Stacks: effective about $400. 8-handed.

Reads: UTG sat down about 45 minutes ago and has been fairly active raising preflop between $15-25 when opening. He doesn't seem particularly aggressive postflop. BB (who is "main" villain) bet three streets with AJ on JT3-7-2 runout (with $100 on river) and in general I think he's more likely to go for thin value than to pull a move.

Hero has KQ on the button.
UTG opens for $15, folded to hero who calls, and BB calls.

Flop ($43): K J 7
BB checks, UTG c-bets $25, hero calls, BB c/r to $60. UTG folds, hero calls.

Turn ($185): 5
BB bets $65, hero calls

River ($315) J
BB bets $100, hero calls

Fine imo. Flop is annoying but can't fault a call getting 4:1 ip.

BB is getting 4:1 on a call OTF. Is he really going to c/r flush draws here OOP 3-ways? I don't think so. I'd fold flop to the raise, and if I did call, the tiny bets on turn and river scream value.

It's not value or a bluff, necessarily. Some people just don't know how to play KT. They raise flop small to "see where they're at" and then bet tiny the rest of the way praying to be good at showdown.

You could also see a clueless JhXh playing this way.

I mean FWIW this is an excellent opportunity to get a very cheap bluff into an already significant pot if we're just gonna lay down TPGK immediately.

Well we hope to not see JhXh here

Meh, in game I probably call, but it's probably an exploitable fold. what are we really beating? The obvious main hands V has are Jxhh and sets/2P. The only hands we beat are K7, and a few combo draws that bricked out (5 if I count correctly, QT, AT, T9, T8, 98. Assume he 3!s AQhh). And in reality, he should be giving up with some of them some % of the time OTR.

I agree villain probably has us beat. But like what does he have to play this way and have us beat? We counterfeit K7. Given that villain looks to value bet thin, there's at least a decent chance he's a non-idiot so he should only show up with like 6-7 FD + MP combos that rivered trips.

From there he's saying he has KJ (4) or 77 (3)? With all the available flop draws that bricked off (plus the 98 that turned double gutted), I can't see myself folding river (assuming I got there this way) getting better than 3:1 given the combos. Be happy because villain isn't charging us the maximum that we'd be willing to pay on this river card.

what did he have AK?

are you calling yourself a station? lol just wondering

I almost like a small raise on button when facing initial bet on the flop given the board texture, also gives you information on hands that continue on the flop and you take the betting lead in position.

Thinking 98 (non-hh/dd) is playing this hand this way is extremely wishful thinking. And even 98dd is probably above some 2/5 players skill level

We we don't even really need it to. Even if we want to add AK, we have what, 22 value combos? AThh/QThh/Q9hh/T9hh/T8hh/98hh/86hh are all hands he could show up with, and he only needs 5.3 bluff combos at the price he's giving us anyway in this pessimistic scenario.

I guess he could have J7 too, but there's only one J7s combo. And I mean if we aren't going to call it off here on this river card, we really shouldn't be calling the turn.

Don't do this.

There are 22ish value combos and you assume he bluffs literally every combo of missed draw. That isn't happening.

Also, calling river is not dependent on calling turn. We are ahead of every Jxhh combo OTT. OTR, we are obviously behind every combo of Jxhh

BB's turn and river bets are tiny. If I was finding a fold, it would be on the flop.

Once I call the flop, the question is: do we raise the turn? If we put BB on a draw, then raising the turn makes sense, but otherwise we might just be getting BB to fold hands we beat.

I snap call the river. Getting 4-1 on my money and if I thought I was beat, I was folding on the flop.

It's a huge leak IMO to call flop, call turn and then fold to a small river bet when the board texture hasn't changed.

BB's most likely hands:
KT
AK
K9
K8
K7
K6
K4
K2

Next set of likely hands:
KJ
77


Other hands:
Jhxh
J7
XhXh
QhTh
QT
Who knows (WTF??)

The bet pattern:
$60
$65
$100

Screams top pair to me. IMO, K7 checks the river. KJ betting pattern would be:

$60
$120
All-in

The other hand that fits the betting pattern are straight/flush draws.

