Check - I'd be pleased getting in 3bets pre and one street post w KQo. Id like to see his hand, and really not sure what hero can rep/accomplish by betting riv considering Vs range still includes 6xs and AK that will at least ck-c while the rest is unlikely to ck-c<KQ if he's good. He should also have no viable ck-r bluffs this shallow.

Again, if everyone thinks we need to check the river then we shouldn't have 3bet pre IMO.

I think V can call a small (tiny?) Bet with KJ/KT QQ JJ TT and that outweighs AK+ V can put hero on thin value or a crap bluff.

Basically I just absolutely hate how we start out aggro and valuey then just chicken out postflop. Not very macho is it? Think I'd rather lose more chips than start playing like this regularly; )

Am I totally crazy for wanting to go $400-$450 on the river?

^ I think if V views hero as very bluffy then this might be the best option.

I'm betting whatever amount gets him to commit his chips. That's not going to be straightforward so based on my read either bet the amount that will induce a bluff shove or as stated above shove and look bluffy to get looked up by TT. I can't imagine he has better at this point.

I think he needs to look you up with TT to justify a shove, so I lean check back here.

JB, question on you and villain's river play:

1. Do you have river over bet bluff shoves in your range after a villain caps his range on the turn? If not a shove folds even Kx IMO.

2. Does villain ever check/shove anything other than trips+ otr here?

If 1 and 2 are "no" I'd bet/fold something like 200. Yes you will be getting 4:1 to call but I don't expect him to try and bluff for 250 more even 20% of the time.???

If 1 is no and 2 is yes you could (induce) bet smaller / call (aka Spike).

But I get the sense we expect v to play pretty straight up and if he was going to bluff river he likely leads out more than X/s.

My whole reason for checking turn is to get a 2nd street that I didn't expect to get if I bet flop and turn. On this river I'd just go for a second value bet.

200 while not huge in terms of pot still looks big in this game and I think v expects you to X back a lot of your sdv given how the hand has played and therefore will look you up enough with his bluff catchers.

Im obv in the minority here.

Of course being the last street of a PAHWM that has thus far had no drama I guess we bet and get raised maybe?

1. This is a very theoretical question. I'd like to say no because it feels spewy, but I have certainly bluffed the river for pot+ in the past taking a b/x/b line. Villain knows I can be FOS at times.

2. Another tough one to answer since we are in uncharted territory. I would say no though as I think he plays pretty straight up against me and that would be super thin to x/jam something like AK.

i would bet a bit on the bigger side here maybe 2/3 or 3/4 pot for value

OTTH

Effective Stacks: $300-560

EP ($300) limps
MP ($600) limps
HJ ($1500) limps
Alpha ($650) raises to $25 from the CO
Hero ($560) peaks down at KQ on the BTN and raises to $65
EP, MP and HJ fold
Alpha ($650) calls $65

Flop ($135): K 7 6

Alpha checks
Hero bets $85
Alpha thinks for a few seconds and calls $85

Turn ($305): 5

Villain checks
Hero checks

River ($305): 6

Villain checks
Hero tanks for 20 seconds and tosses the three blue chips in my hand into the pot while announcing "all-in" ($410)

I felt like going for gold here with a polarizing river bet that looks bluffy and FOS. I'm not positive I am betting for value or not but it's a bet I estimated to be good ~70% of the time when called. My heart was definitely beating out of my chest which I think is good for us getting looked up lighter. I have been struggling to get value lately and wanted to experiment with going thinner with a one pair hand in a big pot since they are our most common value hands.

On #1, Miller talks about overbet jamming river when villains cap themselves and says in Vegas 2/5 they will fold their entire non nut range a ton. It's not something I really do as a bluff but was wondering if the folks suggesting a river shove have a river bluff shoving range here.

On number 2 I really meant does he ever X/s bluff here? Not for thin value.

Against a non idiot opponent we probably should. I don't but it's just very rare for me to have the opportunity. In my games I have no need for a bluff range in that spot.

Pretty much all streets are played well.

Flop can be call/3bet.

Turn can be check/bet (slightly prefer check)

River has to be a value bet. Doubt he is checking river with any hand that beats us. I don't mind the thin shove.

But I think we get looked up alot more with with smaller bet.

