Should I call this river check-raise?

Right. so in my first post, I said we're in a "leveling war" because we're now mixing all the GTO concepts with population reads and specific player reads.

But you're raising a really important issue because it calls into question the value of reads. OP says he has logged a lot of hours with V and yet he doesn't know what to do here getting 2-1. Maybe the heuristic here is:

GTO: straightforward call
Population: fold
Live read: ?

So flip a coin and move on to the next hand. I'm really not sure what we've learned here overall. It was a very interesting thread though. It reinforces my decision to fold T9o in general because I'm not good enough to navigate it even in position.

Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting he's bluffing with no showdown value. A check-raise bluff here would be with a hand that wins if you check back. That could be worse 9x, or maybe K7 that blocks KK, 77, and AK, something like that.

If you bet bigger, he can only raise for value, but when you bet small, it opens the door for him to raise both with value that beats T9 and value that doesn't.

It doesn't make a ton of sense for him to bet big or small on the river, when the flush draw bricks, because you're just folding all your busted draws that might bluff, and worse value that might bet thin if he checks, you're raising off with all your nutted hands, and flat calling, or maybe even folding AA/AK.

Your line could easily be AK, or AA, or even some other hand he beats, but one that will sometimes check back, or might bet small for thin value. When you bet small, it looks like you're either bluffing with a missed draw, or going for thin value with a hand he beats, or a hand that will fold if he raises.

So, while this may look like a super under-bluffed, super nutted line, it's hard to credit him with very many strong hands, because a lot of those strong hands aren't going to take this line very often.

This line can be worse 9x or something that has value and blocks our strongest holdings, a hand that will usually win if you check back, usually lose if he bets and you call, can check-call a medium sized or even large bet, and can check-raise if you bet small.

Yes, I like that logic.

Sure, in general I totally agree. That's why in this hand I chose 8x as bluffs (blocking 98s, T8 and 85). I also decided that 6x is not enough showdown value to take the showdown, and that therefore I can use the 6 as a blocker for bluffing too (although Pio didn't agree and took the showdown with those hands).

Once he checks the river to me I actually have quite a big value betting range, and of course I have to balance that with bluffs. Looking at the ranges I used yesterday I noticed a couple of mistakes now - AKcc is of course a value bet when he checks to me on the river, and one of the hands I used as a bluff - 85cc - is in fact a straight. So those both need to become value bets when he bets to me on the river, and I need to add another missed flush draw as a bluff - one of the Jx or Qx hands mostly probably (as I'm showing down the ace high missed flush draws, hoping they can be good some of the time).

Thanks. Yes the simple fact is that my take on this in the hand was that villain was nutted.

From a theoretical point of view I believe villain should bet huge on this river with all his thick value and balance accordingly with bluffs. IMO he's already made a mistake by donking on the flop - but once he's done so he's obliged to continue in a balanced manner. When he proceeds to bet the turn, his range remains polarized (as it is when he donks the flop). He should also bet the river with a polarized range, and seeing as he has bet all streets he is as polarized postflop as he can be - meaning he has nuts or air, and in both cases he wants to use a large size in order to maximize value/fold equity respectively. However, the caveat to this is that when he smashes the 9976K river (for example with K9 or KK) he is to quite a large degree blocking the hands that can call a huge bet, and some players will elect to check these hands some of the time as a result, of course intending to check-raise. It was these hands that I was most concerned about in this hand.

Yes it's certainly true that I had under-repped my hand and he may be getting out of line as a result - but I doubt it. I can't say for sure but I'm pretty confident that T9o is losing to more than 30% of the hands that he check-raises here on the river.

Absolutely villain not 3betting KK-JJ preflop is suboptimal; low stakes poker is low stakes poker. He would certainly 3bet these hands some of the time, but definitely not always.

The solver output wasn't showing that we should fold 40% of our T9 combos to the flop donk, but to the river check-raise.

Yes certainly the solver and villain donking ranges are very different. I didn't instruct the solver to donk with what I believe villain's range to be, I just gave it the option to donk as part of a balanced range and then explored it in the output. But that's a good point - villain's donking range is certainly wider than the solver's would have been, and therefore I should call down wider than what the solver suggested.

Yes what you're saying does make sense. The only hands that make sense that he might play this way are K9 and KK, which were the hands I was most concerned about when facing the river jam. He may also simply be hoping that I will "represent" hitting the king, and that he can check raise 9x for value as a result - but I agree that simply betting instead is a better option than that. He may suspect that I will bluff the river if he checks to me, but he also knows that I'm likely to showdown what has been up until that point a significantly capped range (due to the calls on the flop and the turn).

okok we've beaten the horse into the ground. results pls. from tone / obstinance seems like it was a good fold

if you're folding bc u think a large portion of his range here is KK idk what to tell u. i don't even care if he showed u the hand afterwards lol. to me, thinking he can have KK (without signif evidence to show this is possible) at any kind of relevant frequency is just abandoning any pretense of hand reading

I think we've satisfactorily demonstrated that this is a very close spot, that there's no costly leak to plug here, and that identifying it as a hand where you're not certain what to do indicates you've correctly identified a borderline spot.

