Thoughts on this line? I think ideally I would have a club in my hand to raise the flop. My rational was essentially it's very hard / not productive for him to 3bet me on the flop, and I will be able to steal the pot on a variety of run outs. I also block a reasonable amount of his continuing range.

If he checks a club river are we bluffing?

Turn sizing felt awkward. If I pot he will get it in with a lot of hands I really want him to fold on the river (aces up, massive combo draw + pair, ace + fd).

Villain is suspected to be a recreational player.

As you know from my previous posts, I don't play higher than .25 / .50 at the moment, so my replay may have little value.

First off, if my understanding is correct, BB is quite likely holding a jack and seeing that you don't have any kings and none are on the board, it seems more likely that one is in his hand. While he might not only have a flush draw, it doesn't seem to be a stretch that he has clubs and a gutshot. From the looks of it, you're repping aces from preflop on and no matter how much pressure you apply, even after the flop brings an ace, he's not folding. So, what is he calling such strong bets with? If you were the BB what would you be calling such strong bets with?

Let's say that you had middle or bottom pair or a set, the nfd and a gut shot, would you fold if the board didn't pair on the turn? I'd think that a recreational player would take a check call line and fold on the river if it he didn't hit his hand. As a tight-weak recreational player myself, that's likely the line that I'd take.

Again, you've repped aces from preflop on, so what do you think he's calling the river with, based on the way that you're playing? If you have a set of aces, he's unlikely to call two pair and since he's checked, you have a set of tens and you're going to take it down anyway, unless he has the straight and you know he's not folding that. My thoughts are that your river bet - at least full pot - is a mistake.

Here's my questions: What's your image at the table? LAG, I assume? What's his image? How many hands did you have on him? Other than a flush draw, what did you think he was holding?

Thanks for the thorough analysis. Here are some of my thoughts.

I’m not sure about a BB leading range on this board. In real time I was having a hard time figuring out what hand he could have. I thought potentially bottom set, which has such poor run outs I can likely force to fold. Him having a combo draw also seems reasonable.

I also agree with most recreational players trying to make their hand and then check folding river when they miss.

I expected on the river for him to be jamming all of his straights. Precisely because it looks like I am repping AA and he would be concerned I would simply check back.

It was a 6max table but we had been playing heads up for a while. I didn’t have that many hands on him (the reason I expect he is a rec).

I thought checking back river would be a bit of a disaster if he showed down bottom set. I really didn’t think top 2 would be in his range. I thought he might try and hero with bottom set and I could occasionally lose to QQ.

If I knew top 2 is in his range I would be much more confident jamming. Because top 2 is always checking this river, but always calling especially with a king or a jack.

Note this is way higher than I've ever played online, but...

I had a lot of concerns/problems/questions about this hand and none of them were about shoving the river for 60% pot or w/e it is.

At first glance it looks like you just went psycho with nothing and got there, after reading your thoughts it's difficult to come to a different conclusion. Like if you had K:clubs:QxJx4x, I would have just shrugged and assumed you knew what you were doing, even though I probably wouldn't do it.

I guess my main thoughts are: 1) what are you not bluff raising flop with (just middle cards?). 2) What dump truck full of combos are you "value" raising here? 3) What are the terrible runouts he's going to fold when he gets here with this and calls?

I think we can find hands with much better equity with which to semi-bluff than this. I don't think you need this hand (gs+bdfd) in your range to be balanced - if you are going for balance at these stakes (I dunno if we just still play exploitative mainly against most Vs).

I'd prefer to include combos with a front door flush draw.

Also, speaking of exploitative play, I HATE trying to "bluff" (or whatever this was) a presumed to be recreational player especially. Very bad idea. Really don't like this line across the board, sorry.

You don’t need to be sorry that you disagree with my line haha

Not going for balance versus the non regs. there are recs that are more likely to put money in the pot that I don’t want to bluff, but I think there’s also recs that love to fold too much. So I think it’s a game of identifying as quickly as possible.

I think I reacted poorly to the donk. This isn’t a hand I would check raise for example. I just felt like a donk on this board was so exploitable that I should take action it.

I basically did “go psycho and get there”

I’m way over bluffing in this spot versus this player, I expected to be able to get him to fold on bricks, as well as clubs and straightening cards if I was checked to on the river.

This isn’t a play I would make again versus this player clearly he had a strong hand.

But I might make it versus an unknown or somebody I suspected to be tight not really sure.

Are you serious? I've always pictured you as playing 2.50 / 5 and higher.

Is it because a presumed recreational player is more likely to call? If not, why?

