2/5 - to thin value or not to thin value.

The place where you missed value was the turn. When both players call the small flop bet, and you unblock TP and pair plus FD hands, you need to go much bigger.

I think betting river small versus this player and trying to induce a spewy XR might be viable, but against virtually any other player, I would think that it would be very difficult to get value from worse here.

Say we bet 100, V x/jam........We have induced what we hoped for, but do we really stick with our original plan ????
I mean that's like 830ish eff on the river.

The only reason to bet small would be to induce.

In general, small river bets IP are bad because the benefit of getting 1/4 pot doesn't outweigh the fact that we have reopened the action for an aggressive villain to blow us off of our hand. Here, we would be trying to exploit an opponent that might be over-bluffing. If we don't want to call off, we should just check back or choose a sizing that gets legit value from 2p. As I mentioned, I think check back is the play against most opponents.

Also worth noting that betting $100 on the river and getting called is the exact same result as betting $200 on the turn and getting called, except we don't build the pot for the times when the river is the 8c or the 2h. Choosing the wrong turn sizing is a bigger mistake because it compounds on the river.

flop but especially turn are bad sizings like above said. turn should be at least 75% pot.

It's easy to offer a critique here because this was a very bad runout for H. MW I think flop bet needs to be bigger. AP I'm very focused on V's continue range on flop. What is it?

Obviously we hope it's all his Kx that we have dominated. Unfortunately, almost every other combo and bdfd gets there by the river and JT has us beat on the turn.

I'm checking behind river because I cannot see what we're going to get value from here that we beat. Now V can have KJ and could have called the turn confidently blocking the nuts and perhaps skeptical that H has AK. But that's really the only source of value for us and he should really fold everything else that's behind our set.

Everything else in his continuing range has us beat. It's too thin and if v xr, we get something like 3-2 to call a jam which isn't that great.

Your bet size otf is probably correct in theory, but you may want to go bigger as an exploit: live nobody folds neither TP nor an OESD on the flop.

As played flop, the OESD got there ott, and we are still 3-way, so I don't think we should go much bigger than what you did.

River is not a great card for us either, but HU I think you can still squeeze some value: I'd b/f ~150

Grunch:

PRE - seems fine to me, if the $10 straddle is on.

FLOP - seems fine. If we think V is in revenge mode, I think we could get away with c-betting a little larger. But $35 is fine, when it's 3-ways.

TURN - seems fine. I might size down slightly, to see if he wants to x/r now that JT comes in, and he might have some 2P combos or occasionally a lower set that didn't x/r the flop. A small turn bet might also induce him to donk river if he has a better hand.

RIVER - Ehhhh...I'm not loving this card. When V just flats pre in the SB, I don't think he's going to have much KJ/KQ. And I'd think KJ might donk here at some frequency.

This is going to depend a lot on what I think of V, specifically how often I think he's going to donk river with a better hand. He's going to get here with some draws that came in on the turn or river, and the thin value / SDV portion of his range has been significantly downgraded.

If we want to bet, I'd think we'd want to size down, to target his worse value. But that looks like we have thin value, and he could x/r. Since we just saw him x/r with SDV, I'd think an x/r here would be more weighted towards thick value.

Even if it feels kinda nitty, I think it would be reasonable to check this back, when the BDFD comes in and any T is a straight.

I think you need to adjust your thinking here
Whenever you have a decent chance of losing if you check-back (little flush, ignorant end of the straight), then it makes no sense to be betting.

You lose value when worse hands would have called, but I don’t think that’s the case here.

Thinking about this more...

I don't like bet-folding using a middling bet size here, just based on the SPR. It sucks to bet $200-$300 and then fold to a jam, when we can just check back.

But if we think he'll x/r a lot, maybe we can induce him to raise with worse. I could see betting really small, like $50, with a plan to call a raise up to $300.

My thinking is that a really small bet here puts him in a $hltty spot. He'll want to raise for value with his nutted hands, but he can't really go huge if he wants us to call. He might think he has to turn his worse value into a bluff, and that he doesn't need to go huge to make us fold.

