Posted this habd in the 'Suggestion Box' as a BB template but I guess most of u missed it lol

Live' $2/$5

Villain (BTN) is a smart TAG and a regular who is a winner in this game (and Hero is probably viewed the same way)

$800 eff.

Hero in SB w/2d2h
LP raises to $20, Villain calls $20, SB calls $18

Flop: 7s8d2s
$65 (3 Players) Hero bets $60, LP folds, Villain calls $60

Turn: Jx
$185 (2 Players) Hero bets $100, Villain calls $100

River: 4s
$385 (2 Players) Hero? [$620 Behind]

B/F, C/C, Shove? Flop lead good? Turn bet bigger? Any other thoughts?

not everything got there, just the flush, 910 i guess too he folds 56 on turn. ummm i guess id bet fold to shove

U'd fold 65 on the turn?

100->285 (~2.75-to-1)

6 outs (~6.25-to-1)

That means u need to make another $350 on the river (and the pot will be ~$385.) Plus u can also bluff the flush and if an off suit 4 comes off most people are going broke (~$620 behind) if they have a decent hand.

I guess u'd figure that T9 would have raised the turn.

The 4 is a horrible card, and so is the jack. Almost every draw got there:

{56, 9T, XY}

I do not believe there are many combos that a TAG player calls down with that hero beats. Maybe A8s? Maybe 99? Maybe 87s? But I'd think 87 would raise OTF.

Value betting is enormously important when it comes to maximizing win-rate, but this might be one of the cases where you can C/F.

I'd C/F, but a case can be made for B/F with a size of ~$215.

I don't like C/C because almost every hand that hero beats, and that is consistent with villain description/line (not AA for example), checks OTR, where as, every hand that beats hero bets OTR.

OTR: C/F > B/F > C/C

(Was the turn the J?)

No (it didn't add another draw)

Good analysis (very similar to my thinking)

I think you need to make the turn a bit bigger, like 130-150

Tough spot here, but I think blocker bet 200 and fold to shove is what I'd do against TAG opponent. If he's good he'll smell it out and shove light, but only a small percentage of players have those moves. And regardless, it's just very hard to do without the As, which opponent is unlikely to have bare. So bet-fold. Checking is bad because the call might be expensive, and you still have too much value to c-f, + could lose value with a lot of snap check-behinds which might have called you.

I forgot to put c/f in the original options but I think it's viable (I still think a small, exploitable b/f is better and c/c and shove are horrible.)

in a different thread someone asked me how much i was 2-barrel'ing and its hard to say but if you ahve history with the fella, i think how often does he expect you to 2 barrel a flush draw or any kind of combo draw here? If he expects it a lot, he's not raising the turn w/ T9. I dont know if i would, since if you have a draw you're not calling a large raise there anyway - you're best chance of making money is hoping you b/f or c/c. (from villain's pov).

that said, a bigger bet on the turn doesnt fold out his made hands and only folds his long shots, so its pointless.

i actually dont see a huge problem w/ c/c as long as the bet is less than 60% of the pot. b/f line is only exploitable if you bet and he calls and it goes to showdown since in future cases he may be more likely to raise your river value bets.

i like c/c'ing better only because it allows all his river bets to now include some air. Whether he bets big with air and it doesnt meet our requirements, then so be it. If the jack didnt kill us, that river did.

He may put you on a strong hand and therefor bet big with any hand he has that got to the river since i doubt he's expecting a river c/r at all. But saying this, if you were deeper, a river c/r here could make him turn green in the face.

perhaps a better alternative is to pot control turn only when that Jack hits allowing smaller river bets and a c/c wouldnt be as nasty anymore since he cant bet that big anymore anyway unless he overbets/shoves river.

its a sick spot, and i really dont know what optimal play is as played. i want to say i would probably b/f but i dont see what that accomplishes against his range that gets to the river. you vb range on this board is obviously sets and better, so really you're at the bottom of your VB range in this instance. villain has too much control w/ position on this board to me making me want to think b/f isnt really all that good.

why do you think c/c is so awful?

There are a lot of made hands such as 2 pair combos, 99,TT and maybe hands that are calling us down light/combo draws. We want to give him an incorrect price OTT for his draws and we also have a hand that is going to be good here a lot of the time. Betting more OTT here is best.

Read the posts above. The majority of the hands that bet OTR beat us and the majority of hands that check behind we beat. Unless we think villain is floating 2 streets here or is going to be turning a 1 pair hand into a bluff a good amount of the time, c/c is awful.

I think a b/f here is necessary, about 1/2 pot. C/F is a close second and I wouldn't berate you if that's what you did.

I was leaning towards c/c but that's losing value to 99-10s. Is villain capable of floating here to where he has top pair now? Im going with VB/F here

If villain is quite good, what is he calling our value bet with? I agree there are two pair combos but as, is the problem for OP, every draw got there.

This is just a really ****ty spot OOP and comes down to what villain's weaknesses are. If he is too cally, b/f. If he is too bluffy c/c and if he plays really good we just have to c/f and get s seat change.

I know this seems like a non-answer/stating the obvious but in tough/close spots I don't think the forum has enough info to argue strongly for one line over the other.

I agree that b/f and c/f are really close and the b/f OTR is a little thin. But I really don't like c/c because then we just turn our hand into a bluff catcher and every draw got there. Do you think it's more likely that villain turns a 1 pair/weak 2p type hand into a bluff OTR here? Cause he's never value betting worse.

