2/5 cash game.

Hero(CO): ~$1300
Villain(BTN) covers the table. Been running super hot.

$10 Straddle is on. Hero opened $40 with 6h7h at CO. Villain called at the BTN. Pot: $97

Flop Qs 3s 5d. Hero cbet $50. Villain flatted. Pot:$197.

Turn 8d. Board Qs 3s 5d 8d. Hero improved from a gutshot to open ender, continued to apply pressure and bet $150. Villain called. Pot: $497.

River Kd. Board became Qs 3s 5d 8d Kd. Completed the backdoor flush. I actually think this King is a good card for my range. I think I could also represent some backdoor ace high flush too. Decided to try to bluff off any pocket pairs or a queen, and I bet $420.

Villain tanked for like 1 minute and called with 88. He claimed he wasn't trying to nitroll or slowroll, but merely thinking if he should have raised.

In hindsight, I didn't really put him on a turn set, because I figured a strong hand would have raised me on the turn given the double flush draw board, but obviously I was wrong. However, do you guys think this is a spot that I should have given up on?

Opening 67 suited is a bit loose pf for sure, but given the dead money in the middle and my position, I kinda felt like that was a decent hand to try to take down pf. When he called my flop and turn bet, I was putting him on a lot of Queens, pocket pairs like 7s, 9s, 10s, maybe even Js, or front door spade draws. Figured none of these hands would be happy to face a big bet on the river, and I can't possibly show down with my 7 high. Any thoughts much appreciated!

Pre is a mixed open even for a normal size. If you're going to open 4x you should probably fold it pre at high frequency.

Flop should be a range check or almost a range check, your range is weaker overall than theirs (it's very dense in suited Broadways and pocket pairs). Also if you do bet you would want to bet quarter pot

Turn is an overbet spot as played. Could also check raise

River is a block bet or check spot as played. Villain is uncapped and a lot of your value is weakened. This size makes no sense, and your hand is not a good bluff candidate on top of that, you have Axo with diamond combos you want to use instead

I tend to find Vs that are "running super hot" that call your first bet will call you down too often to make bluffs profitable especially when the most obvious draws(front door flush and the flopped straight draw) all miss. In my opinion you chose the wrong target for your play.

You didn’t provide any reads, but it’s a very standard bluff.

Dont put results in OP.


Thats an overbet spot on the turn, id go $250. Not a bad bluff otr. Terrible card for his range, you should have more bdfds and kings than him but turns out he underplayed his 88 ott, it happens.

Pretty bad bluff overall. After the second bullet called, he's not going to believe you were betting on a runner runner flush draw.

Agreed with Tomark especially about river being a decent bluff spot.

PF charts vary quite a bit, but I don't know if I've ever seen SCs mixing in open folds in the CO. I don't think 4x is so huge it turns a hand this solidly in your range into a fold, but again that depends how "solidly in your range" it is.

This is certainly true against an equilibrium BU CC range, but against a lol-live CC range you're largely going to have the standard PFR range advantage. I'll have to run a sim for this flop specifically, but I'd expect us to be able to bet. So long as we have a betting range, whatever the frequency is, this hand is certainly a candidate to bet. 1/2p probably isn't the preferred sizing though.

It's hard to find a lot of overbet spots OOP particularly before the river. It's just hard to overbet while also having a x/r range and a good defensive x/c range all at the same time.

7-high can't ever really be a bad bluff candidate for a single bet. The diamond blocker is much more helpful for a raise bluffing range, and Axo with a diamond is a natural candidate for a x/r since it has (ever so slightly) more SD in a x/x scenario.

Yep. Gotta bet this. Sucks you got the top of his range.

BDFDs are pretty common cbet hands, and hitting the FD OTT is a pretty common double barrel.

Like in gtoland this is a pure check otf, but thars because gto cold calls super tight. if you have a traditional cbetting range it would include some amount of (especually A and K high) bdfd.

What Axo combos actually get here? Anyways when your range is crushing this hard you need more than one size and to bluff anything that doesn't have a lot of SDV or horrible blockers (A here)

Thanks for the great advices. Learnt a lot from the great minds on this forum.

Just felt like in live cash games, especially at lower stakes, players tend to be looser than the gto optimal ranges. I personally would be cbetting overpairs, good Queens, suited aces with front door and backdoor flush draws, as well as suited aces with wheel draw like A2 and A4.

On the turn, def could have gone bigger, but I am curious if we should still go overpot if we really had KK or AA, or even AQ, in a single raised pot. In the occasion that we are against 35s, 3s,5s, or 8s in this occasion, we are kinda committing ourselves to stack off with one pair.

On the river, unblocking fdfd, which is definitely in the villain's range, and with zero showdown value, I was targeting to get him off fdfd, as well as queen and mid pairs. I think the river bet is definitely a line I would take with Kings, obviously bd flushes,Aces and AK, but maybe preferably with the Ad. Also wondering the river sizing was too small.

