So faced a tough spot on the river in this hand. Would love to get yalls view on the hand. Stack sizes starting the hand are me with 180k chips and villain with 380k. Blinds 1500/3k

Pre:
UTG and UTG+1 fold

V opens from UTG+2 to 7,500.

Hero 3 bets to 19,920 with AA from MP. (Thought about going bigger but wanted to get value and who knows maybe someone 4 bets me?)

Folds to Villain and he calls.


Flop: Kd Js 5d

V checks, I decide to check behind to try and keep the pot small figuring its a pretty dangerous spot/flop with lots of draws. Also didn't mind having aces in my check back range considering I would have to check hands like 99,TT, etc... (Debated going for value?)

Turn: 10c

V bets pot (47,200). Hero calls. (Pretty bad card but felt there were still a lot of draws and I am still beating some of his value.)

Stack sizes after action: V: 312k Hero: 114k
Pot size: 141k

River Jc

V bets 94k into 141k pot. Hero?

hi OP

yep, 3x pre IP at 60BB effective and c-bet 1/3

did you have Ad ?
any stats / reads on V ?

I did not have ace of diamonds.

Only sat with the player for roughly less than an hour. Didn't feel comfortable posting about my reads with such a small sample size.

I’d 3! bigger since y’all are so deep. If someone’s going to 4 bet, it most likely won’t be a bluff, so I don’t think a smaller 3 bet sizing will induce anything.

I definitely think you should be cbetting this flop. There are a ton of hands that you either want to get value from, or want to deny equity. Sure, there are a lot of draws out there, but we’re ahead of all those. If we get checkraised we just pile it in. Checking flop is a blunder imo.

Turn is a call.

River is interesting. It’s hard to see him betting pot on the turn with any jacks unless he had two pair, and there are only 3 combos that really make sense (KJhh, J10hh, J10dd). I don’t think he bets pot with 55, but maybe he does.

By the river I think we have to call. He could be value betting a worse hand (KQ) or bluffing. There are a lot more combos that we beat than beat us. I’m not fist pumping with my call, but given we under-repped our hand by checking flop I think we have to go with it. I would’ve preferred it if he had just jammed—his sizing makes it look like he wants a call since we can call and still be alive. But it all goes back to our flop check for me. We’d be checking flop with a jack at some frequency so the river isn’t great for him.

"By the river I think we have to call. He could be value betting a worse hand (KQ) or bluffing. There are a lot more combos that we beat than beat us. I’m not fist pumping with my call, but given we under-repped our hand by checking flop I think we have to go with it. I would’ve preferred it if he had just jammed—his sizing makes it look like he wants a call since we can call and still be alive. But it all goes back to our flop check for me. We’d be checking flop with a jack at some frequency so the river isn’t great for him."

Exactly what was going on in my head on the river. I used up all my time bank on other hands so I really didn't get as much time to think about it as I wanted but was thinking along the same line as you. I'll tell you what the villain had tomorrow or the day after.

As for the flop, yes we could just pile it in when he check raises us but are we really excited about doing that? We're basically drawing dead against KJ, we're doing ok against straight draws like QT but would he really check raise us with that hand probably not, or some kind of combo draw like Q9 of diamonds which we're basically flipping against. My thought process was I want to avoid that kind of situation. I could def be wrong about this but I don't think the flop check is as bad as you're saying it is.

You have roughly 27% equity vs. KJ, so no you're not "practically drawing dead against KJ". You have 73% equity vs QT. You have 54% equity vs. Qd9d. You have 54% equity vs. AdTd. You have 79% equity vs. KQ. You need to cbet this flop and not play scared.

Agreed, particularly with the last sentence.

You have aces in a 3-bet pot; pot control isn't terribly on my mind unless it's something truly awful (like JT9 three of a suit you don't have), and this isn't that. (Heck, it's a 3-bet pot; "pot control" isn't really a factor anymore-- you're 60BB deep, not 300.) Bet the flop.

Any reads on villain? He has a big stack; is he playing loose and aggressive with it?

Hmm yeah you guys are probably right. He ended up having JQ of diamonds :/