2-3 NL, 300-Match. Playing big tonight.

Villain in BB is a pro. I think he is sizing to the strength of his hand. He’s very lag and I’ve seen him on 25-50 stream in Texas. We’ve played about 20-30 times together. About 1.2k eff

Hero in HJ with A2hh

Pre: Hero opens 15, btn sb and V call

Flop (60) : KhQh9x
Checks around. Should I be betting here?

Turn (60) : 9hhh
Check check, hero 40, btn calls, V check raises to 165, just hero calls

River (430) : 3x
V 165

I bet the flop. As played, I'm OK just calling the river bet. I don't see any point in raising this guy. I mean, you are probably good here, but I doubt he's calling with worse and he might raise w/ worse, which would suck.

He doesn't sound like a pro, altering his sizing according to his hand.

Pre - seems fine. Maybe open a little larger to get fewer callers.

Flop - yeah, I'd bet here. We want to clean up some equity and start our bluff early, so that we can get paid if it comes in on a later street. We're probably only getting raised by JT and worse flush draws.

Turn - what's he repping? K9? Q9? 99? We have all the boats in our range. I might actually 3B here, to charge 9x to fill up.

River - min-click it. He's literally never raising without K9, at a minimum.

He is probably betting small since you didn't bet the flop, to target one pair hands.

I don't like min clicking it because he has so many full houses and will fold a lower flush. Calling seems fine.

I like the flop check since there can be lower FDs out there given your LP raise. Also villains may raise a lot of KJ/KT type hands putting us in an uncomfortable spot--sure we can call now, but what if turn is a brick and they barrel 66%?

Don't think you did anything wrong here.

betting flop would be a large error imo given you have no nut blockers, are vs. 3 villains on a board that probably hit someone, are vs a lag, and would hate to fold.

Heads up i would bet flop but not vs 3 villains. Check is good. We dont want to bet and face a check raise here and this is a flop that smashes everybodys range so you arent getting many folds.

Turn im good with just calling the XR.

River just call again. If this guy is possibly a pro he is not going to call off with worse flushes so when you raise you are only getting action from boats.

Raise river for sure. Villain doesn't really have any boats in range, and we can discount more for the sizing. 2.5-2.75x should be good.

If villain bet 50% or more i am much more likely to call.

If I'm opening to 5x I probably wouldn't open this one from the HJ, but it's probably whatever.

Yes I would bet this flop for 30. You have a strong draw and can rep lots of value and leaves you more flexible on later streets and if someone CR's you can call and have more info on their hand than they have of yours.

Checking doesn't really do anything positive for you.

As played I like anything from a min raise to 450 on the river. Smaller flushes which is what he's saying he has will have a very hard time folding and typically will make a crying call particularly if they have J or T high and they will also talk themselves into saying you would've bet the flop w/ a set or the nut FD.

If V is a pro he's presumably too good to announce his own hand strength on the river.

This is a weird one. If anyone can bluff raise you on the river, it's this pro. He might do it with 9x or KQ. It is hard to find tons of flushes we beat that will also call us if we raise when the Kh and Qh are out there.

9x, JT, and KQ are all potential value combos we do beat but that probably don't pay us off. JT maybe, but the other hands he may bluff us with, which is even worse if we fold when he jams over our raise.

It is hard to range villaim, but I would guess he is probably fairly wide from the BB despite the 5x open. I think Texas pros tend to be overconfident in that regard. They aren't like Euros grinding 5/10 at Bellagio.

We beat (of hearts) J8, J7, T9, T7, T6, 87, 86, 85, 76, 75, 65, 64, 54, 43. We'll say 14 combos.

We lose to 99 (1 combo), K9s (2 combos), Q9s (2 combos), JhTh (straight flush, 1 combo) and if he has it, K9o (4 combos), Q9o (4 combos). 14 combos.

He might be a little more likely to trap. Oats though, and Q9o would be pretty loose.

I think it is going to be super close between raising and just calling here. It's not clear that we beat more than half the hands he continues with when we raise here.

I think his river block bet size can be potentially balanced so that he gets called by worse than a flush and raised by a flush, and he can have some hands that might bet fold for value with that size, and he can have some traps which are boats. The hands he night bet fold for value he may also bet and jam to a raise as a bluff. It's kind of a leveling war, saying, when I bet this size, you always raise a flush, which you can have many of. But when you raise and I jam over the top, your flushes beat none of my value anymore and you only have bluff catchers. It is a nightmare.

Anyways, to sum up, it's close and I wouldn't fault you for just calling. If it was a rec, I would raise fold for value all day.

Flop I think both betting and checking are OK, I'm very slightly leaning bet. Turn is fine.

I'm not sure the usual Bart "raise folding for value is bread and butter low stakes play" applies here, on the board against this player. I'm not sure there enough worse hands are going to call (and some worse hands may reraise). I would just call river.

If the most obvious flush wasnt a straight flush I would raise this river. JThh is now a straight flush. To believe V has a worse flush it has to include J8, T8, 78. Not a lot of combos. It's not impossible for him have a boat here either if he was going for c/r on flop.

I think I just call here.

If we discount Q9s, K9o, Q9o we also discount his lower flush combos so it evens out. I agree this is probably a call as our hand is about even against his value range.

Oof. I overlooked the straight flush.

Yeah, upon further review, think we need to just flat call, not raise.

Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk

For me, it comes down to the fact that this guy is labeled as a pro. Raising the river accomplishes nothing.

We call and he has 53hh and hero has instant regret.

I highly doubt he's calling a raise, and I didn't know pros called from BB w/ 5h3h? I guess he was just hoping to outflop/play you?

It's probably a regional thing. But in Texas, hell yeah most pros aren't folding 53s. Actually in an unraked game this is a GTO call facing a 3x open 125 to 300bb deep (I don't have this spot for more bb). Maybe not vs a 5x open, but if v has a big postflop edge, it's not crazy for this to be a profitable call for V.

Some people might overdo it, but I think a lot of people here don't realize how wide you should call on the BB in a deep unraked game.

I am a little surprised 53s makes the cut with 2 callers in the 3x scenario tbh though.

The only way he's calling a big raise on the river with the lowest possible flush on this board is strictly as a bluff catcher. Especially after he took such a strong line on turn and river to have you fire back only an idiot would call.

But we checked flop so we don’t have boats or flushes. By checking flop I uncapped my capped range but he doesn’t know that.

My gut says he might have found a call due to flop check.

Big raise doesn't make too much sense but he for sure is calling a small one particularly since we checked the flop which is exactly what I said in my initial response.

Your OP said he's basically sizing to the strength of his hand.

All the clues were there to extract another 250. Tbh I was worried he would bluff jam.

That is a legitimate concern.

This is a lot more difficult to do than you think. People just rarely even think to do this in a spot like this. Most of the evidence points to the hand he had.

Nah **** that I pot the flop. Put pressure on JJ, TT and plenty other worse hands that will hate it