Lost On The River

No. The button and the SB both called. They have my $1500 covered. $1500/$6 = 250. I am only meaningfully shorter against the LJ who is 133 straddles. Which is still quite deep. I have no way of knowing preflop if the LJ will continue in the hand OTF. Many flops might come where I play a huge hand against the BTN, SB, or Straddle. We went 5 ways to the flop. Until LJ bet out and BTN & SB quickly folded, their money was in play.

OK, so the answer is the HH is a trainwreck, since you only list V1 and V2 in the introduction, one of whom is the shorty.

Maybe you should let this thread die, and next time you create a thread, it would be good try to post in a clearer, less confusing manner.

"V1- in LJ RFI $30, called by BTN & SB.
H- in BB JTcc calls
V2- in straddle calls."

Seems pretty clear to me. A breakdown of two Vs who called and folded to a small bet on the flop before I acted seems excessive and I'm already prone to post long. I didn't think preflop was controversial at all. In another recent post, the OP called with JTs from the BB against a 5x UTG raise from a fellow labeled as "TAG" and a SB labeled as "loose passive" with everyone around 200bbs. Nobody said a thing about it. Don't know why it is controversial here, as I have no reason to believe the RFI came from a TAG which might warrant a little bit more caution (though probably still a call in my book).

Everyone says my call pre was "wrong" but so far nobody has offered an alternative range for the situation. They say my float on the flop was wrong, but provide no math to support it. I get there are a ton of TAGs on this site and that being a TAG is often a profitable approach to lower limit games in a casino. But there are other ways to play and according to the computer models, much better ways to play.

Mostly, I wanted to get a sense for if I can value bet the river with a block size, or if that is just being too greedy and I should be satisfied with checking it down and not getting put in the blender. My sense in game was to check it down, my thoughts afterwards were that a blockbet would have been superior but my POV is naturally colored by the results. I'd like to talk about that with someone who has some insightful input.

Frankly, I don't care if you like my preflop ranges or not. I constructed them, I know what they are, and they work well in the games I play, I make the adjustments I make as the game evolves based on my observations of my opponents ranges and tendencies. If you are sitting with a static preflop chart and playing set hands regardless of the table dynamics, that's not a good preflop game IMO. Sometimes I will nit it up and maybe I play 10%, in this game I loosened up for the reasons discussed. I have a base that I narrow or widen as appropriate.

Later on in the day, I actually did go through a phase where I had to nit it up as a very loose and aggressive player sat on my left and suitably punished my looseness with 3!s. If he was in the straddle when this hand happened, I probably fold. I had to wait until I caught some hands that could fit into a wider 4! range to tamp him down. It took about three annoying hours.

"JTs not in preflop chart - fold 100%!", that isn't good poker. I would think people who sit around talking poker all day might recognize that. I think I more than amply explained what my range was and why I was willing to play wider than some might think standard in this situation.

The $6 straddle pretty much makes $600 100bb. This has been discussed ad nauseum in these forums. I am shocked if you disagree.

And the LJ is the one who raise pre! LOL. Wow.

Math? You have three clean outs and you are getting 4:1. Seems pretty clear to me.

Another newbie who just wants to argue in pursuit of showing us his brilliance.

Are you only calling on the flop when you have immediate pot odds?

I'm not looking to argue at all. I'd really love someone to answer my question.

1: What ideas are there on this river? That was my original question.

I didn't want to argue about the preflop or the flop.
Even if the consensus is that the preflop call was borderline - it can't be that borderline. JTs is a top 15% hand. Even if we all agree the float on the flop was light (it's definitely the bottom end of a calling range so I can see why many might fold), and if you're going to make a light float, when the bet is small and stacks are deep is the time to do it. At most it's an error, it certainly isn't a blunder. None of that changes the question on the river:

To bet or not to bet with the nuts turned to weak value.

You are being results oriented (another newbie quality). Even your solver said bet small sometimes and check sometimes. Do one of those things. I told you want I'd do on the river. I'd check/evaluate. You checked and you wish you hadn't -- after seeing their hands. The end.

