We have around $500 effective.

Villain is an unknown player without any specific reads, but appears to be a tight recreational player.

Hero raises from the LoJack with AT to $20. Villain min-raises to $40, and Hero calls.

Flop ($90): Q J 6

Hero checks, Villain bets $40, Hero calls.

Turn ($170): 5

Both players check.

River ($170): 7

Hero - ???

A few questions here:

1) Should we call a flop bet with these types of hands OOP? Gutshot + backdoor flush draw. For example, ATs on that board, KTs on AJx board, AJs on KQx board,etc. I mean, if we don't plan to bluff the river, should we just fold on the flop, even with such a good price, right?

2) Should we bluff the river?

Ranges for preflop min raises are very strong. Absent any other information it's best to assume a preflop min raise is a big pair. Villain is trying to get some money in the pot without applying pressure to get folds. Occasionally you may run into fish that don't understand bet sizing or aggressive bluffy players that are trying to setup bluffs later in the hand. Those are both rare enough that it's not worth worrying about when an unknown player makes a min raise.

1: Against an unknown opponent fold flop. The flop didn't help you enough to continue.
2: Don't try a bluff. Villain most likely has a good hand and checked turn in hopes of getting something out of hero on river.

Probably wouldn’t fire river after checking turn.

Flop call seems a little -EV but not terrible. Much better if V gives you free river, which he did.

Looks like an ok spot for a river bluff to me. I would xr flop at some frequency here.

I think villain range is mostly capped at medium pairs, and both a and t blockers have some value.

definitely bluff the river. your hand looks like Qx, play it like Qx and bet $125. sometimes you get called, w/e. very often you dont.

whoever thinks min 3 bets pf are strong must play in some different games than i do. in my experience they're usually button clicking hands like 99 or who tf knows. occasionally they are AA.

Is 3.25:1 a good price? We're almost 10.75:1 against improving to a straight on the turn. And we're out of position. Sure we have back door spades and some hidden outs, but this is also a reverse implied odds situation, like if we turn an ace and villain has ak or AQ or QQ etc.

+1

You can’t win this hand by checking and V didn’t like his hand enough to bet the turn. He could be pot controlling with AQ but you’ll get enough folds to make the bluff profitable.

I'd like to know more about pre-flop and our reads on V.

What position is V in? If he 3B next to act, I'm going to give that raise more credit than if he's on the BTN.

Why do we think he's a tight rec? Do we have any previous observations that support that read?

I haven't seen enough pre-flop min-clicks to know what they mean. Usually it's either limit players who are used to min-clicking and don't realize how strange it looks to NL players, or occasionally it's PLO players who are doing whatever the f**k makes sense in the twisted labyrinth of a degen's mind.

If he's a tight rec, perhaps a limit player, I don't think the min-click necessarily indicates weakness, and could actually be strong, if he's semi-clueless about live NL.

FLOP - V's bet size is odd, more than 1/3, less than 1/2, not really the size we'd expect if he was trying to bet an over-pair for value and protection. Seems like he doesn't know where he's at or how he got here and is just stabbing at it. I might check-raise, with our specific hand. It's got a decent chance to pick up equity on the turn, and I don't mind folding it if he 3B's us.

TURN - 5d is just a brick. Donking a brick looks weird, and isn't folding much other than AK, if AK even folds. Maybe we bluff AT off a chop. But mostly we should just check in flow.

RIVER - Feels like a mandatory bluff spot. Don't need to go huge. $90 or $100 should be enough to fold out AK, AT, and JX, not that I think he's 3B'ing any JX pre.

To answer the questions:

1) Flat calling flop isn't terrible, depending on our reads, the bet size, the pre-flop action, our position, and our stack depth. We can float here sometimes, and hope to pick up equity on the turn. It works better against V's who c-bet too much and give up when they get called rather than barreling turn, because we can steal the pot even when we don't pick up equity.

OOP, I'll check-raise with these sorts of hands when V c-bets 1/3 pot or less. If the x/r gets 3B, I fold. If we x/r, get called, and don't pick up equity, I give up. IP, I'll raise sometimes, but mostly just flat call and see what he does on the turn.

2) I find it extremely hard not to bluff river when V takes this sort of line - 3B pre, c-bets a meh flop when we check to him, then checks back on a brick turn, and the river is another brick.

It's worth noting that we could have 98, and some or all of the 2P combos on this run-out, as well as 55 and 77, whereas V is pretty capped at 1P, unless we think he's capable of checking back turn with 2P+, just to induce us to bluff or call down light on the river.

I'd rather bluff with a hand that has less showdown value than AT, and something that blocks some of the stronger hands in our opponent's range, but I don't mind turning AT into a bluff, if we think V will fold AK. If we just check, we're counting on him to check back worse AX or K-high, rather than turning all his AX and K-high combos into bluffs.