3/5 $300 cap buy-in game in LA, a Friday

SB is older guy who is clearly a recreational player. Seems to take weird lines but hasn't gotten too out of line, he folded AJo when 3-bet by another player (showed the hand).

BB is younger guy but seems to be loose and limp-called one of my PF raises with A3o. Also a recreational player who is loose/bad and playing on a Friday night.

Table is starting to loosen up as a whole since it's Friday at 10 p.m.

I have ~400, SB covers and BB ~300

Folds to me in HJ, I have A7
I raise to 20, SB calls, BB calls.

Flop ($60) comes AQ6

SB checks, BB checks, I check (?).

Turn comes 2

SB checks, BB bets 15, I raise to 55 (?).

SB hems and haws and acts like he doesn't want to call, then calls.

BB folds.

River ($185) is A

SB thinks a bit and checks, Hero ???

u think he can call with a Q with one of the semi bluff out ? (suited spades, and KJ -TJ)

what ace u bet? A3/4/5 and lose to everything else. can KQ or JQ call you up?

he knows to fold AJo in 3bet pot (was it standard 3bet 2.7/3 x or huge 3bet?) if he knows how to fold to standard 3x /2.7x 3bet with AJo I am not sure u get value from worse hand in this spot.

for me his river is never c/c but x/r or x/f

Can't see V calling more than 50% of the times with weaker hand.

I think we are beat here.and need to accept it.

u might want to turn ur hand into a bluff but I think 75% of time u are up vs flush or another full house and He wont fold often enough to make it profitable (a river bet here must be all in to "try to fold flush " and it s less than 50bb-- i call it suicid)

I checked back. It didn't seem THAT standard to me at first, but I guess it was.

I thought Villain might have a flush, but looking back on it, his clear acting and reluctance to call signaled a potentially even bigger hand. Seems like everyone in this thread had the right instinct.

I checked back and villain showed QQ

It's actually not so much instinct as combinatorics.

Can you construct V's calling range that has more than 50% of hands weaker than < A7?

If not, river bet would clearly not be a thin "value" bet.

River is really std check, the turn action went bet->raise and the SB just called with BB left to act behind him, as well as gave what's generally a pretty reliable tell of strength with his acting. This is just never something random like Qx.

OTR we counterfeited weird 2pr hands like Q6 but those aren't going to c/c a bet nearly as often as hands that beat us, and everything else that we could beat that calls turn like QK etc is now a flush

Fold pre. Axs is too weak at a loose table <100BB, even in the HJ. It's ok if you're very sure CO and Btn will fold.

Two Ad huh? Ignoring the typo, I'd throw out a 1/2 PSB. I'm guessing these guys are loose enough to call one street with a worse Ax and Qx. I don't think your hand is strong enough to slowplay and you gain no information about your opponents thoughts on the flop. You're flying blind the rest of the hand when you check.

Call the turn bet. No worse hand is calling a raise after you check the flop. You almost always get called by better. You're 100% done with the hand after the hollywood cold call from the SB.

Trivial check back on the river.

I like to check back dry flops with TPMK and TPGK hands like these maybe 20% of the time for balance. Also because I have the backdoor diamonds here and don't wanna get blown out against a better hand on flop. Is this a huge leak? I have had a lot of success checking hands like KQ on K82 as PFR rainbow flops because Villains tend to overplay their hands after that and I'm able to get max value/induce bluffs on the final 2 streets.

Balance is always good. However, I would play more straight forward against 2+ players. There's a greater chance someone will suck out on you. I'd easily fold if someone c/r the flop and not think twice about it. I think you can get one street from a weaker hand. If called, most villains will check the turn and you can check then evaluate the river.

Completely agree. You can get two streets of value with TPGK 1v1 on a bone dry flop from worse pairs that put you on a bluff. However this is not the situation in your post.

I think you played this hand pretty well. The flop check is really just standard, you want to have something other than Qx in your check-flop with SDV range and this hand is a good one to use, especially seeing as it's not really worth value betting on this flop. You don't want checking back flop here to mean V's can bet ATC into you OTT profitably.

It really just depends on how often you're going to c-bet your air. If you're going to c-bet missed hands always, then you need to value bet more often too, but AQ6r vs 2 players is probably not a board you're going to c-bet total air into that frequently so I think you can check weak A's here.

I'd pretty much never check KQ on K82 as a standard play though. That's a good board for getting c-bets through with missed hands, and you can't afford to not bet your value hands on it if you don't want to be ridiculously easy to play against.

Turn is probably the only questionable decision point in this hand. If BB bet even slightly more I think it would just be a clear call. I don't *hate* the raise as played though, particularly on the 2 but it's super thin and only good if you plan to bet brick rivers (assuming SB folds and BB calls). I probably would just call because I don't think raising turn with the intention of checking back river if called is a great move and I think betting it would be on the spewy side. Probably more on board with it if we had a hand like AT.

This is all you need to know, what did he call the turn with that is worse than A7? There are no draws on this board. You raised pre and tightened their ranges.

This gets back to the question of why are you raising this turn? What could call that with a worse hand that you?