2/4 NLH at around 11-12pm.

Villain: Young mid to early 20's, competent reg, aggro in LP, never open limps, see him often trying to build a stack during the late afternoon for when drunk fish come in later on a fri/sat night, quiet and shy guy.
Hero: on a heater, deep stacked.

H with 88 (300BB+ deep) opens for standard $15 raise from UTG+1, folded around to V (just under 200B deep) in the CO who min raises to $30, SB and BB fold and H calls and we go HU to the flop. Hero calls here because he think with stack sizes he has implied.

Flop: 5s, 8c, Jd

H plays in flow and checks to V who checks behind.

Turn: Ad

H checks again in flow and V makes almost pot sized bet of 55 into 66. H decided to c/r to 110 to build a pot for value and play for stacks, and to lead the river and avoid a check behind. V cold calls.

River: Kd

H leads 220 in 286 on the river and V moves all in (around an extra 400 off memory). H thinks and calls.

What is V jamming with here in this spot with such a weird line? He min raises pre, checks behind the flop, calls c/r on turn and jams the river. Has he got a monster like JJ? Wouldn't he C-bet that flop with AA or KK? Did he pick up a flush draw and decide to semi-bluff the turn? Does AK make sense here? What hands can Hero beat?

Hero will probably beat nothing on the river and should fold. villian has everything that hero beats in his range, like really everything because all that he did was to min raise you preflop and that is no indication that he should consider bluffing the river for his whole stack or the whole hand is crazy in someway.

JJ and AA both make sense for a min raise and for a flop check back for deception.

In general when shown a line like this with mixed signals of weakness and strength and random bet sizes from an otherwise sensible villian
I evaluate it like this,

400 more to win ~800, so we need to be good 50% of the time.


How many hands can villian show up on the river with. For example what about QdTd? 8d9d, 5d6d? How could you think he is never min raising with these preflop?

What about AA and JJ? do they always bet the flop do they always shove over on the turn? do they always only call the river?

and is this villian so stupid that he min raises AK, checks back flop like a pussy and then goes nuts when he rivers two pair? basically bluffing here with AK? Any other two pair is even less likely given that he only called the turn.

summing it all up, he has some reasonable number of value hands that beat us that *crazily* ended up on the river. If he has a bluff he decided to min raise with it pre flop, check back flop, call a turn raise IP and shove over us on the river to extract the most money from us. Awesome so which street did he decide to bluff us exactly so as to account for the 50% of bluffs that we need to make the call?

easy fold.

Thanks, really good advice.

So do you think H should have led the flop and turn for more info?

And what about the call pre? do you think this is justified given IO?

So your opponent has a royal flush?

I'm guessing villain has 55 here.
The tiny 3b pre, is perceived to me as a marginal hand. One that has to set mine. Problem with set mining is that you just give up too often. Classic way to combat this is to 3b min and this then passes the advantage the advantage to you on the flop and allows you to steal a lot more pots on the flop with a cbet for a relatively small investment in a min 3bet.
Makes it easy to play if 4bet also.
Rushed this but hope it makes sense.
Obviously this range also includes suited connectors that got there. But I think they bet the flop

I have a very difficult time believing that V is a competent player, when he min raises you pre-flop. He should be flatting, or putting in a sizable 3-bet. His line pre is indicative of a rec player.

OTTH:

Pre is good. We raised with 88, and stacks are plenty deep to call V's min raise.

Flop: Bink! Lead flop for $40. We need to start building this pot to try and get stacks in.

Really feels like V has exactly JJ here, or at least something that beats you.

AK makes just as much sense as any hand you have listed here. Against only AA/JJ/AK we are good 60% of the time; if we include 56dd, 89dd, and QTdd in addition to AA/JJ/AK, we are exactly 50%.

We also have to add the cost of our call into the pot - we're not calling 400 to win 800, we're calling 400 to win ~$1600. So even if we take out some combos of AK we're still priced in to call.

I would also c/r bigger on the turn if the plan is to get stacks in (which it is).