2/5/10 bluff catching top set facing river donk jam when flush gets there

Given small turn sizing (which as you noted should have been larger here) my estimation is that V as described would never fold any FD combination on turn. Sucky spot, essentially have close to just bluff-catcher at this point. From my experience the recreational out of flow river jam on the board-dynamic changing rivers they tend to have much more often then not - I tend to exploit overfold in similar spots to this until they show they are capable of blasting it off. They are usually happy to show the goods if friendly w/ them with a little prompting post-hand after you fold. As we have no spades I would fold in this spot, much rather have AsJx or even JsJx to make the call.

Not folding

Yeah I would've went over pot on the turn.

I think you have to call sets here.

I mean really what can he play this way that you beat especially when he jams OOP? You're uncapped here so certainly can have the nut flush - is he really playing a hand like KQo this way? He'd have to really be getting out of line here to call imo - I just don't see him taking a hand like AQ/AT/KQ/99 and taking this line ever. Maybe there is the rare AsTx or KsQx that he decides to loose with but not sure if he does it with frequency enough to call here.

I think if you had bet $600 on the turn and he donk shoved river for slightly over pot you kind of have to call. This is your best non-flush hand (maybe you have some 76s?), as you don't have 62.

But when you bet roughly half pot on turn (or even 75% for $300), I think you have a lot more flush draws and V would also think that. But you are still near the top of your range, so I'd try not to be hard on myself when I decided I had to call and lost way more than 60% of the time.

PRE - pretty standard stuff.

FLOP - heads-up, bet flop larger, 1/2-2/3 pot.

TURN - bomb it for 150% pot.

RIVER - Yuck. As played, with the smaller bet sizing on flop and turn, fold.

I agree bet bigger otf, his range should be strong after flatting a 3bet and raising from what's essentially utg+1.

The fact that he likes to bluff rivers when the flush gets there is just the icing on the cake to close your eyes and call.

Is turn really an overbet spot? Would we want to overbet with AA/KK as well? what are our bluffs taking this line? I doubt we b/f when we bet this big, so is our range essentially AA-QQ, JJ, AKss and AQss? I dont know if thats great, villain is not described as total station, so I think he has a very easy time playing against this sizing oop, essentially able to fold almost all of his range except when we totally cooler him.
But thats my opinion, curious to see why others think its an overbet spot and what hands to choose.

TT would be a much better hand to overbet, if we 3bet it pre (I wouldnt)

If we're focusing on being balanced here, we could have KQss, Q9ss, 98ss, A3ss and A2ss for bluffs. Our value would be over-pairs, sets, and top 2.

I don't see why this is a spot where we need to be too concerned about balance, though. We have top set on a wet board, in a 3B pot, where V isn't going to have many, if any over-pairs to the board, but will have a lot of draws, as well as some 1 pair+ draw hands, over-cards + draw hands, and some sliver of 2P that will want to continue.

With JJ, we're blocking V from having top pair or top 2. When V doesn't x/r flop, he likely doesn't have bottom set, a slow-played over-pair, or a super-strong combo-draw. His range would seem to be weighted towards hands that either connected with the flop in some way, or unpaired draws with reasonable equity.

Few of V's hands are going to call off a big river bet if they don't improve, so we want to get max value on the turn, by over-betting pot. Going larger polarizes our range to thick value and bluffs that may improve to the nuts on the river, whereas a smaller bet just looks like thick value that isn't going to like the river card at all.

If hero saw V donk-shoving rivers as a bluff after check-calling flop and turn in 3B pots, maybe we can call here. But if V has just been betting smaller, in smaller pots, when he's bluffing, after having the betting lead on previous streets, rather than donk-shoving as a bluff, I don't see how we can call here, with our hand.

We're blocking V from having top pair or top 2. The only J unaccounted for is the Js. V could get to the river with a lot of AJss, KJss, and QJss, as well as a lot of AXss, including A5s that turns a pair to go with the flush draw, or A2s, that turns a straight draw.

V probably isn't raising pre, calling hero's 3B, check-calling flop and turn, then donk-shoving river with too many bluffs, when hero also has a lot of nutted or just very strong hands here.

V's line looks a lot like a draw that got there, and doesn't want to miss value by letting hero check back.

I agree with the bolded, and I think he just folds basically his whole range when we overbet and we just protect our hand. Are we really 3betting KQss, Q9ss, 89ss, A3ss and A2ss often enough?

Betting 1/2 to 2/3 puts his marginal hands in a lot tougher spot imo

Against a rec player, as described in the OP, when we're on the BTN, and we've straddled, I think we can 3B suited Broadway connectors and suited wheel aces, for sure. We can't assume V's opening range in the BB when we straddle on the BTN is going to be theoretically correct (meaning, very strong). Few rec players know what hands to raise from every position anyway, much less what hands to open from the BB when the BTN straddles.

Q9s and 89s would be lower frequency 3B's, but a bad rec may not be able to figure that out when we overbet turn and he's chasing a draw or calling light with 1P. In-game, I don't think we need to spend any mental energy wondering if our pre-flop 3B range includes Q9ss or 89ss when we get to the turn.

When we 3B pre, c-bet flop, and barrel turn, our range is going to have a lot of thick value and a few high-equity bluffs for balance, but against a bad rec V, we don't need to worry about too much about balance here. A bad rec is more likely to just look at the strength of his own hand relative to what beats him, rather than consider whether or not we're 3B'ing pre as wide as Q9s or 89s.

