I haven''t posted a hand in a while, but the recent activity has me motivated:

GG200Z

Reg opens UTG for 2.5bb - he is slightly too loose. My notes on him are:
decently thinking, but way too agressive
3bets too light
plays too many hands

He has these smaller openings, which I notice a lot of regs at zoom have and I think it's because of hte messed up points system for zoom tables at GGPoker

We are BB with K 5 5 4 and due to my read I decide to take a little the worst of it and call. Also, for 2.5bb open size I think this might be fine.

Flop (5.5BB): 8 6 2

This is a big blind range board and I have the gutshot and backdoor second nut clubs so I lead for B50 he calls.

Turn(11BB): 4
I lead again for pot. He calls.

My thinking: I pick up the club draw and a pair and I have the 55 blockers.

River(33bb): J

Hero ? To bluff or not to bluff - that is the question.

pot it blocking both straights. nh.

Pot seems good. Seems like one of the best hands you'll have to triple barrel bluff here imo.

Ok, let’s reverse it. What is the minimum hand you are calling with as villain?

86 and straight card and no club?

It's a good question I'm really not sure.

That's a good question. My call range might change vs certain players. I also play low stakes live and I feel I might overfold so I might not be qualified to answer this, take that into consideration. I still think it's good to answer, maybe I'll learn something. Live players don't triple barrel bluff low dry boards like this nearly as much as they probably should.

Vs an unknown on the river I might be overfolding but I'm likely only calling 2p+ unless I want to bluff catch with AA/KK. This smashes bb range and they've bet into me every street when I'm still uncapped, though if they are a thinking player and know I play the correct ranges, they'll know I shouldn't have really any sets (maybe 88XXds I guess). There are some straights in my range but bb defend will have them more often. I don't see them doing this with just a 2, 6, 8, or smaller overpair. It'd be pretty ambitious to try to rep a set with just a single pair. The only bluffs that seems like they'd make sense would be 54XX, 97XX, 55XX, 77XX and/or a pair that turned a flush draw.

River seems like a clear bet - I wonder what villain would do with 86 here. You do donk lead which is suspect - I would venture to say you have a lot more bluffs in this line than value so that's my only concern. I don't think villain folds 2 pr+ here, just a matter of how much overcard + FD or something to that effect they have.

villain not the only one playing too many hands...haha.

Follow through on the riv.

I imagine we call this hand preflop to bluff in spots like this lol

I actually don't know what people are worked up about preflop. In a sim, vs an UTG raiser for a standard 3.5x open this is a marginal fold with high rake, indifferent hand with medium rake, and a marginal call with low rake, so it's reasonable to assume that vs a 2.5x open vs someone who is looser than optimal this hand is "ok" to see a flop with.

Yes, as I stated in my OP it's definitely a borderline threshold hand to get in there and muck around with but I'm usually the pre-flop police of this forum and this hand gets a pass.

I bet pot on the river and he tanked. It's really tough for him to have 86 here, J8 is also hard, two pair hands are very hard I think. His UTG range just doesn't hit this board. I think it's a very hard spot for UTG here (I hope).

Donking these flops is not suspect and I think it's something that most regs, myself included and it's an active focus to improve, do not do enough of. As to the bolded part I think that is what I really wanted to discuss in this hand without explicitly commenting on it. I think on the flop I have a lot of decent equity bluffs, some marginal pair blocker hands with decent equity and top two pair. I think with this run out, 57 and 53 both get there and they would make up a big part of my range so I think I am getting to this river with a LOT of 2 pair+ hands following this exact line.

On the flop I'm probably checking most sets, looking for a check raise, as well as 97:(8,6,2,TT-AA), also looking for a check raise.

I agree with everything you just said, except..

I believe he should have some hands that hit this board. It just shouldn't be near as many as you though. Most of the time he will likely be in a tough spot. Which means..

this is a good flop for this when it comes to BB vs UTG. It'd be even better if the 8 was a 4 since low straight boards favor the OOP player but equities can still be a little competitive. Donk leading isn't suspect. You shouldn't be doing it at a high frequency but we need these in our strategy. I think you can have a good mix of bluffs and value hands here. I like the aggression since UTG should probably be checking back a fair amount of hands.

I think potting river is good, but I disagree that this board doesn't hit him because you already said he's slightly too loose and plays too many hands. Maybe your definition and my definition of too loose vary. Because of the way the hand was played, it is hard to see him calling a river bet unless he backed into JJJ or just doesn't believe you.

My comment "the board doesn't hit him" was meant in a relative sense. Yes, he will have some board coverage, but much less than I have as the BB defender. That's more what I meant.

For loose vs tight his vpip is often in the mid 30's whereas I think mid 20s is more sensible. This is GG so I don't 'really have stats on him, but just the GG Hud and I kind of mentally note where his "normal" vpip is. He's not extremely loose but definitely looser than normal.

I disagree, but it depends on your definition of high frequency. I think we need to be finding lead bets 20-30% on these types of boards, which is a lot IMO. FlopHero is betting 28% of the time on these boards, and with 54 that goes up to 50% of the time and it predominantly wants to B75 or B100, so my sizing was off here on the flop and I wasn't sure about sizing.

I meant donk betting isn't suspect but in general you shouldn't at a high frequency. A lot of NLH players transitioning to PLO see donking as unorthodox since it's very uncommon to do in NLH. In PLO it's far more common.

I didn't mean for it to sound directed at this hand.

Yeah pot river it’s like the best card in the deck lol.

PS: fold your dogshit pre Mark :P merry Xmas!

Results:

I pot river and get called by AAcc (can't remember side cards right now, but I remember they were irrelevant to the river call, except clubs helped him get to river).

I agree that it is a bluff but this caught me by surprise as I don't think I find a call with AA.