This statement is fairly accurate for a number of active posters in this forum.

Agreed, although I will call down with some 9x and not raise all 9x combos on earlier streets.

Villain can certainly think I have a lot of Kx or AA here and that I will bet for value on the river (and indeed I do, as detailed in the MDF range analysis above).

But you're right that I also have many showdown value hands that are just going to check back river, and he potentially misses value by not betting against those hands (for example the weaker Kx hands that might bluff-catch vs a river bet). This is the approximate range I have on the 9976K river when he checks to me:

When he checks to me on the river I'm going to value bet:

AA (6 combos), KK (3 combos), Kx (4 combos), 9x (28 combos), 99 (1 combo), 77 (3 combos), 66 (3 combos) - 48 total value combos,

and 8x of clubs (6 combos), 6x of clubs (8 combos), and the Q4, JT, J5 and 54 of clubs - 18 total bluff combos.

(N.b. I realized today that in the ranges I posted yesterday I was folding 7x of clubs to the turn bet - of course I don't do that, and they are included in the range above).

The remaining hands are taking their showdown value or simply not bluffing and giving up (I can't turn all missed flush draws into bluffs because then my betting range would be too bluff heavy for the size I used. I could of course use a larger size and include more bluffs, but that's not what I did in this hand - and in any case, missed flush draws are the only available hands in my range at this point, and generally they are not ideal bluff candidates as we want villain to have them and fold them when they miss on the river).

So the hands that check back the river are the A-high and Q-high missed flush draws (except the Q4, which is a bluff), K7, K5-K2, QQ-TT and 7x - which I believe is 39 combos, or about 37% of my range - quite a bit, as you indicated.

I agree that villain should simply bet his value hands on this river and get value with them. That said, I still think his checking range is going to contain some super-nutted traps that block my calling range if he instead bets with them.

For sure I agree with both of these points (even though the first one is kind of absurd, that's how many low stakes players think).

Certainly the river check-raise range beats a lot of middling 9x.

What happened? LOL.

Lol yes this pretty much hits the nail on the head.

Okay and why would he bluff check-raise with hands that have showdown value? Don't those hands operate better as bluff catchers vs my river bet? I guess some of the hands that he in check-call have good blockers to value, like the weakest 9x and especially K7 (although I don't know how often he has the latter after donking flop and turn).

So are you saying that the 66% pot size bet on the river here is small? I don't think that's strictly true given that he's ostensibly capped his range with the check on the river, but maybe. The problem is that I don't have enough bluffs in my range to go much bigger without starting to include a lot of missed flush draws, which in general I don't like doing.

The reason I think he should use a large size on the river, if he is going to bet, is because he is fully polarized after betting flop, turn and river, which warrants a large sizing.

Yes he can definitely put me on Kx when I bet the river, and jam with the intent of making me fold those one pair hands. That's a small fraction of my range (4 combos out of 66), but it certainly fits low-stakes poker logic. Realistically, I have a large amount of 9x in my range (28 combos or so) and most of that is going to call the check-raise.

I agree it's hard to credit him with many strong hands here, as so many of them simply bet the river - but I'm still pretty sure his checking range contains some nutted traps; I think almost all players play this way.

Thanks for the input, that was interesting and I learned something.

I didn't say that I think a large portion of his range is KK, but in my opinion his range is certainly value heavy, and contains a large majority of hands that beat a middling 9x - such as stronger 9x, straights and boats. Yes he's going to bet these on the river some of the time, but I also think it's fair to say that he mixes with these hands some percentage of the time and check-raises with them too. And of course a small amount of bluffs would be included as well. In other words, he check-raises with a varied and somewhat wide range at a low frequency, and that includes KK some of the time.

Thanks, I agree 😀

Hero’s range is less condensed for two reasons:

1) There are multiple draws that whiffed, giving hero more bluffs

2) The river hit hero’s range, giving them more value hands

Even when your opponent’s range is condensed you obviously shouldn’t have ZERO x/r slow plays. It goes from ~50% (which is way higher than anyone thinks it should be) down to more like 20% (which is probably closer to what people think it should be anyway).

***REVEAL***

I tanked and ... found the fold.

I figured I was pretty close to the bottom of my value range, and that therefore it was okay to let this one go. Subsequent analysis has shown that I was not as close to the bottom of my range as I thought - but as indicated, I still think this is very close, and that the correct adjustment vs. value heavy low stakes poker river check-raises is to overfold - in which case this hand should certainly be folded.

I tanked for a long while and after the hand the rest of the table were speculating quite hard as to what I had - aces was mentioned as a possible candidate.

