[2-4]: River bet sizing with straight against likely trips

Turn bet is too small. Turn is also easy 3bet once he check/raised.
He's not folding any draw, any sets, any 2 pairs and some 47 for the lower st8. He's only folding air which he might not even have.

So initially we should've bet like 100-150 for value. Once he check raised, we 3bet to 360-600.

River, all his draws missed, he shouldn't have much random Jx, some of his 2pairs got counterfeited. So I think the title is a bit misleading. What random Jx check/raises the turn???
All his sets have boated up should probably bet this river unless he plans on check/shoving the river thinking you have busted draws.

River I probably bet/fold somewhere between 100-300. Less if I think his range is very weak, bigger if I think his range is stronger.
If villain can check/ship with worse, good for him. The only worse hand that can check/shove is probably 47.

So turn was misplayed so badly that we couldn't get stacks in.
Imagined we bet like 100-150 turn and we get check/raised??? We'd shove easily.
Now imagine we 3bet, v still shoves or calls?
River becomes a super easy shove spot unless he shoves himself first.

I don't mind slowplaying against hyper aggro opponents, but against normal opponents slowplaying costs you alot of money.

Pre: 97o feels like a fold pre, despite your edge, especially since you have to get through the blinds.
Flop: not sure how wide he calls, but I could check behind here. Bet is fine too.
Turn: Bigger for sure, I'm going 80, and 3 betting.
River: You know his elasticity better than we do, but given what you say, I'm going 200 folding to a jam given he has no bluffs, unless we think he overvalues trips or has 47o in his range.

Also why are we so sure he has trips? Do we think a loose passive is raising turn with TP or a draw? Call Flop, Raise Turn is usually nutted, 2P+, which just boated up. And if he's boated up, he may be waiting for you to hang yourself on the river.

When is the last time youve ever seen a turn x/r be a bluff? 3bet him. As played just jam river. He's folding everything that missed if you so much as breathe on it and you get paid by his lol-traps. I dont think there's any in-between hands that x/r the turn you need to worry about getting a call from at this point. If he had the nuts he would have just donked into you.

If I said "make trips fold" how much would you bet? If you missed your hand here how much would you bluff given his line? Do you even have any bluffs on this runnout? If not then jam is the only play.

I'm not sure he has trips, just seems the most likely hand. Check-raising the Turn with a draw seems too creative. Two pair of set is very possible on the Turn. I discounted it some after the River check but not entirely, I thought it could be a boat. He's never check-raise bluffing so if you bet nonallin, you could fold to a jam.

I'd fold preflop because of three blinds, without the straddle I could be on board (straddle is 8, yes?).

3bet turn as others have said. Get money from the draws before they brick and the sets before a one liner comes in, and put Jx to the test. Although that is very results orientated.

As played bet-fold seems to be the way forward, assuming he doesn't turn trips into a bluff, which seems unlikely.

I don't think it's a bluff, but I expect him to fold any J to a 3bet, maybe weak 2pair as well. And if he has a set, then jamming Turn loses everything, whereas now if he bet Pot on the River, you could probably fold.

Against this guy with this run-out I'm probably never bluffing, I'm usually not trying to get weak players to fold 2p+.

Alright so since everyone seems to want to 3bet, but I think the 3bet is really bad here, I'll expand my argument. Suppose we 3bet the Turn. If he...

• has a draw, it's great, we either get paid more or fold out equity with no downside (since he won't pay us with a busted draw)
  
• has a Jack, it's quite bad because he'd probably fold it and we lose out on a ton of equity. (I'm not assuming the River is a second Jack; even if the River bricked, we could bet 150 and he'd probably call, so we win ~150 more.)
  
• has any hand that improves to a a boat, it's very bad since now we lose everything. (I don't really get why you're saying you're being results oriented when you suggest a raise; the River we got makes a raise much worse I think? Doesn't matter ofc.)
  
• has a set that doesn't improve to a boat, it's somewhat good (we very likely stack him now, but we had decent chances to stack him on a blank River even without the 3bet -- he'll lead for 3/4 pot, we jam, he calls.)
  
• has two pair that doesn't improve, I think it's unclear; it could be good (he calls the Turn, now we get everything on the River) or bad (if he folds 2pair on the Turn).
  

