Wanted a few opinions about these situations.When against an overly aggressive player who will make moves, and it's likely that their final hand range is pair+draw/mid-pair weakish hand, how would you prefer to size your river bets. Bet for value, or bet to induce?

Here's a specific example:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $10 BB (8 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

saw flop|saw showdown

UTG ($1952)
UTG+1 ($185)
Hero ($1000)
MP2 ($1116)
CO ($520)
Button ($2924.50)
SB ($1045)
BB ($612.35)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with T, T.
2 folds, Hero raises to $35, 2 folds, Button calls $35, 2 folds.

Flop: ($85) T, 8, 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $62, Button calls $62.

Turn: ($209) A (2 players)
Hero bets $135, Button calls $135.

River: ($479) 3 (2 players)
Hero bets?

Is it better to represent AQ/AJ KK/QQ and bet on the smaller side, since a lot of mid pairs and some combos are folding, or just bet for value?

Friend of mine said bet for value, and I said on the smaller side in these spots cause he's obviously not floating enough to get value from AK/AQ maybe sometimes AJ of course I would.

399

Ha... I should add, in this particular hand, villain is 36/30 and a playa.

And for the sake of particulars, I also just folded a mid-sized pot in a tough spot about 2 hands ago (against different villain).

i would only bet small vs a very good player that is capable of making a move in this spot. even if this guy is overaggro i think a mediocre player is more likely to call or fold a midpair hand here than he is to raise. for villain to raise he has to be good enough to realize that 99 and worse is never the best hand here but that you probably only have a 1 pair hand and cant call a shove.

if you dont know if hes both very good and perfectly capable of turning a good hand into a bluff then bet, and bet big.

Yeah, thanks for the post. I think most understand this. I guess I'm asking primarily from a mathematical perspective in the bell curve kind of sense. Since a majority of his range is mid-pair, pair+combo, and he's capable of bluffing do you on average lean your bets to the smaller side to induce the bluff/raise.

If the A hadn't come on the turn, how much would that impact the decision?

I bet big hoping villain has a two pair hand and will pay me off. Inducing a bluff raise is really unreliable against most villains.

Yeah, just don't think he has 2 pair here very often, if ever though.

160 turn 350 river

CR

Villain isn't paying you off with pair below T. He might turn some pairs into bluffs and will be betting 2pairs and an ace if he peeled with it, you might even get a call from some of the 2pairs.