This is a hand from the $530 Sunday Main. I was in the SB and it was folded around to me holding AhKc. The BB was Juha Helppi. Blinds were 2500/5000 and I had approx. 180k. Helppi had only been at the table around 10 minutes so had just under 100k. As I said; folded to me and I made it 12,500. Helppi calls.

Flop comes - 8h - 5s - Ad

I lead for around 10k. Helppi calls.

Turn - 8s

With the board being dry and static, my mind starts to go a bit here. An 8 would fall in his flop calling range, but he should be defending fairly wide, so unsure. I opt to check and he checks behind.

River - 9h

It's at this point I couldn't make my mind up whether to go for some assumed value, or pot control against an absolute monster of a player who could quite easily check raise me and put me in a tricky spot. I must admit, the reputation of Helppi had me a little nervous and I decided to check. Helppi thinks for a little and fires out just over 1/4 pot. It's a fairly standard call and I make it and he shows AcJc.

Let's forget about the opponent for a moment. Let's say it's Joe Bloggs. Do you alter your line at any juncture? If so, where? What about bet sizing?

Interested to hear some thoughts. Afterwards, I felt I'd missed out on some extra value but then also felt like I played it OK, OOP vs someone who could really outplay me post.

I like the check on the turn. It's good for balance and pot control reasons.

When he checks back the turn, I think the river is a clear bet/call. I expect him to bet turn with his 8x hands and weaker floats. His check back range on turn mostly includes med-strength hands that want to get to showdown, so bet and he'll pay you off.

There aren't too many hands he can raise river with after checking back the turn, so if he does, I think you can call. There's some chance he has 76 and checked back the turn, but I'd also expect him to be capable of bluffing here.

Also, I'm very surprised he didn't 3bet jam the AJ pre.

Edit: Ignore - thinking of wrong tourny

Turn is interesting, I dont mind either betting or checking here but would lean towards a check. When it checks through you absolutely need to bet river for value, even if getting raised is gross. I think a lot of his 67 checks back the turn for fear of getting jammed on - but I dont think he has many bluff raises here either, so his raising range is small.

i like your line throughout and wouldn't change much
specific V is relevant
agree he can have various 89, 78, A8 combos in range and size to some GTO-horrid decision if you lead river

I think a lot of players would in that situation, so it was interesting to see him turn this over on the river, playing it so delicately. Like I mentioned, he'd not had a flavour for the table yet, after only being there for around 10 minutes, and with around 20bb's, I don't think he had to do anything silly with a hand that will realise a lot of equity against a potential aggressor in the SB.

Pretty much my thought process exactly.

I doubt he's checking back his 8x on the turn. Way too much lost value.

3bet jamming AJs w/ 20 BBs BvB isn't silly. Not doing it is silly.

Classic move by a live pro who overestimates his postflop edge (hint: no matter who you are, it's not much at 20 BBs unless your opponent is braindead).

Tell that to Juha Helppi.

Your line is not the worst thing in the world, certainly it is fine to do it with some combos of AK since you will have all/almost all 16 (12).
But probably first thing you want to do is size up pre since BvB plays different, can also size up otf. Turn x is standard but since once again it's BvB betting some 8x otf is very reasonable, so you definitely should have some 8x here so it's not like your range is just insta gimped. I think on river though this hand just wants to bet very frequently, there is tons of value to be had here. You can xc other Ax hands with kickers that don't play and maybe even AT, but I think it's pretty bad to mostly be checking with AJ+ as part of an overall strat in these spots. He has much fewer strong hands by just flatting pre here. BvB you really should be going thinner for value and this is a slam dunk value hand as played otr. Remember how short you actually are. 15k pre, 20k otf, x ott sets up for a close to psb river jam. Ez.
Just in general vs players you think are good/better than you, I would default to playing as optimally and unexploitably as possible under the circumstances, not play passive because you think you'll get blown off your hand.
But yeah once again, I don't think the line is terrible and employing it at some frequency with this hand makes sense for balance.

One reason to x some 8x here (he will have a good amount of it) apart from balance is that he can jam river for a bit more than pot anyway otr (assuming OR checks) and look to get heroed by Ax. But agree that 8x is mostly betting small to get a more natural river shove. Also agree that AJs should've stuck it in pre here.

+1

I believe we have 77.5K effective and a pot size of only 45K on the river. I guess it wouldn't be crazy to jam that much, but it's a bit extreme.

Turns an easy bet you don’t need to be checking full range and not much 8x in his range esp after the next 8 falls. It’s actually one of better turns for you. Bet again on the turn and you can go for a pretty big sizing now and look to jam most rivers

We could bet the turn, but I think checking is better for a couple reasones

1. It's good for balance. The 8 is a bad card to double barrel and helps villain's range more than ours, so we're going to have to check most of our range. I expect villain to bluff here a lot, so I think it's good to have a strong x/call range.

2. I don't think we get 3 streets of value here that much anyways. I expect villain to jam most PPs and Ax hands preflop (although apparently maybe not), so what does that leave villains range as on the turn? 8x, some draws, and a bunch of air that maybe floated flop with a BDFD.

So in other words, a super polarized range with very few hands that will call down 3 streets that we beat. I suppose the calculus changes a lot if we think villain will flat with Ax preflop, but I think we have to discount that at the very least since it's so good to jam with those hands.

Yea you have some other hands to check turn with not ak you still want to have a betting range here like i said it’s not a 100% x spot

It's not an easy bet on the turn at all. He can very easily have 8x here, especially after calling on the flop.

I think given the scenario, after taking on board all the responses here (thanks all), I'm pretty good with how I played the hand.

lack of V jam pre skews range away from Ax making it super easy for V to rep 8x on turn and 8x/67 on river

Misread hh forgot he’s in bb so yea ofc he has 8x

villain has ak beat 0% of the time here after taking this line
villain is not really juha helppi
villain surprised me by messing preflop up this hard

Thoughts on limp/jamming? Especially against a good villain (€uro?) that will make your life miserable post oop.

Could you elaborate please sir?

Defiinitely had merit especially as he had no stats on me.