I don't mind the play. If the fish can have unpaired hands on the turn its good. If he doesn't, it's bad. But targeting better ace highs from the TAG is fine. To put it another way, it's fairly disastrous if the fish can have lots of unpaired hands on the turn, be still unpaired on the river, and the river gets checked through and you lose to AJ. The pot is big so sticking in 1 bet as a bluff is fine given the odds we're getting on a bluff. Must reiterate - if the fish's range consists largely of paired hands by the river, the bluff is dumb.

So.... you're betting the river for value?

I think it's too thin, but you can get called by worse for sure.

I do take issue with "you should never check this turn with any hand in your range". I think A9 KQ KJ type hands with no flush draw are definitely candidates to check if either of these guys slowplays until the turn a lot.

So like they're more likely to fold when our hand is weaker?

I think he is bluffing.

No.

If we are going to bet the river at all, it should be with the very bottom of our range, especially with two players in the pot. A9dd is one notch above the very bottom of our range and so should be checked behind in any event.

Why the very bottom of our range? Because we should build our bluffing range from the bottom up (just as we build our value-betting range from the top down), with the hands in our range that have the very least showdown value, preferably none at all. If there is a chance that the CO raiser is doing so with as weak as suited A8, then our A9, one notch above the very bottom of our range as it is, now has a few shreds of showdown value, and so should not be bluff-bet.

But the read on the CO raiser especially is that he makes hopeless calls. This means that we should move away from the optimal play of betting the bottom of our range and towards the maximally exploitive play of checking behind. If we are sure a villain calls even moderately too much, then we shouldn't bluff that villain at all.

Last summer in LV bakku was playing with a nerdy looking college age guy and I told him I played with the nerd the prior day. When asked how he played I said he plays like a GTO guy and when he wakes up and inexplicably donks the river it means he has the bottom of his range and so that's how he determines when to bluff.

Here we have showdown value but there's almost certainly at least a better Ace out there so while we might be near the middle of our range we're certainly not winning at showdown. I think bluffing opportunities are much better determined by what we think our opponents have rather than our ability to win at showdown.

Regarding the last two posts...

- we should not be considering GTO plays vs live 20/40 fish, we should exploit the hell out of them

- Daver that's a super oversimplification of how GTO can be useful in making river bluffs. Fish wake up and donk the river when they have a terrible hand that can't win all the time, they are certainly not balanced and unexploitable in that spot

- you guys really think A9 is near the bottom of our range here for 3 betting pre and betting twice on this board?! I would have plenty of suited connectors that have a flush draw, as well as some that don't and I just decided to 3 barrel with. It makes me think some of you give up too often on the turn with a hand that is not ahead but can easily get better hands to fold. Of course, the other end of the spectrum is guys mindlessly triple barrelling KJo here, so that's no good either.

DD,

I basically have an opponent who isn't opening super light and whose default strategy with ace high (never consider folding before the river) makes 3 betting suited connectors fairly unattractive. The beginning of your post suggests not worrying about GTO stuff. Along those same lines I feel I don't need suited connecters in my 3 betting range against this guy. So I'm saying A9dd is really near the bottom...

What am I missing?

You're missing (a) the dead money from the blinds; and (b) the fairly inert money from the passive limper. Given ranges for the limper (probably with AA-QQ and AK clipped off) and the cutoff raiser, there is a corresponding range of hands that have at least 33% equity against those ranges. We can't call "time" and haul out PkrCruncher on our smartphone and stove away before deciding how to act; but it might be worth doing some stoving of reasonable ranges for typical situations and have some ideas of our own.

Here, for example, "loose-passive limps, LAG raises the CO."

I dunno, maybe prepare ranges for four stereotype players (LP, LA, TP, TA), get your situations stoved, and then assign stereotypes in the heat of battle when you choose your own ranges.

It's a good bet that if you stove the situation "LP limps EP, LA raises late" you'll come up with a 3-betting range that includes the sorts of hands DeathDonkey is talking about. I say this because DD is no fool.

Confirm no fool no mule. I guess the claim is that all the pros compensate me enough for having the worst hand and an opponent likely to play very well against a double barrel, my most common line. There are many pros for sure.

That said the hands we are talking about adding first.... JTs, T9s....have the nuts here.

Assuming this guy has any clue whatsoever, he's isolating the LP limper pretty lightly in this spot. You have the button and you need to punish him for trying to isolate YOUR fish. If you 3 bet a fairly wide range here (of hands that will do well in bloated multiway pots) chances are good he will have tons and tons of hands that he was comfortable isolating a fish with, but will have no freaking clue how to play OOP vs a thinking player in a bloated pot. He might make folding mistakes, he might make calling down mistakes, but he definitely will make mistakes. You want to punish him the best way you can and I believe that is by playing lots of largish pots when you have position, a reasonable hand, and are up against two guys you are simply better than postflop.

He has no clue whatsoever. None. Trust me

Thanks DD. As I prepare for my next failed "shot" at 40/80 it's stuff like this I need to make sure I do.

naw based on your posts in mshe i feel like you've been brutally unlucky in that game, this time around i expect it will go alot better