Villain is 29/18/4 over 50 hands. I had already flatted preflop in position a couple of times against him and won the hand without showdown. Hadn't raised him until this hand.

Is the flop spew?

Is a river shove compulsory (i.e. is he ever calling with worse)?

Poker Stars $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Hero (MP1): $646.90
MP2: $362.00
CO: $404.50
BTN: $273.00
SB: $346.00
BB: $400.00
UTG: $683.90
UTG+1: $581.00
UTG+2: $80.90

Pre Flop: Hero is MP1 with 9 8
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $16, 1 fold, Hero calls $16, 5 folds

Flop: ($38.00) A 6 T (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $28, Hero calls $28

Turn: ($94.00) 7 (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $76, Hero raises to $200, UTG+1 calls $124

River: ($494.00) 7 (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero ....???

Shove is super standard

Angrily fold face-up

oh wait

shove and its not even remotely close. wtf?

SHOVE!

What is he calling a shove with .... AK ? What hands exactly are we getting value from by betting?

Easiest shove ever.

It would take some pretty convoluted assumptions about his play in order to make checking here correct if your play on the previous streets was also optimal against him.

not shoving here is like folding KK preflop, don't be that guy

So villain is calling a shove with ........

if villain is calling a shove with absolutely anything at all it's a good shove

you know why

because villain has a boat here NEVER EVER EVER

Don't do it, he has dem pocket sevens!

Serisouly though, is he really calling a shove with AK, AQ here ever...doubtful. Not unless he puts you on T6, which is horrible. Maybe he's a donk enough to stack off with TP though. If he has the A he might stack off here if he thinks you were floating the flop.

If you don't shove what are you betting.... 240-300? Might as well shove, he won't have much left. The board pairing does suck if he puts you on 66, or TT. He might have KQ also, which case you're get nada. So....shove and pray he has an A or AT

what sick mother ****er throws a cat into a plastic bag to take that picture.

ya I guess a fold isn't bad. Your hand is like face up to him

villain will probably call a shove with like any ace

If someone really folds AK/AQ/AJ/AT to a shove here, you should be shoving every river every hand, since they never have a hand to call you with.

I'm not sure but people may adjust and start calling if you do this. The reason it works sometimes is because you aren't doing it every hand, ldo.

So, once you get called once, then you have the repuation to get looked up by AJ in this spot, and you probably have +150 in EV from just bluffing, since they folded AK twice to you before actually calling.

See how easy poker is?

meh. Metagame is overrated imo.

Keli has a good point though, in that 2+2 seems to be weak/tight when it comes to valuebetting/bluffing. I mean, in this thread some people are saying that shoving this river is too thin because AK and worse is folding, but I guarantee that if hero had air on this river and posted a thread about shoving as a bluff every response would be "shoving this river is terrible, any ace is snapping you off!"

And fwiw, any ace he called the turn with isn't folding to a river shove so jam it in ldo

Villain calling this river shove with AK/AT etc would just be pure spew imo (unless there is history, which in this case there isn't). Put yourself in villain's shoes, what am I repping? Without history, why wouldn't I have what I am repping? Turn raises are rarely bluffs/semi-bluffs at this level, especially when they are not all in.

As for the metagame, it works both ways - the table sees I checked behind with a strong hand. Next time we are in a similar situation and bet, to the table our range is polarised between bluffs and the virtual nuts, but we may well have a medium strength hand from which we will get thin value.

if you don't think you can get value from this hand then I have no idea how you think you'll be able to get value in thin spots

the strangest part about all of this is that you ask if your flop call is spew and meanwhile you're saying he's gonna fold top two pair to you on a very dry board... if he's raising 18% of hands and giving up with everything but the nuts when you show strength then it seems like folding anything at any point would be terrible unless/until it becomes obvious that he actually has the nuts

Holy **** are you checking back bottom full too?

Move down if you can't shove this river, or please tell me your s/n on Stars plz.

You really arent repping a whole lot since your draw is concealed and thats a great reason for him to snap you off with any ace when all draws miss on the river.

Also, why would you raise the turn if you think hes going to fold everything besides a set? You have position, just call to rep weaker aces. The reality is that he will call the turn with AK,AQ,AT and snap the river with all of them.

No, his call on the turn is the problem here. I raise the turn hoping to get it in against a set/two pair. Those are what I wanted value from, and we were never getting value from worse hands either on the turn or river (they may even totally shut down if a scare card comes on the river), but we had the nuts so it didn't matter. When he flats the turn raise his range can still be narrowed to mainly those hands (sets and 2 pairs). It is just to our benefit that when the board pairs on the river he didn't get all in on the turn. It all comes down to his call of the turn raise.

And no, I'm not checking bottom full but that's totally different because if we have it then it can no longer be part of his range - here it makes up a substantial part of it.

Edit: and if I had posted this hand from villain's perspective saying "should I call with AK/AT here" I am pretty sure I know what the responses would be.

He's shoving the turn with sets and two pair hands 99% of the time and the other 1% of the time he's open shoving this river, the odds of him having a boat here are basically negligible.