I'm just thinking that we get here with hands like AKdd and KQhh that might bet thin but can't withstand much heat. And he gets here with a lot of SDV hands that might win if we check back but have to raise as a bluff if we bet, and also some nutted hands that can take this line for value.

If he doesn't x/r, maybe he just flicks in a light curiosity call, and we get another $50 from a hand like K6ss.

What do you think the timing tells mean?

A quick check can mean different things depending on if the player is in position or out of position. Some players just check range from OOP. Some have no stabs or c-bets IP, depending on the board and configuration.

A quick call can mean our opponent has a draw, or it could mean he just wouldn't consider raising or folding, either in the spot, or with his specific hand, which could just be SDV.

Consider his quick actions here. He's probably checking range from OOP. His hand is just a bluff catcher on flop and turn, so he doesn't need to think about raising or folding. He's ahead of our bluffs and behind our value. But he might act just as quickly with JT that flops an OESD and turns a straight.

On the river, his hand gets upgraded to top 2P, but when the flush comes in, it's still just a bluff catcher. If he turned a straight, he has to worry about the BDFD coming in. If he has something like ATcc, he might have been planning to insta-check river if he made his flush. His quick actions may not tell us enough to define his hand.

We're unlikely to bet worse than KJ for value here. So there's not much reason for him to consider blocking or donking, which would effectively be turning his reasonably good bluff catcher into a bluff.

Likewise, our hand starts out as the effective nuts on the flop, but gets progressively downgraded to thick value on the turn and thin value on the river.

We're supposed to value bet less when we have few if any bluffs in our range, and bluff less when we have little or no value in our range.

What would our natural bluffs be here? Any T makes a straight. There's a three-flush on board. As the PFR, we can also have all the sets, a bunch of 2P, TP, and AA.

We'd have to bluff with some AXo combo that was good enough to raise pre, and c-bet the flop, and barrel turn, and also blocks the nuts, but doesn't have any SDV, and can't win if we check back. Something like AcQo or AcJo.

That's just three to six bluff combos, compared to nine nut flush combos that can bet for value, and the rest of our range that can just check back and win a lot of the time.

Meanwhile, he can a straight or a flush. But he's less likely to have any 2P or sets, other than KJ that ran into 2P on the river, which just isn't that many combos.

His check-calling range is going to be weighted towards a handful of very strong hands, because his range is split between a few strong hands and a lot of dust.

Third set is actually pretty close to the middle of our value range on the river. If his calling range is basically KJ or better, all his better beats 99. KJ is literally the only hand worse than ours that he can have that can call a value bet, and he just isn't all that likely to have KJ here.

We've seen how he's capable of x/r'ing rivers as a bluff with SDV. Have we seen him donk or x/r river with nutted value? I'd want to know how he would play a straight or flush here before going for thin value with third set.

You played it pretty close to perfectly, IMO. If we know he's less likely to have us beat, we can go for thin value. But without more observations of his play, it would be pretty risky.

We get to the river with $835 behind, over 2x pot. What size would you bet? Would you call or fold if he x/r'd?

I'd want to vomit if we bet $200 or more and he ripped it in for $835. I wouldn't feel bad betting $50 and calling if he made it $300. I'd feel awesome if he called or x/r'd with KJ.

ya this hand is a huge mistake. i'd have made at least $500 on this hand. if you bet $75 on flop and both call now pot is $325 and you can bet at least $250 on turn and probably more. river can just block bet. being scared of getting check raised all the time is a leak.

Pretty much this. I'm still just betting bigger on the turn and checking back river though, even against this player.

On this board with this runout it's really hard to find any bluffs in either players' range. Anything reasonable that he's likely to show up with here is at least 2 pair. Is he really going to turn 2 pair into a bluff to try to get you to fold a straight? I don't think so.

While you can squeeze a little extra value getting called by 2 pair sometimes, I think you likely lose more the times he check raises with a straight or flush and you pay him off.

I would go bigger OTT. At least 150 if not more. BB has ~3X back so you want to try to commit him. Auto-check is usually SDV/merged range. I'd go painfully small like 75.