Under river pressure with TT
New table, playing deep. 1/3 in UK.
Hero starting hand with 750.
V1 covers and has played one hand so far (first hand on table) where he lost a 400 pot with AK against another players rivered two pair on K high board. No other reads and not played together before.
7 handed.
V1 straddles to 6, H raises to 20 in CO with TT. BB calls and V1 completes.
Pot 61
Flop 458ddc.
Checked to H and I bet 45. BB fold, V1 thinks for a short while and calls.
Turn 458ddc5c
Pot 151
Two flush draws now on board and given the relatively cheap price V1 had to complete the straddle I am still giving him a wide range here to include 8x, FDs, Ax suited. Ruling out JJ+ as I would have expected him to 3b these pre.
I bet 100 with the intention of folding out the weaker portion of his range and getting calls from his drawing hands that we are ahead of. He thinks for a while longer to the point where I think he will fold, but he calls.
River 458ddc5cQc
Pot 351
V thinks for 30 seconds before betting 300.
My thought process here is that we now only really have a bluff catcher, unless V thinks I have barrelled Axdd - but then why lead and not let me barrel again?
My line is consistent with an overpair so his bet here looked strong. My biggest regret in the hand is not checking back turn so we can call with more comfort if V leads for around 100 on river, and when I thought about posting I wondered if this would be the main observation.
Any thoughts welcome.
4 Replies
I think we’d be missing out on too much value with our hand if we checked back turn.
If we had 66/77/Ax then I can get behind checking back turn to bluff catch river
Appreciated, thanks. I was also loathe to allow any of his holdings that flopped or turned a FD to improve for free.
Your line seems fine. I don’t trust 1/3 players to bluff river enough if we x back turn. I think we make more money betting turn ourselves to target one pair hands and draws. Once he takes the big donk on the river, I think fold is fine. It’s rare to see players x/c x/c big bets on the flop and turn and then come out and lead river (big) as a bluff. Unless I’ve seen the guy take this line as a bluff, I’m folding and silently thanking him for letting me off the hook
Played fine if you folded river. Straddle could have anything. If he's good enough to bluff here, more power to him. You'll catch him eventually. Maybe say something like, "AA no good?" as you muck to entice him to show 😉
Do we have Td or Tc?
PRE - seems fine. I might size up a bit when we think V1 may be tilted and will over-defend his straddle.
FLOP - probably c-betting for 1/3 pot. I don't hate your 2/3 sizing with a hand that benefits from equity denial, but you're funneling opponents into calling with a stronger range.
TURN - after he calls our large c-bet, I think we should check back and look to bluff catch rivers. When you bet 2/3 pot and he calls again, you're really narrowing his range down to better value and the best draws.
RIVER - pretty trivial fold. We raised pre, and bet chunky twice. He's donking huge. This is rarely a bluff.
If we bet smaller on flop, I think we could check back or barrel for a small size again on the turn. If we check it back and he bets up to 2/3 pot on the river, I'd probably call.
I wouldn't beat yourself up. 99-JJ can be difficult hands to play on a lot of boards.
I find it helps to step back and consider how I'd play all the strong hands in my range, and all the worst hands in my range, and ask myself if my hand is more like the best or worst hands, given the board texture and my opponents' ranges.
Here, where we could have flopped a lot of much stronger hands, our hand is closer to the bottom of our range than the top, and so I wouldn't want to build the pot up by betting big on early streets. I'd just bet small for equity denial and try to drag V to showdown with a wide/weak range.
I appreciate the detailed response, thank you. We held the Tc.
Re: checking the turn after being called on the flop - what is the weakest hand in our range that we do barrel turn with after the large bet is called OTF? QQ? ATdd?
Is there a naive/player pool-specific argument that says a typical LLSNL player will call with their weaker hands and FDs whether our flop C-bet is 1/3 or 2/3?
Result: I folded and never got a reveal.