I'm surprised that a solver would want to fold JTs here. That is interesting. It never would have occurred to me, I would squeeze or call, but wouldn’t even consider folding. Like I said, interesting.

I can't imagine a call on the flop being the right play here. You have only three outs, albeit to the nuts, and one of which brings a double flushdraw, so you'd have to evade even more cards on the river. You have no overs, no backdoors and there's a guy behind you still left to act. In my opinion this would be an easy fold on the flop. I do appreciate that you gave your reasons for calling here, though, even if I don't necessarily agree with them. I probably call with a backdoor flush, but now I just lay it down.

I won’t be results-oriented. When I first read this HH, before you posted the result, it was a definite check/fold on the river for me. I would just assume someone hit his big combo draw and has a flush now and if not, it's probably checked around and we win anyway.

Do we fold if there is a small bet from the straddle? Say straddle fires $300. I think I probably pay it off which might just be burning. But I'm just not good enough to fold 30% pot with the strongest non-flush hand.

OTOH, if I were in the straddle and I get here with a hand like QJ or 67 spades, I'm assuming that BB is never checking a flush and based on LJ's tank I think it's unlikely he is on a FD. AP straddle has a ton of flushes and a ton of missed BDFDs. I would feel compelled to bluff various BDFDs that missed. If straddle jams as value or bluff it's an easy fold for me. But if straddle bets say $500 and LJ folds, which is about the sizing I'd expect him to bluff based on prior hands he tried to bluff, it's a really gross spot. I think he could be bluffing a good chunk.

That's where I started thinking that maybe if I had led out for $200, a value size I would call, and I can instafold to any aggression because I think that strongly discourages any bluff attempts. The solver facing a small bet is playing back and jamming a bunch of bluffs like K5s, TT, QQ, KQ. I don't think a human player is finding those - I wouldn't. AQ in solverland is a jam or fold, a human probably calls or folds. Yes, I'm facing two Vs where in solverland there is only one, but that might make the blockbet better because it even further discourages bluffing from the straddle. I think even a weak flush probably doesn't raise.

I'm less concerned about getting the value I could have had in this particular hand, but I was wide open to being bluffed. I feel like I would pay off value bets too frequently. If I bet $200, I think my future decisions are very easy - I fold to aggression. With a check, I think I face a very hard decision more frequently.

Is that sensible, or am I just giving away $200 too frequently when one of the Vs has the flush and would have let me off the hook by jamming?

Put another way, if you were straddle or LJ with the nut flush, how much would you try to value bet when checked to?

If you had QsJs, how frequently would you try bluffing when checked to?

Would you ever consider bluffing when faced with a bet?

For me: 1. $500ish. 2. Nearly 100% of the time. 3. Probably not.

You should have raised bigger on the turn, like $450 to $500. There's no rule that caps your raise size. Especially when the turn only improves an inside straight draw, but adds a second flush draw, you're going to get action so much more frequently, so raise bigger.

River is the worst card in the deck. Think I might block bet here, like $300, and fold to a raise. Alternatively, if our read is that V2 is unwilling to commit to big bluffs, I might check-evaluate.

But I don't like checking here, when we're OOP to two opponents with uncapped ranges. Too many possibile scenarios where we fold the best hand or call with the worst.

Just read the rest of the thread.

PRE -- when UTG straddles, we should play the BB the same way we would usually play the SB, as raise or fold. JTs is cuspy, so it probably seems like a call, but we really should be more disciplined and either raise or fold.

FLOP - we should check fold. Calling is spew. Check raising is better than calling.

If you're going to play splashy pre and on the flop, it's criminal not to get max value when our poor decisions get rewarded on the turn. The only logical defense for your decisions pre and on flop are the implied odds when you make your hand, and that argument goes down the shitter when you don't get stacks in on the turn.

Please don't say V's are over folding if you check raise 9x-10x here. They aren't. They're going to call way too much, and only fold the worst parts of their range. The goal isn't to get called more often by betting smaller with our nutted hands. It's to win a bigger pot. We can bet smaller with weaker value and our bluffs.