Facing river shove after betting for thin value

Snap fold? Tbh, I'm not sure if I will bet like this, probably ship or check/call or check/fold.
Most ppl don't bluff in such spots, but they could take your small bet as weakness.

Turn I'd bet alot bigger like 200 or at least 150 then either ship or check/call river.

Multiway against loose passives 150 bb deep, you can call with KJs the SB. I would fold before 3betting into calling stations.

Bet 50 on the flop. Your check suggests you have only TPGK. You want to represent AK.

After V calls the turn, check/fold the river. I think you are overvaluing TPGK.

FLOP ($156 in pot, $415 behind):
Kh 9d 7c
Hero checks, straddle checks, UTG+1 checks

(Thoughts: Decided to x OOP and see what develops. That's a good flop for me, but not fist pumping to get it in in a 3-way pot)

"See what develops"(!?). I don't understand this logic. You raised PF, are OOP, and likely have the best hand in 3-way pot with an SPR of 3 and at least one opponent who loves to chase and who will occasionally bluff. This is a wet board where nearly any card will complete a straight.

In fact, you justified raising by saying, "I have a playable hand, " yet when you hit your hand you played it passively with a flop check and a really weak turn bet.

It just feels like button-clicking.

when you raise pre this much <100 big blinds deep with a top pair hand your goal should usually be to GII with top pair by the turn, or leave so little behind on the river that GII on the river is trivial.

with KJ, suited or not, when you raise pre here you are making the assumption that nobody as AK or KQ so your top pair of kings should always be best on most boards unless you run into a set which you can nothing about.

here the spr is 2.5

2/3 pot flop, shove turn, easy game

once both players call your turn bet you should check the river as too many hands beat you.

as played fold and curse yourself for letting JT get there cheap.

this kind of post helps nobody because it doesnt suggest alternative lines with any detail. it's just a bunch of insults.

He should've bet the flop. I thought my points were rather obvious, especially since you made the same points after reading my post. Not everyone needs obvious points spelled out obviously.

AF is correct. Bet the flop!!! Why on earth would you check after 3betting KJs from OOP and hitting your hand? The turn is not a great card for us, and betting so small just let's them come along. River is whatever. I fold, but if you have some certain read, call. I would not be here.

Grunch:

PRE - not sure what to make of the open to 50 from SB. Feels a tad large, but maybe it's okay. Just sucks if we get 4B and have to fold, or if we go multi-way and OOP with a bloated pot and low SPR. I think my standard raise size here would be $35 or $40. KJs is sort of cuspy here, OOP and not all that deep. Don't really want to bloat the pot pre flop. Might just call and see what happens.

FLOP - hmmm... I think my default line as the PFR and OOP when multi-way would be to check, but I could see deviating here with our exact hand on this board. We don't mind folding out some equity and getting some protection for our hand, we can't expect this king-high but otherwise dry board to get stabbed at a high frequency, and our hand isn't strong enough to check raise if someone does stab. So I think we can probably just c-bet small, like 1/3 pot or a little less.

TURN - starting to get awkward now. We're not repping much if we bet, and so we're not folding much. And our opponents could have improved to 2P+. Think at this point our hand has been downgraded to just a bluff catcher, and we should just check. Plan to fold if it goes bet-raise, and probably fold if the MP opponent bets big and the LP opponent calls. Hard to think we're good here more than half the time if we bet and get called, or if we check-call, unless maybe MP checks and LP just monkey-stabs at it.

RIVER - not sure why we'd bet. What worse hand calls? As played, easy fold when the player next to act jams with another player left to act still.

I'm saying all of the above without any regard for the read that V seems to make random aggro plays. If we have some confidence that he's FOS, our hand functions well enough as a bluff catcher, but we could have some much stronger hands here, and so I still think we can fold.

Thanks for this response, that makes a lot of sense. I guess with the straddle, I'm only ~75bb deep, so if I'm raising this pre and flop top pair, I'm overthinking it by trying to go with a "check OOP multi-way" line, unless I'm just looking to x/r a stabby villain. I don't think I even consciously acknowledged the SPR while I was in the hand.

