Turn A-high into bloof

My thought doc, is that he doesn't check back flop with anything that can call two streets for large size. That's the point anyway. And for those saying 4-bet pre...why? All you would do is fold his occaisional AJs or ATs combo and get shoved on by QQ+. At the same time I don't think AKo is a fold in a cash game...that's just too nitty, so thats why the call pre.

Respectfully, and with the sincerest interest in trying to help, allow me to challenge you to scrutinize your own thinking...

Set aside the belief that he can't call twice after checking back the flop. We'll come back to it.

Notice the difference in your initial read that his 3B range is nutted, and your later post wherein you say he could have some Tx type hands, and some PP's lower than 9's. That's a pretty stark change, and I have to wonder if you're doing this in game, changing your read to support an action, rather than using the read to determine the best course of action.

Unless I misunderstood, you also said you were confident he didn't have OP's when he checked back the flop, but could have Tx that checked back, or SDV that checked back. Consider the incongruity of believing he's c-betting over-pairs that don't need protection but also don't block any TP or 2P+ combos we might have, but checking back SDV that does need protection or could block some of those TP/2P+ combos.

Wouldn't it make more logical sense to assume he's checking back his entire range on this T9X board that smashes our calling range, until we get confirmation?

When we have AK and are OOP, we don't mind if V checks back. He's letting us realize our equity. We can check again on turn, and possibly get to the river without having to put any more money in. We could actually win or maybe chop if he keeps checking.

Even if he bets, which he's likely to do when we check twice, we can easily fold with no pair, or we can occasionally check-raise if we think he's FOS, or just check-call and look to bluff catch. Our hand has just enough SDV that we don't need or want to turn it into a bluff. If he bets with AK/AQ and we fold, it's fine. He's IP and we're OOP. That's poker.

Notice your initial read was that he's FOF post, but can get sticky for one street. I'd go further, and ask what he gets sticky with? If he's getting sticky with his draws, all the draws brick on the river, and fold to our bet, but might bluff if we give him the chance. If he's getting sticky with some SDV, we should try to figure out what SDV he has, and ask how often do we want to try to make him fold by donking turn big and over-bet jamming river?

If the answer is always, we better be sure he'll over-fold to that line. If the answer is not always, then it's worth considering which board textures we want to run it on. I'd argue low-paired boards with a ton of bricked draws aren't going to be favorable spots in a 3B pot. What are we credibly repping in the line we've taken here? Maybe just TT, 99, and 44, and that's a stretch for a super narrow range of value.

If we're going to rep huge, isn't it more credible if we check raise turn, rather than donking? Donking actually looks weaker.

I'd think a lot of his SDV just checks back a lot, so when he bets, he's inherently polarized. That's information we can use to our advantage.

If we flopped top 2P or a set, which seems to be what we were trying to rep, we could just check and let him check back TX or 88 and we win. Or we can chop when we both have AK. Or we win when we have AK and he gives up with AQs. Or he bluffs with AK/AQ and we can hero call with our 2P, if we don't believe he's checking back his over pairs on the flop. Hell, we can value bet T9 there, if we think he doesn't have OP's but does have SDV that we think will call.

That last point is important. If we'd value bet T9, expecting him to call with worse, we can't logically expect him to fold worse when we're bluffing.

Would we really take this line with T9? Probably not. Is it credible that we show up with QQ+ after flatting the 3B pre? Not really. If we want him to fold to our bluff, we need for three things to be true:

1. He has to have a hand better than ours.

2. He has to be willing to fold it.

3. He has to believe he's beat.

If we're not sure he doesn't have AK or worse, the first isn't true, and we can just stop there, and not bluff.

If we're sure he's got us beat, we need to be pretty sure about his range, and I think if we're being honest here, we weren't. So we don't know if he'd be willing to fold.

Lastly, we have to tell a credible story, which is hard to do in this line, on this board. When he calls our huge turn donk, he's telling us he doesn't believe us, or he doesn't care. We need to proceed cautiously.

Final thought - yes, develop reads, but be careful not to over-adjust, because we're working with incomplete info gained from limited observation. This guy's 3B range is far from nutted, and he's beyond sticky. This would actually be a great line to take against him with our thick value, if we knew how wide he is pre and how sticky he is post. As long as we're not sure, we can and should be careful about over-aggressing from OOP.

Hope that helps.

I don't think the read is as obviously "off" as some suggest. QQ+, AK, A5s is 3%. If you expand a little to include AQ and JJ/TT sometimes you're still at 5%. And in live poker, how long do you have to play someone to identify the difference between a 3% 3! range and a 5% one?

The idea of using A5s as a 3! bluff has become ubiquitous enough that I would expect anyone who is even casually trying to improve their game is going to be aware of it. It isn't like he showed up here with 75o.

Which is why you're crazy to fold AK pre even if you think that a V is so tight they are "only" 3!ing JJ+. Unless you've been playing the same player for months, you simply don't have enough information to "know".

That said, I don't like the turn lead. The reason being that this flop looks really safe from Vs point of view. Is V going to check back AA or TT here? I think fairly often. So I think his check back range is protected even if he isn't intentionally protecting it because AA/TT are going to feel strong enough to let a card peel off and hope that H hits a piece or starts bluffing. So V is still uncapped, and arguably its the JJ-KK portion of his range we can discount after his flop check. If we had TT here, are we worried about V folding JJ? Of course not. We're betting and we're betting big because V is going to be inelastic with any pair+. So with our bluffs, I don't see leading as viable because we're going to get called by everything that beats us and we only fold out hands we beat. I think bet/bet is a line that is just going to get called way too often on most rivers. If we want to bluff, I think the x/r is the way to go.

OTR, our read is that V is super straightforward. So let's say that when he calls turn his range is heavily weighted toward Tx, which isn't consistent with our preflop read, but maybe we convince ourselves V is getting frisky. What a super straightforward V isn't doing is calling turn without a pair. We aren't going to see AQ/AJ. The other part of our read is

"He can read the board and understands some basics of the game."

So V understands that there were all sorts of FDs and SDs we might have been semi-bluffing OTT and that all those draws missed. So do we believe V is folding Tx to this bet/bet line?

If the SD hit, I think we can barrel and it works with some frequency. If the FD hits we can barrel with the As. I think barreling on the 5 is a bit spewy.