$60 = I'm strong
$65 = oh no, a blank
$100 = I can only win by bluffing

So my top candidates are:
Kx
Missed Draw

If Kx = AK then this hand is an example of the danger of playing KQ with RIO.

Yes, it shows the inherent danger of calling a raise pre with KQ.

Hat tip to MikeStarr whose posts on just that have persuaded fishy me.

This is what I was trying to piece together. The $65 was almost like an "oops, I meant to bet $60," which read like a "same bet, same hand" (I could discount AK based on his earlier play of AJ with escalating bets)

I'm curious what others think of the betting pattern.

Serious question: do you really play someplace where someone c/r this flop with KT-K8 & K6-K2? Because, IME, you're just putting those hands in there to pad the statistics in favor of a call.

Serious question #2: you surmise that V will check back K7, which is typical, imo, but then you say that a top candidate for likely holdings is Kx. how is K7 not basically Kx in this hand?

Serious question #3: do you realize that more missed draws have a J in them than don't?

A realistic range for V on the river is: {%KK, %JJ, 77, KJ, J7s, %AK, AJ-J8hh, %AQ/QT/T9/T8/98hh}, where % is some unknown % because some Vs with squeeze with them. I'm not sitting at my computer so I can't tell you if that range is a call. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

What would you think V as? Fish? Reg TAG?
I would call here with the knowledge that V will be holding JX sometime here, but as well, QQ, TT-88, as well as missed draws. Not being result oriented but what V showdown with in this hand definitely tells us how they play, and if you haven't already typed V yet, I think this hand is a good gauge to see what type of player V is. So, what did V show?

V is a fish. We don't need to see his hand to know this. Solid players don't use these sizings on this board texture.

Yes, players in my regular games check to the raiser from the blinds and the raise top pair, regardless of kicker.

#2 Players react differently when their hand weakens. K7 is going to hate the river a lot more than KT. KT might be thrilled to dodge the flush draw, straight draw and Ace fearing Hero has something like AQ.

#3. A Jack on the river reduces the likelihood that villain has a J. A $100 bet doesn't seem like a J to me. Fish typically get flustered when they hit gin on the river and either check or overbet.

#4 your river range is terrible. Villain never has KK or JJ here - only one combo of each and would have raised PF. Almost never has KJ or 77 - both would have bet the turn a lot bigger. Your river range would be more like:

Stacks $1000 eff
Villain is a Tag

Villain 3 bets pre
Hero has 7 7

Flop
Villian bets $50, UTG calls, Hero 3 bets to $150, villain calls, utg folds

Turn
Villain checks, hero bets $250, villain calls

River (somehow also makes a flush)
Villian checks, hero bets $400, villain goes all-in for $150 more

Now your range makes sense.

Looks like a call to me. I don't love it but you need to be good over 25% of the time which is about my estimation to how often this is a weird bluff or worse hand. V's play is pretty fishy and I don't make a habit of folding to fish getting 4:1. Ranging him is tough since the line is nonsense but there for sure can be bluffs.

He only needs to be good 100/(315+100+100) ~= 19.4%.

I called because of the math, but the bet size changing from a thoughtless $60-65 to $100 seemed to indicate something about how the strength of villain's hand changed.


There could be other explanations such as desperation by a now-counterfeited K7 or KT/KQ wanting to block a raise by signaling a little more strength on a semi-scary river. I was referring to myself as the calling station - after the flop c/r (which I don't think I had seen villain do in 3 hours at the table) I felt frozen into "get to showdown cheaply" mode.

The small betsizes relative to the pot are indeed fishy, and I had seen them from various players around the table. When the pot gets over a couple hundred bucks, more players used "absolute" big bet sizes like $100.

This hand does bring up whether we even need to be playing marginal hands in these spots. I had a spot this past Sunday where a limpy cally player decided to raise over a limper in a straddled pot and I mucked KQs in the SB. Obviously different as I'm OOP (and the straddle dynamic basically means I owe all the $ cold), but I saw more ways to lose a lot of $ than win a lot of $.