[2-4]: Do you call this River raise?

Villain has to be bluffing 1/3 of the time to make a call profitable. You have no evidence that he would bluff that frequently. Fold.

Easy fold. You beat nothing. Go bigger pre, especially from SB. Go bigger on flop. Check river, especially after checking turn.

Go bigger pre.

Otherwise hand is played well, now call.

Reveal:

So my thoughts were roughly

• I played this hand pretty face-up. It looks like a pocket pair, which it is
  
• Therefore, this is a good spot to bluff
  
• Also, there are a bunch of logical bluff combinations here, like worse pocket pairs
  
• Since I think Villain is a good player, this means I have to call
  

So I called; Villain had 9♠8♠.

In retrospect I think the third assumption is dubious since most people would actually raise the medium pairs preflop rather than limp, so this reduces the number of logical bluffs. There are still some busted straight draws, but not that many.

Also the implication from "generally pretty good" to "finds this bluff here" was probably questionable as well. I do think this is a good bluffing spot, but the number of people who'd find it is probably not that high. I might have given him too much credit.

The reveal doesn't really tell me anything since of course anyone would raise the flush, it'd be much more informative to see what he does if he arrives here with a non-value hand. But I'm still leaning toward slight mistake for the call.

I tend to bet the turn in this situation hoping villain thinks I have a big ace. Definitely a bluff and shutting down if called, but will take it down often with this line. If you’re not going to bet the turn, I don’t see why you’d bet the river

As played, definitely a fold. Folding big hands correctly is a key to winning poker. You seem to be overthinking reads when the big raise means you’re beat most of the time. Many a player tags along and then bets big when they hit their hand.

You’re blocking no bluffs, and the A turn removes most semi-bluffs. River raise size = nutted. Just fold, even if it feels tight.

What stands out to me the most is the turn - why check? Villain's overlimp range feels like it should be particularly crippled in terms of Ax combos and there is now a spade draw to charge. Giving V credit for bluffing a river raise despite being "disciplined" and "honest" seems a bit much IMO.

I was just thinking that I won't get money from weaker hands and won't get better hands to fold (spade draw is a weaker hand that will pay, but there aren't a lot of spade drawa in hus range). Agree with the River point.

I don't think there's a bunch of "logical" bluffs per se because they're not going to have a ton of air, but I don't think their limp makes hands like 7x and 5x any less likely.

Importantly, calling here is an indirect exploit even more than it is a direct one. You can both go for thinner value here than you should in theory because they don't raise frequently enough AND (paradoxically) pure call all your bluff catchers because the range they do raise with doesn't have enough value.

This is both because people cap their ranges very hard with checks and because they don't go for thin enough value. Hell, even the reveal gives a modicum of information that they're capable of going this big with 9-high flush, which is something, but I'd assume most aren't able to find the raise with 86/54/etc or find the slivers of turn checks with A5. The reveal also tells you they don't auto-bluff equity when checked to OTT, which is the main reason I'd assume they have a semi-capped range even though the river changed the nuts. (This is an important piece of information as a lot of my indirect exploits depend on this assumption.)

I think you could argue a "disciplined" "marginal winner" is the worst player type to bluff catch here. You can obviously do it against pros with a little moxie, fish with a button clicking streak, or the breakeven feel-based players who have garbage fundamentals preflop and don't know solvers exist, but are able to smell it out when you're screaming "I HAVE THIN VALUE, PLEASE DON'T RAISE!" I'm ageist, so I assumed villain has at least one foot in the "feel player" description even if your actual player description sounds more like the TINO / weekend warrior archetype who's the last person I'd bluffcatch against here.

I'll also be honest my advice is sort of second hand and my own personal implementation of this has been mixed, so YMMV applying it to this node, runout and opponent.

Apart from what I said above, I agree either a thinner value hand or (obviously) a bluff would be more revealing.

Not sure I agree about the lack of spade draws; I would certainly expect Villain's limp-call range to be overwhelmingly suited combos. But there are also straight draws, Tx, even 7x that needs to continue to a small turn bet. If he actually just folds down to the tiny number of Ax combos, then I guess you could argue for an exploitative check but also given that and on a brick runout is he really going to hero down a third barrel with A2 or A3 (if he even called flop with that) - and also we might just be happy denying equity to small pairs drawing to 2p/trips.

Now the river bet just feels like you regret not getting some value on the turn and are praying for a cheap showdown with all the draws that hit. (So in that sense I don't hate that you considered that V would pick up on this and bluff more, but raising IP takes a certain level of aggro to consider as a bluff IME.)

i think its wp though realistically doubt people find bluffs

am inclined to believe flop x does better than b30 but i have no way to prove that

I will not comment the action otr because I am biased by reading the results.

Two points on previous streets though.

Raise bigger pre, ~32-35.

Admittedly, I tend to auto-cbet ~1/3 pot in similar cases, but not sure it is the best line.
This flop rather favors V, so this is not a range cbet.
Therefore, we should check at some frequency and, when we bet, we could/should probably go bigger, like ~2/3 to ~3/4 pot (?)

Didn't comment on the preflop sizing because I just forgot why I did it. I had some reason to go smaller than normal in the moment but don't remember what it was. Probably something dumb like "I haven't raised in a while so if I size normally, everyone will fold".