5/5

~$1500 effective

V - I don't know much about him. He seems like a loose-aggressive middle-aged player. Pretty competent and never really makes any stupid moves. He is not a full-time grinder either.

Folds to V (BU) who raises to $20 (standard open), Hero (BB) calls with 9 8

Flop($45) T T 2

Hero checks, V bets $20, Hero raises to $75, V calls.

His range is pretty wide from a Button open, so I think this guy missed that board. My plan was to raise and continue betting on turn cards that help me—any or straight/gutshot type of cards—and give up on anything else.

Turn($195) 5

Hero checks, V checks

River($195) J

Hero - ???

In spots like this, I usually have a plan for turn runouts but have no plan for cases like this when we both check the turn. What should I do on the river? Because I definitely must sometimes have a check-raise flop/check turn/bluff river line.

We should have some check raise give ups. This seems like it fits into that category.

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After he calls your check/raise on flop and then you check turn, I don't think he's folding A high on river.

I would usually 3-bet this when you're so deep

Flop XR is good, tough defense for IP especially in a wider formation than they might be used to

Turn you don't improve much so you should play pretty passively checking a lot of your trips+

If you posted this hand from villain's perspective I assume people would bet turn with JJ-KK and trips like 80% of the time, so they're way more capped on the river than they should be

They might try and station you (so bet 66-99) but their range is weak enough your bluffs will likely still be profitable

3bet preflop will be better since live players don't really understand how ranges work in general given that action.

I think calling is probably better OTF as played, although XR is okay. I'm assuming players under barrel turn relative to a solver on paired boards. Especially when the pair is very relevant. So that means we over realize equity when we call flop.

Calling basically gives you more options postflop. If he bets turn we can just fold unless we pick equity (then maybe we can raise). If it goes X/X we can OB and get into an overfolded node. Or if there is a scare card OTR we could even check to go for a river XR to capture value from his bluffs and also probably get him to fold top pair.

Remember live players are highly exploitable so we want to red line them and be overly aggressive.

As played, I don’t know. We just aren’t gonna check trips+ on the turn, so what hands could we have that bet the River for value?

I feel like we’d check our 66-99 hands here (or maybe block-bet at a small frequency), so our only value hands are gonna be our backdoor flushes (we raised with 98 of diamonds so surely we can have 98 of hearts) and our hands with a Jack (again, we had 98 of diamonds—we can have J9 of diamonds, or QJ of spades, etc).

I feel like this has one of two solutions:

1. We block-bet (~20% pot) the River with not just our 99-66 hands but also our backdoor flushes and QJs and slow-played boats and trips); or

2. We slot this into our “check-raise then give up” range.

I think door 2 is the one I’d choose lol.

Well played, now check fold. You tried to steal it, didnt work and bricked the turn.

Against what type of opponents do you prefer to x/call the flop? And what type of opponents are suitable for x/raise?

My assumptions:

1) Player tends to barrel a lot. -> We x/raise the flop.

2) Player is tight and usually just bets the flop and gives up. --> We call the flop.

3) Unknown - we call. Simply because unknown players tend to be tight and exploitable in live poker.