I play the 55's so maybe this is above my head. I'll give it a shot anyway.

Situation one:
J's and A's should be a hefty part of your range after flop action, so on the turn you often have something decent. Therefore, I don't think it's a good spot for him to bluff the river with missed hearts.

Also, I don't see him valuebetting J's on the river. A better A's I think could value+blocker bet, but I don't think he would bet this big.

I think villain decided he's not getting 3 streets of value barreling big with a 5, so he got fancy.


Situation two:
- Mandatory bet imo. I think our value is mainly coming from J's so we need to bet accordingly. I like something between 1/3 and 1/2 pot.

Why do you put Ax in his flop donking range? I personally think donking Ax here *ever* is pretty bad. Especially the Ax range that doesn't 3bet, and especially because you have the ace of hearts.

Also, do we actually like villain's line if he has 5x? If I were going to donk in the first place (which I do pretty rarely anyway), I think I like donking all 3 streets better than donk/check/donk.

scenario 1 is muchos easy snap call

scenario 2 I think b/f most of the time.. maybe b/call if you have a good reason to

(bet around 360)

why is A8 a good line yet 5x is not... they both beat Ax. Their relative had strengths are almost identical (disregarding the v rare times when hero has AJ)

Some consideration to blocker effects perhaps, but not majorly important

this, wtf is up with people saying shove on scenario 1. i can see calling vs a fish, but thats it.

also, scenario 2 is a std bet fold spot imo, he can deff have Jx given the 5T hand, and he isn't going to bluff you much cause we rep 5x and Ax so well (people assume you would raise your air on the flop, instead of floating, most of the time, i think).

My shot, assuming villain is decent / thinking:

Scenario 1: There's nothing we beat except a J and busted hearts. I don't think he would bet the river with a J, and because we're basicly reppint a J / 5 / A, I don't think he'll be bluffing too much of his missed hearts. We chop with a bunch of aces of course. I think we should fold, but in game I probably call.

Scenario 2: What hands give us value if we bet? He could consider folding a J there, or check-shoving both monsters and some bluffs if we bet. If villain is decent, I might be a nit and check behind on the river.

Don't you think people more often take non-standard lines for value? bcz on level 1 villian must know that those line will get looked up WAAAY more often than a regular c/r, bet bet line for example, bcz they doesn't make any sense and polarize his range to either rly strong or rly air-bollz. I don't think people have the guts very often to take that line with air simply bcz they don't want to look rly stupid to the other reg.

With that said, if he's sick-good and knows that you know that he should know that and he's creative enough to take advantage of that, then I think it could be a bluff.

Fail i guess, but sticking with folding one and betting 210-300 in 2.

Scenario 1: (sorry a bit of rambling here) I call, but don't feel great about it. If I were villain playing vs you (although I'd never take this line with anything), I would actually think there's a pretty good chance you don't have Ax. I'd think you floated my flop donk pretty wide & the ace is a good card for you to stab on with random flop floats. I'd also think you (like most players) are going to check back Ax on the turn for pot control/disguise/whatever so I have a good chance of picking up the pot with my missed heart draw with a river bluff.

With that said, it is a weird line and I'm sure villain shows up with 5x here a lot too.

A major factor in my decision making on these hands is what happened on the last couple hands and how we think that will affect the likelihood of him making a bluff like this here. I would put more emphasis on that than the fact that he is 0-2 against you.

Scenario 2: Bet/Fold

I would have thought hitting this ace on the turn was a must bet.

I think it's a must bet without Ax. It's a maybe with Ax.

The reason to bet Ax on the turn is to get 2 streets of value from a jack or to charge draws. However, betting can put you in a tough spot that may cause you to fold a winner. You might want to avoid this kind of spot by checking turn depending how much value you think it costs you. This hand is 100x times simpler and prob not even postworthy if the turn goes c/c.

yeah i didnt really say it was good but just think it is a line i could see someone taking when they hit there 8 with A8.

dont think i ever fold here in game but these lines are prob value most of the time because decent players dont take these weird lines as a bluff bcos they know they dont rep much

optimal play is not avoiding tough spots

as this post hints, I folded irl vs. 5x (I did not tell you that you were awful though ). Not a brag post though, trying to figure out if this was actually correct, and if so, why, because I didn't really know why. My reasoning was that he c/r or 3bets many flush draws and his c/c turn should take out a ton of non-fd air in his range, so other than some weird multi-street play or FD missed (trying to get me to fold what?) it was a ton of 5x. Still not sure if that is correct or if I just happened to guess right and it's a bad fold in general.

