1/2 NL charity room. 7 handed. Villian is older possibly middle eastern man who seems to be play solid ABC poker. Has hero covered. Bets his made hands strong, and doesnt seem to chase or play suited junk etc. We have only been playing for a few hours however so reads are still somewhat limited. He also, for whatever reason takes longer than most players to act and looks confused when making a decision even though they tend to be correct ones so far.

Hero has been pretty active raising in position and being somewhat agressive but not out of line and nothing crazy to this point.

Then this hand came up:

HERO (~$200) raised in cutoff with $7 with Ah6h
Folds to Villian in BB who raises to $21

Hero calls.

Flop = KcQc3h
Villian checks
Hero checks

Turn = 4h

Villian bets $20
Hero calls $20

River = 3c (small card and not a heart)

Villian checks. (Pot is ~$80).

Hero think for a bit and decides to shove.

Now I will tell you this is a move I almost never do. I considered raising the turn and then jamming the river unless a K hit. That may have given me a better chance at the pot. Obviously the conservative play is just checking back. However, his line in this hand was so confusing and weak, I felt like his range had to be on the weak side. If he had a monster he would have most certainly bet the flop, turn and river. I have not seen this guy 3 bet light. Even if for some reason is has a weak K its a tough call.

I know some of you will also say why am I calling a 3-bet with Ah6h? And it was only bc I was HU in position at a short handed table against someone who I felt I could out play, but obviously that is a debatable too.

IDK - it was a weird hand and looking back on it I'm not sure if was the best play but on the other hand lets say his hand face up with K10 or KJ (which is hard to put him on) - how can he manage a call with a flush on the board and a paired board? He is only beating a bluff.

On the other hand when it comes to these 1/2 games perhaps I should know better than to run big bluffs with air. But its still hard to resist when I know a guy is weak. Honestly, I didn't even think he had a K - maybe something like 1010 or JJ but defintely his line was weak that all i knew.

I can give you the spoiler if any want to know or you can guess what he called me with. In the meantime, please give me rational thoughts on all part of the hand. Thanks.

Weird hand. First thing that came to mind is that he changed up his pattern and hit the flop, set or AK and slow played. Knowing you were in position, he thought you would be aggressive. He checked flop and then bet small on Turn to act he was weak, wanting you to come over the top with a raise or on river.

Could he have put you on a bluff and called with a mid pocket pair, thinking that would be good? ballsy call from a conservative player.

Knowing what you know about him, why would he even bet the Turn if he had nothing at all? I think you need to raise the Turn and really get an idea on him. You going all-in before you had any information is tough. You need to feel him out and a raise on the turn would have told you a) if he raises back, he's got a made hand or b) he folds right there and then. Equity is fine because you were hoping he folded anyway when you shoved on River.

Its a good card to bluff at. It's very scary board.

With that said your line looks like a bluff. A good tag will call with almost any K and possible Q. Bad villain is gonna call way lighter than that.

In general I don't like overbet bluffs @1/2. For the same reason i love overbet value bets. 1/2 Players love to call!!!!!!

Your bluff has to work 66% of time to break even. I think your shooting for the stars here. In long run at 1/2 I don't think this is a +ev move.

He had KQdd. Snap called your shove and ate up those chips

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Your idea of outplaying someone?

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Finally something that actually makes sense...but it ends up leading you to a wrong conclusion that supports bluffing in this spot.
You just said that he doesn't 3 bet light.

You know it's weak because the guy doesn't bet bet bet?

Pretty obvious, except to you.

Seriously, your thought processes are quite contradicting.

Have you once thought about his range preflop? Why did you check flop if you think he's weak?

Why would river K hurt your bluffing chance if you think he's weak at this point? You said he never 3bet light, which means his 3bet range must have been AK if it includes a K. Pretty sure in your thinking process, AK is not weak, and therefore he would have bet flop.

Why, and if he is so weak, what's the point of betting so much?

