20-40 game, 5-handed as waiting list players are joining soon.

I open 86 on the button, SB folds, tricky/aggressive BB calls.
Flop is 9T4

BB checks, I bet, BB raises, I call.

Turn is J

BB checks. I check behind.

River A

BB checks.

Should I take a stab here or give up and check behind? Taking a shot here is the only way I can win the pot. Don't I have to take a shot here when checked to on the river Ace, or would doing so most likely be throwing good money after bad as too many hands call me here?

Was the turn check ok?

I like the hand as played and I’d bet fold the river.

Would checking back this flop make sense against the agro BB?

All of his bluffs made a pair or better at some point. 87 kJ qj etc. the only thing that he can have this isn’t a pair is a complete naked bluff. So the question you need to ask is whether he folds a pair to a river bet her. You know him better than I, but I doubt it.

We have an 8, way worse than a pair can fold and win us a pot that we lose at showdown

Edit: I'm dumb, Q8 filled the straight on the turn.

The best hand that doesn’t have at least a pair is K8. So he really has to be bluffing wide on the flop to have something he is going to fold. If you think he may fold a 4 or 9, then sure, whatever go for it, but it is so player dependent

Fold after raise on the flop...everything else is -EV and it's not close.

Check back flop! I don't think we have a range advantage on this texture and we have some equity with our gutshot, weak pair draw. Let's take one off and evaluate on the turn.

optimal is clearly to bet.

You have almost no hands to bluff with and tons of Ax all of which bet. That's what most players would think and they would be right, and a lot of people would rightfully considering folding Tx, 9x, 4x or 55-88 given the size of the pot. You're not giving people enough credit if you think someone you define as a tricky player isn't thinking about these things... calling down in hopeless spots when the pot is small is not a "tricky" tendency.

You're just hung up on it because you feel like you're losing an extra bet most of the time. But this only has to work about 1 in 4 times to show a profit and the assumption that people only deviate from optimal by calling too often is a mistake. There are plenty of people who fold too many bluff catchers... in fact I think in this spot they'd be right to, and i'd probably be folding at something closer to half the time. It happens all the time - you'd just never know because when they fold they usually don't turn their hand face up.

I agree; it's an example of Hwarilenko's "always bet the bottom of your range" principle.

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Since the turn checks through in this hand, the river ranges are a product of the flop check raise/check turn line used by the big blind. If the flop check raise range is exclusively (strong hands + strong draws) then that indicates that the big blind will (nearly) never fold to a flop 3 bet(an exploitable tendency); such an opponent will not have much of a check fold range on this river as noted by ninefingershuffle.

However, the read is tricky/aggressive BB, and I would think that if the big blind doesn't have some stuff to check fold on the river, he would be one of the players described above, and not tricky by definition.

Thanks, all. Some good thoughts. Wish I would've bet this river when checked to. In the flow of the game, I checked behind like a dummy and the opponent waited for me to say "eight high" before he flipped over a 9 and an 8 for the pair and the win.

In retrospect, I am not sure if he would've tried to catch bluffs with his paired nine.

absolute worst hand you can have. mandatory.

Very easy bluff on the river. Not sure what you’re even bluffing with if this isn’t it.


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A more interesting question would be whether you should ever 3-bet if raised.

wtf?

Against opponents capable of making big laydowns or ones that bluff check raise a lot in this spoty, there is a bluff 3-bet could be positive EV.

... I don't know if I'd ever have the balls for it though.

He's not folding a 9

Next level, make sense would definitely work


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We should find out now if he’s not folding a 9. He should be folding a 9 here. What worse hand does he show up with?


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I get it, I get it, GTo must bluff bottom of range. But I’ve played a zillion hours of live 20 against bad opponents and bad opponents don’t fold pairs. Sure, if you have a read go for it.

It’s not expensive to find out. I’d rather know now if I need to not bluff this guy over giving up over and over and over again with no clue on his tendencies. If he check calls a 9, just make sure you have the ace next time.


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I don't see why a tricky/aggressive player can't have Kc5c and the like here.

I think if he is going to bluff with nothing, he probably continues on the turn.

Is bad a word you use to describe anyone who isn’t a recognizable reg?
The only thing said is that he’s tricky/aggressive.

I don’t encounter a lot of players in 20 games that I think play well. I’ve almost never encountered players that fold pairs on non flush rivers when the turn went check/check.