Yeah, I definitely feel like I go into button clicking mode post-flop fairly often. Pointing out the SPR, player type I described, and flawed logic on the flop is helpful, thanks.

Thanks for your thoughtful replies, it's really helpful reading your thought process! I'm following what you say pre and on the flop. On the turn - are you saying that, as played, my hand is now a bluff catcher after both my opponents check back the flop after I check first to act?

On the river my read of my opponents was that I could get called by a worse pair. I do see how that this read should just result in me betting the flop and look to get it in on the turn, though. I simply thought I did have thin value at this point after just getting called on the turn and would bet/fold for 1/3 pot here...

Result -

I'm saying that the turn could improve a lot of hands in our opponents' ranges, and isn't likely to have improved any hands in our range.

Better to check river to call a small bet, to let V bluff, rather than bet and then have to fold to a raise. I don't see worse hands calling if we bet, but a lot of worse hands will bluff if we check.

I would just see a flop preflop. With 4 people already in the pot it's going to take a massive raise to attempt to narrow the field / take it down, and if we get called we've setup a horrendous SPR for this hand OOP and often limit the continuing hands to those who passively crush us.

SPR is < 3 so we've really got ourselves into an uncomfortable commitment spot. Pot is huge and worth protecting, although not incredibly drawy, so I think I'd still lean to a small bet.

With no one betting the flop, I think I'd feel more comfortable in committing on the turn, especially since T8 probably stabs the flop. So I'd bet more to protect more and setup an easy river shove.

I'd probably shove the river myself. Not fist pumping, but I think we have to call against this guy who is capable of bluffing, could be overvalueing worse, and most likely would have often stabbed the flop when checked to with this JT double gutter.

GcluelessNLnoobG

This is one where the results are even more irrelevant than usual.

Your title itself screams "fold" before you've even read the main body.

Big Bluff RIver Raises are really very rare at low stakes. Of course its gonna happen sometimes, but never at a frequency you can pick them off profitably

Thanks GG, I agree that pre is a bit ambitious in retrospect. In these games, with the sizing I used, in a straddled pot, I was expecting to take it down or get HU rather than called by multiple opponents. But, of course that's not what happened and then I froze up when hitting TP in such a bloated pot... I agree with the consensus that the flop should be bet for value and protection. As played, betting the turn bigger is better than the 1/3 sizing I used sounds reasonable. And as far as the river (getting there as I did) I think I invited the bluff-shove with my 1/3 sizing. I'm not sure this villain shoves over my bet with a worse 1 pair, but I definitely make it enticing for this player type to shove as a bluff and I did give him rope by checking flop and betting so small on turn and river...

I was thinking this same thing - if this spot (getting raised all-in on the river) is underbluffed in general, I should just be folding every time and not fret too much about the random times I am showed a bluff.

I'm glad I posted this hand b/c it exposed flaws in my thought process PF and on the flop, though. If I just bet the flop, the hand plays out much differently.

Respectfully, I think you played every street wrong, not just the flop. Say you did bet the flop, and got at least one caller. You should still consider checking that turn card, when our hand gets downgraded, assuming we were even ahead on the flop, and checking again on the river.

We should be looking to play a pot-control line by checking turn and river, to let V stab at it. Our hand blocks a lot of 2P and straight combos, so it functions well as a bluff catcher. As a general rule it's bad to bet bluff catchers, as it's often a polarization mistake - the hand isn't strong enough to bet for value, and not weak enough to turn into a bluff.

You had a good read on V. You knew he liked to chase his draws and bluff rivers when he missed. But our hand isn't nutted, so we don't really want to have to play for stacks by calling off a huge river raise, especially not when our line of check-flop / bet-small turn / bet-small river is exactly the sort of line that will induce raises both for value and with bluffs.

