No reads on villain. Flop seems like an obvious bet with no pair and no draw but recently I've noticed where I play that the pre flop 3-better has been c/r this type of flop a ton rather than c-betting, and it didn't seem like a flop he would just c/f too often. Also FWIW, he insta-checked to me which was kind of weird (IK, probably means absolutely nothing).

So yeah, took a free card but looking back obv mistake OTF, But is anyone calling the river?

Fold pre.

Checking back the flop is probably fine. Think villain's sizing indicates a ridic strong range, people don't bluff these spots at 25.

Surely if we fold this it's going to be ridiculously profitable to 3-bet our BTN open with ATC. If we don't defend KQ here, what are we defending?

Also if we don't think it's good enough to call, I'd rather 4-bet than fold as vil is 3-bet/ folding a decent amount and we have good blockers.

Agree. Looks a lot like AK, which I'm assuming was not checking the flop with the intention of folding.

This is vs. an unknown. No need to worry about a villain 3-betting our BTN opens with ATC until there is some history. Really I'm only defending KQ vs. someone who has a high 3b% because I feel that we are dominated vs. someone with an average or a low 3b%.

Fold is still better than a 4b because again, this is vs. an unknown.

If we assume a standard BB 3-bet range for villain here I still feel like KQ plays well enough vs that range to flat profitably.

The only hands which have us in dire shape are AA and the unlikely KK and QQ. AK and AQ are also bad but when we add AJ, JJ, 10, 99, KQs and random light 3-bets which most regs have in their range here KQ is doing ok and we have position.

Also I'm relying slightly on 'population reads' and 3-betting in this spot is pretty common with a wide-ish range.

Call pre is fine.

Checking back the flop is of course, completely fine, especially against this type of opponent. Ideally, you should be balancing here, but I think it's fine having a very low continuation bet % with QK here. You don't have too many value hands OTF, so you don't need to have too many bluffs / marginals to balance with. Perhaps if your opponent is the type to 3 bet with suited connectors quite a bit you should consider continuation betting more often.

Turn: Call is fine. Raising I don't think is a good option.

River: Tough spot, but probably a fold. If he C/R flops a lot he definitely can balance AK,AQ,AA-1010 etc. The sizing OTR is a little large however. It definitely seems weird that he's insta-checking this flop OOP. If he's truly insta-checking without even seeing the flop, i'm more inclined to think he's a weaker and loose player with intentions to bluff later. But in the case where he's just checking quickly, I don't think this gives much info.

He definitely can have a lot of monsters OTR, especially if he's a tight 3 bettor. However, I would imagine that he would consider betting smaller OTR if he thinks we have a lot of marginal hands here (which we do). I expect him to bet smaller OTR, but I'm folding anyways.

So, WP

Folding pre borders on ridiculous.

pretty tough for him to have air on this run out unless he's 3betting trash

this seems good. def folding river.

Good check. If villain is unknown and we assume the average villain 3bet%, then I don't think villain will be folding to our cbet much.

We're getting good odds to call on the turn.

Good play on the river.

If you're folding 80+% of your opening range vs. an unknown it should be because you think the player pool as a whole has very tight 3 betting ranges vs. button opens. I don't think that's really true these days on most sites at nl25, but I would have agreed with you a few years ago. There's software that easily lets you fact check that sort of thing as long as you have a decent sample size in the player pool though.

Ah, I just got back into playing after not doing so for 2-3 years. Thanks DaycareInferno + TheDefiniteArticle + OP for telling me I'm dumb. Should help my game a bit now. I am curious though, what software are you talking about? PT/HEM?

I don't think your reasoning was dumb at all. I just think there is a much higher % regs at this level than their used to be and as a whole they 3bet quite a lot from the blinds.

You used to be able to check things like that with the holdem vision add on in the original HEM which was apparently discontinued in HEM2, but I think the maker of it works for HEM and some of the features were integrated into HEM2. Maybe it's not possible to do something that specific anymore, but it used to be. I haven't played online in a while myself, so I'm also a bit behind the times on the current software available. Maybe someone else knows though.

Do we have a turn value raising range? If so, wouldn't this be a decent hand to balance that out with (or, like the only hand in our range that wouldn't be for value)? I recognize we are getting such a good price, that it screams call.

How is checking fine hère... Vilain has ax or sdv. Bet all 3 steets and jam river. We block décent parts of villans range, lots of good runouts on this type of flop for à 3 barrel. Make so many $ 3 barreling thèse spots.

Checking flop is just so bad for options on turn and river and rest of our range . Most vilains dont construct Check ranges that can call a 3 barrel in thèse spots.

what makes your advice any different in this hand from if we had ATC? Is it that we have picked up a back door 3-to-a-SD, plus there is a FD we can rep? Or are you playing the same way nearly always? And what cards are you not barreling with? I assume an A?

I think cardbrute is actually right. Because most villains don't construct good checking ranges we should make their life hell by betting a ton when they check until they learn how to c/c some, c/r some etc