To call or not to call that is the question

Sure. The board looks dangerous with AA and front door flush draws having come in.

Let's assume he has a boat:
Against an underpair to the aces: If he bets big all underpairs fold but if he bets tiny something like a JT or KT might make a crying call -> better to bet small
Against a flush: If he bets medium then a flush will just call. If he bets big a medium to low flush might even fold. Small bet looks like a blocker bet and a flush might overcommit with a raise. Possibly even an Ax will raise a tiny bet smelling weakness -> then you jam. Perfect outcome
Against another boat (or quads) the chips are going in no matter what.

Yeah, this is a pretty sick spot. The above poster accurately covered why I think you have to just call the river block. It's annoying how effective this bet is. (I now feel slightly vindicated for my unorthodox recommendation of a block in the 78dd thread.)

What can you do differently earlier? I don't hate folding pre, but I think calling is fine. Once the board pairs I doubt you're going to get full value from a worse hand if you hit, so you should play cautiously, which you did till the river. I would like betting the turn heads up since you pick up a gutter, but multiway it seems less effective.

You said BB is aggro, but is he aggro in the sense of taking lots of stabs, or is he a maniac showing down with nothing in all in pots? If he's the kind who does this with trips for value, you may have played the hand correctly.

BB definitely bet a lot and won some big pots as a result. He got caught bluffing a few times but the river bets weren't all ins. He also won a couple of huge pots with all ins on the river when he was called and basically had the nuts. My take in the moment was that he wasn't an under bluffer. My guess is that he over bluffed but took advantage of that with his sizing. So his all in with me was going to be fairly balanced (it was an all in for me but less than half of his remaining stack). So if he was bluffing more than 33% of the time calling would be in my favor and if was bluffing less than 33% of the time I should be folding.

The thing I didn't mention that I actually didn't think about at the time was that because I checked back the turn it was very unlikely I had an A or TT/88. Maybe I could possibly check back AT/A8/TT/88 on the turn to induce a bluff on the river but with such a small pot and a potential flush and gutter out there I don't think anyone would check back the turn. So I think it had to look like I hit a flush. My river raise sizing was not large, so not polarizing. I think its unlikely BB would think that I had AK/AQ/AJ which would beat a small Ax type hand, because why wouldn't I bet those on the turn? And on the river they would be losing to a flush.

So in the moment I thought BB either had Ax where he wanted to get me to fold or he had AT/A8/A2 and knew it was a win and he had fooled me into thinking it was a blocking bet on the river. I just didn't think he had A2 and got there on the river.

Is the ace of spades on the board?

I lean towards overflowing against massive 3bet river jams in live MTTs unless this guy is the spewy type that doesn't understand relative hand strength and would jam an A or a worse flush here. If you don't have a strong read on Villain yet, I would fold and try to catch him later if you see him getting really out of line. This board is somewhat under bluffed in general, because you can have AT/A8/A2/TT/88 in full.

I don't think so. If I remember correctly it was the A of hearts. I had diamonds so the A of diamonds was also on the board.

I feel like your logic and math are correct, except for the fact that even these young sicko types rarely find a 3 bet bluff on the river. Once you raise into that texture, it's just too likely you (and I know you're an older guy) are really strong, and they're just not going to find the bluff that often. So it's probably not a bluff, and like provolone said, unless he's incorrectly betting for value, it's going to nearly always be an FH. So I think you just have to call on the river and miss value sometimes.

Also, if I had AT or A8 I would absolutely check the turn to let flushes and lower full houses get there (both of which happened), so I disagree that he can take it out of your range.

For me I would always bet small on the turn if I had a boat. That way it would allow me to jam the river in a polarizing pot size way. Anyone who had a flush draw would call. Anyone with an A would call. I get the cbet could have been a bluff or PP. And it is possible they both have a PP. But there would be only a 10% chance in that case either would hit their boat. Whereas if either has an A or a flush draw they will call a turn bet.

Thing is BB was always checking the turn with anything. The pre-flop raiser cbet the flop against 2 players and in all likelihood was going to bet the turn if they had the last A. Another factor was that I called the flop cbet. So if BB did have AT/A8 he figured one of us was going to bet the turn. If it was the original raiser then a turn c/r would be ideal especially if I called again. Once neither of us bet the turn then it becomes obvious that neither of us had an A. This is ultimately why I thought he could be bluffing when he jammed because he knows at best I have the nut flush. I mean it is possible that I have a boat and decided to check back the turn hoping somebody was going to lead out the river but in truth the pot was small and if I hoped to get it all in with a boat then I should always bet at least 20% of my stack on the turn so that a river bet would get it all in and look a bit polarized (like almost pot size) so I could be bluffing as if I had missed a flush.

