1/2: Top set in 4b pot vs splashy BB – did I miss value

I like how you played this
On the river, he was bet-folding, so sizing down wouldn’t have helped. I usually just double the bet when I want a call, but he probably folds anyway.

You got a lot of $ out of villain considering there’s no real competing hand he could have.

I understand, because I am obsessed with getting value, but you didn’t blow villain out of the pot, you kept him in and took him to the river with an unbeatable hand.

I think you should be content. Every bet you fired could have caused a fold.

SB is possibly "loose and splashy" but really an unknown so I'd treat it like a typical 4bet pot ie very tight ranges. Should we assume that he 5bets (whether minbet or jam) AA and possibly KK? It is button vs SB after all. So range is probably QQ-TT, AK, AQs, discounted AA-KK, maybe a few slightly wider hands like AJs, KQs, AQo, 99 but again you can probably discount these somewhat.

Getting max value as the preflop aggressor is tricky whether it's a SRP or a 4bet pot, particularly when neither player has a 3 or 2. As ES2 says sizing may determine whether you get hands like AK to stick around for a while. Flop size seems OK, lets AK see a turn and maybe once in a blue moon you induce a check-raise.

Turn sizing may be partly a function of how often you think he has AA/KK? I think it's fine, much larger and hands like TT and KQss may start to fold. I mean you could overbet but SB can always have JJ himself so wouldn't it be odd...?...dunno, seems like your sizing is OK. I might go a touch larger but not huge, maybe half pot.

Grunch:

PRE - The $15 open seems huge. Is that normal for this game?

Don't 4B with JJ. Not without an extremely good read that tells you V isn't doing this with QQ+. Just flat call.

FLOP - Effing luckbox!

Whatever. In theory, you're supposed to c-bet small here, but you can bet 10% pot, 1/3 pot, 1/2 pot, maybe even bigger. It's a 4BP. V's supposed to be strong. I wouldn't necessarily expect him to fold, even if we c-bet to a non-GTO bigger size.

TURN - This is where our reads come in. I could have 54s in my 3B range pre. Probably not a min-click, and probably not calling a 4B, but I'm not folding many hands when you basically click it back and we're playing deep. I don't know if this cat is 3B'ing 54s, but either way, a smaller barrel size on a nut-changing card seems appropriate.

I might go a tad larger, like $100-$125-$150, but $90 isn't terrible. It would suck to get x/r'd, but if we do, we'll be happy we barreled for a smaller size, so we can continue with a call.

RIVER - I mean...the best hand V can have here is QQ-AA, or 54, and I'd think there has to be some turn donk or x/r frequency with 54, and he might donk river for a bigger size with 54. I'd mostly be thinking about how to extract more value from QQ-AA.

When he doesn't 5B jam pre, and donks the river, it really looks like he has QQ exactly, or maybe AK that is just trying to bluff you off a chop. Maybe occasionally he shows up with TT or 99 in this line, and he thinks the J on the river is a safe card for him to block.

Hard to think he's going to donk / block-call if we jam, but also hard to think he's going to call a min-click but NOT call a jam, when it's only $100 difference.

I hate doing it, but I might fake-tank a bit here, not too long, and not trying to make too many scrunchy-brow faces. Maybe count to 20 in my head, then quietly say "all in" and put a single stack out there.

If he's just trying to push you off a chop with AK, or blocking with TT/99, it's hard to get more value out of him. Even if he has QQ, if he played it this way, he's trying not to get stacked by not 5B'ing pre, check-calling flop and turn, and blocking the river. He's probably not calling a jam.

Adding to the above...

Reads - with only five minutes at the table, and only one observed hand, we probably don't know enough to label V. He may be "playing the rush" after the 98o hand.

3B's from the BB who could otherwise flat call closing the action are usually going to be a strong range. But I'd discount that somewhat when V min-clicks, and maybe somewhat more based on seeing the 98o hand, notwithstanding what I just said above about not knowing enough to label him.