Correction: YOU would have most certainly bet bet bet.

So if he hasn't 3bet light, your reason to think he is in this hand is...?

You just said that he doesn't 3 bet light, and yet you're trying to target hands that aren't in a normal 3bet range.

Do you see the problem here? You don't know the guy is weak.

That sounds like someone that doesn't know.

You're welcome.

You aren't repping any value hands with this line. He should call with everything.

This isn't true.

Flush draws will either bet the flop, or go for a callable bet size on the river.

Going to get to this river with too many broadway gutters and heart draws for us to profitably try to rep something we basically never have.

Fold pre to the 3-bet. Come on now.

As for the bluff.. ehh.. I don't know man. It's 1/2 NL, and people don't fold. Your bluff might be the most brilliantly conceived bluff in the history of history and you're so proud of yourself and boom, villain snap calls with AQ.

That's your mistake, not his.

That said, against, say, me, when I see you call pre and then check the flop behind, I think you either have some middle strength made showdown hand, A-high which might be good, a middle pocket pair, or a flush or straight draw. You're not checking flop with a monster, and you'll fire sometimes with total air. So that's my thinking. Then you call the turn, and that pretty much just reconfirms your flop range. Then villain checks to you on river.

I really don't mind the bluff at all. You're range for raise/calling pre should be pretty strong and include strong broadway, high suited cards, middle pocket pairs. Checking behind flop and calling turn is very consistent with a range of drawing hands including club flushes. Shoving the river polarizes you a ton, and removes a lot of the weak made hands and A-high hands, and obviously the flush came in.

Villain's range is likely fairly weak but often made when he pops pre and checks flop - something like AQ, QJ, or JJ, TT, 99 make a lot more sense than, say, KQ, which we expect him to bet flop often. After he bet turn small and checks river, that confirms in my mind that his range contains a lot of weak made hands. So basically, his range is capped to middling one pair hands - he's shown a lot of weakness oop - but you can have a monster here.

So after going through that analysis, I say it's a good bluffing spot, but my biggest issue with is your sizing on the river. Shoving is spew.

Back to ranges. Villain has a ton of weak made hands he'll fold to a much smaller bet. A large bet is suspicious and strange especially given how weak villain looks - like if you're both thinking at a high level, he should know his range is weak, and it would make no sense whatsoever for you to blast the river huge when you make a strong hand because you should be targeting a bluff catching range that includes a lot of AQ, QJ, JJ, TT, 99 type hands.

But that's way over thinking it.

All that said:
- If you really think villain can fold AQ, JJ, TT, etc., bluff $70 on the river.
- If you think villain will station too often, just check back the river.
- Consider villain's entire range prior to bluffing or value betting and optimize your bet size to target his range (while also considering your own).
- Fold pre to the 3-bet.

By the way, if you want to get all your chips into this pot, I FAR prefer a raise turn and shove river line. Gives you two chances at fold equity, looks super strong, and you can massage the bet sizing and pot size to make villain feel super scared on each street when he holds a middling one-pair hand.

I think raise turn to 55 and jam river is the best line if you want to use fold equity. Your fold equity + pot equity (your A is probably live, clubs are live) on the turn is quite powerful, and having a second sizable bullet to get villain off his hand on the river only helps.

While I'm not endorsing OP's play (he seems a bit confused), against our average weak-tight LLSNL V we often do NOT have to credibly represent a full bluff line. That is, they have MUBs and aren't thinking about the line we took, and even if they were, they would not necessarily bet the sames lines as we would, so trying to represent a full line is often unnecessary and counter productive.

On the other hand, it makes us feel good, and probably does not hurt either way, as long as we realize we can sometimes take advantage of a good situation regardless of our "setup".

Obviously reasons a river shove is spew
a) Villain will sometimes have a very strong hand here and just snap you off.
b) Villain might never fold anything. It's like 1/2.
c) Villain will probably fold the sames hands in his range to a ~PSB that he would fold to a shove.
d) You require villain to fold a greater % of the time than with a smaller bet.

why dont you just bet the flop?