I think the theoretically correct line would probably be betting smaller on flop, like 1/3 pot (which hero did here), and betting 1/2 to 75% pot on turn, but that assumes every opponent is the same, and that we can get away from our hand when any of the obvious draws come in on the river. But when we're up against exploitable opponents, we should be taking exploitative lines, no?

Against a rec player who is prone to make mistakes, sometimes big mistakes, I prefer to exploit his leaks for their maximum value, by betting larger on flop and turn, which sets up a situation in which he can't avoid making a huge mistake on the river, no matter what he has, and no matter how he plays it.

Let's say he's chasing a flush, and the river bricks. If he decides to donk-lead as a bluff, obviously we're snapping him off with top set.

Let's say we're on the nut flush draw, and he has a worse flush draw. He's probably going to give up if the draws brick, and probably check-fold all his non-paired hands to a bet. We'll win with ace-high if it goes check-check. He's probably not donk-shoving the river with no pair or even 1P when all the draws brick out. If the flush comes in and he donk-shoves, we'll be snapping him off with the nuts.

If he's calling the whole way with 1P, and the draw comes in, he's probably not donk-shoving 1P as a bluff when we 3B pre and bet big on flop and turn. He's probably just going to check-call again.

If he's on a draw, and the draw comes in, and he donk-shoves, we can just muck. If the draw comes in, and he checks, hoping to check-raise, we can just check back.

When V check-calls a big c-bet on the flop, and check-calls a big barrel on the turn, he's making multiple mistakes, leading to a river where he can only make mistakes, no matter what he does.

When we take hero's line of betting 1/3 pot on flop and 1/2 pot on turn, we're giving V a good price to chase his draws. V may or may not bluff when his draws miss, but he's almost certainly going to be donk-betting for value if he hits his draw, when we take this line, because we're going to be checking back on this river a lot. Likewise, he's incentivized to bluff this river, so it puts our top set in a tough spot.

When V check-calls small bets on flop and turn, it puts us in a tough spot with top set on this run-out. Top set feels like too strong a hand to fold, but we're not at the top of our range anymore, the way we've played this. We're going to have nut flushes here sometimes, so top set isn't the strongest hand in our range.

When we use a larger bet sizing on flop and turn, V shouldn't be getting to the river with very many of his non-nut draws, but when he does, he's going to have a hard time maximizing the value of his hand OOP, when we can just check-back or fold any of our non-nutted hands when he bets, and snap off all his bluffs when we have the nuts.

Alternatively, it's probably fine to bet 1/3 pot on flop, to keep his draws, and 1P hands in, but we absolutely need to bomb the turn when none of the draws possible on the flop complete.

The way hero played this, with the bet sizing he took, I think this has to be a fold on the river. The most obvious draw got there, as well as some less obvious draws which still got a good price to chase.

This check-call, check-call, donk-jam line from V is very rarely a bluff, even if we've seen V bet pot as a bluff with missed straight draws when the flush comes in. If V has something like KQo with one spade, hero can still have all the nut flushes, some wheels, as well as sets and top 2, hands that a lot of players just can't fold, even when the obvious flush draw comes in. V donk-jamming as a bluff with KQo when hero takes this line would seem extremely unlikely.

If V had the betting lead when he bluffed river in those earlier pots, like, he raised pre, then c-bet flop, barreled turn, and barreled river, that's different than check-calling flop and turn, then donk-jamming river. One's a somewhat reasonable triple-barrel bluff. The other is almost always super-thick value.

In this game UTG through cutoff act before small blind, then BB, then hero on button. So actually he this should be the loosest 3bet configuration.

I don't agree with overbetting turn. If you look at 6 max straddled BB vs straddle at 200 straddles deep in GTO Wizard (close to the effective stack size because of the 4x open), the allowed turn sizings are 20%, 33%, 50%, 75%, 100%, 150%, and jam. The only sozings 1qsolver actually uses are 75% pot and 100% pot. Pot is the preferred size for AJ, KJ, overpairs, and TT, while the preferred size for JJ and weaker jacks is 75%. Overbet is never used. Usually smaller sizes are used for top set since you block a lot of the calling range. If I had TT I think pot is a good size. Overbet doesn't seem necessary at this depth.

I still prefer larger sizing on flop (1/2-2/3 pot when heads-up) and turn (2/3-75% pot, minimum).

The smaller sizing allows him to continue with all his draws. When he jams for a pot sized bet on the river, and we call, we're basically just hoping he's bluffing, not value-betting. If he has KQhh here as a bluff, he could just as easily have AJss or KQss for value.

When I run this spot it prefers 40% flop 67% on the turn and calls even AA and KK and AJ. Sets are never a fold.

Gross. Line reads as a nut flush that got there and now is trying to get as much money in as possible when ahead. On the other hand, if he's as loose as you describe he could do this with a missed straight draw repping a flush. Don't think a set plays this way on such a connected board. I'd puke call because I have trouble folding any hands of medium strength. Important to be properly rolled for games so you can make calls like this and not feel like your day is ruined if you're wrong, which, you probably will be 40-50% of the time.

Given the pot odds, this is a pretty straightforward call.

Non-reg big bets on the river are generally underbluffed, so we can overfold without losing any sleep over it.