5/5/10 big O, 5 handed

hero is SB with ~4500, whale in the straddle with around 3k and a good villain opens the button to 40 with around 2500.

villain is either a pro or a very strong reg, hero's image should be solid, maybe a bit tight. V has been opening a fair bit in position over small sample, as he should, but have not seen him do it with trash or get way out of line post.

hero decides to flat with AAQT2ss in order to keep the whale in the hand, whale also flats

flop 883 with two diamonds, hero has nut diamonds

checks to V who bets 125, hero flats, whale folds

turn 8

check, V bets 250, hero calls

river 4d

hero checks, V bets 475


felt this hand played out somewhat odd since i was so under-repped and really looking to play with the whale. could probably raise on any street but wondering about the merits of each vs. keeping V wide at various points. i think one of us is getting quartered here pretty often, more likely him than me, but he is opening enough to have random 8 with his low sometimes.

I think all streets are fine as long as you XR river.

River I think Hero should lead sometimes.

Key point is 5h vs whale in BB, btn can open pretty wide - Hero is gonna scoop here more than 50% of the time.

There is 1-2% chance at most Hero is getting quartered. Note that when hero gets quartered it also means villain took a very greedy line on the flop with a hand noy needing much protection, so we may want to discount those numbers much more if villain isn't a pot-all-the-time type player.

basically i wanna 3b pre vast majority of the time, mostly cause monster, and then if your whale is a true whale he's gonna call anyway.

if your whale is the type to throw in a raise here if you flat then flatting makes some sense so that perhaps BTN reraises or calls, and you of course get to bang it in. but you better know your player if you're gonna do that. then obviously if your whale is the kind who's gonna raise your 3b a lot anyway, now 3-betting is better lol.

i dunno what to do with this hand honestly lol. like i don't think i want my range to only have boats and trips here if i raise, but i feel like if we raise we chase out all worse hands and let his A28's etc. play as big a pot as he wants. blocking the AA and nut diamonds leaves our opponents with more of those hands we might chase off, too. i guess i call?

turn, idk, i guess i call for a lot of same flop reasons?

river... agree that maybe sometimes you just lead here because i think turn is gonna be a standard barrel card for IP, such that when diamond comes OTR he's gonna just check back more than we'd like. additionally, if IP has an underboat i do think OOP check/calling twice on the 883 and 8 turn is gonna make the underboat freak out a good amount by the river.

i think with say AA279 i'd feel a lot more weighted to a river checkraise, as IP has full range of broadway pairs with which to put in that extra bet. blocking QT feels somewhat relevant here.

whale was very passive preflop but defending his straddle probably 80-90% vs a single raise. there was not a lot of 3betting in this game but he was the type to play a somewhat sane range against serious aggression, so flatting just seemed best.

is the diamond really that relevant on the river? i mentioned it because it affects combos but don't think it really changes anything for the high side.

I wouldn't think twice pre, just push equity when you get the chance. It's a very good hand, especially HU. Post wp, assuming c/r river. I think you could also bet small intending to call a raise, but c/r seems just better with this hand to get the maximum from weaker A2.

ah, neat

so i suppose that implies that most A2 is v-betting river sizably despite the turn pair/river flush? and pot being embiggened on every street thus far?

guess i'm just kinda thinking in this big pot that A2xxx doesn't necessarily have enough high value to bet river with a high enough frequency (i would have assumed drawing range advantages go to OOP check/caller)

perhaps this is just a function of - OOP didn't 3b pre, "doesn't really have aces" and therefore IP is just abusing that advantage?

Mostly that, yes. Hero should never have AA2 here, but villain should be worried about A82. I just think especially against these sizings (2/3 turn, 1/2 river) Hero is close to never getting quartered, but villain has hands that will 1)bet the river, thinking that they get folds and when called will be splitting a lot and 2)at least consider calling the c/r with hands that are either quartered or even scooped (AKK with a good low).

ah gotcha, thanks. i mean yeah i figure you can never not checkraise river, all things considered. it's just me weighing IP's incentive to bet river to begin with (given specific key cards in hand) that had me unsure. like if i have A4, i'm not sure how i even get to the river past that turn bet, without a FD - and if i have A4 + flush OTR i'm not folding now that i got there, so i'm perhaps struggling to think of enough hands that get to the river that wanna now fold river.

so basically the incentives are still just strong enough for IP to be betting frequently OTR - given OOP's flat pre, check/call flop and check/call turn line.

i suppose if we're IP, this IP bet is often something like A239T to try and make AK4xx/AQ4xx fold? or A4 underboat (though i guess that'd never really fold for same reasons A4/flush wouldn't by the river). but something along those lines?

Though Hero does have maybe half of his A82 in this line (maybe should split it between checking river and betting river though), plus some 8 without A2, which means there are a lot of natural check-raises. So you don't really need to be c/r:ing AA2 here for any defensive reason.

I also agree with you that having two high cards is bad. It's just that I think c/r works best here because people are betting a lot of hands they shouldn't be betting.

I understand your point. I would never bet AT2 OTR as villain, because I'd be very suspicious of Hero having A82, AKK2 etc, but that's just me. It quite heavily depends on whether villain thinks Hero still has lots of his A82 after three checks.

ahh, cool fantastic

thanks for explaining