Anacardo has a very liberal open-raising range and he's been taking advantage of a fairly passive 8-handed game we're in.

He opens UTG+1 and I 3-bet QQ from the SB. BB folds and 'Cardo calls.

Flop comes 976. I bet, he raises, and I decide that since he's never taking a free card because he's an online aggro monkey that I can safely c/r the turn. So I just call instead of 3-betting like I would against a typical Commerce 40 fish.

Turn 4. I c/r, and he calls.

River 8. What's the best line? I'm pretty sure all of them have major drawbacks.

I don't know what your definition of a "major" drawback is, but mine is folding the winning hand in a $754 pot. I would assume that his is as well. So I take the easy way out against a tough opponent and opt for check-call: board is 9-8-7-6 and I don't have a T.

I'm not as fond of shimp cocktails as I used to be, either.

PJ - check-call unless you are 110% positive that cardo would not bet the river with JJ when you check, if you are this positive then you can fold knowing that you are making the right decision.

I think Cardo's range is precisely 55, 88, TT, JJ and AA based on the way he played the hand (you might want to include KK and QQ here as well but its unlikely he would not slowplay these hands pre-flop). Assuming you take this line there is an EV of 1.3BB in the long run.

b/f here is ridiculously exploitable given that your range is pretty clearly 99-AA.

id take the safe route and check, usually expecting it to go check/check and you win.

I would not use the word usually unless you mean usually PJ will loose but not often enough to check/fold.

joker said he's been opening liberally. why can he not have stuff like A9, K9s, T9s, J9s, even 98s and 87s in his range?

Not that this changes things all that much, as I think he's folding his 1p hands to a bet.

Basically on the river your hand will be face up when you C/C. Clearly cardo will see that its a defensive check and that you have an overpair 99% of the time. Obv he is a good hand reader and will be able to VB any hand that beats you, and check behind any that dont.
C/R - eh i dont see him folding 88 or 2 pair even with your image =]

B/F is very exploitable and cardo will see right through that, so you would have to B/C. I dont think that he raises on a bluff often enought, to make that an effect play.

C/F ya ok no.

+1 C/C

this is a hand where the negatives of bet/calling or bet/folding WAY outweigh the negatives of missing a value bet, so c/c seems like the best line.

I'm not sure about cardo but I know I would jack you up if you bet this river :-p.

I think just check-calling is best too.

Bet/fold and bet/call can simply not both be awful unless cardo has solved how to do two different river actions at once. I think betting is clearly better than checking and then calling or folding just depends on how he plays, probably bet/call is best given its pretty hard for him to have a ten without exactly T9s.

I don't know why you'd ever check this river. Seems silly to me since your hand is pretty much face up. I'd bet/call to induce a river bluff.

Edit: Especially from what I know of your image.

people throw around the term "exploitable" way too much. Almost anything you do on this river will be exploitable.

I'd also just call down from the flop raise vs someone that can hand read.

please explain.... how are you not losing a ton of value?

Meh I think Nina is probably right, I mean if we reraise at any point in this hand our range is probably exclusively overpairs, now the solution might mean we should try to bluff with our AK / AQ at some point, but I'd think probably not.

chris i don't see how calling down could be right.... the optimal strategy simply can't be playing both draws and big hands passively.

1. Cardo doesn't have to have T9s to have a T. He can easily have TT here.

2. Calling down from the flop raise is losing way too much value against his range. I don't care if I turn my hand face up by checkraising the turn; he isn't folding JJ/TT and might even call down with A9. I'm about 90% confident that I need to c/r the turn or at least 3-bet the flop here.

I think you should probably just 3bet the flop. Keep the 'no i have it' conversation going. 3betting the flop might not have to be the end of your actoin, check-raising the turn does.

What big draws do we have? We 3 bet an EP raiser in a full ring game, our preflop range should be like 88+, AQ+.

Chris this is true, sorry was late and I was confusing my thoughts about us and Cardo. I think what I was trying to say is that cardo, given the wide range joker puts him, can have a ton of hands here that HE should be raising the flop with: draws, pairs, pairs+draws, monsters, overs. And from his POV we can have big aces a lot. So calling down after the flop raise is losing too much value for us.

Now the valid point you and others are making here is that when we cr the turn we basically say, "hi i have overs". so as joker and goofball point out, maybe this just means we should be 3betting the flop.

HOWEVER, if this is the case, and cardo will always trust our turn c/r as legit and fold all his non-over pairs after we follow up on the river, then we should be taking joker's line with both our strong hands and our UI big aces. Which is to say that cardo shouldn't be able to safely fold those hands, and if he can, then we should be exploiting that.

I agree with this 100% and think that if he's gonna be folding pairs, we should be raising the turn much more.

FWIW I'm pretty sure there was a walker or two and it was six or seven handed.

You're describing my whole edge right now, dog.

Sorry I never got a chance to say hello. You should probably play NL more often as it gives you a chance to pull more of those super-priceless 'I'm thinking hard about my hand' grimaces, feat. chinbeard, which are awesome.

I have seen some HORSE**** out of PJ recently but I am still folding so many one pairs so much on this river. One thing's for sure, I ain't never calling.