V's river shove is absolutely printing when we take this line with thin value and have to fold. He risked $365 to win $771. We only have to fold around 32% of the time for his bluff to break even, and when we're unbalanced, as we are here, we're probably folding 50% of the time, if not more.

No disrespect taken at all, I appreciate you taking the time to respond like this and explaining your thought process - that's exactly what I'm hoping for when I post hands in order to improve. I get what you're saying about evaluating the strength of my hand as a bluff catcher and taking a x/c line on turn and possibly river. You don't see the value in betting the turn or river since you don't think worse will call and there's no need to bluff since we do have SDV. And I agree that the line we took invites a bluffy opponent to bluff the river (or shove for value) putting ourselves in a bad spot.

It's sounds like you are not in the camp of just taking a bet/bet line on flop and turn to get it in with a ~2.7 SPR against 2 opponents.

Also, a question about the math on V's bluff - if he is betting $365 into a pot of $406, doesn't that mean I have to fold 47% of the time for it to be profitable for him? Bet of $365 / (bet + pot of 406)?

Thanks again for your help.

So...my thoughts...

PRE - like I said, I'm not sure why you're raising to 50 pre, out of the small blind, with KJs, over a 6 straddle and three limps. You're very likely to get at least one, if not more than one caller, and will have to play the rest of the hand OOP, and with a lower SPR. If we want to avoid playing low SPR pots post-flop, let's not raise huge with marginal hands.

FLOP - I think our hand wants to bet here, when we're the PFR, and this K-high flop isn't quite as likely to get stabbed, because it favors our range so much. We can rep AA, KK, AK, KQ, etc. But the fact is we only have KJ. We don't mind folding out KQ, and we don't really want to give a free card to a hand like QJ, QT, JT, J8, T8s, 86s, 96s, or even 77, 76s or 66.

TURN - The 6d is a card that demonstrates why I think we should bet flop. T8 now s a straight. 76 is two pair. 66 made a sneaky set. If V was getting involved with 96 for the lolz, now he's got 2P. The board is better for his range as the pre-flop caller than it is for us as the PFR.

Now there's a BDFD on board, so we want to bet, but if and when we bet, we're not repping much for value after we checked flop, so we're less likely to fold out KQ now. We're not folding out nearly as many hands, because so many hands have improved to 2P+ or picked up additional outs.

But we still have KJ - we have a decent top pair, and we'll block the future nuts on some run-outs (like an offsuit Q, for example), and we might be able to rep a strong hand on some run-outs, or we might just improve if the river is another K or J.

If V has a better hand, he's likely to bet the turn and river. In that scenario, we'd rather check for pot control, and get some vital information about the strength of his hand based on whether he checks or bets, and what size he bets. He might also bet turn but check-back the river.

If he's on a draw, he might decide to start a bluff, which he may or may not continue on the river. If he bets turn, we can call, and then check-evaluate the river, depending on what it is, or possibly even donk for value or as a bluff.

When we go bet-bet-bet from out of position, we're letting V play perfectly against us, and we're just guessing about what he has. If we check from OOP, it puts the pressure on V to figure out if we're checking a hand that will call, or check-raise, or fold. It forces him to figure out what line he wants to take, as opposed to letting him decide how he wants to respond to the line we take.

Things get even more complicated when we're multi-way. We need a stronger range to bet, and everyone is more likely to play more "honestly", which is to say, more face-up or straightforward.

We can bet TP on the flop, but if we get called, and we don't improve, I'd only barrel turn if it's just a complete brick, and maybe not even then, with KJ. I might only barrel with KQ or AK, or 2P+, and I'm going to vary my size based on how I'm ranging my opponent(s), which is based on what the turn is, and whether it was likely to improve their hand, or mine.

Say we bet flop, and get one caller. This is just a terrible turn card to barrel, even if we have KK. A tricky or creative V isn't going to give us credit for T8 when we raise to 50 pre out of the SB, and may decide to start a bluff with any Tx or 8x combo, especially TXdd or 8Xdd.