The way it played out I was convinced that BB bet so small on the river to prevent me from betting a significant amount if I had hit my flush. It was a terrific size in that my raise was probably less than I would have bet if he hadn't led out. I essentially decided to make a blocking size raise because I didn't believe he had a boat the way he bet the river and I wasn't worried that he would raise. If I had made it like a third or half of my remaining stack then he would never be able to bluff. His jam would always be a boat. Not that I wanted him to jam.

Ultimately before I could think it through my hands moved my chips out as a call. The one thought I had was either I more than double up or go home. And that was OK (apparently to my subconscious which also knew that the jam size was polarizing and could be a bluff).

I agree that reflexively checking monsters is a bad idea. There are times when it's good strategy, and times when it's not. I myself do it way less than I used to, and I think you're correct in how you would play one here...but there are a lot of people who always slowplay, so I'm just saying he cannot automatically range you on flushes and worse.

I think our only real point of disagreement is that he's bluffing often enough to justify calling. If you think he is, then you're clearly too high up in your range to fold. But massive river bluffing, especially with converted value, is just so rare in this kind of event (it's even rare in $25Ks as a recent post on here showed).

The villain being able to have the nut flush is a massive difference also in how to play the hand.

Not sure what you are getting at here. The villain was not able to have the nut flush. I was drawing to the nut flush on the flop and hit the nut flush on the river.

Villains shove on the river had less possibilities of beating me as only a boat could be ahead of me (is that what you are saying?)

Feels like a tough decision given the absolute strength of our hand but I think if we break it down we can come to a clear fold vs the vast majority of players.

First question to always ask is do you beat value? I don't think so as the block-3bet line is very polarising and it would be a huge overplay to do this with a flush (maaaybe the nut flush but of course that's not possible here), particularly on AAx multiway where there are lots of potential boats for all three players.

At that point, your hand is a bluffcatcher so all we have to figure is does he have enough bluffs here? Well, he's called a flop bet multiway on AA8 and then blocked the river (still multiway) so it's a very showdowny range mostly consisting of Ax, flushes and traps. Therefore he would need to be bluff 3betting with Ax on the river, a play that wouldn't occur to the vast majority of players. He still have quite a few value combos (A8, 88, AT, A2, TT) so to reach the required amount of bluffs is extremely unlikely for 99.9% of players in my opinion.

This shouldn't dissuade us from raising in the first place. At the point at which he blocks, our hand is clearly still very strong and wants to put more money in. However, I think your size is way too small (only around 20% pot) and we can get more value than that. Note that blocking is only really used out of position because they do not close the action; in this spot, if you had a medium hand you could just call and the hand is over. Once he raises our hand is a bluffcatcher but we needn't be worried about that since the line won't occur very often at all. And especially if he doesn't find bluffs we would have zero concerns raise-folding.

Perhaps we would have to consider calling vs a very inexperienced player who may be prone to overvaluing a weaker flush, but this seems very unlikely to me given the block-3bet line.

OK. So here is what happened. I virtually insta called because I just couldn't fold after I had raised and he was an aggro player. He showed me an A and because we were all in and both had to table our hands I showed my K high flush and he shook his head and showed me a 3.

In most of these spots I don't raise on the river and then regret it. Here I'm kind of shocked he didn't just call the 16,000 but he was really good and thought he could get me to fold in a Phil Ivey kind of way. Especially if I had an A with a kicker that played like a J (but again I think most people would have bet the turn last to act with AJ/AQ) so I think he was acting like he had a boat and I had a flush.

It turned out I made it to the money but not Day 2. It was just another one of my 2025 nightmares. Soon after I won this hand I raised with AA in EP. A guy jammed 62,000 with AQo and of course I called. And lost. Then I made it back up to 250,000 chips and this happened. A new guy came to the table with just over 200,000 chips and the first hand he played he was in EP and raised to 25,000 which was 5x. I looked down at AA in the CO and thought the guy had JJ and if I do my normal raise to 75,000 it is more than 33% effective stack and is pot committing so he might fold anyway. And if he calls and smashes the flop I won't be able to fold. Also I thought that if I jammed there it would look a lot like AK and JJ might call. QQ would probably always call. And it turns out KK called my jam. And he hit a K on the flop. Somehow though I made it into the money (min cash) and then this hand happened when I had 330,000 chips (yes I went on another heater) against the original Villain who now had about 700,000 chips. I raised with AQs in EP and Villain called and a shortish stack in BB went all in for about 115,000 chips. So I jammed and Villain tank called with JJ (and BB had KQ). Lol. And of course I got knocked out. I really thought Villain would fold because he hadn't 3-bet. I did turn a flush draw but missed.