1/2

Villain is a 20 something male, has been playing for a few hours and built a small stack. He has shown a couple hero bluffs where he jammed river with absolute air on wet boards. Has been playing fairly tight pre and has at least something at show down. Tends to over play 2nd pair, TPWK, etc. Seems to not understand casino rules and has difficulty dealing with chips. Probably doesn't matter, but thought it might be worth including.

Hero: Tight/winning image, up about 2.5 buyins from really standard play, a lot of c-betting to take down raised multi way pots.

Effective stacks ~450, Hero covers.

Hero (AdAh) opens to 15 utg, villain and button both flat.

Flop: 2c 8h Js

Hero leads for 30, V calls button folds

Turn As !!!

Hero checks V bets 60, Hero ?

I think he bets here believing he is ahead, but the only hand in his range that hit here is AJs. Maybe he tried to get tricky with a set, and could possibly have hit some type of combo draw with 910s. I wanted to set myself up to get stacks in, but c/r turn looks very strong. Is it ever good to flat here? What's my game plan after the flat?

Hero raise 200, V tanked and folded. How is this sizing? Would a min raise have been better?

Soooooo maybe checking wasn't such a good idea. Just bet again. If he folds you weren't gonna get much more anyway. If he calls or raises, well then now you've got a good spot.

Check raise turn is about the worst line you could take. Even a min check raise turns your hand face up as two pairs+. The ace is a terrible action killer for you. The only real draws out there are T9, QT, and back door spades. Against this villain I think a check call turn and check raise most rivers is best. He is unlikely to call turn with less than two pairs or a big draw whereas he will stab a lot on turn with weak pairs and draws when checked to and he may even bluff river. If he has two pairs+ you will likely stack him no matter what you do anyways

Turn check is meh. Call here and bet the river, doubtful you'll get much action from a raise. And if you do raise, don't minraise.

Either bet into turn smallish or just check/call. The check/raise here is saying two pair+ and will fold out just about everything. I like a bet of $50 on turn, villain with a set/two pair will call and may raise, and single pairs are not putting much in after the ace hits. However, just check/calling some of the time is good, particularly against bluffy villains. If you do check/call turn, check/call most rivers but lead river some of the time if river bricks.

Assuming river bricks why would you ever check call river?

The point of check/calling turn is to get villain to bluff, if your going to take that line you might as well follow through and check river also. After you check/call turn, if you lead a brick river villain is going to put you on an ace or better and fold most of the time. Villain with two pair+ is going to bet if checked too anyway, so you might as well let the bluffs continue on river.

Though obviously I should have said check/shove because hero will have the nuts on total bricks and second nuts if the board pairs.

the call part was what i was addressing.

Thanks guys. V said he folded QJ so I hopefully I didn't miss much value, but this was definitely not the best way to play the hand.

Lead the turn, lead the river. I really don't like the c/c. As far as I can tell, your reasoning is that he often has a weak 1p hand that's afraid of the A. And he has relatively few draws in his range.

But that makes it the exact opposite of the situation we want to c/r. He rarely is going to bluff the turn. He is going to check back his Jx hands fairly often. And if he was going to bet them he probably would have called a bet anyway.

On such a dry board, when such an obvious scare card hits the turn, he is going to check back the turn way too often from ands that you potentially could have gotten value from.

Just bet.

Board isn't scary enough to worry about draws. T9 is the only one hero has to worry about and that likely checks the turn behind after the ace hits. Villain is most likely on a JX, AX or a bluff when he bets turn, Hero wants all of those hands to continue betting.

Betting into turn is better generally though. I'm using the check/call line rarely unless villain is very bluffy and likely to bet air on turn and river if checked to.

Im talking about calling the river. If it's a brick you have the effective nuts so no check calling. check raising maybe.

After what you described him as just check call turn and let him bluff river hopefully...I'd have just kept betting though personally

The question you need to answer before you can "check to let him bluff" is what hands do you think he is turning into bluffs that aren't calling turn bets. He isn't likely to be turning Jx into a bluff. He might turn 9T into a bluff, but he would have called a bet anyway.

Really what you have to hope for is him turning 8x into a bluff. But you can;t even be sure he would have called the flop with 8x. So I don't think you can check the turn hoping specifically for him to turn 8x into a bluff.

In any case, the value you lose from Jx and 9T when you check easily offsets the gain from the random occasion that he bluffs the turn.