Can hand-reading greenlight a bluff raise facing an under-bluffed line from a battling V?

Fold river and be glad he let you off the hook.

I don’t really like your turn sizing here. I think you want to size up on this card with both value and bluffs. I think your hand can also just check back since you have SDV against Villain’s gutshots and other floats.

I like smaller on the flop and smaller on the turn (1/3 sizing on both). When the K comes you can still continue with a lot of your Qx and get called by a wider range of hands you beat

As played fold the river

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Agree with the above that I don't really like the flop and turn sizes. On the river, you are raising to rep QQ and KK basically exclusively, but are you really betting these lazy half pot sizes with your most nutted hands? On the driest board of all time?

As you mentioned in the OP, this line is really value-heavy for bad low stakes players. To find a bluff he would have to be floating flop with JT (which you block) or calling turn with 65s. Both seem unlikely. It feels like a "hope poker" spot, where a raise is just hoping to rep something against a villain you hope has a foldable hand.

snap calls make me think 7x or 3x, not Qx. something weak but not wanting to fold

you have a heap of Qx and Kx and have shown strength preflop, flop and turn, but now V is donking into you? easy fold.

sizing, id go smaller on the flop, and mainly check turn, but sometimes bet close to pot. if the turn brought the flush draw to go with the gtsht i'd bet turn large

I would go larger on the turn like 2/3 and wouldn't mind going smaller on the flop.
I would not bluff river as others said he let you off the hook. You wreck this guy by bluffing him when he doesn't donk because he is clearly just leading his strong hands.

A good saying is that we shouldn't try to make the 2nd nuts fold by repping the 1st nuts. Of course here it's not the literal second nuts we are trying to get to fold, but it's really hard to put him in a bluff here.

turn should be pot or more

as played i just fold river rather than some crazy bluffraise which is what im guessing youre thinking off

I'd be interested to hear people's reasoning for alternate bet sizes on flop and turn.

When I'm c-betting in a SRP, I'm usually just going around 1/2 pot on the flop as a default sizing. But with the board being fairly dry, I don't know if it makes more sense to size up or size down, or why it makes sense. I'm happy to be persuaded why smaller or larger makes more sense here.

If the flop was more connected and dynamic, I'd expect V to x/r some Qx combos. So I thought the turn was a little tricky, in that V could have some KQo that plays this way, and would want to x/r turn if I went 1/2 pot again. I opted for this size as a way to cap his range at something worse than KQ when he just calls. This guy hadn't shown himself to be overly trappy over the past few hours.

That said, I also think this V would open KQ for a raise pre, so I was mostly giving him a value range that was worse Qx than KQ, calling and hoping I'd just check-back on the river, or JT hoping to drill the straight.

If I'd checked back the turn, I'd expect V to lead river for this sort of size with all his showdown value and all his missed draws. That roughly half-pot sizing is usually weak value or a bluff. But we can't call with just ace-high.

It just seemed odd that he'd donk when the 3 pairs on the end. Even if he's trying to rep KQ, that hand loses to AA, KK, QQ, 77, and 3x, and I'm mostly just folding worse PP's. It seems like he's more trying to rep 3x, and I don't really buy that he gets to the river the way he did with either of those hands. This just smells like weak Qx, or a busted draw, like JT.

I think this V is capable of donking his missed draws or turning weak value into a bluff, even when I barrel turn. I think his logic is that I'm more likely to barrel for over 1/2 pot than I'd be to give up and check back, and even if I check-back, his Qx still loses to my better Qx and Kx, and his JT loses to my ace-high.

So, yes, I was considering a raise when he donked for this size. The way this was played, I'm not giving him KQ or trip 3's, and I think a raise doesn't need to be very large to fold out Qx.

On flop, I think anything half pot or smaller makes sense.

On the turn, I think there are two good options:

A) Overbet turn and give up river. It is incredibly difficult for Villain to defend to an overbet in this spot. It is very likely that he will overfold here. You give up river because if he overfolds turn, his range on the river is too strong to bluff. If he doesn't overfold turn and calls with something weak that wins at showdown, you have the green light to triple barrel next time and to go huge with your value in the future. Your opponent will not bluff against this sizing because how can he? You are betting huge on a board where you have all the nuts and he has none. Nobody bluffs in that spot.

B) Bet something like 3/4 pot on turn and overbet river. This would be in line with what Marc Goone teaches on YouTube. Pick the biggest size that QX still calls and then make all the QX fold on the river. The idea here would be that Villain will announce the strength of his hand against this bet sizing. If he has the nuts, he will either check/raise the turn and you will snap-fold or he will donk the river and you will snap-fold. Your opponent will not bluff against this sizing because it looks like a standard thick value line that every ABC/TAG reg takes.

I think the problem with your line is that you took a weak sizing on the turn. It looks like you have nothing here. The "same bet" half-pot cbet reads as weak to your opponent, like you are making a range bet. Then you double your bet on the turn which looks a weak/lazy double-barrel with a bluff or a thin value hand like QJ. It doesn't look like you are trying to get all the money in. Because you look weak, it encourages your tricky opponent to bluff. It creates a spot where your opponent has taken a strong line (check/call check/call lead river) and you can no longer trust that this actually means he is strong.

