Let's say that you're playing 2/5 and are sitting on 800 or so dollars, an average stack for the table, and you're playing a fairly TAG game. You've been at the table for a half hour or so and haven't gotten too many playable hands but you're treading water, winning and losing one or two small pots here and there, or perhaps we raised pre a few hands ago and gave up on a bad board.

Then you pick up AK or AQ in late position and raise the pot to $30 over two limpers. Everyone folds and one limper calls. He has an equivalent stack, he's a 30's white guy in a baseball cap who hasn't done anything stupid nor anything outlandish, though we don't have a lot of information at this point.

The flop comes 8-5-2 rainbow. Villain checks and we c-bet and we get check-raised. Let's say we c-bet $45 and we get check-raised to $145.

How often is V bluffing in this spot?

What if the flop is 5-6-9x double suited?

I ask because I'm curious what winning players' perception of this number is.

I consider myself a fairly aggressive player and I am probably bluff check/raising this flop like 10-20% of the time max and that is extremely villain dependent. I'm only bluff raising if I know a player is a habitual c-bettor or has a fold button.

To answer your question, it is extremely unlikely a random 2/5 player that limp/called and check/raised is bluffing you here. You don't even have to worry about balancing your range. Be glad you only had A-high and not AA-QQ and weren't forced to have to make an actually difficult decision.

How often V c/raises we cannot know, 20% is rather high estimation.

We should AK/AQ play most by check back, call turn stab. This way we see 5cards realizing equity, keep our c/f range smaller and still we have delayd cbet on good runouts.

cbet is fine - we're going to bet with overpairs, right? As to bluff percentage- it's low, but sometimes it's with the best hand (77 to "see where they're at"). Maybe 15%?

We likely aren't playing a TAG game is we are playing 3+ hands out of our first 15 or so. Esp if we just sat down and have little to no reads.

The question here is not 'would we cBet would an overpair' but, why would we bet here with an overpair?

We'd be with an overpair to get value from a large range of hands that we expect to be calling us. As a result, we shouldn't really be betting that often here with AK. Or at least not all of the time. This is a pretty bad board for us in general, and with our specific hand.

Agreed that it's not a great board, but I'm not down with betting for value when we have a hand and checking when we don't. Against one opponent, I think cbetting all but the worst boards is close to correct.

Besides, if we expect to get called by a wide range of hands with an overpair, then cbetting with AK starts to shade towards a value bet. Plenty of bad players with float with overcards.

limp/calling pre-flop is a tell that signals passive play, and a willingness to call with too many hands. The old adage - "if you can call a raise, you can raise" went in one ear and out the other with these guys. They see Q8s, figure it's worth the limp, get raised, and don't wanna look like a sissy, so they call.

Passive players have huge huge huge huge ranges in these spots, so you should be isolating them, bloating pots pre-flop, and then c-bet almost 100% of the time.

When this player check-raises you, you're toast. It's never a bluff. Not this player, not on this board, not against a relative unknown.

On the more coordinated board you suggested, the same analysis probably applies. Generally passive players who limp/call pre-flop would flat call your c-bet if they had any kind of hand, or simply didn't believe you had one. They are prone to "protection" plays on wet boards though. So if I got check/raised here, it would indicate that the guy is trying to protect something from a draw. YOu can comfortably dump Ace high in that spot.

This is the problem with hypothetical hand histories. Most people aren't capable to making the information consistent. The OP fits in this category.

Fortunately at LLSNL, the answer to his question is consistent. The villain isn't bluffing enough to make it worthwhile to call with ace high.

"cbetting" is so 10 years ago

It's definitely not "close to correct", unless you base it on some assumptions like "the other guy has no clue what he's doing". Lucky you, if you found a 2/5 game where your opponents are that bad.

The reason to check a hand like AK but bet JT is the fact that the latter one can't call a bet on the turn but can fold out better hands on the flop. You'll never get a better hand to fold if you bet AK, so the only reasons to bet are calls from worse hands and folding out equity.

