Villain is a known grinder at these stakes. Haven't played with him before but I saw him triple barrel bluffed all in on his first hand with complete air on a wet board. Tries to see as many flops as he can cheaply, and frequently raised in position.

Hero is has a TAG image, haven't been caught bluffing. Rarely shows down with less than the best hand. Having said that, I wonder if this is a good spot to make such a move instead of just folding.

Effective stacks ~$400

Preflop: Hero is dealt 88 on the SB.
Villain is UTG and raises to $35. One caller from MP. Hero called.

Flop: 9 7 2
Hero checks, villain bets $80, MP folded, Hero called.

Turn: K
Hero leads out for $165. Villain tanks for a bit and called.

(Right here, I figured he has TT,JJ,QQ,A9s)

River: (~$550) J
Hero shoved ~$260.



Would this be a bad shove, considering I led the turn when the K fell? On the other hand, in the villain's perspective, what hands would have bet the flop and flat the turn? How do I justify that the turn and river play is -ev if I had already decided to float the flop?

I am not sure about any of these maybe FPS?

TBH I think the K helped his range more than yours. You are representing K9 or a set and thats it.

• How often does Villain C-bet with just AK?
• What other cards OTT were you going to bet?
• How often would he fold AK here?

You are floating OOP which is just super hard and turning 88 in a bluff instead the hand is at best a bluff catcher.

wow, you have to call the flop and c/f the turn, that is K is a bad card for you. Most live cash players are bad, they are not going to flod after calling the turn. So if you want to bet the turn give up on the river. If it goes c/c on the river you win alot, he can have like ATS or AQs alot but he never flods a hand that bets you one the river so dont dont bet the river

Seems a bad shove for mine. What is he calling on the turn that he folds to on the river? K helps his range massively

Without even getting into how spazzy making a move here is, you just don't have the stacksize necessary for pulling it off. There's very little fold equity to a $260 river shove when villain has already invested more than that and is getting over 3 to 1 on the river and the spade missed.

What hand are you trying to represent on the turn? If you're tight, villian's probably not going to buy that you called preflop with a hand like K9 for $35 out of the small blind. AK doesn't make much sense because that means you you floated the flop with just overs, which most tight players don't do either. If you had a set, you'd probably either c/r the flop or c/r turn. You hardly ever see a c/c, bet line with a set. The only hand your line really makes sense for is something like A9ss.

If you have a tight image, I'm not opposed to running the occasional bluff with air, I just don't think this is a good spot for it.

you need to think about what you're repping. Either you flopped a set or you're bluffing. The king is not a good card for you to bluff, as it pretty much misses your entire range. You should probably fold the flop and definitely fold the turn. When grinders open to $35 utg, even if they're laggy maniacs (*cough* KneedUrDough), they almost always have a hand.

Also, not a good idea to spazzbluff grinders. They're usually pretty good at hand reading.

Your stack size isn't enough to make him fold, he felt the king didn't help you on the turn, there is no reason for him to think it helped you now to a 50% pot bet. He has to be putting you on a pocket pair after the flop. I don't think you would call with AK to a 80% pot bet, if you had pocket Kings would have raised pre flop as you also might have with AK.

If you had deeper stacks this play may have worked but after the flop you are not deep enough to continue, I also wouldn't have bet the bluff turn but it isn't wrong, it will work against most weak players.

only if you can't show up with a good hand here

Calling preflop is –EV in this particular situation. We have to keep in mind how the streets will play out postflop most likely.
(we need way more than 11 to 1 in order to set mine.)
Villain also will barrel making it impossible to get to SD cheap, so we can rarely play for its absolute value.
Villain is grinder, so will maybe get away with a fair amt. of range that others would stackoff with when we have a set.
Also, calling preflop with ideas of making moves on an UTG solid raiser is just an accident waiting to happen.

Leading turn is poor. What K do you have in your hand after c/c an $80 flop bet? Who wouldn’t question that?

Riverbet is even worse. Villain calls 165 on turn and we think he will fold river for 265 even when board doesn’t really change? Even a almost non thinking player should question the line here and call.

Bottom line, the size of the river shove is way too small in relation to the pot size, and to the amount Villain has already invested. He is rarely if ever folding here even if his hand is weak.