Villian is a 23/18 and cbets just 52% hence why I chose to lead the flop. He's not a call station and is a very standard tag reg. Ive probably got a looser slightly bluffier image but certainly not out of line. Id normally 3bet this hand preflop, this was one of the few times I chose not too.

Is a vbet too thin on the river? sizing?


Prima Network $600.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 1501122
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

MP: $614.85
CO: $635.10
BTN: $690.00
Hero (SB): $603.00
BB: $711.05
UTG: $652.65

Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is SB with Q A
3 folds, BTN raises to $18, Hero calls $15, 1 fold

Flop: ($42.00) 2 Q 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $30.00, BTN calls $30

Turn: ($102.00) J (2 players)
Hero bets $72.00, BTN calls $72

River: ($246.00) 6 (2 players)
Hero....

just got 3/4ths again. looks good.

Every Q out there is going to call your bet even if you pot the river. Trying to make people fold top pair is extremely hard in general... SO bet the river. If the PFR has stationy stats of less then 50% fold to river cbet I would pot bet and except to get called by everything from Q to J (almost all of which is worse then your hand). If the PFR has a 50-100% fold to cbet on the river i would bet 2/3 pot. Either way I'm betting this river pretty much 100%. Depending on my opponent skill im either Bet calling or bet folding.... it all comes down to whether i think my opponent is good enough to bluff me here or not (95% of opponents at 3/6 aren't good enough to shove over with a bluff or worse hand that knows its beat).

You might be thinking... well fold to cbet stat is not the same as fold to donk bet... and your right... but its close enough for coming up with a general strategy.

given positions river bet is def not too thin

I like this

i am not so sure... depending on the BB and ongoing dynamics.. your SB flatting range might be pretty tight.

Need to know his opening range at least. I'd guess betting near pot is fine.

I dont think his range matters too much since he's OTB he has naturally a wide range and enough bluffcatchers 90% of the time unless he's some nit.

What matters is how he perceives our range. If BB is active with sqz'ing etc. SBs range is tight as hell and full of slowplays. Even without an active squeezer, many ppl dont call with KTs, Axs, etc. from the SB.

And our leading dynamics. If we very rarely lead,etc. it's not so tempting to bluffcatch us there.

Yes against most people, he can probably even shove for value. I meant that to analyze a situation like this you need to at least know the opening range since it's just a math problem.

$186

My take that he is reluctantly in check-call mode w/ KQ, vbet def not thin.

no

i still dont like the donk here, even if villains is cbetting only 50%

if villain has an 8 you wont get his stack, but he might bet it because it will be hard to show it down until river and wouldnt be the first time i see someone calling a XR with xth pair. when he has a queen or FD he will anyhow bet and you can checkraise/bet/shove.

i rather donk my draws against him, because i might not be able to checkraise them and he can pot control.

If flush draw misses no river bet is ever too thin

seems like a pretty easy bet, ~160-180

I like betting - in a vacuum and for the long-run, and for meta too - no need to give away the free info. that you flatted him with AQ and took this line, esp. when it looks like he's trying to get to SD. I don't think you will induce anything other than a value-bet from him because I'm sure any bluff would have most likely happened by now (semi-bluff). I'm also pretty sure his better hands, and some worse, would have raised by now, too. So the only question is, will he possibly v-bet something worse (than AQ) that he might not call with? I think the answer is def. not. He'll be much more inclined to call, and, otherwise, quite curious to see your hand with some fear of possibly being ch/r.

I'd just like to plan ahead in case he shoves over... I forget stack sizes, but think there was probably another ~$500 to bet, and would imagine you will be betting close to $200. I can't really see it (his river shove) being for value, and I doubt it's some type of sophisticated bluff from a TAG. However, you've played your hand quite deceptively as well. I wonder how often he thinks you're taking bet/fold lines, in general? And what he might think you think of his generally TAG image? As ridiculous as it might seem, I think I bet/call and hate myself after when I'm wrong, but 100% love the line you took, including flatting pre.

Whether the bet is too thin isn't a question of whether he calls worse - it's how many worse combos does he call vs how many better combos does he call.
Assuming he doesn't raise good hands before river - these are the hands that beat us:
22,88,QQ,JJ,9T,QJ,KK,AA,Q8. That's 44 combos (he might have less since he might raise some earlier, or fold 9T on flop or not open Q8 etc).
Combos we beat that might pay us would be:
KQ,QT,Q9,JT,J9,TT,99,A8,89,8T,87. There are obviously way more than 44 combos here, but villain isn't calling with all of them. If he calls any Q and any J that would be 48 combos making a river bet about breakeven. He would have to call wider than that to make it profitable by any significant margin.

So... imo yeah - it's pretty thin. Probably better to check decide, or if you are betting - bet a size he will bluffcatch wide against (don't know if this is big or small, opponent dependent).

Im curious in villians shoes what is the worst hand your generally calling with on the river here when faced with a 2/3 potsized bet? Surely your not loving calling KQ on the river?

Okay sirrybob, I think you might have convinced me that potentially it's too thin.

I think the fact alone that we don't really want him to see we check TPTK in this spot makes it a bet, and we definitely get called >50% by worse as stated above. Combined with the fact that he hardly ever bluff raises this river makes it a clear bet imo.

Prob ranges from slightly (but not too) thin to slam dunk value bet based on villains opening range and postflop tendancies. My best guess would be this guy is a standardish tag and opening ~40% of btns. In that case it's a pretty easy value bet.

I think sirry's analysis is pretty far off considering most of those strong hands are def not in his range the majority of the time. Also, the range ahead of us that you stated was 47 combos not 44, and didn't include j8 which is prob one of the most likely hands that beats us that plays this way. Against a nitty 40% btn open villain will have down to q4s. Against 50% he has down to q2s and q7o. Against 60% he has down to Q5o, so it makes a pretty big difference.

I'd say flop and or turn size should be a different amount. Think about what range you have / try to rep. (If you think you don't need to rep stuff, you can just size bigger for value)

You think a half pot bet on the turn would be better to rep a jx/ draw then?

If we ever want to barrell our missed draws on this board, we need to vbet AQo in this spot, probably KQ too (would have to do some math on that). If we don't even valuebet AQ here, wtf is our value range gonna look like? It will be a pretty easy call for him with pretty much any pair since our value range will be superthin.

Also, his BTN range should have many more Qx combos than mentioned in this post. Like any Qxs, not sure how many Qxo (probably many since we don't even 3b AQ from SB so there's nothing really stopping him to open 100% BTNs).

We can also be pretty sure that he raises Flop with any 2p probably sets and combodraws on this board and that he folds random T9 without fd or bdfd. He should know that too and since he knows his range is capped, he should also know that we gonna barrell the sh.it out of him and then he's gonna call us down lighter etc. etc.

I just don't see how can we not valuebet AQ here if we ever want to barrell river with our missed draws.

We are leading not because we want to be balanced, we are leading because we are trying to exploit the fact that villain c-bets only 50% of boards. Because of this we have no reason to balance on the river.

Also...There are VERY FEW missed draws on the river. Go back and read the board. The only potential draw we could have would be like ATcc or A7-A3cc (which generally aren't considered good flats preflop and likely won't be in most player's ranges anyways). Everything else doesn't continue barreling the way the board runs out.