Live 1/3. Villain is what I'd call loose-semi-aggressive. He in aggressive player if no one has shown aggression (he can raise with 92s in a limped pot) but he tends to be station-y if someone else has shown aggression. Villain specifically respects my bets and will raise and reraise with a stronger range against me than against other players and will check-call with hands he would bet if I were not in the pot.

Hero raises to 15 UTG with AA. All folds. Villain calls in BB. Effective stacks are about 150BB.

Flop is QJ9r. Villain checks, hero bets 20. Villain calls.

Turn A, completing the rainbow. (Pot=71 minus rake) Villain checks. Hero bets 50. Villain calls, giving off the sense that he is unhappy and has a hand that he though was ahead if I checked but behind if I bet. Hero strongly feels V has either Kx or Tx with a pair.

River K. (Pot=171 minus rake) Villain checks and gives an involuntary smirk that strongly suggests the king improved him, either to two pair or a straight. Hero.....?

Villain will check all Tx hands on the river with the intention of check-raising. Villain probably would have check-raised all flopped sets and straights on the turn. I would have jammed the turn if this happened.

If hero bets 120-ish, villain folds all two pair hands. If hero bets small, villain is capable of sensing weakness and either overvaluing two pair because he puts me on AK or turning two pair into a bluff because he thinks I don't have a straight. If I made a smaller bet like 60, villain might make it 160 with a range that is probably somewhere between 75% and 90% straights. He will be inspired to bluff me only some of the time because he will fear I am intentionally betting small as a trap. My estimate of how often he check-raises the river is a bit uncertain, but I feel confident with my read through his turn check. He thinks I am a good player, so he would get an ego boost out of successfully check-raise bluffing me on the river.

I am not sure how often he bluffs and how often he lays down two pair if I make a bet that is more than 60 but less than 120.

If I had J9, I would turn my hand into a bluff. If he never check-raised bluffed, I could bet/fold. If he did it too often, I could bet/call. With top set, I find myself in an annoying spot because of how often I think he will check-raise bluff.

I gave some thought to betting 5 to maximize his spazz potential while inducing him to bet a smaller amount that is easier to call if he does check-raise.

Given my read, what is your play on the river against this villain?

Betting seems like a big mistake here. It's not even clear you're ahead of his range, it's not clear how often he calls with a loser, and you're inviting a bluff that you have to fold to.

Should Villain really be showing up with a Tx here? By the turn, this board smashes our range (we should have a monster a decent percentage of the time), so wouldn't he just bet his made straights / start getting huge money in? Otherwise, is he really calling the turn just with a Tx (even if it is paired)? Straights bring 4-to-a-straight which he shouldn't (lol!) expect to get paid off on, and his pair outs could all be dirty with high RIO.

I guess bottom line for me is I don't think he has a Tx. So I like the idea of a weak bet to induce a raise (I'd do an even smaller $40 to induce a 3x to a reasonable $120) since I don't think a normal value bet is going to get paid off. Pot is $171, we still have big $365 stacks behind; I don't think he's going to go too crazy with the induced bluff, especially since it's possible that we have the straight. Although if it's possible that we can have the straight, this sorta lessens that amount of times he goes for a bluff/raise. And of course we have to be convinced he's capable of a bluff/raise, especially against us (if we're nitty, we might only be betting the nuts here).

But, I also post way better than I play (lol, or so I think). In real time, I probably check back like the little girl I am.

GlittlegirlG

Villain definitely has AT, QT, JT, TT, and T9 in his range. He would c/c flop, c/c turn, c/r raise with all of those hands. He might c/r turn with AT sometimes, but probably less than half the time.

Maybe my OP didn't get this across, but he's not a good player. He doesn't think in terms of ranges. He can get station-y and sticky if someone else is going the betting, so other bad players pay off his check-raises when he rivers the nuts, but he sometimes gets caught bluffing.

The more bad stationy/sticky he is, and bad like often check/raising river with nuts (instead of just betting out for value), the more I'm checking behind here.

GcluelessNLnoobG

My problem isn't that he check-raises the nuts. My problem is that he check-raise bluffs an annoying percentage of the time when I make a bet small enough that he calls with any two pair (and he has every possible two pair hand in his range, although I think it is weighted towards two pair where he has a king in his hand) or even a hand like A8 with a tiny chance he could call with K5.

It's a bit like deciding whether to value bet a straight when a flush is possible against a player who will call with worse hands but might turn those hands into bluffs.

I don't know what range of hands he thinks you bet 50 dollars with on the river. Let's say he calls with a wide range on the river, there's not a lot of money to be made with a 50 dollar bet. Best case what are you 75-25 against his range?

That means you make 25 dollars if he calls a 50 dollar bet 100% of the time. If he bluffs you on the river about 12% of the time you'll have lost the 25 dollars back.

I don't know what to make of his reaction on the river. That card changes relative hand strengths a lot. If he has KT then all of a sudden he may think he's chopping. If he has QJ he may think he's behind. I don't know why he'd necessarily be excited to make 2-pair.

I've been watching a lot of the WSOP streams. Everyone has been check-raising the (near) nuts on the river. On a Q822 turn 3 river someone with QQ check-called the turn, then check-raised the river and got value from 98.

Long story short: It's such a rare spot, that I don't think your win-rate suffers much by checking behind on the river. On the other hand almost all Villains don't bluff very well. They either bluff way too much, or way too little. I'm accepting your idea that the Villain will be able to bluff roughly 25% of the time which means we can't profitably value bet.