So yea like you said, this spot is very dependent on villain's habits but he would have to be bluffing a lot of river spots with marginal holdings/turning a lot of hands into bluffs/"value betting" for no reason a lot of the time for c/c to be good. Based on OP's description that villain is a competent smart TAG regular I don't think he's going to be doing either of those enough of the time to make c/c profitable.

You're right. I don't expect him to do that often enough but it is so, so history dependent. If you put a gun to my head I'd go c/f>b/f>>c/c.

So yeah OP there's your answer. Both c/f and b/f are acceptable lines and I agree with ques that we don't have enough info on past tendencies etc. to debate which one's better.

I guess against some opponents it's not horrible because they are going to be bluffing when the flush gets there if they were only floating BUT checking behind with any hand that we beat and could get value off. The problem is... everything got there! If we bet then we only get called by their 'bluff catchers' (unless they can turn their made hands into bluffs.) This guy is a winning player so I think it would be in his toolbox. The other thing is, what made hands does he have that he wouldn't have raised at some point already?

If I was up and down, I would bluff the flush if it got there and I didn't... problem is a ton of draws got there. If I were in his shoes and he bet $215 on the river, I'd jam the mutha fcuker with ATC.

C/F'ing seems so goddamn weak but if he pots it, I'd hate to call (even though I know that's exactly what I'd do.) I beat what, 96,AA,KK,QQ,TT,99 and 2P hands that would have raised already? (and most of these hand are improbable given the action anyway.)

Stupid Hand (stupid scatter brained post lol)

Just cause of sizing? I mean your line (or his if positions are reversed) reps a flush perfectly well so we can't just shove here.

I guess it does except if he plays like I do, a 'donk' bet on that flop would be a strong made hand with a small percentage of air while a strong draw would often be a check with a plan to check-raise and lead most turns.

Such a disgustingly gross board but I feel, as played, we have to throw a little blocker/defensive bet out on the river ~$185-$200 and fold to a shove.

I was thinking about my prior analysis more and im definitely disagreeing with it, problem is i dont have good estimates to quantify why.

when we check the river he's betting with hands we beat (all whiffs, two pairs, overpairs if he's spewy =s x%) + hands we lose to (straights & flush =s y%).

of x and y %'s, he's only bettinga portion of x% hands a certain %'age of the time. He's probably not VB'ing overpairs often enough and two pair enough to make c/c'ing worth it. Even if we include straight bluffs, there arent a lot of hands that get here that can be straight bluffs w/ air, so any "bluff" we include here would be a semi bluff (hands he floated flop w/ that picked up something on turn like AJ w/ Aspade say, but would he fold that on the turn? maybe. would he bet that on the river? i dont know a good %'age figure to say he would bet these hands on the river).

if we b/f, he's calling behind with two pair and less (although predominantly folding lesser hands), and maybe calling sometimes with straights that could fear you were playing a spade draw aggressively and maybe raising with decent flushes.

included should be the times he decides to turn any made hand that we beat into a bluff on that river too.

I think my issue in making any decent estimation is i dont know enough about villain. Kneed - you have some history with the dude, you think there's any more you can offer on him? I know you said he's capable of all these things. I guess maybe how you think he views you would be helpful too, moreso than saying he sees you as a good aggressive player?

b/f'ing at least allows us the opportunity for him to simply call behind with more hands if he's not feeling particularly antsy and doesnt jam over top. So a good question could be: how often is he likely to jam that river over a bet? Thats the defining question to me as to whether b/f is the best option.

Also on the turn, im definitely gonna disagree with my prior post that said checking is an option here. Even though we could be folding out a lot of the hands we beat, we hit a full house by the river ~18.5% of the time, which is plenty to make betting the turn the best option all those times he is at the top of his range drawing to a flush and all the times he doesnt put you on a FH draw and wants to get silly on the river.

bet-folding is also good for metagame purposes. A lot of hands he will check behind or fold to a bet, which is exactly the same value for us. But three-barellling and not showing is always good advertising.

IMO, the hand was lost on the turn. I mean you gave him around 3-1 immediate to call with a draw which he has to assume he can get another $100 out of you if he gets there. I would have potted the turn/called a shove because even if he has a str8 there u have outs.

River is death, but looks like a b/f line is best to me. If you checked to me, I would bet large with ATC as you say, but I can't raise your river bet without a very strong hand, so that is probably your best play. Also might get valu of out 2 pair hands if he thinks you are FOS.

130-150 on turn

check/fold river imo.

I agree that I should have bet bigger OTT (as it would have solved a lot of problems)...

...OTR, if I was in his shoes and he bet $215, I could shove with anything that missed or any made hand that I wanted to turn into a bluff as (follow me here) this is a spot that I could never be bluffing (or not be bluffing enough?)

This is one of those instances where anything you know about the villain can be helpful. Can you tell us more about the player? Can you tell us about how he checked the flop turn? Can you PM me a name of the TAG?

I am in a minority of one here. I think about this in an opposite way from the other respected posters.

It looks like I'm the only person who thinks that checking the river here is the right idea. I want to check down this hand to showdown. It's a way ahead/way behind situation.

I hate bet/fold here. The board is too scary to extract value from hands like (two) pairs that your set beats against a good TAG.

It's unlikely that the villain hit his straight on the turn since he didn't raise, so mainly I'm afraid of the flush.

Do you have good control of the villain?

Rather than try a blocking bet here, I'd check and try read the opponent if he bets the river.

// Edit: Bet more on the turn obviously.

This goes back to why I think not bet/fold but rather, checking is the right play....

Any reasonable bet by the villain courts pot commitment.
The stack sizes are awkward for getting it in, so leave them where they are.