I still don't think we should be 4B'ing with JJ. I understand not wanting to let V see a cheap flop, but we would have been happy if he called our initial raise with a worse hand. We don't want to make him fold any worse hands by 4B'ing. If we're ahead, he's doing us a favor by 3B'ing light.

We're probably ahead when he calls. But not always. Assuming he's just getting stacks in with AA/KK, and flatting with QQ/AK, we could be way ahead, way behind, or only slightly ahead. All the more reason not to 4B.

Turn bet sizing depends a lot on the range we give him and the SPR we're trying to set up for the river. He's probably not folding QQ to a big bet. But that's just 6 combos. I'd think the rest of his range of AK and lower 1P holdings would be fairly price sensitive, and we're probably better off using a smaller size, like 1/2 pot, give or take.

His small river donk isn't the reason to jam. The remaining stack depth is the reason. There just isn't enough stack depth left to make a meaningful difference if we were to just click it back. He's usually going to be bet-folding here. Nothing we do is likely to change that.

I think we could go slightly bigger on flop and turn. But if we did, he might not block the river. Say the pot is $500 on the river and we have $250 left. It's not enough for him to generate much if any fold equity with a 1/2 pot donk if he's bluffing, unless it's an AK vs AK scenario. He may just check-fold river after we 4B pre and go bet 33%-bet 50%-jam 50%. To the extent your smaller bets on flop and turn failed to build the pot, he more than filled the gap with his river donk.

Hard to say exactly what V's range is, because he's already shown us he can be OOL. Normally I'd say his range is strong/tight, but he might get to the river with a wider range than we'd expect. If we think his 3B pre is FOS, it stands to reason his river donk may also be FOS.

It doesn't make logical sense to us that he'd get to the river and donk with a wider range, unless we remember that pre-flop mistakes get compounded on later streets. If he's calling too wide pre, and floating too wide on flop and turn, he has to turn most of his range into a donk-bluff on the river.

That brings us back to your bet sizing. If you did raise larger pre, or bet larger on flop and turn, you probably win less, not more, when his range is too wide.

So, well played hand.

Not sure about your logic doc.

It's button vs SB so in the absence of any information a 4bet would be fine. Now of course most people 3bet too tightly. The only information on this guy is that he opens wider than he should, not tighter. It's not much to go on, but certainly enough to make a 4bet absolutely fine.

But also you can't say in the one breath "he's probably got QQ+" and then "we need to consider 54". Of course you adjust your ranges a little as you go but that's a pretty extreme shift.

You said SB but I think you meant BB.

I'll admit I have a hard time remembering the heuristics for when we want to 4B linear vs polar. But either way, I think JJ doesn't really fit into either a linear or polar 4B range. It's just too in-between.

Ordinarily I'd think a BB 3B range is going to be pretty strong when they can otherwise just flat call, closing the action. But if our read is that V is splashy and may be playing the rush, I think he might be too wide, so 4B'ing JJ seems... debatable.

I say debatable because we don't want to fold out worse hands that will monkey c-bet the flop, nor do we want to 4B and have to fold if V 5B jams. The best scenario is we get called by a lower PP or AX or whatever we have crushed, but even then we'll mostly just be guessing what to do on a lot of boards. We're in danger of making the pot too big for our hand.

I think it's hard for V to show up with AA/KK when he doesn't 5B pre. He may not 5B QQ pre. He may 3B pre with some lower PP's like 77-TT, some SC's, some AX, and he might get sticky vs a 4B in this configuration, when he's on a heater. 54s is one SC that would make some sense in this line, on this board. I'd think he'd fold most of his other whiffs.

What else is there that makes any sense? TT and lower PP's he's blocking with, or turning into a bluff? AK trying to push us off a chop? QQ blocking or going for razor thin value? Total air making a hail Mary play?

There isn't much that makes much sense here. The only hands that make any sense are 54s or something he's over-playing and most likely bet-folding, unless it's specifically QQ that just can't release.

Grunch: no issue at all with how it played. NH. Seems like max value.