Good question. Betting the flop might be good, too.

Based on read, villain's 3-bet range pre is probably something like AQ+, 99-AA.

When he checks flop, it starts to look a lot like AQ, 99-JJ (second pair or underpair to the board).

Firing flop with a BDFD and most likely live A isn't a bad idea. Just depends on whether we think villain will fold. Pretty sure triple barreling people who can't fold second pair is a bad idea.

With this line OP I'm calling you with any pair. Your play looks incredibly weak.

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yeah, i thought if villain had AA-QQ/AK, he'd bet the flop considering that he's a "solid abc" player.

this villain will likely just fold JJ/TT, AQs to our bet

I'm by no means an expert, but the river push screams weakness to me. With a pot of only $80 and you've got something like $160 behind if I read the action correctly, it's a huge overbet. You're either bluffing or trying to represent a bluff. If you want to bluff here, I think you're way better off betting something like $40-$60 (half to 2/3 pot) in the hopes that it looks like you're trying to get value out of something like a club flush draw that just came in.

A smaller bet accomplishes the same thing and saves you money when he slow played a monster. Since his hand is either really weak or a monster. Im willing to guess KK or QQ most I the time. Mixed in with A high type hands or JJ or 1010 is his weaker range. Still the shove is bad.

I am only calling a 3 be in this spot if you get a great price to chase two pair or nut flush draw flops. Heads up I just suck it up and fold.

Looks like JJ/TT, so I do't hate the play, but your line looks really weak to a competent player and almost screams "LET ME BUY THE POT"

This is a strange spot actually.......few things you can look at here....
Calling the 3bet....im fine with it provided your pretty good post flop....your river shove in this spot suggests calling this 3bet wad probably the wrong play.....in this situation as your clearly thinking about stealing this spot you can 4bet this pre, its a really decent 4bet bluff hand.
Flop is fine.....villans check concerns me a little....i would expect him to bet almost everything he 3bets and misses so I think villan is probably check raising.
Turn call is ok I guess, a raise wouldn't be terrible but im not expecting it to work to often.
River....its an ok bluff but really a 1/2pot bet accomplishs the same as an overbet shove...

in a 1/2, even against a TAG(which i don't think can exist in a 1/2), you need a stronger kicker to bluff A high.

Calling the 3-bet is not okay.

His 3-bet range is likely so tight and he's a solid enough player that calling with A6s, even in position, is not going to be profitable.

why bet 160 when betting 50 accomplishes the same thing. fold to the 3! pre. looks like an ok spot but he might flat cause u rep nothing

also a high has showdown value (not against his 3! range tho) so u shouldnt be in the habit of turning it into a bluff

Since our only read is that he's ABC, let's talk about hands an ABC player might 3bet with, and whether we might get him to fold on a KQ343 board, in order of their strength.

KK. Uh, no. (3 combos)
QQ. Nope (3 combos)
AA: Maybe (3 combos, we hold Ah). Depends how good he is and what he puts you on. He can't put you on KK because you didn't 4bet preflop. QQ might 4bet and might not. He's beating KQ with AA (higher 2 pair). In general, I think trying to get unknowns to fold overpairs is a losing proposition.
AK. Maybe (9 combos). Same logic and relative hand strength as AA on this board.
JJ. Will fold JJ for sure (6 combos).

Add them up:
"no way": 6 combos
"maybe": 12.
"definitely": 6.

We're right down the middle, and the key to making this bluff profitable is getting this unknown to fold overpairs or TPTK (which are both 2 pair now), and getting him to believe that WE have a monster like KK or QQ, which seems like an unlikely story given the action. (would you really just call with KK/QQ on the turn with 2 flush draws on board?).

I'll say bad bluff, taking all this into consideration.

(Also, fold pre to the 3bet)