this hand is hypothetical. i played a hand with the same action vs a moron, but i was wondering what the play would be vs. an expert.

live FR


donkey open limps MP, expert raises CO. expert is a good hand reader, gets thin value, makes laydowns. im OTB with a seat change button b/c i hate this seat, but i have to deal with it now.

in any event, expert raises CO. i look down at AsQh and threebet. SB, BB, donkey fold. expert calls.

flop JdTh3d. CO checks, i bet, he calls.

turn 9c. he checks i check

river Ah.

CO checks.

the play?

all aboard the value train. With that said, if you get c/r'd, all aboard the muck-as-fast-as-you-can train

most of you value should come from other players at the table. if you decide to get involved with the expert, don't expect to get paid off much.

looks like expert is trying to isolate the donkey so his range can be fairly wide here. as for his check on the turn and river, it either looks like a trap c/r or he's given up. your line looks like AK so i don't expect you to get paid off by a J or T. a check back on the river is probalby optimal against the expert cause you're only going to get called by better hands and c/r by KQ or a set.

Well it depends on how wide your threebetting range is.

I'd certainly b/f against a moron, and I'd probably bet against an expert, but it's much closer as you've basically turned your hand face up on the turn.
If I'm the expert against you, I'd c/r hands like QJ, QT, Q9s, missed diamond draws (although i'd generally c/r those on the flop) as bluffs. It's hard for me to put expert on a hand tbh, depending on his opening range, except QT, 87s and maybe KQ, Q9s, and 98s, but I think he needs to c/r those on the flop.

If he raises and he's really an expert, it's a sick spot, but I will say that against a true expert, it isn't a snap fold.

Value betting a true expert on the river is typically a bad idea.

I also think it's a function of how the expert views the OP. He's not going to c/r bluff if he doesn't believe that the OP is good enough to fold top pair on the river, right?

Check.

Right, but I'd assume an expert would know Kit is good enough to fold TP on the river. The more I look at it, the more I think it's a check. But I can see an argument, given the right dynamic, for betting to induce a bluff raise.

with an expert, it would be bad to try to induce a bluff raise because he is going to time his c/r bluffs on the river so finely and balanced that you aren't going to know when he's bluffing and when he's value-raising.

like i said before, most of your value should come from otehr players, not the expert. save your bluff inducing bets for the donks

Okay, expert is not "perfect player". If he's playing gto and bluffing at an "ideal" frequency then of course you aren't going to profit by inducing a bluff raise. But experts usually are trying to adjust to the tendencies of others at the table. If he thinks you fold too much and his range is wide enough (which is a big issue in this spot imo) then betting to induce a bluff isn't out of the question.

And it isn't a value bet per se because you aren't getting called by worse.

It's not about knowing when he's bluffing and when he's value raising, an expert will obviously be doing both, it's about figuring out what he thinks you'll do with your whole range, figuring out how he'll try to exploit that, and figuring out how to adjust to exploit him.

All that said, his range is probably too narrow for him to have a high enough bluffing frequency in this spot.

you have some valid points in that we're trying to figure out what he's thinking that we're doing and exploiting it.

however, imagine yourself in the expert's seat, and the action went like this:

preflop: you raise, button 3bet, all fold, you call
flop: check, bet, call
turn: check, check
river: check, bet, ??

what do you put the 3bettor on that would take this line and would fold to a river raise?

90% of the hands that take this line on this board is not folding to a river c/r.
the river bet from OP screams value-bet. any decent hand that has showdown value would not be betting the river (KT etc. even then i think OP would bet the turn). the only hands the expert can hope to bluff off are missed draws (s most likely), and given that OP 3bet preflop, it's very likely that he has some sort of pair to go with that flush draw.

so you have to go an extra level of thinking and put yourself in expert's shoes and think about what OP is betting that he can hope to bluff off.

there is just no way any half-decent player would try to bluff this river, given the action on the flop and turn.

fwiw, I think this is a good spot to continue to gas the turn.

my fault. Read the thread wrong. I like to bet the turn not giving any free cards and check behind on the river. As played, check behind on river as he's never paying you off with a worse hand

if he's calling that flop, he's certainly not folding that turn. i dont want to open myself up to being c/r when we easily couldve seen the river for free.

well I disagree, there are a lot of tags if I was the one OOP (usually not online fwiw) that I'd be really happy calling this flop with 77-22 and c/f'ing the turn to more aggression. Also, low broadway boards are generally not places you'll see tag on tag deferred aggression as you've got to imagine most people will assume AK/AQ takes their free card on the turn.

1. If I'm bluffing on the river it's targeting AK and AQ exactly. Obviously player dynamics would have to be perfect for me to do this.

2. I like betting the turn a lot.

i agree with a turn bet

doesnt turn our hand face up
puts pressure on some small pps
we have an oesd ip - getting checkraised on the turn is not the worst thing ever to happen

cant say i agree

1) although our hand might not be "faceup" if we bet the turn, an expert is more or less going to know our range anyways after the pf 3 bet. i doubt he holds anything that is folding on this turn, as i dont think he iso raises with pp's < 66, and he is not folding 77 or 88 on the turn given possible outs/chance of best hand vs AQ/AK.

2) although getting CR'd isnt awful its not exactly a good thing either.

3) there arent many worse hands he could have here if any so there isnt any value in the bet

tbh i think the best line is to check turn and just fold river UI on this board as default.

the OP's question was about what to do on the river, not the turn

What hand(s) do you guys put an "expert" on played this way?

checking both big streets here is horrible. bet, get called, win.

well the only hands you should ever have after this action are AXs/AQ/AK and an expert should realize that but what is going to happen in reality is usually a lot different from what should happen in theory

Yes, but against a theoretical expert who theoretically plays very very well, betting this river is like flipping up your ace before betting. In practice, no one plays very very well, so whatever.

This is a very easy question. Against an expert, you don't try to exploit him, and thus, you are not exploited yourself. So you just make the GTO play. Without doing the math, it seems pretty obvious that the play is bet / call. Your hand is at the top of your range.

If this line turns your hand face up, I think it means you are not playing well enough against the expert. Can't you bet 88 and AK/AQ, planning to call the aces and fold the 88? Seems like a fairly simple strategy.

-Eric

You guys are way over thinking this. It seems you're assuming that Kit will have no bluffs in his river betting range here, and the expert will know this. Rather then try to figure out how to get around this by changing the way you play AQ (leaving us with zero hands that bet the river!) why not change the way you play your range so it includes some bluffs to cover all the times you want to value town this puppy?