Villian is effective stack at 1200

Villian is 60s white guy but seems to actually be ok at poker. I've seen him 3bet 4-5 times in 4 hours. I've seen him value bet thin twice. Once with JJ on KK569 for 15bb into about 25bb. And once with a pair of aces on a paired board. Both times he was IP on river and both times he was correct. I haven't seen him make any big calls with marginal hands but he has been willing to bet and raise when he thinks he's ahead. I would put his pre flop stats around 25/15/8

Hero's image today isn't tight but isn't loose either and super aggro bordering on too aggro. I've been caught bluffing twice but I've also shown down the goods a few times too. I've been involved in a lot of hands and been betting a lot but am only up about 400 with a stack of 1400

On to the hand

One limp to me in the CO with QdQs I raise to 25. SB calls and limper folds.

Flop:
Pot - 55
8d 3s 3d

Sb checks, I bet 40, sb calls

He is weighted towards pocket pairs and that's what I'm targetting. I think he will call all of them and maybe raise 88 but probably not 33 (not totally sure and he may raise all of both) he may have some suited 8x as well.

Turn:
Pot - 135
2c

Sb checks, I bet 180, sb calls after tanking for 60 seconds. He seemed torn on what to do

Nothing changed and this is a textbook overbet spot in theory. I think he is the type of player to be suspicious and realize he has to call with all of his over pairs and some 8x.

River:
Pot 495
2s

SB checks, hero is obv going to bet but what size is best here? He has about 950 behind

From a theory perspective we have all the biggest hands and he shouldn't have any except maybe 33. Exploitativly I think the same can be said. My live read is he wouldn't slow play anything the way the hand has taken place. His hand looks a lot like 99-JJ and if that's not his entire range then it's a very large potion of it.

I debated between all in for basically 2x pot and a more standard 3/4-pot sized bet. I really like shoving in theory but it might not get enough calls live and I haven't used many river overbets since I've transitioned to live poker

Thoughts on all streets welcome

Seems like a shove spot to me and I think turn overbet can be a little bigger.

I’m newer to the game than you, but could you elaborate on why that spot is a classic over bet spot?

Also, why do you rule out slowplayed sets?

As played, I would bet 1/2 pot on the river and be sick if he jammed.

When we are IP on the turn and weve already cbet the flop if it's an under card to the board that doesn't complete any straights then we can overbet a lot of our betting range. It's a little more dicey on paired boards but if the pair is a 2 or a 3 it's still used at a really high frequency.

It's gotten really popular in the solver era. Solvers love this play. It adds a lot of ev

What slow played sets can sb have? There's only two combos of A3s left and I'm heavily discounting them and 88 because I think he would have check raised them all. He could have 33 but that's the only thing I see him maybe slow playing

Half pot is waaaay too small to bet on the river. We have such a massive range and nuts advantage we need to leverage that. You could make the argument that we don't have enough bluffs for this size but we don't have a ton of value either. Basically 33 88 A3s and QQ+. Exploit wise it looks really bluffy.

Disclaimer: don't try this against passive players who love to trap. It's a suicide mission if you do

Villain is very unlikely to have anything better than ~JJ, while we can have QQ+. He really only has 88, maybe 33/22 if they call pre, which all may have raised an earlier street at some frequency so we can't check back river with a hand like 99. When we have a big nuts advantage (premium overpairs count as the nuts here) we are allowed to and want to size big because it allows us to capture greater pot share with our range by allowing us to bluff more often, which we can do because we're offering villain poorer pot odds with a larger size. Vs. 2x pot villain needs us to have at least 40% bluffs to call with a bluffcatcher, but vs. half pot villain only needs us to have 25% bluffs.

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Not sure why we wouldn't be able to find enough bluffs here. I think it's actually really easy to overbluff. Busted diamonds, turned wheel draws and random high cards could all end up at the river and consider bluffing.

All in river


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meh on shoving unless your image to him is maniac-ish (reading op it might be)

otherwise typically i think this player description just overly worries about two pairs on board, shrugs and folds his 99-TT too often...

Villain is 3 betting pf more frequently than the average LLSNL player. Therefore, he shouldn't have QQ+ in his range. This comes down to whether the villain can call an overbet with JJ on the turn against Hero. If yes, thin but nice bet. If not, bad bet. That's really a table judgement call requiring more information than can be put in a HH.

Betting for value on this river isn't even remotely close to thin. This is a mandatory value bet and it's not even close. I certainly hope you're saying shoving is thin, even though I strongly disagree with that too.

Yeah agree about needing more info than a HH can provide. Thanks for the feedback it confirms exactly my thinking in game. I went with the ob jam. He tanked for literally 4-5 mins

If its never getting called by worse then it would be too thin. He's saying the ob jam is thin because against the vast majority of players it never gets called because there are zero hands in their range that can call.

Replying to you but not directed at you.

That is exactly the time when you should be overbetting. Putting max pressure on a weak range is good strategy.

Truth is we have no idea whether or not villain is capable of calling off with JJ here. All this hyper exploitative "if villain does this, do that" stuff certain people in this forum love to spout is a terrible way of thinking about poker, and worthless strategy advice. Like duh, we don't overbet if we know villain never calls with JJ. However 99% of the time you don't have rock solid reads to know how villain will react in a rare spot like facing a river overbet jam, or even the turn overbet.

It's also silly and lazy to think we can only make these types of decisions with real-time knowledge of what's going on. Reads are completely unnecessary to win at poker. They are just a bonus to make things a little easier/win more.

The river debate seems to already feature every viewpoint, but let me ask this. If we are considering jamming the river now, why didn’t we bet more on the turn?

133% turn obs are what I've studied with. It's my default turn ob size. I'm not considering jamming any rivers other than a 2 and maybe a 3. We're just leveraging our range advantage while it's massive and then playing rivers

No offense taken and thanks for the feedback but I mostly disagree with you. Against good opponents I agree but good is relative and while I think this guy a decent live player I don't think he's actually "good." So I am playing much more exploit based than theory based vs him. It just happens to be that the best line in theory is the best line to take vs this guy. I want chips not ev from a solver output. I did jam river and the fact I knew it is what a solver would do is just a bonus. In these spots it's always nice to have extra confidence when making what most ppl would say is a massive over play

Reads aren't nessasary to win at poker. That is true. But they really help your win rate. They don't need to be rock solid. Far from it actually. They just need to be better than nothing

I probably use reads in almost every single live hand I play. I'm not against them it just annoys me when people (not saying you) act like you literally can't make a good decision without them, and I think in general live players overvalue them and undervalue fundamental concepts of poker game theory.

I'd also be willing to bet most of the same people that think villain doesn't call a river jam with worse are those who say you should rarely bluff at low stakes live and don't have a river overbet bluff range here (or any spot). IMO the biggest benefit of thinking about how you play other hands in your own range is to force yourself to be consistent so you don't end up under bluffing AND under value betting a spot like this. Too many people think range vs. range thinking is only about balance. If you think villain folds worse to a river jam almost always go ahead and use a smaller sizing, but you better be bluffing the **** out of him for all the chips when you get to the river with A4.