I thought this was an interesting one. I got into a disagreement with another good player about how I should have played this river, and I'm not sure who is right.

This is a $0.25/$0.50 home game on PokerNow that plays like a $1/$3 or $2/$5 live game.

Villain is a good, dangerous LAG. He is by far the most aggressive player in the game and wins a lot of pots from sheer aggression. He is very skilled at identifying and taking advantage of opponents' capped ranges with large bets and overbets with a polarized range. He has run up a huge stack in this particular game by demolishing opponents' second-best hands that they thought were good. His weakness is that he plays way too loosely (vpip 57%, pfr 44%), so he has an air-heavy range that is unbalanced towards bluffs. He will get away from his air when an opponent plays back at him (especially me, as he knows me as a tight player), but he will continue barreling with low-equity bluffs in situations where he probably shouldn't.

Hero has [Ah, Th] in the big blind.

Preflop: 6 Players
LJ (219 bb) raises 2 bb, HJ (670 bb) calls, CO folds, BTN (Villain, 1458 bb) calls, SB folds, BB (Hero, 283 bb) calls

Normally I would 3-bet this all day (and have been 3-betting quite a lot this entire game, especially against Villain), but I thought I'd mix things up with a nutty hand, aiming to keep some weaker aces and lower hearts in my opponents' ranges. If this is categorically a mistake, let me know, but I'm more interested in the river decision.

Flop (8.5 bb): [6d, 7h, Ac]
Hero checks, LJ checks, HJ checks, Villain bets 4.24 bb (49% pot), Hero calls, LJ folds, HJ folds

I almost certainly had Villain beat here, so I called to encourage Villain to keep bluffing with his air. I wasn't worried about HJ and LJ behind me, as they are relatively straightforward players who would have bet with a good hand or draw.

Turn (16.98 bb): 6d, 7h, Ac, [8s]
Hero checks, Villain bets 12.72 bb (74% pot), Hero calls

I considered check-raising, but the 8 helped Villain's range just enough that I thought his bet was more polarized here, so again I called to encourage him to keep bluffing.

River (42.42 bb): 6d, 7h, Ac, 8s, [9h]
Hero checks, Villain bets 42.42 bb (100% pot), Hero...?

Here's where the good player and I disagreed. Should I raise here? I thought it came down to whether Villain is more likely to have JT vs. 5x, and there would have to be more 5x because I'm not sure 5x is always calling my check-raise.

Villain likely does have most JT combos in his range (at least the offsuit ones; he probably 3-bets JTs preflop), and I'd have to call a shove because Villain would also shove with Tx (he knows I have no JT here). I also don't think I have enough bluffs in this spot to incentivize Villain to call with anything worse than 5x (and even that's a dicey call), because I'd have to be turning something like A4s-A2s into a bluff.

Then again, I've taken an odd line to get here, and don't have a lot of tens in my range, either, other than something like T8s or T7s. Villain may even call with two pair or similar because I have so few tens and my line is unusual.

Thoughts?

You said he gives up vs you because you are tight. Then he barrels the turn in this hand. So he should not have any J10 in his range if we are following closely with your read on your opponent. This is a raise without worry if your reads are correct

I don't think raising river has a y positives. He's folding everything except chops and might even shove those mixed with the JTs so you are in a crappy spot.

Like he's not hero calling a 5 imo vs you so what is the point of raising.

You say he thinks your tight and folds vs. your raises ... but is that just pre flop, or even just believing you have top pair on the flop etc. Does he continue to barrel if you just call? Or another way, do you call down "light"?
Does he think you can have 98/87 or even AJ/A2?
If he is barreling vs. your calls then he can have all 16 combos of JT, and a bunch of chops that he might 3bet ... so you shouldn't raise anyway.
If he isn't barreling any2 vs. your calls then it's much safer as he has a lot of 5x and you "shouldn't" have Tx (maybe 3 combos of T9s floating the flop, and apparently AT).

An obvious problem of position here is that when you x/c, x/c, x/r ... it's difficult to find good bluffs. I guess AJ would be good but do you find it? And if you mostly 3bet ATs how much AJ do you have anyway? J9s is the next obvious bluff, but again are you raising that to get folds?
Related to that, if you are 3betting a lot and are calling flop/turn tight ... by the river you might not have any Ax one pair hands, which are the obvious hands he wants to bluff out.

You having T8s seems against the "tight" read, like calling that flop+turn doesn't seem great with that hand vs. this villain on a lot of river cards.
Do you have A5, and does he think so?


