[5-5]: Flopping the nuts, but how do we get paid?

Given your description that V has "very tight" raising ranges, we can't count on him to bluff/value bet river. So there's no reason to check.

I think our value comes primarily from FDs and 8x that thinks it's trapping. Maybe sometimes V has an overpair like TT that for some reason fish are afraid of betting.

I'd aim for about half-pot because I think FDs call that and then I'm hoping for a diamond. Random overs that floated probably fold and there isn't much you can do about that. If the diamond comes, probably going to try to overbet river even if he checks looking to get a crying call from K high flushes. But unless V suddenly x/r turn, it's unlikely we can play for stacks as much as we want to. Vs range doesn't look that strong.

cbet to small on somewhat wet flop when you don't block top pair. I would go at least 2/3 pot on the turn. You want to build the pot with the nuts. If he folds, he folds, but you need to try to get as much as possible in.

Grunch:

When V calls flop, next to act, he should have some piece of the board, either top pair or a good draw. Even if he just has 1P, like 44-66, or maybe 99 that didn't 3B pre, those hands are likely to get sticky when the board pairs.

Think I may have sized up slightly with our flop bet. Maybe made it half pot, because we are 600 eff to start with SB, and our hand is vulnerable to a ton of draws.

I'd size up with our turn barrel size, to target the inelastic portions of his range. If he slow played 87o, it's just a cooler.

Probably betting 150 on turn. If he calls, pot will be 405 and we'll have 410 left for a PSB jam. Pray he has a flush draw that gets there or he turned trips and wants to get it in now.

I’m just going to bet another 20
Because I want to look weak. If he thinks I’m not worried about the eight, he will fold.

Betting another 20 is just like a check (only you make $20) and he’ll probably call it with anything
I’m hoping he finds enough to raise

I love the stories
Target the 2nd best hand 3’s full or trip 8s and bet big - he’ll fold most of the time, but when he calls off, you win big.

Reality is it’s hard for villain to have a lot of great hands with this board and this is the low limit inflection point - the turn - if you can get him that far, maybe you can get a little more on the river.

At any point along the way if he gets aggressive or indicates he’s got something, then size-up - I agree, you have the best hand and are happy to play for stacks.

More than a few I play with would shove your hand on the turn - (hit their hand, bet their hand) - and sometimes it works.
Not sure your image.

With my image, if I come out firing a big bet, everyone’s folding.

You wholly unblock 8x and overpairs, just go $150 OTT and jam river against described player.

Obv 8x is quite likely to raise themselves if you bet small enough, so inducing with an underbet is fun against the right player, but you miss some value versus OPs and these players will often disappoint you when you leave the vbetting to them. (It's also a worse strat for your range, fwiw).

I don't like an over-bet vs. the average player who limp/called. The only hand he can call a big bet with has an 8. Maybe he will call w/ Td9d or AdXd. That's a pretty small range of hands.

You could got 70-100 and not try to get stacks in. Betting small is bad. You have to build the pot and try for a big pot.

I guess I see it differently. I'd rather have them call a smaller bet ($45 - $50) on the turn to get them to all wider than have them fold. He really shouldn't have that much he can continue with.

If he has trips, you may get stacks in. A flush draw should fold to the overbet, but probably will call more than 50, whether or not it should. An overpair should fold to an overbet, but also may call a largish bet.

Generally speaking, the range of hands that stack off 120bbs deep in a SRP is "pretty small" in absolute terms. Relatively speaking, I'd say it's pretty wide here.

Only getting 1/3 of stacks in with the effective nuts against trips on a clean runout against described player is criminal.

I could see debating whether you get stacks in by inducing or up-sizing is a matter of some debate, but milking some dead draws doesn't seem worth the endeavor.

Flush draws and what ever over-pairs he has will probably find folds vs 1.5x pot. 8x will raise turns vs most ''normal'' sizes, I just don't see any reason for an over-bet here.

This. I'm going 40-50, targetting draws, overpairs, and if he has an 8, he raises against our smaller size.

