Should I call this raise on the river?

Honestly, yeah 88/98 might be far enough behind with that speech play to fold. 1/3 players dont balance their range even ignoring the speech play so who cares what the theory is, yes they should have lots of bluffs but they dont bluff raise very often at all.

With the river raise plus the speech it's a fold. Not sure I find it in real time though if I'm being honest about it.

In my experience playing and watching live poker, people get extremely nervous when they are bluffing and are terrified of giving up a verbal tell, so they refuse to engage in any sort of speech play whatsoever. If someone is voluntarily giving a speech, particularly one where they are trying to give a reverse tell ("I don't think you have a flush, so I am going to raise...") it's virtually always strength.

In this particular spot, because the villian limp-called, you might be able to put him on nines full exclusively (A9, T9, 98) because he likely open raises hands like TT. So I would happily call maybe T9+. The number of value hands he can have, especially when you have Ah, is pretty limited.

Fold. V is super nutted, taking this line and making the speech.

Extremely rare that he'd take this line with worse value or as a bluff, at these stakes.

River is a fold as has already been noted. I don't like the flop either. You're not accomplishing anything downbetting into a loose passive villain who will play far worse against a check.

I think V can have all kinds of flushes. " a regular loose passive low stakes superstar" could show up here with K5 or even 35ss. But, that type of player is just going to call with those hands almost all of the time and probably raise the turn. You are only beating spazz here (which this player type has about 5% of the time). I think it's a fold. The only annoying thing is the click back raise but I think he's begging for a call here.

Evaluating the entire hand I think bigger flop and just bomb the turn are better. We want an SPR of 1 by the river. You probably lost the minimum by underbetting flop/turn though being results oriented.

Betting is clearly higher EV than checking on this board. I've smashed it and obviously want to inflate the pot; it's extremely unlikely that I'm behind in showdown value and I have the NFD.

I agree, I'm only beating spazz and perhaps K♥J♥ some of the time.

Certainly his raise size is begging for a call.

Why bet bigger on the flop? My guess is that the EV is approximately the same for 33% and 66% pot bet, and of course I want to keep him in when I have this specific hand on this specific board. I also don't think the draw-completing turn warrants a larger sizing than what I used. If it had been a blank then I may have overbet as his range would be capped from the flop call.

Why do you argue for an SPR of 1 on the river? To balance bluffs and value as 1 to 2? What do you see as the bluffs and value bets on the river to arrive at the SPR being optimal at 1?

This is a straightforward fold. He can't have the nut flush draw. Most likely 9x by far are all boats. The only realistic flushes you beat are KJhh and 65hh unless he limp-calls random suited Kings. He won't have AT. The only bluffs are JT type hands and that doesn't smell right either.

I would just fold. The speech sounds more like a SF than a FH. Does he really limp/call pre with 99/TT/AA? Probably not. QJhh would be more likely IMO.

Positions aren't obvious. You are BB and V limp/called BTN?
Size seems a bit big for a single limp, but he called so w/e.

I'd mostly be betting $40 on the flop HU, unless I thought he'd stab if I checked. Seems sus. on an A high board though, esp. when we went so big pre.
Maybe he can put us on KK?
Very few cards we are worried about if we check and he checks behind.

When we turn the 3rd nuts I don't mind betting bigger, or smaller. 75 into 110 feels meh. It's big enough his flushes will probably just call, but we'll get a decent number of folds from hands we are crushing. Also it's not like I'd bet 75 with TT here.

I probably mix river bet/check, vs. bet+raise I fold ... would expect Jh7h/7h6h way more than any FH (he has to slow play TT/99/A9/T9 on flop, or spew call 98/88, and there's a lot of draws on the flop which means V can raise happily). Would expect any bluffs to raise a bigger. I guess there's some chance he's an idiot and has random low flush and/or K9/Q9/J9 or something.

Yeah...it would be good to know if hero was SB or BB.

As for the line taken...

PRE - looks good, either from the SB or the BB.

FLOP - I'm mostly checking from OOP as the PFR. If we c-bet, I'd probably go smaller, like $20, or even just $15.

When we check here, we're not checking to check-call, necessarily. It depends on his bet sizing, but generally, our hand is strong enough to check-raise, and call a 3B.

Down-betting isn't terrible, but V is likely going to make more mistakes if we just check. If we're going to down-bet, the point is the same - to get V to make a mistake, and the smaller we bet, the more mistakes he's likely to make.

TURN - with our exact combo, blocking the top straight flush, I'm massively over-betting, like 2x pot, not less than pot, when we're only behind 7h6h, and V can have all the worse flushes, and a ton of worse value that will still call.

RIVER - this is tough, partly because of the line we took on flop and turn, which doesn't really narrow his range to exclude all boats.

I wouldn't expect him to show up with 98s very often, because I think 98s folds pre or on flop. But he could have A9s or T9s, or 99. Honestly, this feels like 99 more than anything.

As played on flop and turn, specifically with our bet sizing, I think we should check this river, to let him bet his worse flushes for value. When we raise pre, and go bet-bet-bet, and he STILL raises, AND he gives a speech before he does, he's almost never raising with worse.

When it comes to speech-play, I try to isolate what V is trying to communicate about his hand strength by what he says about our hand strength. Here, when he asks if we have the flush, he's trying to plant the idea that he has a hand that loses to any flush, which has to mean he can beat any flush.

