I am going to give a disclaimer right now. Hero is actually a friend of mine, and I am the Btn in this hand. This is not a "reversal" so please don't lock the thread @Venice, it's simply a hand posted through his eyes that happens to involve me. We talked about it a lot afterwards and he asked me to post it, but I already know why I played the hand the way I did so I'd like his perspective to be analyzed. There is certainly relevant history/reads between us.

Hero: $720 and covers all. Playing lag, has had a few drinks but doesn't show it if he's feeling it. Has been running over the table, who has all commented on his aggression/looseness but has yet to take any declarative stand against it. Young 20's, is called "the kid" a lot, is a semi-reg but mostly known by other regs.

Btn: $420. Bearded fat ass. Is drinking, but not noticably drunk as of yet. Hero knows he is very aggressive, typically quite LAG, and is a thinking player. He is not afraid of putting lots of $ in on a read, and likes to hero call especially against hero. He knows hero's game quite well and hero knows his game quite well. He knows that hero typically does not play this LAG, but is often capable of making lots of big bluffs and sometimes finds himself barreling with nothing and has trouble giving up OTR.

BB: $500. Reg donk, weak, very cally, limp/calls probably 30% of hands preflop, raises seldom. Doubled up by getting AA against KK preflop a few orbits ago.

Hero is UTG+2 with 98, folds to hero who raises to $12. Button and BB call.

Flop ($30 w/rake): 753. BB checks, Hero bets $20, Btn calls, BB calls.


Turn ($90) is 9, 753. BB checks, Hero bets $40, Btn calls, BB folds.



River ($170): 3, 9753 Hero bets $110,

BTN shoves $240 on top Hero did not expect this move and really had not planned for it. He tanks and ?

Kind of want to call as played. (river bet is thin IMO)

HH doesn't make sense. Turn action says Btn calls, BB folds but BB shoves on river. Who folded ott and shoved on the riv?

too late to fix it now, btn stays in and btn shoves river. my mistake, BB folds OTT.

If V likes to hero call I could definitely see him holding something like A3hh, 34hh, or 36hh

And here's why I don't like them. You've given us about 7 sentences of what you and your friend's knowledge of each other are. Unfortunately, you've left a ton of other information that can influence the hand that you can never represent even a tiny fraction of that background in a HH.

Didn't read the spoilers before posting this. As is, I disagree with masaraksh. There's no value in the bet whatsoever. If he has his read correct that a significant portion of your calling range is 88, 96, 94 or 92, I've lost all respect for the button.

All Hero beats on the river is a bluff after the shove. Therefore, it is a simple problem. If the BTN has 28% bluffs in his range for stacking off in this situation, then call. If not, fold. EZ game.

So this summarizes why I don't like them. If Hero has seen you do this a bunch of times and get caught, it is a call. If he's never seen you do this, then it is a fold. We have no clue which is true. You do.

I'll let this slide for a bit, but if it ends up as a "sick bluff, bro" thread, I'm deleting it. Your friend made a horrible bet on the river. If he's consistently making those type of bets, he needs to tighten up his game.

Given that hero is repping an overpair I don't see how you don't raise this turn with str8s and sets or how you bluff shove this river, unless you don't realize that by bluff shoving the river it's hard to rep str8s and fhs. Since you like to hero call you're probably not bluffing a pair, I say you have missed spades

Agree on the horrible bet sizing on river. I would bet $40-50 on river for value and fold to a large raise since you are not beating much of anything and I doubt V calls twice and raises on river with a missed draw facing a value bet.

This is an optimistic calling/raising range for you on the river (any pair or better):

Board: 7s 5h 3s 9h 3d

Hand 0: 56.410% { 9s8s }
Hand 1: 43.590% { JJ-TT, 8c8d, 8c8h, 8d8h, 7c7d, 66, 5c5d, Ah3h, 9c8c, 9d8d, 9d7d, 87s, 76s, 65s, 54s }

If I counted correctly there are 19 combos of 2pair+ in your range ott. I only kept 3 of them in since you usually raise turn (kept 7c7d, 5c5d, 9d7d)

Say you fold your pairs 8 or lower ~50% of the time (call 10/21 combos):

Board: 7s 5h 3s 9h 3d

Hand 0: 39.286% { 9s8s }
Hand 1: 60.714% { JJ-TT, 8c8d, 8c8h, 8d8h, 7c7d, 6c6d, 5c5d, Ah3h, 9c8c, 9d8d, 9d7d, 87s, 76s }

Now we need to compare that to your betting range when checked to. If hero is getting the right odds to call against your betting range then betting himself may be better even if it's a losing bet...