I probably just call, but the only other option is to shove I think and maybe have him level himself into a call with worse. Min. raise just screams I have no bluffs ... but maybe he levels himself there too, given "pot odds".
I think 3bet pre or raising the flop are probably better than river (but both are more variance). Also I don't think your hand is great for slow playing the flop, although calling vs. raising might be better for other reasons.

I’m with Illiterat here—if you’re gonna raise, make it a shove. I think it puts Villain in a tougher spot if he has a strong bluff-catcher (stuff like 98, 99, 55, or A5) than if you make a small raise (and plus, you’re never folding if he reshoves anyway—expecting to chop—so you might as well be the one to shove).

If he had overbet the River, you would just need to call…and if he’d bet like 60% pot you’d have an easy raise….But when he bets exactly pot, I think it’s fine to mix between calling and shoving.

OP here. To clarify, Villain is capable of giving up when facing raises from opponents (preflop or postflop), especially from me. When facing calls, Villain just gets more excited to bet even bigger against a capped range.

Call

If you raise and he shoves, what do you do? Given stack sizes is your plan to min click this or shove yourself? If you put in a normal raise you are committed even if he shoves and is he bad enough to not realize this? Ie if you raise to say 120-140bb then you are getting a price that dictates you have to call a shove given your description of him which lets him call his naked t’s here and shove his JT. Is he so bad he’s calling a river raise with a naked 5? I think you need a read thinking he’s that bad and given you said he respects your raises and this is the river I don’t see him calling with that often enough to make this worthwhile. Most players recognize river raises are usually the nuts or close to it. Then tend to call or fold in these spots or shove the nuts. They rarely bluff.

It looks like you have 1.75x pot left. You can raise half pot and villain still has 60% pot left, which is a really annoying spot if you get jammed on.

If he can really have all of the JTo here, I think we should just call. There's 2 combos of A5s, 2 combos of 65s, 3 combos of 77, 3 combos of 66, and 9 combos of JTo (you block 3 of 12 with the Th). There are also 3 combos of JTs of your read that he would always 3bet JTs is off. Maybe there are some other combos of sets and 2 pair he could have, but really with any of these combos it's not given that he will call off if you raise it to 106bb, which would be a half pot raise. What ends up happening is that if he jams his Tx and JT, you end up calling off and losing your whole remaining 264 stack when he has it. Even if optimistically you get called by worse a little more than half the time when you raise half pot, you still end up negative EV because of how much you lose when he jams JT.

Maybe you want to have bluffs here to get him off a better hand occasionally, in which case yeah, you need value here and probably need to raise Tx here sometimes. I wouldn't be too concerned about that here though. He should be very polar here. He can have the nuts and you can't. We should mainly plan to bluff catch or fold our hands in a spot like this, any any Tx is a clear call. We are at an awkward spot where our bluffs might get called top often to be profitable and our value raises get raised by the nuts too often to be profitable.

Thanks for all the replies!

I agree with much of the analysis here: there's no point to raising the river. One of three things will happen:

1. Villain folds his air. I gain nothing by raising.
2. Villain shoves with Tx, and I have to call (or he calls if I shove myself). I gain nothing by raising, and risk losing my shirt to JT.
3. Villain calls with worse. To make raising profitable, Villain needs to call often enough to outweigh my losses when he has JT. As Mlark points out, if I'm not shoving myself, I have to be good >> 50% of the time when called because of how much I lose when Villain shoves with JT.

This comes down to (a) how much 5x or similar is in Villain's range, and (b) how often he will hero call with it. Regarding (a), who knows; I tried counting combos but Villain could have all sorts of nonsense with a 57% vpip calling a minraise on the button. Regarding (b), what incentives does Villain have to call with anything other than Tx?

Like illiterat said, this is a difficult spot for me to have any bluffs. I would have to find a bluff with A4s-A2s, two pair, or a passively-played AJ (which has the advantage of blocking JT). That would be hard for me to do in game, and Villain knows it. At first when I wrote this post I thought I had uncovered a potential gold mine bluffing situation here (he'll never see this coming from tight ol' me!!), but fundamentally, this is the wrong kind of spot to raise. Mlark nailed it: Villain is polar and can have the nuts; I can't. Just calling is in order.

Results:

This special villain. Everything about him and how the hand was played and your past history suggests…….he has almost every combo of 5 in the decks, every deck you can find………..and he is never folding when you raise river small when he has a 5………..75o……..ya you are still making money raising as hes doing this with a 10 or a 5 or who knows maybe he even calls a river raise with trIps, and you have one of the 10s……..He seems like he CANT STAND FOLDING….