I think your line is a cool play if you actually have thick value, specifically because it looks weak and might encourage Villain to spazz. You don't really want to encourage Villain to spazz when you have a hand that can't realistically defend against a spazz though.

I can see why the turn sizing is viewed as problematic but then again Q73 is a dry/static flop, plus a K turn without any bdf means a large turn bet isn't necessary. The relatively small turn size, along with the flop texture, allows villain to arrive at the river with a weak range. Also keep in mind that villain had previously indicated he wanted to float flops (e.g. complaining about folding AQ on 522). Hero does have all the KK, QQ, 77, 33 and KQ. Not sure if hero would value raise river with AK, though. Hero also unblocks weak pairs as well as Qx although he does block JT. If you believe QT or worse folds then there's an argument for raising, but giving-up doesn't do too much damage, aside from being a missed opportunity, perhaps.

Appreciate the feedback on this one. I've been thinking a bit about donk lines lately - when it makes sense to donk, and how to counter donks in various situations. I've been experimenting with some min-click river raises in spots like this, and finding that opponents tend to over-fold, making me think that the smallish river donk from OOP is often a weak hand.

This hand from my session the week before was still in my head, making me lean towards taking a more aggressive stance.

I tanked for about 30 seconds on this one, thinking back through the hand, trying to figure out if V ever shows up with KQ or 3x, or even something like Q7 or K7, and decided he really doesn't after he flat calls my small flop and turn bets.

Cool play. I definitely respect that you are willing to make plays/reads like that. You seem like a difficult opponent to play against. I wouldn’t be surprised if your opponents recognize this and it causes them to adjust in weird ways (like floating more than usual and donking the river merged).

It’s true that there aren’t a lot of strong hands that Villain can have here, but it’s also really difficult for him to have nothing. It also doesn’t really make sense to me that he would show up with QX here but who knows.

Glad it worked out for you and good to review these spots even when they do work out.

Thank you.

I don't like to brag about my results, especially since I don't keep records (I really should), and even if I did, I don't imagine it would be hard for someone to lie about their results and falsify the record as "proof".

I've been beating up 1/3 for about 60bb's / hour the last few months, plus cashing in about 1 out of 3 single day tournaments I've been playing (half hour levels, usually 100-150 entries, generally pretty soft fields).

Tournament cashes have been two 2nd places (one of those a four-way ICM chop), a two-way chop for 1st place, a 3rd place (also a 4-way ICM chop), and a 9th place. Two others, I went deep, and finished one or two out of the money - once due to a massive punt, the other just because I was mostly card dead. A few potentially deep runs got cut short due to some opponent doing something insane that ended up costing me my stack.

A lot of the regs at Parx recognize me. More than a few 2/5 regs who've see me with a $3k stack at 1/3 have said I should just keep beating up 1/3, if the alternative is moving up to 2/5, risking more of my bankroll, and not necessarily have the realistic expectation of making the same hourly. Otherwise they just walk by and laugh at the absurdly large stack in front of me.

I actually would consider moving up, because I think I could make more at 2/5, but some unexpected and large expenses forced me to take a big chunk out of my bankroll. It's hard to see someone I've routinely crushed at 1/3 sitting with $10k at 2/5, and not feel like I'm under-utilizing the skills I've developed.

Most of the 1/3 regs tend to stay out of my way. They'll switch seats to avoid being on my right, or just switch tables to avoid me altogether. One guy said I'm the best player he knows (I think he must not know nearly as many as I do).

So, yeah, I can be difficult to play against, because I'm always working on my game in my spare time, I'm good at live reads and picking up live tells, and I play like I'm ambivalent to money. I've made this min-click over a river donk play a few times now, and getting more comfortable making other aggro plays when I sense weakness.

All that said - I still have leaks in my game that I'm trying to plug. I've been barreling too many turns, making too many loose calls, and going too big with some of my bet sizes. I figure these leaks are probably costing me about 10bb's / hour. I didn't know what size I should bet on the turn in this hand, and I'm still mad at myself for torching $1k in a single hand during this last session, completely unnecessarily, wiping out all my profit on the day.

I know at least one good reg who's made some adjustments specifically aimed at me. But it's hard for even a good reg to quickly adjust to the way I'm playing - raise or fold pre, checking range OOP, range betting IP, barreling most turns, sizing up or down on the river based on opponents' likely ranges, which by that point are generally pretty face up.

The river donk in this hand, and the two-donk line in that last one I posted, were both bad plays by my opponents, IMO. My raise here worked out because we were deep and my opponent obviously wasn't that strong, and capable of folding. Had I raised in the other one, I'm not sure it would have worked out, and would have hurt more if it didn't.

The way this was played, I think V's range is pretty condensed to weak Qx or JT. Folding is fine, and I don't fault other low stakes players for making the obvious play. I just think there's value in taking a moment to think through things, and finding the higher EV play.

Sick results Doc, that's awesome. I would definitely recommend keeping track of your results long term. It helps me with my mental game (keeps me grounded when I am running good, keeps me confident when I am running bad) and I feel like it holds me accountable. Outside of that, don't fly too close the sun with this stuff! GL

lol