Not sure many 1/3 regs have AK in there range, after he checks river.

The turn check gives a free card, but also induces alot of river bluffs.

Realley like your sizing on your 3 bet. And cbet

Nice shove otr.

Hope there are results.

Not sure why so many are of the opinion that a sound V isn't frequently checking hands >KQ.

??

That's why it's thin. Villain can easily have AK 98 86 65 here. Unless KJo shows up in his range, we need JJ or TT to be a hero.

I'm glad you got properly aggro with this hand at the end. No idea if it pays off but if definitely makes me feel better

Honestly though this was an interesting PAHWM. I found it tough sat on my sofa with all the time in the world to think about it so kudos for a hand well played Johnny. The fact is against a good and occasionally tricky player like this V we are never going to be 100% confident where he's at and we just have to live with that. I think you have to trust your instincts even more vs somewhat tricky players. All situations against them are going to be a bit more marginal than vs a totally ABC player and I think once you've conciously thought through ranges its good to give the final say to Doyle Brunson style "recall", subconscious reads, intuition, your gut - whatever you want to call it.

I think V can make plenty of mistakes against this river bet, both incorrect folds and incorrect calls depending on his mood and read on hero. I certainly think there is a good chance V has a marginal 1-pair hand here. V can hero call KJs-TT if he reasons along the lines of "I'm going to do the opposite of whatever hero's bet looks like he wants me to do".

V can certainly put hero on a load of busted FDs to bluff with.

Aa

I didn't realize you posted river action. I must have been posting simultaneous to you.

I had the remaining stack size a little off also.

Curious results on this one though.

I'm not sure if this is a total sidetrack or what, but does some consideration to how we play a hand have to take into account our own personalized conservative vs risk DNA and how we react afterwards if things go sideways?

For instance, I'm pretty sure I haven't setup too many hands to play for 187 bbs with just TP2K, and I'm not convinced I'd be in the best frame of mind afterwards if things went sideways. But that's just me and my conservative nature; for those who play a lot more laggy game, this is just another walk in the park, no big deal. And maybe the more volatile way will show more profit over time, *if* we have the personality to adapt to deal with it (which I'm not sure I have).

Would be super interesting to get Johnny's evaluation of his frame of mind after this hand if he loses, and how (or if) that affects the rest of his session.

GbutI'mprobablyjustsidetrackingG

Results


This hand piqued my interest because I think it illustrates how complex the game is and how far it is from being solved. If we knew villain's exact cards there would be "line A" we could take to extract the max value. If we knew villain's range there would be a "line B" we could take that could be considered the optimal line vs. his entire weighted average blended range. But it's likely that the "optimal line" is sub-optimal vs. certain parts of that range.

The line I took here was almost certainly not the optimal line vs. his entire range so it begs the question when should we deviate from estimated range and try to extract value from a specific part of that range at the exclusion of other hands. When counting the combos I came up with ~17 inferior one pair combos that should pay off a river bet (6 TT, 6 JJ, 3 QQ, 2 KJs). Maybe some 99 and 88 fits its way in there as well. But in going for max value vs. one pair hands we lose an indeterminate amount of value vs. the drawing part of his range.

The other consideration, and I'm not sure if it's being results oriented or what, is how differently this hand would have played if hero flats preflop. Even if three limpers fold and we go HU, it's unlikely we get more than a c-bet out of villain on this board unless we check back the turn and bluff catch/value bet the river (similar to the line taken in this hand minus the preflop 3!). I've always felt subconsciously or intuitively that 3! pots are/can be a large source of profit because we give villain's more chances to make expensive mistakes in larger pots and I'll likely continue experimenting with a depolarized range that works it's way down the ladder to RIO hands vs. the right opponents.

Fun hand to explore thanks for the contributions everyone.

I think that despite the results you lose this one just as often as you win it, so the river shove worked here but in the long run probably isn't massively +EV, which was pretty much my response a few pages ago:

It's all subjective. I wouldn't have shoved if I thought it was a 50/50 wager but I estimated it closer to 70/30.

Works for me, I think it's fine and probably what I would have done in-game too. One of those "feels like I have the best hand" spots. On a side note, V sucks because the only hand he can really beat is AQ