Turned top 2 against PFR - raise now, or fold river on bad run-out?

Not a huge fan of flatting anywhere but otb. We want to avoid going mway and the rake is just too high in general.

Fold river

Population isn't turning hands into bluffs and this is one of those runouts where you have to in order to find enough bluffs.

Turn is well played; we won't be raising with any of our draws because we don't want villain to jam us off our equity, so raising would only be an exploit vs a player who is never folding.

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I would also flat the turn, and against this described villain I would call the river since he'd probably play AA and AK that way, and he could also be using the king otr to blow us off Tx (or maybe he's betting for value with KQ).

Preflop is OK. With a light 3bet I'd like to fold out some hands that dominate us. He's probably not folding AJs, KJs or ATs - and probably doesn't open many of the offsuit combos to begin with, if he's competent - I think calling in LP is fine.

His turn barrels all pick up additional equity (AK, AQ, KQ) or turn top pair. They don't have amazing equity but on the whole I reckon you can probably get away with a smallish raise here. Maybe it's a bit face up but if there's a size which makes hands like AK, AQ and KJ uncomfortable and unsure what to do, then that's probably not a bad sizing. Of course, a lot of the time the river card will be a low brick so I'm a little result orientated; on a low brick he may plough on with AK on the river and you have an easy call down. Both have merit.

River card combined with the big bet is unpleasant. This doesn't feel like AK or KQ. If you squint hard you can probably see him turning AJ into a bluff this way, but it's quite far fetched. Probably a fold

What does the population do with AK/KQ here? It's a pop play - my guess is KQ never bets here, AK might bet some portion of the time but you would know the player pool better than us. If they rarely bet AK here it's a fold, if they always bet AK/KQ it's a call.

Not sure I understand. If we have Tx, he has us beat with AA or AK. He wouldn't need to blow us off Tx. I'm not even sure how much calling we're doing with Tx if he bets small, when there are two over-cards to the T, and both straight and flush draws complete. Or are you saying, you think he has some pure air bluffs here, that lose to Tx, and want Tx to fold?

You think AA and AK triple-barrel on this run-out? I'd think AK would check back the turn a lot. Would those hands be betting this size on the river for value, or as a bluff?

I was definitely struggling to find his bluffs on the river.

Not too long ago, I'd have raised turn at nearly 100% frequency, but more recently I've been making an effort to pull back and let opponents barrel into me. It didn't even cross my mind to raise here, or at least I didn't consider it too long before flatting.

It would be interesting to figure out if there's a raise size that makes sense. But are we raising to charge his draws, or induce him to re-raise light? Does he ever come back over the top with over-pairs or worse JX, or with KQs that picks up the flush draw on the turn (an impossibility here, with the K on the river, but we obviously didn't know that on the turn).

But, yeah, you called it. I was mostly just flatting with the expectation that the river would be a brick and he'd barrel off. On this river, I wouldn't expect him to barrel with worse value.

Good question.

I think most of the 1/3 population would struggle to find a bluff here that wasn't pure air, or at least pure air but with the ace of diamonds (the flush suit on board).

I think the better players are probably capable of working out that having the ace of the flush suit allows them to bluff. But even within the better player population, they won't all pull the trigger all the time. To turn the stiff ace into a bluff here, they need to know I'm good enough to fold not just my Tx that called flop, but also hands like JT, KJ, and even Q9.

I think a lot of the population isn't able to work out that any hand that had any sort of showdown value before the river plummets in value on this run-out. Like, a guy with QQ may not understand the terminology of "running out of value", but most will intuitively understand how bad a card that K on the river is. But, instead of turning QQ into a bluff by betting, and betting big, they'll just check, and pray I check back with AJ or AT.

So, in order to call here, we have to think V is capable of taking this line with some AX offsuit combo that has the ace of diamonds in it, or he's capable of turning a hand with showdown value into a bluff, and we need to be able to beat that hand (like, bluff-catching with JT doesn't work if he turns KJ or better into a bluff), and we need to believe he thinks we're capable of laying down most of our value range.

I would think the hands that want to bluff here are blocking the best parts of our range, so AA / QQ and AXo with the ace of diamonds. But I don't know how many 1/3 players are good enough to turn all those hands into bluffs.

I would think the most likely bluffs would have the least showdown value, but I'd also think AXo doesn't make up a big chunk of his range when he takes this line, starting with his EP open, so I'm left wondering how often he takes this line with AA or QQ.

Why is that? Can you explain the reasoning?

You said he’s competent. A competent V knows H rarely hits back door flush. In addition the K scares TP hands and even 2p hands. Lots of reasons for a competent V to fire at river with a hand that loses to JT here. But I pay off people a lot so YMMV but I’m calling here confidently.

For this sizing on this runout it feels like we are bluff catching. Don’t think worse value bets this big. It might be hard to find enough bluffs since so many hands have showdown value. My gut says fold.

Please don’t make flop Txx. Just fill in the blanks for us, call it T53 or whatever you think is closest to what happened.