He also asked me if I bet the river when checked to and I wasn't 100% sure of answer so figured might as well ask that too.

continue with discussion

I hope you don't mind me giving input, since I play on a lower level. But here are the factors that I consider relevant:

-Would villain barrel a J on the turn (If he would donk a J on this board, it's not quite the same board as 544 board since you have a lot less overs to float)?
-Would villain donk the flop and ch-call the turn with a PP lower than T's?
-Is your floating range heavily weighed towards Ax (or does villain think so)?

If the first is false, a riverbet seems good. If the second question would be true, a riverbet seems also better. If the third question is true, villain might have some flushdraws in his range that he feels he can't profitability (is that the correct adjective?) barrel so he might have decided to check-call.

I'm unsure about the river bet-sizing if villain decided to check. It depends a lot on how much air (turned straightdraws mostly) villain puts in our range. I'd bet 340 but that's only because I think it looks nice to bet 340 into a 540 pot.

@ Predator, I don't think I'm ever not betting in this spot to avoid a difficult decision, and I think I would rather get value on turn than the river for the times he has a FD.

Folding to the river lead prob comes with doubt because of how narrow his value range is. We would be a lot more comfortable folding to a heart river, and with more combo's we are more convinced this often "nuts line" is what it is - hence less combo's, less happy. But as much as his range is narrower, I'm still convinced he has it.

I hear this a lot from many respected players, but I strongly disagree with it. There is nothing wrong with avoiding tough spots at all.

Poker is all about making correct decisions and if we are able to avoid putting ourselves in difficult situations (ie tough spots), we'll make less wrong ones.

Of course, at the end of the day, we want to make the highest EV plays and sometimes that means avoiding a tough spot so we don't end up making a bad fold/call (that would cost us value). Sometimes it means putting ourself in a tough spot (and accepting that we'll make a bad decision some % of the time) because we'd be losing too much value on our hand otherwise.

Sorry for the rant. I don't want to derail the thread on this since it's an interesting hand and a spot I have trouble with a lot too (obv since I advocated the call ).

Yeah, I'm betting this turn and river almost always here also and I agree with your analysis on getting value from the FD's. It's just my experience that some % of players will check back an ace on this turn while a much smaller % will check back turn with a random flop float, which is why a good villain might think hero does not have Ax a lot of the time.

So anybody that's folding the river, what's the best hand you fold? I think if I have Ax with any kicker that plays (which really leaves only A8, and AJ+), I'm probably calling 100% of the time.

Which is weird, given that I don't think Ax is actually in a good villain's range very often. I'm absolutely positive I'd convince myself it could be at the time though.

i soulread for a 5 and fold anything less in this spot, maybe make a bad call with a8 or aj though "just in case"

I do agree there is some logic in avoiding tough spots, especially if you think villain may have random bluff mode on. But I wouldn't consider being c/r on the turn or river in this pot as "tough spot", especially when the pot to stack ratio is quite small

Tough spots are tough either because you're not very good, or because it's close to irrelevant which decision you make, the equity is pretty close (which is what makes it tough). "Wrong decisions" in tough spots is whatever, if it's a tough spot either it's because you can't figure out that it's not a tough spot or because it's close, in which OK, not a big mistake either way.

Your third paragraph is dead on. Poker is not about making correct decisions, it's about maximizing equity, usually what you do in very close spots doesn't have much of an impact on that.

Sometimes this is confused with other mantras. For example, c-betting "makes the hand easier to play" in a lot of situations but that's a proxy for saying it has better equity, it's not that we're really worried about complicated scenarios from checking behind.