Edit: Swear I know how to spell "deceptive"

In game I'm pretty sure I quickly checked back thinking it's standard, but upon review I'm having doubts.

The opener is a reg i play against a lot whom I've noted is fishy and stabby.

I think we definitely have SDV here.

But I also think V is uncapped and in fact may be (perhaps the equilibrium solution even) checking entire range OTF.

Hero has to varying degrees {22-88 (we might not have 99), A2s-A8s, lots of flushes, AcXo, KcQo, 65s, 54s} Where I'm really being thrown for a loop is figuring out my raising range OTT. I'm starting to think we shouldn't have one, at least that's where my estimate of the equilibrium strategy is tending towards.

While it's true flushes may wanna raise, the converse is also true. Nut flushes block lots of V's calling range and hence have incentive to just flat. Non-nut flushes aren't necessarily good nor can we raise all flushes
(not or non-nut) lest out flatting range become too weak. Sets, straights, 2pr may wanna raise, or maybe not--again, V is likely uncapped here.

Think these arguments also hold for betting flop. I see no reason to start splitting my range at this point in the hand.

So they way I'm starting to see it is: we simply can't have a raising range OTT. At the very least, no hand is a pure raise and the frequency with which we enter the raising node is very small.

If the above is true, then once we get to the river we now have a merged range with every hand in that range benefiting from jamming (a hand like 7c7h can get some overpairs to fold), so perhaps we can just jam entire range and have that be the highest EV strategy instead of splitting our range into x's and jams (doubt we can go less than jam with any hand that wants to bet, be it for value or as a bluff). V can't call just flushes lest he get run over, and it's dubious he's uncapped now having checked river against a range which contains hands that'll pay off his nutted hands, so hero can definitely go for value as light as a set or even 2pr here expecting to get called at decent freq by overpairs blocking a flush in particular.

If we jam, V's bluffcatchers have ~36% equity vs our entire range which essentially makes them perfectly indifferent to calling.

So my point is: anyone jamming river instead of checking it back?

Also what should our raising range look like OTT, if it exists at all?

Anyone betting flop?

Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - 475/950 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (BTN): 27.56 BB
SB: 34.93 BB (VPIP: 21.33, PFR: 17.81, 3Bet Preflop: 9.68, Hands: 76)
BB: 62.88 BB (VPIP: 9.26, PFR: 7.41, 3Bet Preflop: 4.17, Hands: 54)
UTG: 63.03 BB (VPIP: 20.97, PFR: 13.27, 3Bet Preflop: 8.06, Hands: 312)
UTG+1: 20.15 BB (VPIP: 18.63, PFR: 13.33, 3Bet Preflop: 12.94, Hands: 204)
MP: 17.63 BB (VPIP: 26.54, PFR: 18.68, 3Bet Preflop: 2.13, Hands: 360)
MP+1: 19.56 BB (VPIP: 8.51, PFR: 6.38, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 47)
CO: 32.09 BB (VPIP: 13.04, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 23)

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.51 BB) Hero has 7 7

UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, CO calls 2 BB, Hero calls 2 BB, SB calls 1.5 BB, BB calls 1 BB

Flop: (11.01 BB, 5 players) 4 6 5
SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks, CO checks, Hero checks

Turn: (11.01 BB, 5 players) 2
SB checks, BB checks, UTG bets 3.81 BB, fold, Hero calls 3.81 BB, fold, fold

River: (18.63 BB, 2 players) J
UTG checks, Hero checks

I agree that having a turn raising range does not make much sense, and secondly that villain likely is no longer uncapped when checking. I just don't think that means you should necessarily shove entire river range. You've determined that the 36% showdown equity of villain's bluffcatchers vs. your entire range is equal to pot-odds ratio, and therefore = equilibrium?

I apologize if I'm missing the fundamental calculation there, but it seems to me that the bet of 21.62 to win 18.63 creates a breakeven fold frequency of 53.7%. (<-- Do you agree with that figure?) In other words, would your objective then be to ensure that out of the total combinations that do shove river, your range should contain (1 - 53.7%) Value , to 53.7% Bluffs. If this is the case I would assume that you do not have enough of either value bets or bluffs in this spot to shove the entire range. Therefore some of your range will need to be checks, some value, some bluffs, to be in equilibrium on the river based upon the bet size in relation to the pot.

Thanks for your reply.

His most likely bluffcatchers are overpairs, which have ~36% equity against my range. Eff stacks OTR are ~21.5bb, shoving that would make a breakeven equity to call of 1/(1+(21.5+18.5)/21.5)=~36% give or take a few basis points

I'd need help understanding what villain could do to punish you for splitting river between x and bet. I'd imagine you have hands with too much showdown value to justify bluffing with, eg TT. Maybe you'd stab flop with that. I think the flop check is good/better with this combo esp due to the redraws which reduce in value after action.

I think river is a jam on the basis that I'm struggling to think of a worse hand you get to the river with, at least not one with relevant blockers, assuming you're not flatting offsuit combos and you let overcards go on the turn.

Not sure about the title. Is this a tough hand or a deceptively taught hand? And by taught are we talking learning or very tense?

Anyway, I think it was played well. You have showdown value and you got to showdown fairly cheaply.

After the flop and turn your hand looks like either a draw or a hand that could contain a medium pair (or both as it turns out).

You clearly don't have a flush and probably don't have a set. I would be shocked if villain showed a flush or a set. I think you have two pair here rarely also.

But. You can have Jx with a flush draw, though probably not a lot of combos. And you could get 88-TT to fold to a shove. Whenever I make this type of play, they never have the 88-TT or whatever I'm trying to fold out. Sample size though.