To be fair I assumed it was an open game, not pokerbros. I've played 1/2 and 2/4 (lol) on private app. games, and played 2.5/5 live, but in both cases almost all the opponents are/were worse than in open 0.10c/0.25c online games (often significantly so). So there's this weird spot where if someone is a significant winner over a large sample at 0.5/1 on pokerstars they are almost certainly better than I am, even though I've "played higher".

Yes, I think they are generally more likely to call - "you got it, you got it" mentality. I'd need evidence that a particular person bet/folds a lot or is on the tighter side postflop before considering this move.

Thought about it a little bit more I think a much more effective exploit is just betting 100% of range when checked to on this flop.

Are you asking a question about player tendencies online or a theory question?

I think as a theory question it's a bad hand to bluff flop with. I don't see the need to have such a dry hand in your bluffing range on this flop. I would save dry bluffs for nuttier boards like QQx or 972 monotone or whatever.

Here just some random 5xyz hand with hearts and a lot of backdoor straight draws would work a lot better.

I took a look at a similar board in PLO trainer - AsJs3c

Obviously the big blind shouldn't really be donking. The program has it at 1.5%.

facing 3/4ths without a spade in my hand I should only be raising TT with a 3 or a J. But those hands are raising at high frequency. So the line makes sense afaik from a solver perspective. I'm not sure if it's effective given a rec player is extremely unlikely to even be attempting balance in this spot. And I'm not sure if my rational behind raising is correct.

I don't get the play. You don't really have good blockers. You have 2 10s to block wraps, so I guess that's something, but I still would of picked a better spot. If you had 2 10's and a A or a K of clubs, I would think this was a good bluff spot, but 8 of clubs, isn't quite good enough imo.

But anyways, what's really confusing to me, is why you only $40 on the turn. You should of just gave up or jammed Pot River if the high straight completed.

No hand is folding for $40. All you are doing is giving them better odds to call a River Jam. It doesn't make any sense.

I only have the 8 of spades

turn sizing was admittedly awkward. For the same reasons as the flop I don't think him raising me is useful for him on the turn. The issue is I believe his range is going to be all bluffcatchers at this point, but at the same time my value will absolutely need some protection and be betting on the turn. And I wanted to keep decisions on the river to keep my positional advantage.

Typo. But if you felt like his range was bluff catchers, you should of just check bet when your potential bluff hands complete. IE: Reping a flush/straight.

Interesting, but those hands are in a different category from yours right? JT has the gutshot and TT3x blocks more straights (which it can bluff). But also neither of them has a Q which gives them less showdown value, I guess.

Still I didn't realize you need to bluff hands that dry, so I think I was wrong on the general principle here.

JTTx on AJ3 has no gutshot mostly. I believe there will be more straights by the river on AJ3 though. I talked in a discord server with some people about the line - probably still extremely spewy because this donk range has got to be unbalanced to value the vast majority of the time. I believe just folding and paying extra close attention for example if he donks again on this board.

Flop was AQ5, hence the gutshot with JT. Maybe I misunderstood your post.

I’m not sure what happens on the AQ5 flop. The AJ3 was the closest thing I could find on trainer. The main pattern I recognized was pair blocker + TT which blocks some of their continuing range and lends its self to bluffing on Broadway completing turns / rivers. So TTJx or TT3x were bluffing on that board even without any flush card.

On AQ5 I would expect same pattern (TTQx, TT5x)

Does it only continue bluffing on those broadway turns? Giving up on turn 245?

Also I feel like we should agree that villain in this hand wasn't donking 1.5% ... so that is kind of relevant.

I have heard going down low frequency lines gives results that have to be taken with a grain of salt.

I can check later though.

I felt like it was a board where I had such a range advantage after raising it would be profitable.

For example if this was a 3bet pot where i squeezed a hand that flopped very little equity and my opponent leads for 1/3rd or some nonsense On AK5 or whatever, I would expect aggression to be the best play.

For me the worst case scenario is he is betting to see if I have a strong hand or something. And then if I am raising my strong hands and folding my weak ones he is actually playing perfectly against me.

Villain is leading into you on a flop that is supposed to hit us so that is usually quite strong. He can have many aces with flushdraw think on this flop so isn't likely to fold. So not to keen on raising but ok it might work.

Then also our line doesn't tell a great story. We raise the flop like we have 2pair+ and then bet half pot on the turn when we are supposed to protect our hand well vs the flushdraw with little money behind would for a mad hand a close to pot bet.

Then river we get lucky though we don't know if we are good. Think we can still shove but not to be sure of winning.

OTT I don’t think I’m that polar.

I can have a lot of Ax with gutter + clubs for example.

However on the turn i was mainly thinking I should bet small because I wanted to be able to make him fold when checked to on a scare card OTR.