Interesting tournament hand, how should hero play the river?
$109 tournament on Stars, about 100 hands in.
PREFLOP
Solid eastern European player in UTG+1 (45bbs) opens to 2.2bbs. Hero (89bbs) is in UTG+2 with T♠T♥ and calls. The other players fold.
FLOP (6.9bbs)
4♠8♦7♦
Villain bets 1.6 bbs, hero calls.
TURN (10.2bbs)
4♠8♦7♦7♣
Villain checks, hero bets 3.3bbs, villain raises to 10.6bbs. Hero tanks (concerned about higher overpairs) and calls.
RIVER (31.4bbs)
4♠8♦7♦7♣A♠
Villain checks. Hero...?
3 Replies
This is usually a good spot to bluff jam with a pot sized bet. It looks like we have AdXd a lot of the time. However because we tanked on the turn it becomes less likely that we have that hand. With a nut flush draw we would not be thinking of folding and we would not be thinking about jamming on the turn. (I haven't played online tournaments in over 12 years, and those I played were not highish stakes like this one, but the one thing that I used to determine tells was how long people took to act).
It seems like Villain has JJ-KK and might fold to a jam. But here I think they might make a crying call because of the time we took on the turn.
The other problem is that Villain already c/r'd once. They might be doing it again with AA. Or AdXd. Villain's thinking could be that with your slight overpair like 99/TT you wouldn't call a large river bet but you might bluff with those hands.
So I just check back here and hope we beat 99...
This is usually a good spot to bluff jam with a pot sized bet. It looks like we have AdXd a lot of the time. However because we tanked on the turn it becomes less likely that we have that hand. With a nut flush draw we would not be thinking of folding and we would not be thinking about jamming on the turn. (I haven't played online tournaments in over 12 years, and those I p
Yeah the conundrum for me in the hand was that villain may well be check-raising JJ-KK on the turn, then checking them on the river - intending to bluff-catch if faced with a reasonably-sized bet. Therefore, if I check back with TT, I'm going to lose to those hands. But on the other hand, perhaps TT is too strong to use as a bluff? It must be pretty close to the top of my range, given how the hand was played, and it would certainly appear to have a lot of showdown value too - perhaps too much to justify bluffing?
Villain can also have AA, of course. One thing I did like is that I'm not blocking the front-door flush draw (but, conversely, I'm blocking 50% of his open-enders that might check-raise turn, although I expect they are meant to go a little bigger, or simply bet the turn rather than check-raise).
I check back too ... just too much showdown value with this hand, and you're targeting a pretty narrow range as a bluff.
