I’m on the BB with KJo, first hand.
Button opens to $12 and I call.

$26 - flop J85r, I check call $15
$56 - turn 3 bringing bdfd, I check call $35
$126 - river 5 fd misses, I check, button bets $100, hero ??

As played, what would you do on the river? Would you play the hand differently, and if so, how and why?

Sorry, forgot to add that I’m the effective stack at $300

What's so hard about the river?

- You're behind J8, 88, 55, AJ (18 combos if v opens all J8o)
- Ahead of QJ, JT, J9 (24 combos)
- Chopping with KJ
- If he has T9 and any missed FDs with this line, it's a snap.

Include the suit of the cards.

Its an easy call imo, without any reads I'd assume button ranges are wide and a hand like KJ on a J8535 board to be good a huge majority of the time, I personally think a player would thinking they're value betting, but they're doing it with a worse Jack often enough that I would call and expect to win a majority of the time. Opponent could easily be doing that with a busted flush draw too, you played it passively check-calling every street I think folding on the river when all the draws missed is a huge mistake. If you were going to get to a relatively safe river only to fold, his range is so wide I'd expect to see a ton of bluffs here and worse Jx hands. If he has a 5 or a better two pair/set well GG to him, but I'm calling all day.

Fold pre and fold river.

It's hard to play OOP, even harder without read.

You will end up check/fold most flop or win very little by check/check bet/fold.

Or lose a bunch like this situation and blame variance or what not.

Clear flop preflop. KJo OOP against an unknown opponent is a bad idea. You want some idea what villain's range is and how he plays post flop before you consider this.

As played I would favor a fold on the river but your hand is good enough to try to pick off a bluff if you have any feel he is weak. Your ahead on total possible hands villain could have but you have to weight his range towards the better made hands when villain barrels all 3 streets. If villain had a meh made hand like QJ/JT he should be checking river. He could bluff a missed draw but shouldn't always be doing that and could have checked turn with a draw.

It’s true that I have no reads on villain, but I think it’s safe to assume that the button opening range is widest and KJo is a defend in the BB. If it’s not, what is your defend range in the BB?

I agree that the range assigned would lean towards a call, but I would add over pairs and other hands to both ranges (ones I’m ahead/behind of).

Calling was the worst option. This is a standard 3 bet or fold situation pf. Given it is your first hand and we don't know if this a 75 year old man or a 23 year old kid with a backpack on the floor and wearing earbuds, I'd fold. Even if the reads aren't rock solid, something would help sway this a bit.

As for the rest of the hand, you're being a calling station. You're not confident you're ahead, but you're afraid that it could be a winner so you don't want to fold. Again, know if the villain is 75 or 23 would be a big help in determining whether to stick around or fold. But I'm not much help here because I don't put myself in these situations.

The book YOU recommended to me, The Course, puts KJo squarely in the call range against steals, which I think is fair to use for a button open. Villain was a MAWG. Good point that this is useful info.

I really think folding KJo to a a button open in the BB is too nitty, but so far the majority of other posters agree with you.

Would love to see what Aesah, ChaosEquilibrium, and drowski think.

OP, if you call, you'll have put in over half your stack for a one-pair hand where your kicker might not play.

In theory, the villain shouldn't have any two-pair hands here, but he could have all the sets.

I don't know what sort of maniacs frequent your games, but three streets of value with that kind of sizing doesn't look like you're good with one pair.

Let's say that you call here and aren't good. You risked approx. 150 and lost.

Would that really be worse than 3-betting pre (if you have to play this hand) and trying a x/r later? You'd risk the same amount of money (or less), but give yourself a chance to win the hand.

I think that a line with some aggression would be more profitable (presuming that you're set on putting half your stack in) if you really want to win this hand. That said, I don't think that too many low stakes players would ever fold a set with no flush or straight on the board.

Otherwise, I'd say just let this go pre.

Defending ranges from the blinds are one thing, but what you do with them post is another. If you're going to be calling down, I don't think that this kind of marginal hand makes your x/c range very strong. People could barrel off rather light against you and just print money.

Key point: if you're going to take something to showdown, get there with a hand that has a shot at winning.