Definitely an interesting spot to ponder -- thanks for posting it.

To me, the smirk conveys weakness, but maybe he's different. Your reads are very precise, so go with them. Bet $50. However, if he raises to $100 - $150, I would probably have to call.

I agree that in game I'd probably chicken out and check behind (but I am a girl!).

If you think he's good, he's C/Ring any bet on the river because you can't reasonably rep any 10 other than maybe AX10X and that's only if he believes you will raise that UTG with specifically that sort of hand. He has lots of 10's in his range so I guess I'm checking behind knowing that even a small river bet into a $170 pot is going to get C/R to something like $120.

OP if you think he c/r bluffs often enough you can bet and call the river.

Really like your contributions here, but I read the OP a few times and I'm not sure I understand it at all.

Could you be leveling yourself a little bit with some of your reads?

For example, the quotes above: V can be "stationy and sticky," but with J9 two pair, you might make a big bluff because he'd fold better? Yet he's also capable of calling a small bet with K5 second pair no kicker? I just don't buy it. Against a guy who might get to the river and call a small bet with K5, I would almost never think that a somewhat larger bet as a "bluff" would get him to fold a hand as strong as two pair.

I think you might have a little too much confidence in your ability to manipulate his continuing range and action based on bet size and too much confidence in your ability to manipulate his behavior exactly to your liking.

Agree. +KT. And that's a lot of Tx. ~58 combos of straights. And by the way, again, if he is pretty stationy and he can show up with weird stuff like K5, then he could have a TON more than the 58 combos (think T8, T5s, etc). Once he flops the OESD with any Tx, he might peel down to the river.

Here is where I see the most self-leveling.

You're saying that if we bet 120, he folds two pair. But if we bet less, he might check/raise bluff with two pair... OR perhaps VALUE raise with two pair. If we find a sweet spot maybe around ~60, he raises to 160 mostly with straights. But sometimes he senses weakness and will c/r bluff; though other times, he realizes we're betting small as a trap and will not c/r. Those times, presumably, he's still might not even call with two-pair... HOWEVER, sometimes when we bet small, he actually calls K5 second one pair no kicker!

To be completely frank, and I hope it comes across as respectful as I do mean this respectfully, I actually don't see any actionable read here or any real understanding of villain's playing style.

For example, we're saying that with the same hand - say two-pair - depending on bet size, he might fold to a bet (which is why we might bluff J9)... he might call a bet... he might check/raise as a bluff... he might check/raise for value (overvaluing two-pair and putting you on AK). Well... of course you're right, because that covers every single possibility of action and reasoning!

I think I can simplify this a lot.

With so much uncertainty regarding whether he even calls a reasonable bet with two pair and whether he puts a raise in with an unknown range of Tx and bluffs with smaller bets, and given that Tx can comprise WAY over 58 obvious combos while other likely hands (not inclusive, but say just for example KQ, KJ, K9, QJ, AJ, J9 - well that list is < 50 combos), then this is a pretty clear check back on the 4-straight board.

I think it goes back to basics where it's probably not a +EV value bet because he has a range of hands that includes quite a bit of Tx, and since Tx isn't combinatorically blocked, he will naturally have a bit more of it in his range. More likely than not, his calling range does not give you value.

But it gets worse. You really can't bet with the plan to call a check/raise. So by making a value bet, which is probably actually a fair bit -EV given his ability to have plenty of Tx - more than other strong made hands - and, to pile on, he will even fold some decent made hands, you're also giving him the opportunity to turn some losing hands into profitable bluffs, thereby making your value bet even worse, but, again, he's doing so with a range of hands that's almost always going to be weighted enough toward Tx that you really just cannot call the check/raise.

And trying to identify some perfect bet size that will manipulate villain to do exactly what you want with his range such that he might call with enough worse.. or c/r bluff so often you can bet/call, etc. is in my view tending towards wishful thinking and even FPS.

Long story short, check behind; if he has two pair, reassure yourself that you didn't lose value.

If you bet $50, you need him to call with a loser a bit more than 3 times as often as he bluff raises (assuming your call is close to break-even when he raises). Is that really realistic? Is he calling with a hand worse than aces up (which we double block)?

EDIT: It's actually even worse. You lose $50 when he has a T, $210 when he bluff raises, and gain $50 when he calls with worse. It's really hard to overstate how bad the possibility of being bluff-raised is for thin value bets.

Also, I don't understand the thread title and the idea that second nuts might be too strong to bet.

Even if V calls with all 2-pair hands and perhaps some one pair hands, you still can't get value.

Way too many Tx combos.

I'm going with OP reads. Guy is sticky, etc., so it's very possible he calls such a small bet with any two pair. OP doesn't know how often he'll check/raise bluff, so hard to say. I think betting $50 and calling a raise is much better than betting anything more than $50.

If it's this difficult to play against this guy, just check behind.

Given reads provided by OP, I think river is a clear check behind. V should have all Tx in his range down to T9, and if the read that V respects OP's bet is accurate, he might not call with all his 2p combos.

Hero checked behind. Villain showed KK. I think he 3bets anyone at the table but me preflop.

I get a ton of respect, but it generally translates more into people taking what amounts to passive pot control-y lines against me rather than playing weak and letting me run over them.