The turn is the decision point here. I think this is a mandatory raise IP. We have the low sets and block JJ/TT. V has more bdnfd. We have to fade half the deck on the river. Is it face-up to raise? Maybe. So what. I'm happy to take it down here.

AP: river is obv a bad runout for us. We get ~2-1 to call. I suppose the computer would say this is a close call. Admittedly at 1/3 this is an underbluffed spot.

I agree with Docvail's analysis on the river: most of V's Ax has showdown value and V's polar bets have to be his AdX. These combos are a fraction of his range.

I lean towards calling because of V's polar line but I'm not sure I could find it in real time at the table.

I'm guessing preflop is ok. But against a competent player I think making a nitty fold and not getting mixed up with him (even in position for an ok price) is also fine.

Doubt we can fold flop for one reasonable bet.

I also just flat the turn. A competent reg can start making some hero folds against a raise here (although admittedly you have a much better image to raise with than I do). We're fine with allowing him to barrel. And meanwhile we limit damage if behind.

Yikes versus this river sizing. Kinda nut lowish river card as now everything he was bluffing / perhaps overvalueing gets there. And most competent players don't vastly overvalue Kx here. Most hands that were bluffing now at least have a showdownable piece that no longer need to bluff. Yeah, we're underrepped, but at the same time I don't see too much we're beating on this river card / action. In real time I probably continue with my original sigh call down plan but if I'm playing well I probably find the fold.

GcluelessNLnoobG

This spot really depends on the Villain's description when you get to the river.. as played I would fold

If he didn't have us beat it's a great card for him to blow us off a lower pair. With AA it's a value bet, but if he turned a FD and missed for example, he might be using the king to fold us out (or back door draws that came in).

I've seen MANY players over play aces in many more ways than 3 barreling. He's an unknown, so we really don't know how good he is or if he would play it like we would play it.

I think against a non nit player (or an unknown) it's alil mubsy to fold otr with two pair here, but that's just me.

fold pre.

yes 1/3 nl is boring as f

Thank you all for your replies. I'll post the reveal below. But first...

I agree the K that brings in straight draws, flush draws, sets, and better 2P scares my worse 2P hands, because I had middle 2P, and I was a little scared. I'm not sure how rarely I hit the BDFD. I think I could get here with a hand like Q9s, QTs, ATs, etc. I'm not 3B'ing pre with all the combos that connect well enough on the flop to float from IP.

I have had a bad habit of paying off too many river value bets. So I've been working on finding folds more often. Especially at 1/3, it seems like bet-bet-bet lines tend to be value more than bluffs, especially when the sizing isn't unusually small or big on any particular street.

Even for a competent V, it's hard to find very many bluffs or value hands that want to bet thin on this run-out.

I definitely felt like JT was just a bluff-catcher on the river.

Sorry about the OP not including the exact board. I honestly couldn't remember for certain. I'll try to avoid doing that in the future.

It didn't occur to me until after the hand that the turn was a big decision point. At the time, my thinking was that my 2P was almost always the best hand, and would likely remain the best hand on most rivers, so I didn't see much value in raising.

But in re-looking at it, the way the board ran out - T-high flop, Jack on turn adding the BDFD and SD's, then the river K bringing in the flush and straights - it would be pretty hard for me to show up with very many straights and flushes. I'd have to not 3B AQ pre, or not 3B some AXdd that connected well enough to call on the flop, like A5dd that flopped bottom or middle pair and turned the BDFD, or otherwise pick up equity on the turn with a hand like QTdd.

V on the other hand could c-bet all the combos that get there on the river, so he probably does show up with more nutted hands than I have.

I think AdAx and QdQx are the best combos to bluff - double-blocking the straights and big flushes. But, yeah, he's got 6 combos of AA or QQ with a diamond, and not every good player will want to fire a third barrel with those hands. I thought it would be more likely he'd show up with something that was bluffing until the river, less likely he'd turn AA/QQ into a bluff.

I was somewhat wondering how your strat plays the turn. I was planning to at least call, if not raise any river card if he bet, and bet any card if he checked. I was sick when he bet this size on this particular card.

It's one of those spots where most of his bluffs would have some showdown value, and not every competent player can turn SDV into a good bluff, in terms of knowing when to pull the trigger, and for what size.

Hard to think what 1P hands I'd have that would find a call here. I think I'd need at least 2P to call, and it's not like I'm getting here with any sets. So my range looks like 2P, a straight, or a low flush. If that's my range, I think bluffing for a big size is probably less optimal than using a smaller size, because I'm mostly just folding my 2P, and calling with the rest.

NOW you're living up to your user name!

I turned my JT face up to see if I could get a read off him. Not surprisingly, I couldn't. I tanked while I went back through all the action, trying to see if I could logically deduce if this was more likely to be thick value, worse value, or just a pure bluff.

I didn't think he'd triple-barrel on this run-out with pure air, since I could get here with some draws that make a straight or flush. Using that as a starting point, it then seemed less likely that he'd turn worse value into a bluff with this sizing, and that he'd be more likely to take a smaller sizing, with both thin value and a bluff.

So, I folded. And V turned over...

Probably thought that he was value owning AK….