This was a really weird situation. It may not be that interesting, but just curious how people would range this villain.

1200 effective
2/5 NLHE 9 handed

Villain is an apparent regular based off of usual factors (dress, backpack, water bottle, familiarity with dealers, etc). Relatively tight pre-flop, not an aggressive 3 bettor, and nothing of note post flop in our two sessions together. Just solid.

Hero is a non-regular, but probably fits the profile of one given past life. On the more aggro side pre and postflop. The two sessions hero has played with villain this week, hero has crushed it and villain noticed (general comments about play quality and some knowing head nods).

Hero opens 20 UTG, Villain flats on BT, BB calls.

Flop ($60): KcTs7d
Hero bets $35, Villain calls, BB folds.

Turn ($130): 4s
Hero bets $110, Villain calls.

River ($350): 7c
Hero bets $375, villain raises to $850 (with $400ish behind).

Seems to me like normally I'd have heard from two-pair plus before the river, but the sizing (over my large turn/river bets) makes it harder to be either thin value or a bluff given my uncapped and polarized range here.

He can have TT, 77, KT, As7s. QJ and 89 seems like his only bluff combos.

I'd be inclined to fold.

A7ss, 76ss, 87ss for value as well.

I could see a tricky regular doing this with AK the odd time, less likely with KQ, I think they’d be more inclined to jam KQ as a bluff. But ya, mostly agree with Mr. Spyu. Can probably throw a spazz combo or two in there too. Even throwing in a couple combos of KK/AA, but definitely reduced combos and unlikely.
I actually think this would be a pretty interesting spot to raise river as V with AK if you flatted pre. It puts a ton of our value hands in weird spots and potentially takes hero off a chop. It also potentially gets value from KQ.
Also, easier to range if we knew our own two cards, but I feel like you’ve omitted our cards intentionally to avoid influencing our ranging of V.

Well I think we can get into all kinds of leveling wars here.

Realistically what could he be turning into a bluff here? Like Tx, QJ, 89, maybe AQ or AJ that turned a flush draw.
Value hands? KT, 7x, boats, Do we think he's flatting with AK ip pre? Even if he is it's hard to raise a 1p hand here.

What range does he put you on pre? Do we ever show up with anything besides AK+ here? What kind of hands can we bet 3 streets with after raising pre? Not many right? I think a lot of the time with our strong 1p hands we're check calling river after everything misses. If villain sees this it's pretty easy for him to raise the river as a bluff. Does this happen often and do I assume villain is capable just because he may or may not be a reg? Probably not, so dumping most non nutted hands OTR. Even though it looks like there are a lot more bluffs in his range than value hands. Could come down to blockers.

What do you have?

It's a river raise at LLSNL. Unless you have close to the nuts it's a fold. I'm far from convinced that villains bluff raise river at any frequency that we can reliably call off unless we have a huge read.

T7s, 77, 7xss, possibly even TT all make sense. You’re repping AK+ and pot the river and get raised it’s probably a fold but it would help to know what you have...

+1

World of difference between holding KK and JJ in this situation.

What happened here Berge? Mind sharing results/thoughts?

V should be highly polarized here. This looks to me like a flopped set, but there is also the chance it's fancy play with AK,a slowplayed KT, or a screwball 7 (not likely unless he has quads). If he had QJss or 98ss, I feel like he raises turn. Your bet size is polarized on the turn and river, so I don't see a good reg coming over the top with QJ/98 as a bluff here based on the details of your interactions.

I think you have to call with AA, KT, and any 7. AK is tough since it's really only a bluffcatcher here, but we have to call sometimes with it. Obviously shipping a boat. Anything else I fold.

It's a gross spot for sure, but one that will tell you what kind of player this guy is for the future.

Oh, I had QsJs and obviously didn't have any recourse but to fold. Just got me thinking how to handle other hands in my range. I also found the raise size choice weird given his polarization and remaining stack, but perhaps it's just a live poker choice by the population.

I may underestimate the strength of the opponent's holdings in this spot judging by the responses, so need to reevaluate things a bit.

I think it’s extremely likely V had 10’s here.
I like how you played this hand a lot, with the exception of river.
Just feels like given your description of V that you will want to be more value heavy in a spot like this and worry less about having enough bluffs.
Especially on this runout, with the specific holding you have, you’re blocking so many of the cards that you want V to have, and unblocking all of his value hands. I really think he’ll have a hard time laying down many of the hands he makes it to river with, but I really like barreling the flop and turn for obvious reasons.

Owned

I do wonder what sizing with my range is best here, particularly given I will have several AK and AA hands that prefer a smaller size.

And I may stress too much over balance in these live games, and it is not good to bluff with blockers to the draws, but not sure (besides 9s8s) I'll ever have a worse hand here and do need *some* bluffs. Guess a gutshot+backdoor FD (non-spade) on flop that I barrel anyway might be slightly better.

Thx for the comments all.