I also think if you shove here you get called by overpairs always. And never by A high.

edit: I don't think I agree with the hypothetical flop strategy. I think we have a lot of flushes that bet after everyone has checked. We may want to be shoving the turn depending on how many callers. So as a result I think our hypothetical river shove is going to be perceived as less wide than we think.

Hey bearer, thanks.

Hero is capped at 88. Almost always 3betting 99, always 3betting and occasionally even mixing in shoves vs this V with TT-JJ, obv 3betting QQ+ though never shoving with those.

Hero's range OTR is (some of these are not whole combos due to being partially folded pre--and I acknowledge some of these may generally be too loose to peel)

Though thinking about it more, we can prob let some naked pairs go OTT (and in game I'm sure I'd indeed be folding like A4s or A5s at least pretty often) so it's more realistically something like

Only really 77 and 88 fit the bill as you described. All other hands can be jammed (again V can't just call flushes so hero can prob go as light as 2pr for value if V is heroing overpairs especially those overpairs w/ a club blocker) either for value or as a bluff. And I'm kind of struggling to see which ones if any would work best as checkbacks. So few other hands wanna checkback IMO, that the equilibrium might just be throwing 77 and 88 into our jamming range too since they're so well protected against V's most likely bluffcatchers (again, those are overpairs or perhaps AJs or AcJx or KJs or KcJs or QJs or QcJx)

The answer is definitely dependent on our flop" stabbing" range (I put that in quotes because I think of stabs as bluffs or semibluffs but if we do have a betting range when checked to OTF I'm almost sure we'd need value hands including flushes). I'm also not sure what that should look like or if it should exist at all. Although this V is stabby himself, it's not hard to play entire range as a check on this texture 5-ways. So besides flushes, hero doesn't have too many hands that wanna bet except maybe AcXo combos but if we bet all those I think our flop check range is too weak which has me thinking we should just be checking back 100% OTF. IDK, really not sure.

Yeah, yeah, pile on about my horrific proof-reading. I type too fast and with very poor technique

Thanks for your post.

I agree we have hands that want to bet flop, but we need to consider our entire range, which is mostly hands that don't wanna bet flop. Do sets wanna bet? 2pr (rare--perhaps; but definitely in my range at non-zero frequency)? AcXo? If most of our range doesn't wanna bet, then I think we'll tend to see the optimal strategy be that none of our hands wanna bet.

Really struggling to cobble together a flop betting strategy that doesn't leave us too weak when we check. Maybe bet weaker flushes that need protection and unblock V's NFDs and check nut flushes and 2nd nut flushes which block the very top of V's range? We'd need to balance that somehow. And only the AcXo or perhaps KcQx combos make sense but there aren't that many such that if we bet a lot of these combos in particular then when we check turn and another club rolls of we're pretty much boned--our flop checking range has too few really strong flushes or NFs in that case.

Don't you agree it's nice to keep some flushes or sets or 2pr in the magazine so we can fire with them OTR if we're always getting called by an overpair w/ a club? V would be in for a nasty surprise in that case.

On 2nd or 3rd thought, likely agree V doesn't have a flush OTR, dunno about a set though. But would disagree about flop and turn. Again, it's easy and perhaps even optimal for one to check entire range here 5-ways sandwiched in the middle of the action.

BTW in theory I think the way villain punishes me is by always getting to SD with his medium to low SDV hands when I check, almost all of which are beating the most likely checking hands I have.

In theory we can counter this by either jamming everything, or checking everything that isn't a flush or a busted FD and jamming the latter. But if our range is merged and V isn't folding an overpair, why would we ever check a set or A3 or 65? And if we have so many of those hands which are beating V's most likely bluffcatchers, why would we ever check back our weakest SDV like 77 and 88 and let V always win with QQ-AA when he otherwide might fold?

Having a tough time believing though that that optimal line across the entire hand is check everything flop-call or fold turn-jam everything river

Yes! I would keep some flushes for a river jam. But I think the bluffs here are really trying to get value from folding out villain pairs < JJ (in this case we are left with 88-TT). I just don't see QQ-AA folding much which is fine from our perspective in a way. It allows us to value bluff with our rare two pair hands and some sets.

I would rather bluff with hands that we have no shot of winning at showdown than 77 (like A7s). I'm guessing it turns out he has a pair that beats 77 but villain can have Ax or some other non-pair hand with a and we win with no risk!
Yeah, I just think a set plays a little more aggressively. Its possible but villain raises fewer PP's 22-66 than 88-AA. The set he most likely has is JJ.

7c7x seems like close to the nutworst combo to turn into a bruff otr. Agree with call turn and probably mix otf mostly betting.

Pre seems ok as an overcall otb otherwise pretty thin.

A deceptively boring MW hand

True...kinda disappointing after the title teaser but OP did put a lot of (tangential) thought into it.

TYVM

Maybe the title should've has a question mark at the end, would that make you happy?

3-ft putts are often boring yet they're the single most important factor in determining whether or not a golfer wins a tournament.

Free throws in a basketball game are pretty boring, and yet incredibly impactful.

You have posters in this thread say check-back river, others saying jam river. This is in no way a clear-cut or obvious spot.

This was a $109 $40k that eventually had over $50k in the prize pool, or an opportunity to make upwards of 12500% on my investment after 12 hours of work. This particular pot ended up being for a total of 2/3rd my starting stack and even at this stage taking down a 20bb pot when perhaps I otherwise shouldn't means a huge boost to my chances of survival.

In that respect, I don't think there's anything boring about it.

Tbf check back river is unanimous minus me, and you've never seen more chip leads turned into pennies so heed my advice with caution.