I took a look at your betting range and realized that there aren't many missed spades in your range at all. A lot of them are A high draws that had some kind of sd or pair to go with them at some point in the hand and presumably you would raise them. Your betting range when checked to has hero crushed since you should be checking back small pairs and only betting maybe TT+.

Thus, I think the river bet is only good it you practically always call with any pair. C/f seems to be the best line

(For these ranges I have assumed you don't have a pure float for 2 streets since you have trouble calling ott after bb calls otf)

Hero's turn bet size is the prob here. What does 40 into 90 size pot 3 handed intend to represent on this board? Bet pot size here, it'll take away your river prob.

As played on turn, check river as others have said.

As played on river, I call this, it's too bluffy.

It's weird.... I think by betting 98 on this river we are value owning ourself a decent bit. That is, we get called by better hands such as TT.. But when villain raises our river bet I think his range becomes very polarized to trips or better type hands and bluffs. (IMO 3x is unlikely, sets we can expect to fast play on a wet board, straight is possible... But that would mean that villain had to just call with nuts on turn, risk a scare card coming, and risk value by not immediately building pot to get stacks in)...

I dunno, feel like calling (I'm a bit of a station). Maybe lead river smaller (and snap call any raise?)

Not gonna lie, your thread title makes me conjure up feelings of wanting to punch someone in the face. As played, I think we have a ton of showdown value to discourage a bet but as played I prob call it off cuz illain's line seems a little to bluffy

I don't like the small turn bet. With 2 callers there is a good chance that you are up against a bigger flush draw. I would bet 2/3-3/4 pot to get the flush draw to fold (of course, we don't mind if he calls). But I would expect the flush draw to fold, sets to raise, and overpairs and weaker one pair hands. We fold if we get raised and if flatted we probably make a value bet on the river with our image.

Is your river bet for value or a bluff? No good answer = bad bet

Good god, never bet $40 on this turn against a thinking player with the exact hand that it looks like you have when you bet $40 on this turn again, and you'll never be in this spot. Once we do that, the rest of the hand is fuxxed because villain knows what hand we hold and is going to play against it perfectly.

I probably call because I'm at the top of my range, and villain's range is pretty capped, too, and I'd think it's more likely villain tries to exploit our capped range by bluffing at it than he is by shoving on us for thin value. It's just that it's such an obvious blank river that bluffing's gonna be a massive leveling war, so I don't feel great about it.

i dont mean to detract from the HH but there's not much to be gained from analyzing spots like this. you have two relatively competent players with lots of history. there's never gonna be much consensus or much that the forum can add because it all comes down to your nuanced reads on each other, which you probably can't convey without writing a novel...

i dunno it's like 6bet bluffing in high stakes 6max games or something, where these guys have hundreds of hours of history. in certain conditions, if you have certain sick reads, you're gonna be able to do that and justify it, but no one's ever gonna look in on that game and be like "ya i 6bet bluff in that spot too". maybe the other regs in the game could.

honestly, playing against each other is just gonna spike your variance and not be very profitable for anyone. just soft play each other. what do you wanna play your competent friends who have good reads on you for?

the one spot we can analyze is preflop because it involves the whole table.

in a deep/passive game, i'm gonna fold, limp/fold, or limp/call 98s from UTG+2. if the game is indeed deep and loosey-goosey i'm usually gonna limp/call, unless the raise size is huge, or for some reason i don't expect a very multi-way pot, in which cases i will limp/fold. if the game's not super deep or not playing that loosey-goosey then i might just muck.

the games i normally play in i'm almost always limp/calling this pre. just cuz of how deep they usually are and how many people always call raises pre and how bad players are post.

i'm not sure why you raised, unless the table is tight passive. i assume it's loose passive, in which case people don't like to fold, and by raising 98s from OOP, you rely on having to bluff a not-small number of players post flop from OOP a lot to turn a profit because we miss so often, and you push players out preflop who might limp with hands the have RIO against us that they would pay us off with.

if the table is tight passive rack up and find a better game.

honestly with 98s in most of the games we all play in we wanna see a cheap flop, esp OOP.