Agree his range should be too narrow to have many bluffs, but couldn't he take this line to the turn with AhKx, KxQh, KK or AhAx? Maybe ace-high, queen-high, or T9hh flushes? Granted, most of these hands should probably bet the river, but shouldn't he sometimes reserve hands that are strong enough to check/call with (like KxQh, AhKx, or even AhAx)? And if so, doesn't he need to correlate some value and bluff check/raises even in a pot this size?

Given the line he did take, what's his worst check/calling combos if not AhQx? Maybe 7h7x or 8h8x?

I'm not arguing. I just learn better while swimming upstream and playing devil's advocate. Seems like he needs to check/call some of the time even given his weird line and he can't always be check/calling or check/folding, so why not use his best flushes and like 3 of his best folding combos to xr with? That would be almost exactly 7h7x, 8h8x, and AhQx.

I'm sure I'm making an idiot of myself, but flame away. I want to learn. I don't think you're saying he should never have any turn check/raises, but then I don't understand why he shouldn't have any river check/raises.

Okay never mind. This explains it. It's how each range fairs against the other. OP isn't doing very good at all and therefore should have very few value bets. I got too carried away thinking about balance from villain's POV. Lesson learned!

Agree flop raise is bad.

But I still don't quite understand and it's bugging me so much I'm typing this under the glare of dinner companions at a restaurant...

Even though ranges are incredibly narrow OP can still have KK, maybe JJ, a couple non-nut flushes as well as some bluffs. Doesn't this mean sb should be check/raising river some non-zero % of the time? If not, I really don't understand gto play.

Not every hand has to be a GTO riddle. Especially against a monkey

Going for a double c/r just confuses people. It’s makes them feel stupid or embarrassed so they’re going to check back even more because it looks like you’re trying to c/r again or you have air.

Any hand that can beat the strong hands you mentioned could have just bet/3b

Whether to have a flop raising range here might depend on how opponent will proceed on flops/turns in this spot. Some people will be check-heavy right on the flop. Others will c-bet flop 100% and donk check the turn 60%+. K-high board with a flush draw might polarize things a bit more than usual.

Thanks. This helps. I think what threw me was the flop raise and thinking sb should xr some turns v. a gto player (and then needing to xr some rivers). But a gto player is almost never raising this flop, so that all goes out the window.

Thanks again.

sb should probably have zero checks in his range after 3 betting an utg+2 open. Similarly OP should have almost no raising range on K65hh unless he's using some complicated mixed strategy that's probably best left to a bot and not us humans.

I guess the old Stoxtrader 3!-liberally-from-SB-because-BB-dead-money strategy has fallen out of favor.

I'm calling the villain's flop c-bet not so much because I am afraid of their tight range but instead I want to not divide my continuing range in two. I'd raise the turn. Because I had top pair. Probably raise/fold.

Speaking of Stoxtrader.....what are the best LHE books these days for games like 60-120 and 40-80?

Thanks much.

i don't think i've ever raised a flop hu ip. any thoughts on scenarios where i should?

With draws, depending on a few factors

The liberal 3-bet that Stox addresses was against a first in raiser from late position.

MM

When your opponent will keep raising many times, and you want him to do so.

When he will never reraise and will always check the turn, and you want him to do so.

i understand if you want to exploit someone that's spewy when you have a strong hand. i'm talking about anyone competent. your second sentence doesn't make sense to me. pretty much everyone's checking most turns and we can still always get c/r'd. imo raising flop with any value hand with plans to check back turn seems bad and tells me we should always plan to be betting majority of turns when raising flop so wanting villain to c/ has no merit if we're betting anyway. it seems more like we're putting ourselves out of position and are the only ones giving information for the TEMPORARY gain of .5 bet.

fwiw i'm not even talking about specifically this range situation. i'm struggling to figure out any situation where it would be good/balanced.

wow, there is NO WAY your read is right if the villain plays like this on anything resembling a normal basis:

after you BET the river after having raised the flop and called his turn k/r, what in the world does he put you on? if he thought you would believe he had a flush, the turn call should dissuade him from that line of thought, especially b/c the river was just an offsuit jack.

there's no draws you could have that missed that would be forced to bet to try to win that he could k/r you off of, and there's 0 hands you'd go through all that action with, then bet for value, and now fold to this last bet due to the jack coming on the river.

even the turn k/r isn't great. i queried cepheus and the bot never k/r's AhQx here. it just check calls. it only checkraises: super strong hands, top pair with heart kicker, made flushes, with {QhJs,JdTh,JsTh,JhTs,QhTs,Ah9c and a few others} cepheus k/r's the turn (but remember this is heads up and i had to fudge the preflop action a bit in order to get to this turn) between 15% (Ah9c)-50% (QhTs) of the time.

recursively it seems that removal of the Q is a big deal. and after playing with cepheus's bot query for quite a bit (http://poker.srv.ualberta.ca/strategy#) it seems card removal is a BIG determinant of what actions it takes on the margin. here, cepheus wants its opponent to have all manner of Q and T-containing hands, which is why it k/rs the Ah9 but not the AhQ nor AhTx nor AxTh.

Would you raise flop with AK?

No

Turn?

That’s somewhat the idea. On this dry a board you want to call so many hands that you should have raise virtually nothing, so you can raise sine stuff on the turn depending on the card

no i would not raise the flop with ak

The flops where given the strength of your ranges you are going to fold a lot and your opponent knows this so that your call alone is enough to induce defensive actions on the turn.

Yeah I mean a huge reason why people habitually bet the turn with like 99 in these spots when it's EP open v SB 3 bet as SB is because peeling ranges are such ****box due to the fact that people habitually raise the flop w/ their top pairs and flush draws.

So would you raise KJ on, say, K72r?