Dealt to tmcdmck [Th 8d]
tmcdmck: raises $12 to $18
vaIuDe: calls $12
*** FLOP *** [6d 8c As]
vaIuDe: checks
tmcdmck: bets $24
vaIuDe: raises $54 to $78
tmcdmck: calls $54
*** TURN *** [6d 8c As] [7s]
vaIuDe: bets $132
tmcdmck: calls $132
*** RIVER *** [6d 8c As 7s] [5d]
vaIuDe: bets $144
tmcdmck: raises $854.75 to $998.75 and is all-in

been playing villain for a while. he has been 3betting quite a lot, and i think generally the top end of his range.

villain is apparently a losing reg according to PTR. seems to me that he tends to have slightly polarised ranges, and can be a little predictable, but he is mostly solid, decent levels of aggression, not a station, etc.

comments on all streets appreciated

Effective stacks?

i'm not sure i like flop, and if river is +ev i'm not sure i like turn. definitely not enough info in the OP to qualify what type of hands he's able to bet/fold here, but generally i think this is suicide.

This seems incredibly nonstandard, so I think we need more info on game state, stacks, and w/e to actually be helpful.

As is I don't really like it.

lol Tom. We need effective stacks. We need to know how bluffy you've been. Does he think you're capable of turning a made hand like a pair/ bottom two pair into a bluff?
On the river his hand seems pretty face up: two pair going for value ?
You know better than anyone else if he is going to fold it or not..
Also was he down a lot a this point/ tilting ?

effective stacks were just over 1k. i have been playing fairly standard, maybe a few aggro/ bluffy double barrels. we have had no spots like this before, and i doubt he thinks i am ever bluffing the river, but that was part of what i was curious about. he was up on me, at one point he was up 2 buy ins, i had won 1 and a bit back by this point. he didnt seem tilted.

surely his range on the river is completely different to his range on the turn though, therefore my turn and river play could both be +ev. not saying they necessarily are, just that your logic is wonky.

my though process on the turn and flop was "hmm, i doubt he has an A because he 3bets most of his good As pre, and doesnt raise his bad As on the flop so much. Not sure is he calls pre with A6 or 86o, or even A8 too much. therefore his value raising range is pretty narrow, i call BS"

on the turn i felt whatever random As were in his range probably would not double barrel.

on the river i figured his bet had to be value/ blocker. it also looked very unhappy. I beat no hands in his value range, so a call sucked. i could credibly rep a straight/ set. people who make blocker bets but are actually somewhat solid tend to think that if you have SD value you will always gratefully call them. there were no missed draws therefore no air in my range, therefore i really doubted the bet was to induce a shove, and figured he would give me lots of credit.

With the extra info you gave I like the shove

well there's no shot you shove a set on the river but i guess you're assuming that his bet size is an indication of how strong/weak his range is rather than how strong/weak your range is?

Did you consider the possibility villain was on the draw you were repping? Small bets are not always for blocking. Sometimes it means please call me. You don't pull this mess with losing players unless you think extreme timidity is the reason they lose. If he doesn't have a big A and he is not bluffing that puts a lot of twopair possibilities for him in play and he is probably not capable of folding those. Thats my opinion about the river.

The flop call was weak given your description of his aggression level as decent. Then you continued with the hand just because you had a gut shot? Also weak. I think this line would only be justified if you could rep a flush on the river if there was a flush draw on the flop, which there wasn't. In light of information that you had low equity you continued on with few bluff outs and a really unknown number of actual outs. You hit the best bluff out, read him as scared, and went crazy. But what if the river bricked off a deuce? This is a more likely scenario you know.

I think that in general if you are going to bluff losing players you should have more bluff outs than against a winning player capable of folding strong hands so don't go down that road if there only a few slim chances of repping something big.

i called flop and turn because i thought i had the best hand a lot. i had no intention of launching a bluff until i saw his river bet. your whole post confuses me burden.

yeah barewire, you nailed it that i thought his riverbet size spoke way more about what his range was than what he thought my range was. i think in hands like this against players who are not awesome this is almost always the case. agree/ disagree?

yeah this could def be the case, i'd have to be playing the guy to know if it's true or not basically cause you should be able to know how transparent or balanced he might be with those things. my first comment assumed his bet sizing was not indicative of his range, so if you're right about that then this could easily be the best way to play the hand. I'm still unsure about the turn call though, simply because his semibluffs either got there or hit a pair + draw and then he still can have sets, suited Ax two pairs, maybe 86s.

I guess thats just my style and I don't play as big as your limit (online) so maybe take what I said with a grain of salt. I just dont make a lot of weak flop calls, weak meaning I anticipate the villain betting the turn and I dont have a great chance to improve and will be faced with either calling or folding a marginal hand. Its one thing if the guy is constantly trying to rep big cards or is a good player who you have to make a lot of marginal calls against to beat. But a losing player who is not over aggresive....just give it up on the flop. Making possibly slightly weak flop folds in small pots against losing opponents is a good policy imo. Doing otherwise is risking getting deep into big pots with marginal holdings- not necessary vs. losing player.

variance doesnt scare me.

at the risk of sounding a bit like a prick, you are giving super basic advice, and it is a pretty unhealthy attitude that will ultimately stunt the development of your game and your winrate.

also this guy would probably beat nl50, hes not a drooler, i cant just avoid tough spots even if i wanted to.

The flop call seems ok/good(rather with a stronger 8 but meh) even though i get owned here when i call c/r and check down and get shown Ax but on this turn i think a fold is a bit more standard as most of our range is not folding this turn and he shouldnt be barreling it with a weak range, and considering this is like the bottom of ours seems like a pretty easy fold. If hes still betting this turn his range is strong imo and just because you think hes 3betting lots of ax I think this turn bet should indicate enough strength that we can ignore it and believe a villain actually made a hand hu