Cutoff opens I defend ace 2 clubs.

Flop rainbow 8j2. check, bet, call
Turn 3 check, bet, I call
River 8.
Lead or check call?

Check/call.

Why would you want to lead the river here?

I would imagine he wants to lead this river because the 8 is a "scare" card that is unlikely to get raised by a Jack or QQ-AA. So in his mind he loses the same against hands that would bet anyway, but he doesn't want Ax to check back when they might pay off a river bet.

Of course, I don't think those are great reasons to bet this river, I just think that might be sort of the reasoning behind wanting to bet. First of all, TT- might now check this river, but will probably call if you bet. If he does raise, you probably have to fold, so if he is capable of bluff raising this river then you might lose the entire pot that you can otherwise win by check-call. Further, if you get called and he sees your hand then he knows you are capable of this and can either start value raising these types of rivers lighter or bluffing, or both.

This reminds me of the way people use to go c/c c/c BET with Ace-rag on like A4Q89 boards and stuff. They'd check call twice then donk the river, figuring people aren't likely to raise the river with just a better ace, and they would have called the bet anyway. Of course, it doesn't take long to realize you just need to raise AJ on this type of river vs those guys to torch them.

c/c. dude's probably still gonna barrel his missed draws.

MinBet, any chance you could hand convert this hand? Also, stats or reads would be nice. Even if this were bovada, can you give us anything?

Would be my thought without a read. I'd really love something to go on beyond unknown 10/20 online opponent

I check-call too. But donk-folding the river would be a WA/WB play, which was popular online back in the day.

also, i think (especially online), dude would value bet aq or maybe worse. so where ace high happens to be the only part of villain's range that you beat where you can get value, all of the unshowdownable hands fold (or raise, forcing you to fold), and all better hands call or raise. this play is just bad and extremely unbalanced imo. can you ever have better than 66 here?

We have plenty of equity here.

We realize it against his thin value hands (AK/AQ) and his bluffs by x/c.

So we x/c.

3rd hand in, no reads.

Yeah I don't know still. Such a dry board not sure we are going to see many bluffs and ace high will check behind a fair amount. Id say he has more ace high that will stop betting than any bluffs, but that's probably offset by the risk of getting raised.

@steve, this was on bovada 3rd hand in, I don't do too much balancing there.

c/c river given OP's line.
That said, c/r flop is way better in pretty much every way than c/c's through river.

yeah but how many bluffs is he expecting to see when you bet? you shouldnt really give a crap about what he does with ace hi because the best chance you have to make more money is when he has bluff

no it ain't. c/c down is the nuts.

Congrats, you bluffed 33. Maybe.

If he has 33 he's lucky. If he fold's 33 I'm lucky. Otherwise I'm raising for value and no free cards, and folding turn unimproved if I get raised beyond flop c/r.

What's the difference between this hand and AK OTF? Are you really never x/c here without a pair (unless you're slow playing something)?

the biggest problem with c/r'ing, is that 90% of the time you're going to be turning your hand into a bluff by the river.

Yup. Or the equally ugly option of x/c, which allows your opponent to play perfectly.

The difference is I'm 3 betting AK preflop.

Most of us at this point are not 3betting anything from the BB HU against the button (or against any position other than maybe the SB).

And you agree that's a bad thing, right?

Re: River donk

Leading river targets a very narrow range: A-hi hands that would have checked behind but now call your donk. But, you destroy your IO against many bluffs: K-hi hands, Q9/QT/9T/79s. And, villain may check back hands that beat you. Yea, it sucks when he does have A-hi, but that's part of being OOP -- you sometimes lose value.

Re: flop x/r

Don't x/r. you want showdown hands to balance the times you have unshowdown gutshots. The 8-J is also good for his range. I would x/r on 25J 26J or 2JK though.

I don't even know where to begin: c-r flop is somewhere between slightly bad (if you consider the hand in isolation) and horrible (if you consider how it effects your c-c range. Leading the river is the same.

Please try to explain why not 3betting the BB is bad generally.

On what board are we turning a pair into a bluff here? Seriously?

Not true. When he 3 barrels 9T or 79 or AK for thin value he has not played perfectly. Yes much of the time he will be able to play perfectly, but that's mostly because he has position and you have a very RIO hand which would be true regardless of the action.

Not necessarily saying that donking might not be correct, especially vs certain opponents, but either a good reason or a balanced strategy is needed.

i hope you're not under the impression that i'm advocating turning this hand into a bluff. i'm saying, that when you c/r a flop, it's with the intention of betting twice more (either for value or as a bluff), and in this case, if dude's intention is to bet twice more (not sure why someone would c/r planning on donk checking the majority of runouts), it's going to morph from a value hand into a bluff somewhere between the turn and river most of the time (which is really bad).