Reads: Villain is a thinking pro, has been fairly active, but hasn't played many big pots despite having the table covered. We are the only two players above 300bb, most of the table has about $2000.

8 handed 5/10 uncapped game, Hero has 9k and villain covers.

Folds to me in the CO with AhAd, I raise to 35, villain on button calls, sb calls, bb folds.

Flop KdQs4h

sb checks, I bet 65, button calls, sb folds.

Turn 7h

I bet 150, button calls.

River 9h

I bet 350, button raises to 1025, I ?

A) Fold. Villain can have KJhh, KThh, K9hh, QJhh, QThh, Q9hh, JThh(discounted because villain will often raise turn), and all combos of JTo and JTs(besides hearts) for a straight. Villain cannot be raising a worse hand than a straight for value imo. Sets either raise before the river, or fold before the river(99). KQ(especially hh) also raises before the river, and K9 seems like a bit too thin of a value raise considering all of the draws that came in. Villain, calling both flop and turn, has more drawing hands in his range than hero, and Villain is unlikely to have any bluffs unless he is creatively turning KJ/KT into a bluff.

B) Call. This is bad for reasons outlined above. 15 combos of a straight and 6 combos of a flush and very few bluffs that make sense.

C) Raise. This is the most interesting option. We would obviously be repping the nuts with our Ah blocker. We can realistically have AKhh, AQhh, AJhh, and AThh, and discounted smaller Ax hands(Hero check the flop a decent frequency with just a backdoor flush draw against 2 opponents). Of the 5 smaller Ax hands, I think including 2 in my range to be 6 combos of the nuts is a conservative, reasonable estimate. That would be my entire river value 3b range. What can I bluff with? AA with the Ah and AK with the Ah are the best candidates, as I block the nut flush. AhAx is a better bluffing hand than AhKx because AhKx blocks possible bluffing combos from villain.

Our raise size is critical if this is the path we want to take. If we raise to a reasonable size, villain may call with all of his straight+ value hands. We can raise up to 8800, but obviously can achieve practically the same goal with a smaller betsize. I think if we were to raise the river, a size around 3500-4000 is optimal.

Thoughts?

This is an interesting hand and your analysis seems good. Calling is certainly your worst option, you just aren't good here often enough and you have better hands to call with.

This is an enticing spot for the 3b bluff. The problem is that you will often be bluffing vs the 2nd and 3rd nuts. You need to answer these questions before you go for it: Is villian capable of making very big laydowns? Is villian extremely disciplined? Is villian tilting or losing today? Does villian view me as capable of bluffing here? Do I appear tilted/losing today? And finally, can you handle yourself (live tells) when sticking $4k out there with 0% equity?

If everything computes in your favor, $3800.

Solid posts by OP and EC. I'm actually going to print out EC's "should I bluff" criteria.

Can you guys explain thoughts behind sizing otr? I had $4,100, does that get called more than $3,800? Or do we know that most of our range is value so we are fine. Or are we counting on $3800 being scarier than $4100?

If bluffing 4k = to bluffing 8k are you saying we should be ripping 8 buyins if we have the nuts here? That would be the logical conclusion then.

EC is clear and calling is out of question because you feel you are behind

You should fold here because
- u dont aak yourself the right question:
eg u say AhAx is better than AhKx because less bluff combo from vilain etc...
actually I feel from your comments you clearly defined yourself as behind and u are not considering vilain as bluffing
therefore yes it s either fold or raise: for such bluff You need to consider all infos available : so far u gave only importance to Maths and he was "fairly active" but we are unclear about your table image, table dynamic, his/your style shown with big pot and medium pot, does he have fold btn ? before talking about HH

you give us a guessing game with too little hint on vilain ability of fold.
also for 300bb+ raise u need to consider much more than a math problem - because it s not much range game anymore/ You are gonna make a nutty polarized raise

the % of range holding are much mitigated by a polarized 300bb bet and HH

aa u didnt give those info i dont know if u consider all of them at the table: therefore fold is ok

id do alot of checking otr. as played id jam otr but very infrequently

why are you betting river if you think bet/calling is bad?

I don't mean that to sound rude, I just don't think a thinking pro is going to pay you off with KT here — he's either going to fold or bluff, in which case I believe you need to reconsider betting river if you don't want to bet/call a significant % of the time

this last part is really really far off. your only size otr should be all in w this scenario

why?

I don't like the river bet but i'd have a hard time resisting a bluff here. It's particularly tempting because a good/thinking player probably doesn't expect us to bet the river with AA/AK here so we just don't have very many Axh bluffs when we 3bet the river here from his perspective.

I know it's live poker so lol balance and all that stuff but what size are you making it with the nuts here?

Those who check otr, can you help me think about a balanced checking range and what we are doing with different portions of that range? Really would like to improve this aspect of my game whereas it is currently mostly check/station or check/swear/fold

all in

the simple way to think about it is this
when he calls you make the most money
hell fold alot more when ur bluffing
bluffing this size lets u value bet the nuts for a massive size

id rather bet fold some 2p and sets or other parts of my range otr

I love this play and have used it many times to win big pots. But I don't like it here.

In real time, presumably against another pro, I just don't think you take this particular betting line very often with much less than AKhh (maybe against somebody like me; a rec player, you bet some of those other combos for value). Problem here is that he has Kh often and will look you up alot.


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In live poker, this is an all in play. Too tempting to call with money behind. You have to put person to the test; do they want to risk calling off with second nuts. Most of the time no, but here I think you get called.


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Good post. In my current roll situation I doubt I could make a sick 4k bluff vs a good player w/o some significant live tells. Then again, I wouldn't be sitting with 8k at a 5/10 ^^

Assuming you play all Ahxh like this and you don't 3bet anything buy nuts and bluff then you have 10 nut f combos so it depends on how many Ahxh combos you have at the river.

More importantly though is that you credibly rep 10 Ahxh combos and put villain in a really sick spot. I think the sizing question is interesting as well. Jamming your nuts and Ahxh bluffs.

I made a mistake in OP. I included K9hh and Q9hh in my opponents range when the 9h is on the board. I don't think my opponent is calling with K8hh/Q8hh or worse preflop. This leaves us with 4 flush combos and 15 straight combos.

AKhh, AJhh, AThh would bet flop/turn 100% of the time. AQhh would be betting turn frequently but would also check sometimes. My smaller Axhh combos(A8, A6, A5, A3, A2) would only occasionally cbet the flop, but given that I cbet would barrel turn 100%, which is why I included 2 of those in my nuts range.

He doesn't have a flush often. Most of the time I'm trying to get him to fold a straight.

The pot is 1920 after villain raises to 1025, and I currently have 350 in the middle. If I raise to 3800, I am risking 3450 to win 1920. I need villain to fold 65% of the time to break even. Assuming he folds all straights and calls all flushes, this play would profit $800.

Assuming my analysis of 4 flush combos and 15 straight combos is correct, I could raise to 7500 and villain could call all flushes, and I would still break even if he folded all straights.

I'm not actually targeting flushes, I just want him to fold straights.

When you have the pure nuts You should be as much money up to infinity as possible. Many better players than me have figured this out w software
if you go all in here w the nuts and only your nut blockers villain needs to call x % of his range to not get exploited blah blah blah basic gto stuff


in before it's live poker dude gto means nothing.

I'd be surprised if he called an all in here with less than Kxhh, but the thing is, is it necessary to ship? I think shipping with the nuts would be the worst possible raise.

He's a troll, just ignore him.

a troll posting the best strat on this forum