1/2, $500 deep: AA facing river check jam

I probably pot the river if I were to valuebet. Fold to shove.

This small bet is awesome with bluffs but the thing is if villain has missed draws here villain might take this as weakness and ship here.

So villain is repping tt, jj, tj here, and missed draws.

Could go either way.

But probably leans towards a fold vs unknowns. But I probably not taking this specific line vs unknowns.

If you know villain is aggro then it's easy snap call.

Most people live don't do such stuff with air. But most aggro players are the young guys.

I guess you have to look for other tells. Like how he stacks his chips, his composure, is he very comfortable after shoving? Is he still as a rock?

I know you’re trying to polarize but what’s calling a pot sized bet though? Maybe slightly larger like $125 is better to avoid inducing but PSB seems like we narrow his calling range to just Tx+, no?

I don’t really think this is a 3 street hand. I would check back river.

Didn’t wanna look like a nit by checking back and having to show my hand

Grunch:

PRE - looks fine, though if we're getting three calls with this size we can probably go a tad larger, like $20.

My observation has been that most bad low stakes recs aren't overly elastic about raise size vs continue ranges. They tend to bucket hands into "have to call" and "have to fold" almost regardless of raise size (up to a limit), rather than think about how strong a hand they need in order to call based on the raise size.

Like, they have a hand that wants to see the flop or they don't, and raising to $20 instead of $15 isn't going to make them fold 33% more of whatever they have that would happily call the smaller raise.

If anything, they'll likely get tired of your incessant raising for a large size and start calling even wider, in the hopes they'll smash the flop with their napkins.

I love it when the whole table turns against me and starts calling pre with all the garbage, just to over-fold on the flop.

FLOP - I think c-betting in the CO with just the BTN behind us is fine, but it should probably be a little smaller when it's so multi-way. Maybe only $15.

Checking back is also fine, and maybe preferable on this specific flop texture. Every player has a $hit-ton of JT combos in their "can't fold before I see a flop" range. Add in the bazillion draws out there, and without the Ah in our hand, I don't mind some pot control here.

TURN - once BB calls our flop bet, I don't mind betting small on the turn, to re-cap his range. Half pot or a little less is more likely to make V tip his hand strength if he has us beat, and keeps more of his draws and worse value hands in.

I wouldn't hate a check back either, to bluff catch brick rivers. A lot of spazzy or aggro players will check raise their combo draws here, and that would suck.

When you take 60% sizing, it's too in between. You're not getting enough value from the portion of his range that's inelastic (his best draws), and not putting enough pressure on V to continue with more of his weak value, nor inducing him to raise with his nutted value.

Consider jamming - that would be a massive over-play, effectively turning our hand into a bluff, right? Well, if jamming is turning our hand into a bluff, then checking back would be under-repping / trapping, which has to be better than jamming. So when checking back is better than jamming, a small bet is better than a big bet.

I'd either check back turn and see what happens on the river or bet small, and plan to check back the river. If we check back turn we need to be prepared for V to bet, but mosiV's will telegraph their hand strength with their bet size, where big is strong and around 1/2 pot is weak.

RIVER - as played on flop and turn I'd occasionally make a nitty check back, if I felt like V was sandbagging.

If I thought V would call with worse I might bet around 2/3 pot, like $150, and fold to a raise.

I don't like taking a small sizing with thin value, because we might be inducing a raise and we'll be in the blender.

Definitely folding to the check-jam, and probably laughing when I do, and occasionally mucking face up, just to make the guy feel $hitty about himself (this is why I don't have more friends).

You repped strength the whole way (albeit that river bet size looks weak AF) by betting every street. It looks exactly like you have an over-pair and V doesn't give a f**k. If he's jamming with air, he deserves to win. More likely he has Tx or better and we're losing the minimum.

Check raising the river as a bluff is a thing. But in theory he had to arrive on the river with a hand that is strong enough to win at showdown if you check back.

The problem here is that only Jx combos fit the bill, and I want to know what he's drinking if he's turning Jx into a check-raise bluff, especially for all the money, when he can just bluff catch by calling, and only needs to be right about 1/4 of the time, which he'll totally be, given all the unpaired over-cards we'll have here.

I folded, and he slammed J6s on my face :/ lol

Told his neighbours “I haven’t made such a bluff in a while but thought this was a good spot to do it” and the entire table agreed with him.

Think he does this if I bet like $125-150?

I don’t think it’s a nit check. Checking a T maybe is a nit check. Checking AA seems like smart poker.

Less likely.

He did have a nice hand to crai.

I’m still bet folding river.