$1/$2 NLHE, 10 Handed, B&M Casino

Hero is in CO with QJ ($450)
Villain is in BTN – stack size ~ ($400)

Villain had been short stacked (under $150) most of the time we had spent together (about 3 hours). He played tight and seemed to be hand selective for the most part while he was short stacked. He won a sizable pot with a flush draw and gutter when the flush hit on the river and that is how he got his chips. It was only been about ten hands since then and he has loosened up opening about 4 pots since then. Has he changed his playing style since getting some chips?

Preflop:
2 Folds, 2 Calls for $2, 1 Fold, HJ Calls $2, Hero Raises to $14, BTN Re-raises to $28, 4 Folds, HJ Calls $28, Hero Calls $28

Flop: ($86)
AQ9
HJ Open mucks his hand, Hero Checks, Villain Checks

Turn: ($86)
T
Hero Checks, Villain Checks

River: ($86)
2
Hero Checks, Villain Bets $45, Hero????

Now there are a lot of 3-betting hands that fits villain’s range here. But after the flop and the turn are checked and villain hasn’t bet I am thinking his river bet looks like he is FOS. Plus I am getting a great price to call. Am I strong enough to call this river with our QJ in this spot? Also is there any value in open betting the flop or turn after the flop was checked back to us? Should I put some sort of blocking bet on the river maybe? Opinions or discussion?

You could have bet the flop when checked to you as he could easily have KK. If you check the flop and bet the turn you look like you're FOS and would have to barrel hard on the river to get him away from a hand like KK.

What 3betting range do you have him on?

Hero raises to 115, effectively causing villain to throw KK into the muck. You look like how the typical weak-tight plays AK in your spot, "the only way I can get value is by getting you to bluff"

If you get your bell rung and run into AA or QQ, whatever. It is still better than calling here and being good less than half the time.

I don't like putting a lead out at any point because if he calls or raises we're OOP and still have no idea where we are - in a 3bet pot no less. tbh I would have probably folded pre since we are in the middle of two V's with a hand easily dominated (yada yada). I'd much rather have a suited 5-7 or something other than QJ. anyways, now that you're here, I think its a call. V doesn't have anything monstrous and if he does he played it as bad as you can. you're looking at KK, JJ and KQ mostly so we get about the right price to play bluff catcher, but I'm not entirely crazy about it. plus you get the added benefit of information whether he's playing loose now and if his future 3bets are worth anything or just pot sweeteners, like this one appears to be.

I don't like a raise or blocking bet here without a bet on the turn to set it up, but that would really be a bluffing line imo. I think as you played it, you are good to bluff catch for the $45. There's no other line that I can see where you lose less when behind (unless you fold here, which seems really weak to me), or where you bet and get called by worst.

Fold, you are hardly ever good here.

I agree that Hero is not likely good here. But I think Villain here is weaker than a pair of aces more than 50% of the time if we want to give him JJ+ as a range, no AK. (I think AK fires the flop here, or at least the turn)

We only need a fold about 45% of the time for a raise to 115 to be 0 EV. And he is folding a hand weaker than a pair of aces.

And a blocking bet is a pretty bad idea. We get all worse hands to fold and get called by better. KK is not mucking for 1 barrel.

Yeah, my first instinct when I read the OP was exactly what you said in your reply. The only problem was that I then thought it looked EXACTLY like what is is if we do this, a desperation bluff.

Bad players are bet calling, cause that is what they do.
Good players are sniffing out that we rep **** all with our 3x check/R line.

I think I'd need a particular read to make this play.

Truthfully? A desperation bluff was the only way I can see winning this pot; I am in complete agreement that calling is pretty bad. An ABC hand-reader could find a fold to a raise, but I agree that a donk will not, and a good player will not a percentage of the time (although it is not uncommon for thinking players to check several streets with a hand if he thinks villain will fold to 1 barrel, going for the c/r in an effort to get called light). Villain here seems to be either ABC or slightly-thinking with a penchant for being nitty.

I think Hero pulls off his bluff if he fires 2 barrels. If checked back to on the flop, we look so much like AK blazing on the turn and river that a weaker PP must fold to 2 barrels.

Moreover, when we call with a hand like this to a 3bet, we need to consider BOTH the times we both hit and we hit bigger with our implied odds hand (fat value) and the times we can outplay our opponent when we both miss, but we miss by more (picking a good spot to bluff).

re-thinking, we have no idea where V's range is here since he may have opened his play up and his 3bet was min. and then he checked through every street until a weakish looking bet on the river. its just as plausible then to think he has some weird hand like 9-10 or 22. with his range pretty much unknown and we have a weak hand by now, its a fold. I wasn't crazy about paying it off before, but with 3-1 on our money I thought we could try it. now I don't think I'm paying it off, even for info/punishment for getting involved here.

drop it and say you called him blind.