I would go smaller OTF and larger OTT and give up OTR. We're sole-repping AA, KK, KQ which is too narrow imo for a CO open.

Looks like this is indeed a spot where PFR has a low bet frequency, and it does favor <1/2p when it does bet. This specific hand is in the highest frequency betting bucket, but that’s still only like 50%.

FWIW, it also favors 1/2p bet OTT rather than anything larger.

OTR it bets so often that just 1/2 potting range only earns 0.4% less of the pot than optimal.

PRE - opening 4x from the CO seems a little large, unless that was just what everyone in the game was doing.

I don't think of the blinds and straddle as being "dead money" in the same way that opponents flat calling a raise are dead money. The blinds and straddle haven't acted yet, so our bet still needs to get through four opponents. If they're going to fold to a $40 bet, they'll fold to a $30 bet. If they're not folding to $30 or $40, all we're doing by betting $40 is bloating the pot with a speculative hand.

FLOP - C-betting 1/2 pot is too large. If we're going to c-bet / bluff the flop, 1/3 is probably fine here. I probably just check this board from OOP, and see what V does. If he bets small, I'd call. If we had a BDFD to go with our ISSD, I could see check-raising. If he bets big, I'm done with it.

TURN - betting 3/4 pot seems a bit too big for our hand. I'd probably just go 2/3, or check and see what V does.

RIVER - I don't like trying to bluff the opponent who's been running super-hot, after he calls our 1/2 pot flop bet and 3/4 pot turn barrel, when the FDFD bricks out, and we'd be repping super-thin. Like, other than AQdd, what are we trying to rep here, with this line?

I'm not even sure AQdd takes this line. I'd think AQdd would want to bet smaller on flop, and possibly over-bet the turn when the BDFD appears. When the Kd hits the river, it makes it harder for us to get value from V's worse Qx and lower flushes, so I'd think we'd check to make it look like we're giving up and induce V to bluff or value bet a worse hand, or we'd over-bet and pray V has KQ or better.

Our combo of 76s doesn't block much of V's calling range, and also doesn't un-block much in his folding range, other than missed spades. We block combos like 65 and 87 that will fold, but we don't block any QX or KX combos.

V has shown strength the whole way, by calling big bets pre, on flop, and on turn. I think this is a spot where we can just give up with our busted draws. I wouldn't expect V to get to the river with too many weak holdings that are going to fold to a PSB.

Are you all really such value nits that you don’t go for 3 streets with sets and top two COvBU just cause BDFD got there? We can debate the size and whether AA/AK no diamond is too thin, but Q8s+ has gotta be a slam dunk vbet.

What did I miss here? Hero has 76hh, doesn't he?

Yes, absent any good reason not to, I'd bet Q8+ for value here, but I'm not sure how that relates to whether or not we should triple barrel with 76hh. Do we simply not have any bluffs that give up on and check river from OOP?

Also you

Hah! Well played, sir.

Please let me revise my earlier statements.

I think there's room to value bet here, with hands that are not necessarily the nuts. I'd have no issue betting with a combo that has showdown value and blocks some of our opponent's stronger hands.

However, I don't like running a triple barrel bluff here, with hero's exact hand, against this V, with the sizing hero has taken on earlier streets.

Without wanting to be results oriented, the fact that V tanked with 88 suggests he was trying to figure out if hero could really have the diamond flush, or perhaps a better set, and decided hero didn't, which goes to why I specifically mentioned repping AQdd.

If we'd bet for value with Q8+, and had we not run into the absolute top of V's range, hero's line would have worked out better. At the very least, if we bet Q8 and V called with KQ, we could say we just got unlucky.

But bluffing the river after V called big bets on three previous streets, rather than giving up, just seems like a spew.

Thanks for the great analysis. Obviously I would much rather have the nuts instead of 7 high to bet the river, but in this specific instance, I honestly think I can conceivably have diamonds that get there on the river. I have to work on my sizing but I think this is a very reasonable line to cbet with AQ AJ A10 A9 A8dd, as well as A2 A4 with gutshot and bdfd, A3dd with pair and bdfd etc. Would definitely double barrel when the bdfd opportunity arises. If I can have 67hh at this spot I can also have 67dd. I don't see the reason not to bet with a set of queens or Kings either.

If the river brick out like an off suit low card, I will definitely give up. But I just feel like this flush completing river King will make many of V's calling range very uncomfortable when faced with a big bet. All queen bar KQ, 9s, 10s, Js, all front door flush draws except King high flush will not be happy with this run out. Not sure if I would be happy to give up and check and end up losing to a hand like 99. I wonder what bluff did V really think I would have at this spot too.