Villain in BB is a super solid reg - 22/19 over 3k hands. Very capable of big river bets with air. Probably views me as somewhat weak, as our history is I have looked him up here with hands near top of my range.

Thoughts on my line and whether this is a river call?

PokerStars - $1 NL (6 max) - Holdem - 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: $227.19
BB: $178.79
Hero (CO): $99.50
BTN: $100.00

SB posts SB $0.50, BB posts BB $1.00

Pre Flop: (pot: $1.50) Hero has 7 7

Hero raises to $2.50, fold, fold, BB calls $1.50

Flop: ($5.50, 2 players) 6 2 5
BB checks, Hero bets $3.92, BB raises to $12.00, Hero calls $8.08

Turn: ($29.50, 2 players) T
BB bets $14.00, Hero calls $14.00

River: ($57.50, 2 players) 6
BB bets $56.00, Hero???

Throwing some random thoughts out there since I'm curious what others think as well. Overall (at least in our player pool) I don't see many lines of X/R flop, bet turn, and follow through with a shove on the river that are bluffs. Filtering in my DB I actually don't have any hands that were in single raised pots that went X/R flop, barrel turn, shove river (unless I'm filtering wrong which is possible.) So in general we might be able to exploit-fold. The T on the turn makes things a little more interesting since that adds a few combos of hands that villain would X/R the flop with (gutshots and a backdoor flush draw) and barrel.

Initial thoughts I have are we have alot more combos of overpairs in our range to call with too, most of which don't block his straight draws, gutshots+flushdraws as much {88, 99, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA}. If we have 99 my quick thought was that villain could then have more combos of 78, meaning if villain always takes this line then 99 is a much better calling hand because it doesn't block his air as much. That would add more value combos into villains range since we now don't block the 67 type hands, but I think more bluffs are added to compensate for that. Would need to work that out though to confirm.

A few combo counts and thoughts with our specific hand vs. a realistic villain range:

• With the 77 we block the most obvious straight draws for villain to X/R on the flop and barrel with through the river because of no show down value {78o, 78s, 47s, 79s}. +12 combos of natural bluffs.
• That is made up of six combos of 78o {78, 78, 78, 78, 78, 78}, two combos of 78s {78, 78}, two combos of 47s {47, 47}, and two combos of 79s {79, 79}
• A3 and A3 are two notable combos villain could have, but I think this is checked to you on the river some of the time.
• The 6 on the river means the number of sets villain has decreases. Only one combo of 66 now, but still three combos of 22 and three combos 55. +7 natural value combos.
• The 6 on the river limits the number of combos of 56 villain could have {56, 56, 56, 56, 56, 56, 56}. +6 natural value combos.
• The 6 on the river also limits the number of combos of 67 villain could {67, 67, 67, 67}. +4 natural value combos.
• Villain has 34s while we won't have that in our range. +4 natural value combos.
• If villain has a hand like XT then barreling the T some of the times on the turn makes sense, but I doubt following through with a shove on the river w/showdown value is likely. So I don't think we have to worry about villain showing up with TX here.
• We can add in a few obvious busted gutshots+flushdraws combos that would include hands like {K3,K4, K7, K8, Q3,Q4, Q7, Q8, J3,J4, J7, J8, T7, T8} +14ish natural bluff combos but I doubt villain is barreling all of these 100% of the time. Same goes for the spade equivalents.

All in all without going any deeper down the rabit hole of trying to range villain, I would look at your own range that gets to the river and do an estimate based on MDF where around 50% of our range should call (based on MDF which isn't perfect, but I think it would be a good baseline here.) I fold here until I have at least one hand or stats on villain that show villain has taken aggressive lines for stacks in single raised pots with bluffs before.

I think I'm checking this flop. Our hand has SDV but really isn't strong enough to want to build a big pot. All in all, especially as the IP pre-flop aggressor, we want to be betting a polarized range unless we have a really good reason to bet range here (such as a high fold to C bet percentage) The hands we fold out with a bet here, we are beating anyway, and the hands that call tend to be hands that have us crushed (or at least have good equity against us.)

Once we get x/r our hand becomes a pure bluff catcher. So I don't terribly mind calling the flop raise. But when V follows with a second barrel OTT, I think it's time to dump it.

As played, is 77 in the top half of our hands that get to the river? We have all the big over pairs, maybe a 5s full(?), and some missed flush draws. All in all, I think no. I think you can comfortably fold river to this bet size.

Rather call 99+ or TT+ since you don't block the obv straightdraws that could be 3barreling.

Regs are more likely to 3barrelbluff here with missed straightdraws than flushdraws.

Anyway, I think his turnsizing is very likely to be a sizingtell. Which makes me wanna call river. Problem is he could def plays 6x of diamonds this way.

All in all you have better bluffcatchers. Doesn't matter that much that you block 76 imo.

There's definitely some merit to this, and I'm possibly just overthinking it. I have 3.5k hands on this villain, and I don't see him taking this line in my database. I found 2 instances of him going to SD and bluffing the river big, but in both of those instances, his villain (me in 1 hand), showed weakness on either the flop or turn, and he tried to make us pay. This hand does not fall into that category as I've showed nothing but strength, even though I am essentially the CO in a 4-handed pot and not really UTG. So maybe I'm overthinking this one a bit simply because I've struggled somewhat against this villain.

What makes me so suspect is that my combo of 77 blocks both FD's. Plus I think there's plenty of hands you listed up above that are in his range, but again, would he take this line with something as simple as 78o? Feel like if it's a bluff, he either busted a front door FD, or turned some great equity with the back door spade draw. Which narrows his range down considerably.

If I'm looking at this correctly, 77 is not in the top 50% of my range on the river. Assuming I'm opening ~28% from the CO, here's my value range that I arrive with on the river:



If that's ~20% of my opening range, then 77 is definitely the rock bottom of my value/call range, unless I'm counting the random 5's in my range as bluff catchers. Still, 77 is at the low end.

This is a good thought - thanks for this. Really no reason to build a pot against a difficult villain who I've struggled with. Really only reason to Cbet is for protection here and to take it down on the flop. But like you said, his fold to flop Cbet is only 32%, so this is not exactly the best spot to be continuing and especially playing a big pot against.

I'm struggling with this as well - smells very bluffy, as in he set his own price to draw on the turn, missed, and jams river to get my weak value/bluff catchers to fold.

I guess where I struggle here is why he bet so much? If he'd bet 2/3 - 3/4 pot on river, I think I'd find a much easier fold.

You said you block both fd's. How? Fd's are dd and ss. You hold 7c7h.

Unblock obviously. My mistake.

I guess the call seems alright with your read.