But even if you can bet for value here, which means you beat villains calling range, checking might still be more +EV than betting.

I would be very skeptical of someone x/ring an 852 board. We all know that balance gets tossed out the window to a degree in low stakes, but on a board like that in particular, where you have such a small value window, and even then when you're playing it hard against a probably weakish range I think it's really hard to not be playing really poorly here, w the x/r line, regardless of whether you as the vil are strong or weak.

My thought would be that in general our vil is either completely weighted toward bluffs/hands that have no business going to showdown, or completely weighted toward poorly played nutted hands. My guess would be the former considering that we're against someone that is limp/calling a lot and since there's a super narrow value range. So I float there rampantly and attack any sign of late street weakness.

On 965ss I just fold a lot, and before that check back a lot, same as above, but the value range is much wider, and the board is much less likely to hit us as the raiser than them as the l/caller

Lol +100

Also this is the best answer for sure!

This is very well reasoned, but I can imagine c-betting might be best.

Specifically re: 852r,

- Barreling: After a c-bet, hero barrels and wins many run-outs with the worst hand. Villain's flop c/c made range (i.e. everything better than AK) is weak now and weaker later; 8x, 5x, 33, 44, 66, 77, 99, etc. Tough to make sets, tough to make two pair here. Hero can fire 3 barrels on so many run-outs because most run-outs make villain's range weaker and weaker. Almost any turn card T or higher might support a triple barrel.

- Value: A real benefit though not the primary purpose is that we can get flop value from hands like 43s, 76, A3s, A4s, Ax, overcards.

- Pot Equity: When we c-bet AK and get called, we have some (admittedly not great!) equity and can improve to the best hand. And on blank/bad turns (especially 3, 4, 6, 7, 9), we can check back and realize that equity.

- Fold Equity: C-betting with AK can get immediate folds from hands that have ~25% equity. It's not a huge advantage to get someone to fold with hot/cold = 75/25, but it's worth something. (In fact it's worth 25% equity).

Aspects of the hand make it more or less a bet. With AKs and a backdoor flush draw, betting is even better. If the board is more connected and higher, checking is even better. On 853r, I like betting > checking, but I think your reasoning is spot-on for the reasons to check here with AK.

Another reason to consider a check: villain RIO. When villain has Ax or Kx, flop goes check/check, and turn or river is an A or K, villain has RIO against our AK, and we can win 1-2 decent streets of value. When we c-bet, villain likely folds those very low-equity high-RIO hands. Given that we can account for 2 cards already in this case (e.g. we have AK, and V has KQ, so 2 K's are accounted for, meaning there's only a 4% chance of an RIO bink on the turn), it's not a huge consideration. But it matters. A 4% chance of winning 2 decent sized bets = very good post-flop equity that is certainly a win-rate booster.

Depends on the villain. At 2/5 I've faced a lot more c/r bluffs on the flop than I faced at 1/2 or 1/3. Especially on boards that look like I missed with hands like AK, KQ, or AJ. I find that even a lot of fish at 2/5 are more tricky and have more gamble in them than the fish at lower levels.

What are your reads... seriously

By default we have better hands to call here...over-calling with AK or AQ in this spot would be -EV depending on villain.

Can't really answer the question for all we know villain may never be bluffing here and may call stuff like 67 or gutshots even to float, or villain will be over-bluffing with those combos... Given your description he sounds like he won't get out of line frequently so i'd say pretty low frequency-none he will be bluffing

Grunch: with a 30 minute read I'm never bluff raising that board. If I do anything I'll float it and see what happens in the turn since most unknowns are incapable of a double barrel. It's really about being virtually read less though. I assume getting raised on a dry board by an unknown is not somethin to get involved with until I get good Intel that I should do anything other than fold.

Agree

AA-QQ would not be a difficult decision otf