If he had a hand that loses to a flush, he wouldn't hem and haw, if he wanted to turn it into a bluff. He'd just bet it, and not say anything.

I was in the SB.

Thanks for your thoughts, I appreciate it.

I was in the SB.

Interesting that you would check this board. How come? I get that one is meant to check more when OOP, but this board is good for our range and also our specific hand.

I just ran this through a solver and it agrees that betting smaller is the way to go.

Agreed about the speech play; I should have given that more importance during the hand. I just couldn't believe I was looking down at the nut flush, facing a raise, and probably having to fold.

Range check most flops HU OOP as preflop aggressor. More so against villains who are typical or loose or passive. Most of all against villains who are all three. Here the nodes are obvious but again in general downbetting into a station is just incentivizing him to play correctly. It may be ev neutral in a vacuum but it’s not close in reality.

Range check most flops OOP as the preflop aggressor? I think it's meant to be about 65% check, 35% bet - is it not? And that is assuming that villain is going to play optimally. Many are not and in that case it can be argued that one can bet the flop a little more. I checked this hand with a solver and the EV difference is minimal between betting various sizes and checking, but honestly I think there can be little debate that a bet is in order on this board, with this flop, playing against a weak IP player who is likely to call down pretty wide. How do you come to the conclusion that checking is higher EV?

You solved them as ev neutral. Don’t know, don’t care, will take your word for it. 65/35 seems made up and I don’t see why villain not playing optimally automatically implies a deviation toward betting.

Yes I solved them as EV neutral, but you said "it may be ev neutral in a vacuum but it’s not close in reality" - and I'm wondering how you come to that conclusion?

65/35 is the online stats for Linus Loeliger cbetting the flop OOP. His profile used to be available for free on statname.net but it's not any more.

There is a chapter in Johnathan Little's "Excelling at Tough Games" book that deals with playing OOP and it includes a section about the difference between playing out of position at game theory equilibrium and against weak recreational players. Of course it's necessary to protect your checking range out of position against all players, but it's not nearly as important against weak recreational players who are likely to overfold when they miss, and less likely to float or otherwise put up significant resistance. It can only be right to be more active and aggressive against these players, rather than checking - which makes life much easier for them and allows them to realize a lot of equity that is denied if we bet instead.

I think your river size is too ambitious on this runout but given the cheap price its a call. Expecting to be good less than half the time..

The raise size that Pio uses is much larger than the raise you faced in game which is why it is folding so much.

In theory, you shouldn’t fold very much against the sizing that Villain used.

In practice, this is never a bluff though so you can fold anything that doesn’t beat value. Need to decide if AQhh beats value or not (probably not).

I'm mostly checking from OOP as the pre-flop raiser for a number of reasons...

1. Too many low stakes players automatically c-bet, which is too high a frequency. As a result, the player pool tends to under-fold to c-bets, so our c-bet bluffs have less fold equity. Mostly checking when we're OOP or sandwiched between multiple opponents decreases the frequency of our c-betting overall, and especially decreases the frequency of our barreling off with our bluffs when we're OOP.

2. When we check, opponents will frequently stab at the pot, probably too often.

3. When they stab, they'll often telegraph the strength of their hand with their bet size, especially on wet boards.

4. Most opponents don't protect their check back range by checking back with strong hands.

5. Mostly checking with our entire range allows us to have an aggressive check-raising strategy, and protects our checking range.

I'm not too concerned about what solvers would do in every situation. It's good to know what would be theoretically correct at equilibrium, but most low stakes players aren't playing anywhere close to equilibrium. Live human opponents are going to make more mistakes facing a check than they'll make facing a bet.

That said, re-thinking about this, I do agree with the solver that betting smaller on the turn is probably better than betting larger.

I disagree with Jonathan Little about what low stakes rec players are doing, at least as far as how wide and how often they'll float the flop when IP and facing a c-bet, especially when they perceive us as aggro. I think a lot of recs are floating pretty wide and often, and not raising very often when we c-bet. I think those same players who make the mistake of over-folding are just as likely to make the mistake of over-stabbing, and THEN over-folding when we check-raise.

Having a mixed strategy of c-betting 35% and checking 65% is harder to implement well than having a simpler strat of c-betting when we're IP and checking when we're OOP. If we want to only c-bet 35% from OOP, we have to decide when we're c-betting and when we're checking, and figure out how to protect our checking range. If we just check 100% from OOP, we don't need to think about it, and allow our opponents to make more mistakes.

Okay, thanks for the input. I was simply targeting all the worse flushes etc that I don't think can fold the river. But yes you're totally right that the price is absurdly good and I only need to be good 23% of the time to break even as it's $225 to call and the total pot will be $1,015. So I guess the question really is - does villain value cut himself with worse hands or bluff raise the river 23% of the time? It does seem pretty close and people are somewhat divided in this thread about whether the river is a call or not.

Thanks for the input.

Yes, I was actually a little perplexed by what Pio output on the river here, as I had entered the options either 3x raise or all in, but it output only the all-in as an option.

I agree that the river raise is very rarely a bluff in practice at low stakes (Pio uses many 9x hands as bluffs in this spot, which I don't think I've ever seen anyone do in this particular $2/$5 game) but on the other hand it's also a little more likely that villain is value cutting himself with a worse flush. I think realistically AQhh is only beating KJhh for value, and obviously losing to all the boats, and in hindsight this should have been a fold. It came at the end of a gruelling and card-dead ten-hour session, and it was hard to accept that I might have the losing hand in real time.