the nice words. Now I think the river bet is good in the sense that I thought about which hands I might get value from, and bad in the sense that these hands might not call often enough.

And yes I may be result oriented...