I just sat down and have a $550. Me and the villain have played a decent amount together.

He's a MAWG (early 40s id guess). He is a pretty good player. He is on the active side. Shows up with random bluffs occasionally. I have a solid read on him, that he likes to make info raises to see where he's at.

I open LJ with 97 to $20. Villain calls from the CO. HU to flop.

($47) A97
I bet $30 / Call

($107) A97 5
$75 / Villain Raise to $180

What's our best option here?

Obviously calling

I am calling turn and C/F most rivers unimproved to a reasonable bet. Your flop lead and turn call of the raise would look strong enough that I would give villain credit if he put out a healthy river bet (I don't think it's a slam dunk fold though). Villain I think would always check Ax behind on the river so if he bets we really only beat a missed FD.



I don't think villain has a ton of bluffs and he probably 3b most AK and some AQ pre flop. so how often is this raise like an AJ/A10 trying to bet you off a draw (especially when you can have AK/AQ) vs. a better hand (lots of sets, Aces up, etc.)

All-in given your description of villain, our hand is fairly tough to play on many rivers, villain could think he's ahead with a lot of hands that aren't, not to mention semi-bluffs with a draw, even two diamonds with the ace of diamonds

probably just shoving this shallow - would be more like to call and play rivers if we were deeper.

I think shove turn might be best as well. But wasn't sure if I was being results oreintated. I ended up flatting turn. River was a 6 of diamond. I check/fold to a villain shove.

He showed me 44. He thought my turn bet looked bluffy so he raised me back and was planning on giving up unless a diamond or 4 straight came on the river. Got owned :/

yah its a shove on the turn imo too. You have equity against pretty much everything he has - maybe he shows up 55 sometimes but youre blocking a lot of 99 and 77 combos.

he's got some suited gappers i imagine but he definitely has a healthy amount of other pair+draw or combo draw type hands that you're far ahead of that will still come along now that he made that 180 raise - that all is supported by your read on him as well.

edit: reading your last response now - good fold & terrible bet by villain imo. i dont think thats getting owned, thats just the other side of the coin flip. he probably never calls your shove w/ specifically 44 so in a way you played it perfect.

Easy to be results oriented with a hand like this. Don't think you did much wrong. Just an unfortunate river. You are only beating a bluff so good fold imo. If you shove turn and get called you almost certainly end up losing to this river anyway

Solid player calls 44 on a97 to bluff turn with 0 equity

Spewtard

^ That's how battle regs from 2000 play man. I saw an old leatherass video with him talking about a Mississippi River bluff jam... pretty crazy ****. He played very tight so I guess he did have to do some wacky stuff occasionally. Made me miss the gold ole street poker days.

+1 to this

As played river is pretty interesting. In a vacuum, and in this situation, fold. Could be a call depending on how thinly he value bets and how aggressively he plays draws/bluffs missed draws.

wait longer to give results, OP

Did battle mean bad in 2000?

Everyone was bad in 2000

While shoving allows villain to make an easier decision (with say, 44) we are going to be making a pretty big mistake on a lot of rivers if we fold after just putting in half of our stack previously.

We also have a much stronger holding than our perceived range (mostly strong Ax) and we block set/2p combos. Id think villain had a combo draw most of the time here, with the occasional A5 or whatever also.

For those reasons (mostly putting half our stack in), Id shove turn.

Jamming to get value now from a bunch of stuff that just cks back river a lot. both sides have about a million gii hands here and hero likely has the best of it a lot. Btw 44 is beyond ridiculous.