Riverview investment gets razed

I woulda gone even smaller on the river. Given he can definitely have all 16 QJ combos and the large sizing I'd find a fold here. The problem with finding any bluffs is the card distribution and your hand. You have King of spades and 9 of spades is on board. He's also not raising a worse hand than yours for value. Like yes he's sticky or what ever but I'm not calling here.

Also I think preflop is a fold with a straddle and in HJ, that's almost like being in LJ with KTo and halved stacks.

Come on banana you know what to do.

[1] call
[1] fold

I think it’s ok to call here. He is a maniac so he might bluff and he could have the same hand as you for value. Even something like T9 or T3 could be possible.

He doesn’t have all 16 combos of QJ because a lot of fish and maniacs donk river when they hit for fear of you checking back.

This is a very underbluffed line but it’s also possible he has some worse value hands so that makes it a call.

i dont understand the purpose of the turn bet

Yeah this is what I was going to say as well; we're re-opening the action for a 36% Pot bet, with a marginal hand that doesn't want to see a raise, against an aggressive player. Why do this? This is a play that wouldn't even occur to me; if I bet here I'd size up, but with second pair that seems like an automatic check-back.

If xc-x-b is underbluffed and xc-xc is overcalled then betting turn is better for small to charge gutshots and get value from worse.

One pair hands don't want to see a raise so Ax and Kx are effectively the same hand versus a raise so if you aren't betting Kx you aren't betting Ax if you go with your logic.

You should be betting both for small though, players play much worse versus small sizing than big sizing's.

At 1/3 bluffing bigger and value betting smaller is the first heuristic to learn.

I would limp in if I think I could get away with it or fold. But our raise managed to get this HU in position to a playable SPR of 10, so nice result if expected.

At this SPR I would never want to play for stacks / big pot. Against a tricky player who might put me in gross spots and can be aggro, I think I'd prefer a check back on the flop and setup a bluffcatcher. Otherwise cool with a small bet (although really hating life if I'm check/raised).

Not exactly sure what our turn bet is. Is this a value bet? At this point it's hard to get called down by too much worse unless he's a real station, although I guess we sized to do so.

I'm cool with our river bet attempting to get him to station. Interesting spot facing the check/raise. T9 did get there, although so did QJ. Backdoor flush draw busted. Usually against river check/raises we can just make a nitty fold here, but against this guy I'm not so sure. And he'd have to massively overvalue hands like T9 to want to shove. Think it's between a crying call and very nitty fold.

GcluelessNLnoobG

If he's stabbing a lot and calling a lot, why not check/raise flop or bet bigger? I just bet $30 and let him call.

As played, check turn or, again, bet bigger. I probably sigh-call the river depending how how maniacal he is. I mean, even maniacs get there. It might be a sigh-fold depending on how he's been playing.

Result:

Love to see it! Nice call

V as described of course you call.

I mean, just because I highlighted one factor doesn't mean I think all other factors are irrelevant. I think I agree with you that getting raised is about equally bad with Ax and Kx (in both cases you probably fold), so the downside of betting small is similar. But the upside isn't the same; Ax wants to bet for value significantly more because there are a whole bunch of possible hands opponent could have that Ax beats and Kx doesn't. Bigger upside + same downside = a better play. With Kx I struggle to see it being worth it on net, there's a significant chance we're betting into a better value hand -- yeah less than 50% but significant -- so the gain from getting our already small bet called is really tiny. I doubt that outweighs the downside of having to fold to a raise. With Ax the +EV of a call is probably more than twice as large, if I had to guess.

I don’t understand why are these donkeys check raising K9 on river vs guys like OP who are never calling without better? Like he’s snap mucking AQ- to the river xr.

PRE - seems fine.

FLOP - I'd probably c-bet 1/2 pot, but otherwise this seems fine.

TURN - kind of a tricky spot if V shows up with a lot of AX that won't necessarily raise if we bet small. He could also have some decent draws we can get value from if we bet big.

I think we can probably just check it back and let V tell us what he has with his river action.

RIVER - I guess we beat T9? We don't beat much else. I think the smallish value bet is fine, though I might go a little larger than 1/2 pot. As played, not much we can do but fold. Kind of doubtful V gets to the river with a hand we beat and takes this line.

Wow. I didn't expect him to show up with a flopped 2P. Good read-based call. Nice hand, Señor Banana.