8 handed HeroUTG As 5s Villain SBxx blinds 800/400
Hero raise 1600 sb call Flop: Kc 8 4 hero bets 1500 sb calls turn 2c check through river 3c sb bets 5000 hero raises 15300 Villain jams all in
Hero chip stack 65k effective
Villain 85k effective

How would you have played this hand? Let me know, thanks!

I'd call. Don't love it, but you beat all the sets and two pair combinations that could be doing this. Think 43, K2, etc. Back door flush is not super likely, nor is 56. If you lose to either it's basically a cooler.

In cash you can consider finding folds in this kind of situation (still would be very opponent specific to fold here) but in tournaments you really can't afford to pass up this kind of spot.

I probably just call the 5000 river bet by SB. SB would call with 65s on the flop. SB would also call with a pair and BDFD. SB would possibly call with AXs clubs as well.

But if I am raising to 15300 then I am folding to a jam.

The likelihood of SB having 44/88/K8s/K4s is slim because there would have been a c/r on the flop mostly. In theory SB can have 22. It's just not likely that SB jams with anything worse than 65 here because your raise is powerful on the river and polarized. There are potentially some bluffs by SB but not a lot. A8 and A4 which are hands that SB shouldn't have called pre-flop with, but even if they did it's not balanced so if they are bluffing then so be it.

I think you have to bet that turn if you are going to cbet A5ss in this spot. I think I favor checking back flop honestly as we don’t have one or two spades for more cards we can barrel.

I think I sigh call river. Some bad live players may think a set or two pair is super nutty here? Might exploit fold to the right player profile (somebody that never doesn’t have 56 here). Hmm 56 suited is the only hand a villian should be flatting from sb there and even 56 suited is a little iffy of a call oop (I think it’s a call on charts if suited but still a little close bc it’s going to lead to a lot of x folds on a flop favoring an ep opener).

I would sigh call and just rebuy ha. A5 is super disguised here. Idk I think you gotta hammer turn with like 50-70% bet and give up on river if called and we don’t hit a 3. Idk if you are cbetting this bad hand on that flop, why not bet turn also and take a shot. Like we need to have a barrel range if we cbet this meh hand and the card on turn is perfect for a barrel (we can happily fold to a x raise on the turn).

I’m more a fan of a range c bet in this spot if it’s only against a bb defend. Sb is kk going to have a lot of kq/ kj kx hands here. K7-k10 suited). I think I would just check this flop as there is no spade on the flop. If there is a spade on flop, we can barrel any 2,3 or spade and probably bet an A but check back river as A5 is not the type of hand we are getting 3 streets from a worse hand.

Another little side note about terminology. The effective stack is 65K. You don't each have an effective stack size, you have one. When heads-up, if one player has more than the other (usually the case), the effective stack is the smaller of the two stacks. It is called the effective stack, because if you only have 65K it doesn't matter if the other guy has 85K or 3 million, you are only playing for 65K. This is why we call it effective stack size, to differentiate from stack size.

Yeah that's probably right on both counts.

The backdoor clubs come in too.

Any reads, including stakes and live v. online, matter here, because I feel like it's pretty rare that anyone is bet/3-bet bluffing the river here unless they're world-class or total maniacs. And live especially at lower stakes I feel like even non-nut flushes will just call your raise.

I might just flat the 2/3 pot river bet unless I was sure he was willing to value bet weaker and would still call a raise.

I would definitely bet the turn - great board for the PFR and it might eliminate all non Kx hands if you bet the turn along with you having equity. River call vs raise is interesting - we get value from sets, I'm not sure what he does with Kx. I think raising works better at higher stakes with the opponent thinking you're turning something into a bluff, where at lower stakes I don't know if they call with KQ/KJ. It's an easy fold to the jam - on the river they are value betting maybe KQ/KJ,sets,straight,flushes and when we raise they're jamming only flushes. We also look more bluff/nut heavy as we checked the turn, although we probably bet flush draws on the turn. Essentially they would have to have a hand like A8/77/66 and go YOLO on the river against a weird line from you that is rarely bluffed.