Well, KQo is a solid 3bet for value in BB vs BTN. We wouldn't transition from pure 3bet KQo to 3bet/fold a hand like KJo. Rather, KJo is gonna be a mix of 3bet/call. Probably also call KTo/K9o.

AP, we're at the top of our range and are locked into calling river. I think opponent is representing AJ+, and then he has T9 and backdoor flush draws for bluffs. We're definitely beat a good portion of the time but I don't see how we can fold a decent top pair in this wide of a spot.

Ummmm..... QQ+??

Was too fixated Jx combos were behind that i forgot to include QQ+, should've double checked my comment. Thanks.

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Yeah idk I disagree w/ most here and don't mind the way this hand was played at all assuming you called river.

Ed Miller would call.

A lot of good players would call, even if they have no reads.

Good players can find value in this spot, even if they lose, especially when this is the first hand at the table.

Good players will think beyond whether this hand is good in a vacuum and use this hand to win the session.

Are you a good player?

This

I'm usually raising and folding to tighter nittier players. Then the hand is easier to play gong forward with less guessing.

Not much against a total unknown.

Unless stacks are deep I'm raising or folding OOP against an unknown opponent. If stacks are deep enough I will set mine some middle pairs and if stacks are really deep add in a few suited aces and suited connectors fishing for a favorable flop. That is it, I'm fine with playing like a nit in the first orbit.

With no reads, this is a 3bet or fold pre for me. Once you call flop and turn, does V really expect you to fold river w/ a J? It looks as if he's going for pure value. Maybe V is terrible and is doing this w/ worse, but I would not find out.

Balerion1, I was wondering about QQ+, too

Edit: any idea what you "look" like to V? What read might he have on you?

We're getting 2:1 on the call, so we need 33% equity to continue.
If BTN is opening what I consider a very tight range of {88+, any two broadway cards, Axs}, KJo has 43% equity against that range, so it's a preflop call (or 3bet).
KTo has 40% equity against that range, so still not a fold.
K9o has 37% equity against that range, so probably a fold if the BTN is tight, given we underrealize equity from OOP.
If you think BTN is a super nit and is opening even tighter than the above range, maybe that changes the calculus, but that's a strong assumption. It's definitely not a fold by default.

Edit: If you also give BTN opener J9s-K9s, 66-77, 87s-T9s, then K9o is back up to 40% equity, and it's a call again. Actually, this squares with my intuition that K8o is the marginal hand at the top of our folding range (or at the bottom of our 3bet range if we decide to use a polar strategy for BB vs BTN).

If we are giving BTN an opening range w/ no reads, shouldn't we be giving him a three barrel range? Not many average 2/3 players are firing into an unknown w/ worse than KJ, at least not in my experience.

Standard call pre and standard calldown IMO. He can value bet worse Jx on the river and there are a billion draw combos which you block none of so folding is really bad.

4x pre, although "standard" for live poker, gives you a pretty bad price to defend, so folding pre isn't horrible IMO, but this is absolutely not a 3-bet or fold spot, and for me personally you have to pry this out of my hands.

OOP with a meh hand to a guy we have zero reads on ain't going to be a great spot. I fold preflop as a default even with solid reads (let alone no reads); super not worried about being exploitably overfolding in a spot that almost never happens at a full 10 handed table (i.e. remove "defending" from your vocab; if you're playing at a table where this is necessary, you're playing at the wrong table, imo).

As played I'm cool with flop/turn. River is hard because of zero reads. Against most in my pool, it's likely a fold as this is quite polarized (most TPish hands MUBSy check back) but on top of that 4 barrel bluffs just ain't too common, so it's mostly just nuttish hands we run into a lot (although in HU pots you will run into it more, opponent dependent).

Gputyourselfingoodspots,imoG

This assumes that villain plays all combos the exact same way postflop (i.e. 4barreling off their nuttish versus TPish versus air hands). But almost no one does that, especially your typical run-of-the-mill opponent (i.e. reads would help here). Everyone barrels their nuttish hands ~100% of the time; hardly anyone barrels their TPish / air even 50% of the time (let alone 100%). So that very quickly and drastically changes combo quantities, imo.

GcluelesscomboweightingnoobG

Didn’t you just recommend folding?