Okay so here's what I thought (or think, anyway, as usual no guarantee that I thought all this during the hand)

- an 8 would pay a huge bet
- but an 8 would also raise a small bet (I don't think anything about Villain's past hand means he won't raise trips for value), so I don't need to bet big to get paid by the 8
- an overpair would pay a big bet, but there are not a lot of plausible overpairs, probably only 3 (99-JJ)
- a flush draw would probably pay a medium-sized bet even with the board pairing
- everything else (22, 44-66, any 3x, any Ax) will not pay a big or even medium-sized bet
- the everything else category has a lot more hands than the flush draw category, so small is better than medium

Continuation:
Turn (105€😉: 8♠
Villain checks, Hero bets 30, Villain calls.

River (165€😉: J♣
Villain checks, Hero ???

I don't really get how this calculation comes out at "bet huge". Like, if Villain wasn't allowed to raise, then yea, I can see how the 8x hands dominate the calculation, and we just want to get the maximum in that part of the tree and neglect the rest. But as-is, won't the extra money from marginal hands, plus the occasional induced bluff (I don't think the guy bluffs, but I don't know him well, so it's still a few % chance) weigh more heavily than the few times he has 99, TT, JJ? Or do you think the risk of an 8 not raising is significant?

V's range is capped at 1P or a draw on the turn, very often top pair. When the top card pairs on the turn, they get more elastic with their draws, because their hand may be no good if they make it, but more inelastic with their 1P's, because our draws haven't come in, and they've improved to 2P or trips.

The draws in their range are going to start over-folding, even to small bets. The 1P hands are over-calling, even to large bets. When they have a range that includes hands that will over-fold, even to small bets, and hands that will over-call, even to large bets, we should bet large, to get max value.

To whatever extent they get sticky with their draws, and want to call a larger bet, or want to raise with 8x, we should accommodate them by betting larger.

We aren't going to get called by much of anything. FDs, low pps, Ax floats are all going to fold. An off chance that V spiked the J and sometimes V could have T9 and just rivered a straight. I'm over betting targeting the straight and maybe being pleasantly surprised by a super timid 8x or AJ that thinks we're fos.

If your image is psycho, you can go for 300 here, but you should probably go for 200.

I go a little bigger on turn, as mentioned. As played, I'd go $100, although I'm actually OK with going for an over-bet to $200. It's just so rarely called w/ worse, and a flush didn't even come in. At least the straight did, so maybe it will work.

I don't really get it. You're both pointing out that Villain's holdings are likely very weak unless they have exactly T9, in which case they're very strong. How does that lead to the "bet big" prescription? If Villain doesn't have the straight, I think a small bet would be better because the big bet never gets called. If Villain does have the straight, I think a a small bet would be comparable because it'll get raised almost 100% of the time . So wouldn't the analysis suggest that the play is to bet small?

If they have the straight, it's not obvious how having a small bet raised compares to just betting big. The raise has the advantage that you're getting something even if they don't call the 3bet. The immediate big bet maybe has the advantage of being more likely to get called? Is that the main case for the big bet?

If V will actually check/raise a small bet with a straight on a paired board, go for it. I'd rather just go for value.

V is pretty capped. The flush draw he may have had missed, and it seems unlikely he has 8x in this line. Occasionally maybe he shows up with 99/TT, JXdd, or he rivers a straight, but mostly we're begging to get called by weak value.

Think I'd bet small, like 80, and pray he wants to raise.

We don't even need a read. All we need to see is that he cold calls your open over a limp from the SB, with the BB and limper still to act. He's not closing the action pre, so he's playing very loose passive.

What makes us think he's going to start putting more money in for us on the turn, with 8x, or think he's going to over fold his draws to the nuts?

He's not raising our small bets anywhere near often enough. He's not folding to our large bets as often as he should. If he gets to the turn with worse than 8x, he's either on a draw or he's being stubborn with some middling pair.

