Five handed. Hero opens UTG/HJ with AKJ5. Only BB calls. BB is looser preflop than average and skillfull postflop.

Board comes out J489K. Hero cbets flop and bet-calls turn. Facing BB river bet, is Hero's hand an easy fold on river?

I am not sure if I am reading this correctly, but did the BB check raise the turn?

if so, they are representing a TQ of 7T straight, trips, 2pr, diamond flush draw, bluff?

you called with draws - low, spade flush, trips, 2 pair

so to call river you need 2 BB to possibly win a pot of 16.5 BB?

you can beat the 2 pr or bluff


what do they think of you? have you raised pre-flop with more than great low draws before?

I would probably call (maybe even raise), as the other seems skilled enough to try and push you off the pot more than 15% of time.

Yes. You read it correctly.

It is hard for me to see BB check-raises turn and then bet river with only turn made two pairs. Diamond flush gets there on river too. Please enlarge my imagination about his possible bluffs.

Yes. I am pretty sure. Do you mean that if my preflop range at the spot is too heavy with "great low draws", my turn bet is of too much low draw and too light on hi?

I like the idea of raise. Very creative!

I don't even play this game, but from what I know about poker, this combo seems like an obvious call. Raising seems silly, we have plenty of better candidates for that.

I don't disagree with you per se, but having spades in our hand and zero straight blockers makes me hate this particular combo. That said top two is top two

Yes, maybe calling it an "obvious call" is taking it too far. It's not the best calling hand we have here. Just saying we are rather high in our range and have good odds to call (duh).

We can call river, its a crying call (minimal tears) but hope villain has enough random qx and tx betting again here, maybe even a thin worse 2p.

That being said, i think this hand is a very good candidate to check turn.

Stakes are not mentioned in post, but in lower stakes games villains will bluff a MUCH lower frequency. Against gto opponent i think river call is standard.

If you consider folding this hand on the river, how often are you calling? Sets that you probably don't have, straights that you probably don't have, leaves flushes. I'm not saying you need to aim to be a gto-bot, just try to not leave yourself so open to be c/r-barreled into oblivion on boards where you don't have a huge amount of strong hands.

Some players rarely raise pre-flop and when they do usually it is a premium low hands like AA2x ds or 4 wheel cards. Rarely will someone open late with only Broadway hands.

Their possible bluff is anything. They were priced in pre-flop with the call. On the turn with no low on board and new draws, they could have decided they were going to see if they can push you off the pot by check raising the turn and betting river if no low.

That is why I suggested possibly a re-raise river option. If they had a straight or even lower flush, you put them back into an uncomfortable position (unless they have Ace high flush).

Limit is different than pot limit. Once the pot grows decent size, you need to estimate pot size, pot odds for call, whether dealing with scoop or split (multi-split).

It's not a re-raise, it's a raise. You shouldn't be trying to put villains into uncomfortable position, you should try to make plays that maximize your EV. Turning this exact hand into a bluff has very little merit.

I think call is fine - we just don't need to feel obligated to pay off here. For example we need to win 11% of the time for call to be ev and villain might have worse lets day 16% of the time. Sure we can always justify a call, but the difference is small enough that we can use reads to fold 100% against certain opponents. Against a weak/spazzy player maybe hero is good 40-50% of time, but against tight/uncreative players its closer to 1%.

As for what other hands do call. To make it simple: calling all straights and sets. Folding the majority of 2p but not 2p with k and another pair. Other 2p need blockers or to unblock flush draws to qualify, etc. We can also call some jx, qq, kx and aa with q or t blockers (and/or similarly unblock flush draws). And we will feel better calling some 1p hands with blockers than kj with no blockers and spades blocked.



Re: do i like villain's play with spoiled hand? - need to know sidecards first

Thanks! You all are truly the best.

I mean, we are getting 8 to 1 but all we are beating is a pure bluff. Diamonds got there and him betting a lower two pair on that board is suicidal