Villain and I discussed it a little immediately after the hand and he told me, smiling, that he had a 9. I'm not sure I believe him.

i mean they 3b less than they're supposed to so you get to open way wider, even if they call too much. if you can't show a profit with t9o vs objectively bad players ip vs their bb defending range, you have a good indicator you need to do more work or get better or whatever. you're not opening t9 here because you dont want to exploited, you're opening it bc its a +ev open, almost certainly even more so than at equilibrium with the leaks you have described from our opponents. if anything you want to vpip as much as possible vs these opponents you've described ip. am not sure you understand how +ev of an opportunity it is to play raised pots ip / potentially hu vs weaker players (or alternatively to win 1.5bb pre; the less they fold pre the more they're going to lose post just from the nature of their range being too weak to be able to effectively deal with aggression)

also, life is short, live poker is slow, even if it was a slightly losing open would still do it out of boredom while justifying it to myself with metagame, image and other exciting unquantifiable spiritual concepts

Interesting, so you're saying that OOP should slow play and check-raise about 50% of the time on the river when IP's range isn't condensed? What does that look like in practice?

boring

is his first post i don't understand

think all of the analysis etc is kind of overrated. either you have 100% equity or 0% equity here depending on v. the idea this guy has a coherent strategy on any street or as a whole and isn't clicking buttons is wild. either calling is a catastrophic error or one of the most +ev opportunities you will have of the session. gl anon, welcome to live poker

I'd argue that the majority of low-stakes poker players don't have a coherent strategy (beyond simply playing their hand strength as value/bluff) - especially on the the later streets.

Yes I certainly have either 100% or 0% equity on the river, and calling/folding is indeed a catastrophic error or one of the most +EV opportunities I will have of the session. The point is that the correct choice is not clear, and the previous analysis illustrates that (albeit in an approximate manner).

I think you're spending too much effort trying to define your range, and V's range, and not enough just looking at how V reacts when you take the sizing you did, after flatting flop and turn. All the range considerations should be filtered through those actions, and adjusted for how live players actually play.

Imagine you had KK or 99 here. What size would you take? You'd probably go polar, by betting much larger, like an over-bet, to rep the nuts or nothing, right? You'd be targeting his worse boats, straights and trips to call.

Alternatively, you might bet small, like less than 1/2 pot, to induce him to raise with those same hands, as well as possibly induce him to raise as a bluff, or just to get a crying call from some 2P holdings, like TT or 88.

When you bet with thin value here, after flatting flop and turn, you're de-polarizing, except that you're doing it for the wrong size (too small at this stack depth), and opening yourself up to getting raised, while you're holding a hand that isn't sure what it wants to do facing V's jam.

You say you have some time playing with this V. He may know you're capable of betting thin for value or bluffing here. When you don't raise flop or turn, your actual hand is pretty under-repped. And when you take this in-between bet size on the river, your value range can include a lot of hands that aren't as strong as the one you have. Plus you could have some bluffs.

Like, you might bet thin with AA or AK here. You could also maybe bet a hand like TT-QQ, that doesn't believe he hit that K, and doesn't believe that he'd check trips or better on the river after donking flop and barreling turn. You MIGHT occasionally have 9x, but you MIGHT fold pre with a lot of 9x, and you MIGHT raise flop with a lot of 9x, so he MIGHT discount you having any 9x here.

You MIGHT have called flop and turn with a flush draw, that ran into TP and wants to bet thin, or just bricked, and needs to bluff. Betting thin for value and bluffing seem at least as likely as you showing up with 9x, when you've played it this way - flatting flop and turn, rather than raising, and then just betting 2/3 pot, rather than sizing up to pot or more.

I don't agree he's really all that polarized on the river, unless he's only repping 99 for value, and willing to take this line - and continue to barrel off - with every missed draw, as well as every weak value hand that gets downgraded on the Kx river. Quad 9's is the only hand that was the nuts on the flop and is still the nuts.

Like, even if he has a fairly strong hand, but one that isn't the pure nuts, like 97, 96, 77, T8, or A9, you could have improved to a better hand with KK and K9, and taken this same exact line. If he just has 77 or T8, he's not blocking you from having top boat or even quads yourself.

But like I said in earlier posts, it's hard to think he's going to donk out on the flop, barrel turn, and then check river with a super-strong hand, unless he's putting you on exactly TT-QQ, AA or AK that will bet thin, or a busted flush draw that will bluff, or worried that you made a bigger boat with KK, and he's somehow thinking he might fold if you bet huge.

His strongest hands on the flop - 99, 97, 77, and A9 - are more likely to check-call or check-raise flop, and check-raise or donk-lead turn, and then just continue to bet on the river. His flop bet is more likely to be weak 9x or 7x betting for value & protection, or T8 or a flush draw betting as a bluff.

I don't think he's check-raising the river with T8 or a missed flush draw. But I also don't think he's super-nutted here, at least not very often, when he takes this line. I think his boats and straights just continue to bet, not check-raise. Most good players at these stakes are just going to bet their strongest hands for value, not give you a chance to check back. But when you flat flop and turn, they're often going to slow down and check when the K hits the river, to let you bet.

The most likely hands that donk flop, and then barrel turn, but then check to you on the river are going to be hands that aren't certain to be ahead if he bets and you call, and don't really want to bet and get raised, but are likely best if you check back, and can call a fairly chunky bet, and might also decide to raise if you bet small.

So, what hands are those? It's likely to be worse 9x more often than not, and occasionally maybe K7, or even T9. The most likely hands that take his line were strong on the flop and turn, but got downgraded on the river. Those hands want to raise when you take an in-between sizing, which doesn't look all that strong.