Lead out on turn, continue to barrel on river. If raised at any point, snap fold. Or shove. Whatever.

Is villain some sort of super-nit that doesn't feel comfortable betting top pair on the flop? Or bet two pair on the turn? If so, sure, fold. As played, I think that the call is fine. How many legit hands give up a c-bet on the flop, don't bet the turn, and bet $45 on the river? I think villain has 88/JJ/KTs/random FOS 3-bet hands to justify a call.

One of these options is probably considerably better than the other.

VS a stardard 3betting range it looks like he had KK depending on what type of player he is, but you do see some players in live game check two streets with the nuts, but i dont thinks hes ever bluffing.

It's extremely tough to put him on an accurate range without very strong reads as to his playing style. While some players' range will be wide enough to encompass JJ, K10, KK and other combos necessary to make this a +EV call, others will NEVER have anything besides AA here.

This is a spot where I feel our ranging is going to be widely inaccurate. If we call and see KK, we really can't justify it by saying JJ, K10 and air would've been in his range (because in all likely hood, they weren't). If we see AA, well it'd be safe to say he's nitting it up and has very few combos in his range.

I think this is a spot where we need to be at the table to make the right decision for all those subtle pieces of information/reads/intuition/feel/game-flow/tells that go into making a good call or fold. I feel like Viffer here expressing his discontent with the proverbial "internet 2p2 method" of playing poker, but it's somewhat true for this hand IMO.

I feel like if we aren't right here, we're NEVER right here against this player (as opposed to the necessary 34% of the time for it to be profitable).

Calling a 3bet oop with QJs pf is frankly puke worthy unless you have a read that the villain is 3betting extremely light. And by extremely light, that is at a level that even on the internet would be considered at the maniac level on-line, like about 50% of the time.

And even against that range on the river, you're only a 57/43 favorite. I agree that once he bets the river, the only way you can win is to raise. I'm not sure you win often enough to make it worthwhile, but that depends on the range you put him on.

This was my thought too, but I was thinking more along the lines of $145. You might get looked up for $70 more, but $100 more has a lot more FE imo. If you aren't raising then you should be folding, but since villain is tight I like raising here, but a lot depends on Hero's image.

I also raise preflop. We have a hand that plays well multi-way (high card strength, flush, straight) plus position so we don't really care if everyone comes along for the ride; and if we get it HU, that's great too. Thanks to the Button's minraise, we're getting 5:1 to make the call preflop; I call in hopes of flopping a monster that we can stack villain on.

If your table is anything like mine, 3bets preflop by typical villains are the obvious big three hands. We're crushed on the flop and turn so I'm check/folding both streets.

On the river, we beat JJ and that's it. Is 88 really going to make a stab at it on this board? Heck, even JJ probably doesn't. We're behind almost every high card combo that could possibly think of 3betting (with the exception of weaker hands like KT/QT). This really looks exactly like it looked like preflop, either a scared AK, a slowplayed AA or a scared KK looking to perhaps get some value (or perhaps unlikely single combo of QQ). I fold the river.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Is it really that bad with a suited broadway so long as we don't go nuts flopping a TP hand? We're getting immediate odds of 5:1, it's going to be a 3way pot, and effective stack is 28x the minraise size of $14. Or is our risk of domination here plus the fact that we're OOP override these?

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yeah, I was wondering if we could get away with any raise given that second pair typically cringes upon the announcement of "raise"...I typically size my raises so that the bluff needs to work 50% of the time to be 0EV, and $145 is a little bit above...I would probably, in the heat of the moment, announce "$130".

Although hero checking flop, villain checking behind, hero firing $50 on turn, villain calling, hero firing ~$100 on river would work a lot better, IMO. We actually look like AK going for max value OOP. And perhaps we would be able to get off cheap on the turn if we are raised by a set.

So often when a player who is hardly playing a hand starts to open lots of pots, they are just getting a run of cards. Many times I have been tempted to believe they are opening things up but unless they get tilted they rarely are.

Also so often this is KK. If you are making this call pre you need to be betting this turn. You pick up OESD with your second pair and he seems afraid of the ace. When you wiff nail the river and usually - win the hand.

Yes he could have flopped a set or 2p but that's hard to do. As played if you know this player is situationally unaware AND weak tight you can check raise. I like $100 on top I think that maximizes fold equity. Otherwise I think I would fold the river ~80% and call ~20%. This might be the ~20% if he seems to actually be shifting gears.

i guess i don't fault a raise with QsJs in the CO. certainly, once villian minraises (kiss of death) get the hell out of dodge.

I'd have bet out on the turn just as a tester.
Villain has KK and it took 2 checks for him to work out you don't have an Ace and he is in front.
Easy fold. But remember how he played hand. Seems Passive. You should be able to exploit this.