We just need to pile it in starting on the flop. If he folds, he didn't have anything and we didn't miss any value.

If he has T9 for a straight, he'd likely come out and donk into us for fear we'd check back. If he's checking to us with a rivered straight, it's to trap. He wants to get the money in. He may hero fold if we over-bet jam on a paired board. But he'll get greedy and raise huge if we bet smaller.

If we bet 1/2 pot. Maybe he jams. Maybe he makes it 300. At that point, he's not folding if we jam, after putting in half his stack.

A missed FD is going to fold if you breathe on the pot. We block 7x. Does 3x even call the turn bet? Seems ambitious. 44-66 may call the turn because we bet so small, but is it really paying off three streets of betting? We'd have to go super tiny. Basically, the really weak stuff is folding to any reasonable bet.

99/TT might call, but I think you'd have to go 75€ or smaller and does V really have 99/TT getting here this way? I don't think V ever had QQ-AA.

So when we go smallish, the only hands that we are really picking up for value are 99/TT that may or may not even be in his range in such a passive line. The only reason to be small is if we think that its going to induce V to raise for value or as a bluff. But V didn't raise our small flop bet, didn't raise our small turn bet, and our read is that V has tightish raising ranges and generally plays straightforward. It would be a bit weird for V to suddenly decide to be aggressive. Even if he has a straight, it isn't an obvious raise because the board is paired and players have an irrational fear of boats. When the board is paired, many players won't bet a straight for value even if they'll call off all day long. Similar thing with flushes, they will call off a set or straight on a flush completing river, but almost never bet/raise themselves. So given the way V has played, I don't think he is raising often enough for us to bet on it. Whatever bet we put in the pot is what we're playing for.

75€ has to be called 2.6x as frequently as 200€. V is calling 200€ with all 8x, all T9, and maybe some Jx. Going down to 75€, V is calling with everything that would call 200€ + maybe TT/99 and probably all Jx. Is "maybe TT/99" and whatever the rest of Jx is 2.6x more hands than all 8x + T9 + some Jx? Probably not. Because I think TT/99 bet the flop sometimes. Most Jx V has is probably also a diamond draw, and some Jx might donk river for value. So a lot of those hands would play differently sometimes.

If V has a generally weak range that is only going to call a tiny bet on the river, but has a few potential combos of really strong hands that will be inelastic and willing to call huge, it is almost always right to just target those strong hands with a big bet. The reason is that we aren't going to get called often with any bet at all, and the size difference between what a straight will call and what 66 would call is enormous. So if we're being called by the straights, we don't need to be called by the weakest hands. Even if the call is more rare, the amount we win makes up for it.

We want to be small when V can't have any strong hands, or has a very large range of middling hands that can call medium type hands. Say the runout was backwards and came J8738 with similar betting action. Now we can target a ton of Jx type of hands because V will have boatloads of KJ/QJ/JT/J9 and almost no T9 because that would raise at some point being the nuts with a FD out there. In that scenario, we'd want to fire something around half to two/thirds pot aiming to get those TP good to weak kicker hands to call. Because V doesn't likely have T9 at all and there are no really strong hands that can call an overbet unless V is slowplaying J8. But there are a ton of Jx hands that will call a decent but not oversized bet relative to the J coming on the river after most Jx hands were air that probably folds flop or turn.

Yea, I think I agree with all of that. I think that's an argument against making a normal-ish bet, like anything between 50 and 90.

But (spoilers I guess) this isn't what I did -- I did what you mentioned on the side and bet super tiny (I bet 25). I think that does get three streets of value from a 3, and maybe from Ace high as well.

I guess the key question is whether a straight or trips ever just calls. You mentioned that

which I can see if you bet 75, both because 75 doesn't look that weak, and because then they still win a decent-sized pot by just calling. I can't really imagine anyone just calling a straight or trips against a 25 bet though. People want to get money from their strong hands. But idk. If I'm wrong and Villain does ever just call 25 with a straight or with trips, then the tiny bet is a disaster.