When we have a hand that's really just showdown value, we don't want to over-play it like it's thick value, because over-playing it is basically turning it into a bluff. We also don't want to bet too thin on boards that don't really favor us, where we can't credibly rep the nuts, but our opponents can, and they know it. We definitely don't want to do it when we know V is capable of jamming rivers as a bluff with a wide range.

As for the river math - you bet 100 into 306, making the pot 406, and he jammed for 365 total, making the pot 771. His raise size is only 265, though, because you bet 100, so his breakeven percentage is calculated by dividing his is 265 raise by the total pot size of 771, giving us 34%. If you fold more than 34% of the time, his bluff is profitable. Not sure where I got 32%, but it's close.

Another way to look at it is you were getting 2.9 to 1 on a call (771 / 275). You have to catch him bluffing around 25% of the time to make a call profitable.

It's tempting to ask if he's bluffing more than 25% of the time, and make a loose call on that basis. But the fact is that we could have some stronger hands here, like KK, AA, AK, and KQ. We might even have 99 or even 77 at some frequency (pre-flop, but probably not in this line).

When we go check, bet-small, bet-small, it looks like we have a hand that we think may be best, but we know we could be beat, and want to get value, but don't want to invest too much. It looks like we're bet-folding if V raises, so it invites V to raise.

We're probably folding way more often than 34% of the time in this line, because we don't think V is going to be bluffing more than 25% of the time, when in fact we've induced him to bluff more often, precisely because it looks like we're going to fold more often.

KJ and KT are basically the same - the worst hands we'll have here, top pair, crap kicker, but blocking JT for the nuts. If we're going to try to catch V bluffing, let's do it with a hand that beats more of his value, or blocks more of his value, or unblocks more of his missed draws that have to bluff.

Before taking action on each street, ask "what if". What if I check? How often does V bet, and what size? What if I bet small, or bet big? How often is V going to call with worse, or snap me off with better, or raise me off my hand as a bluff? What if he raises my bet? Am I calling or folding?

If our plan is to bet-fold, we should have a stronger hand, and take a line that is less likely to induce bluffs. Taking a bet-fold line with a thin value or showdown value hand against an opponent who is capable of jamming as a bluff is just inviting disaster.

Again, I appreciate the time you took to write out these thoughts.

Curious what your raising range is in this spot with an eff stack of 77 straddles? A raise of 50 (~8x) to win the 27 in pot: 50/77 = 65% to break even w/o considering any equity I'd have post-flop if called.

I'm not sure I agree that it's very likely that I'm getting called in this spot. In my experience, I think I'm taking it down PF at least 1/2 the time if not more, but maybe I'm wrong (I've only played ~250 hours, so not a ton of experience)?

What's a reasonable calling range in this spot - I've often heard the advice of not over-limping in SB?

There's obviously nothing inherently wrong with playing a low SPR flop (that can actually be preferable OOP as it takes away some of the positional disadvantage, right?) - I guess what you're saying is KJs isn't strong enough to feel good about this spot.

Totally understand this now - I just need to go for value and protection here rather than check. I should be looking to check if I have a hand I want to c/r with, on a board that is likely to get stabbed. What types of hands do you think I should check and evaluate what to do based on V's bet sizing - air obviously, what about TT-QQ?

In my estimation we don't have any chance of folding out KQ at any point in this bloated pot...

This is helpful to read your thought process on the turn, thanks.

I agree, the way I played my hand sure looks like I have a decent hand that I'm worried is beat and very well may fold to pressure. I'm not sure how "thinking" this V was outside of, "I have no chance of winning now that I missed my gutshot, so my only way out is to shove all in." But it obviously worked!

Really having a difficult time executing a repeatable thought process, particularly that includes the "what if" question. Right now, I'm just trying to start with the questions - "What kind of villain am I up against? Eff stacks? What is their range? What does my hand want to do against that range?" I want to get to the point where I can think through the "what if" questions, but I'm finding that it is taking a lot of reps to get better.

You invited him to bluff by playing the hand so weak.