So if we try to turn this into an EV calculation, I think it would look... quite bad? The only strong plus for the 3bet is the first case, which I think is very unlikely. (check-call on the Flop and check-raise on the Turn from a player I've never seen bluff before??) So... yeah, I guess, tell me what's wrong with this argument?

Wonderful, so then you should go allin. If you think he folds trips then you should be bluffing 100% of hands against by jamming allin every single time. You cant have it both ways.

Flip positions, if you make it to this river with a straight/boat are you ever checking to induce? Of course not, you would lead 100% of the time.

OP, you categorised this guy as a weak player who doesn't bluff. Then he raises the turn. Why is the guy who is bad at poker and has zero bluffs raising the turn, but also likely to fold to our 3bet?

You have described a situation where we are massively ahead against a guy who currently wants to commit more chips, if we don't raise now then we might somehow arrive at a river where he doesn't want to commit more chips.

This is a slam dunk 3bet, now OK if the situation isn't as you have said maybe that's not the case, but that's on you.

EDIT

Also, fold pre.

Because I think he could raise a J on the Turn, which would very likely fold to a 3bet, and he could raise 2pair on the Turn, which may or may not fold to a 3bet. This doesn't require him ever raise any bluffs.

I'd turn this around -- what hand do you think he raises on the Turn, which (a) he calls the Turn 3bet with, (b) still loses to us on the River, and (c) does not pay us anyway on the River? Because you need all of (a)-(c) to make the 3bet good. To me it seems like the only hand that could fit this description is exactly two-pair, and even then (b) and (c) are arguable.

Grunch:

PRE - Even with total disdain for our opponent, opening 97o is likely too wide in a three-blind setup.

FLOP - range bet is fine. I might only go 1/3 pot when the straddle is on, but 1/2 pot is fine, this deep.

TURN - Using a smaller bet size to keep his calling range wide is fine, but 30 into 100 is too small. You could make it 50.

The reasoning is that we're targeting a range consisting of TP, 2P, sets, 1P + draw, and unpaired over-cards that picked up the BDFD. Those hands are all calling a 1/2 pot bet. In fact, some of that range would call a bigger bet, and might even raise. The hands that fold to 50 are folding if we breathe on the pot.

As played, when V check-raises 4X, he's repping a very strong hand. We're now looking at TPTK or better, but more likely this is 2P+. If he's bluffing, he's likely to be bluffing with a flush draw, or some sort of combo draw.

Turn check-raises are generally pretty nutted hands at low stakes, especially when they come from bad players. He could easily have 74 for the lower straight, when he's in the straddle. He may have slow-played a flopped set, but is now x/r'ing because the BDFD appears.

If that's his range, we should 3B, and I'd probably just jam, to get max value from his nutted hands. A flat call looks like a made hand, whereas we might be 3B'ing as a bluff with a draw. It will be hard for him to put us on the nut straight, when we could have all the over-pairs and NFD's in our range. Meanwhile, all his bluffs are going to shut down on brick rivers.

RIVER - Yeesh.

I wouldn't necessarily put him on JX that will call a huge bet. I'd be concerned he had a flopped set that just boated up, or 2P that's been counterfeited (which he may not realize), and may not call a big bet.

I don't know how often we'll be able to get value from a counterfeited 2P. I might bet REALLY small here, like $100, and fold if he raises. There's just no way he'd go for a double-check-raise bluff. And I might just check back, because he does end up here with some boats that might just check-call or possible check-raise again.

Why? If he has a set, we can get his entire stack anyway on a brick River. If he has a lower straight, can definitely still get his entire stack anyway on a brick River. (And if he has a set and the River pairs, then the 3B is terrible.) Even with this condensed range where you're excluding a raise from just a J, the 3bet doesn't seem all that obviously good.

But I'm not sure you should exclude the Jack. I agree with you that we could have bet 50 rather than 30 on the Turn, but given that we did bet 30, a super weak bet, I think the raise is also not that strong. Not all check-raises are created equally; it's not like we bet 3/4 pot and then he raised.

The reason you get the money in on the turn is that villain might not put more in on the river. I like simply doubling the bet quickly when I want to be called. This looks like you made a pro move, small bet to induce, villain obliges, then come over the top for $240.

J8 or 88 make sense for villain waking up on the turn, so I think you need to add pressure as others have said when you can’t be behind. I don’t think villain would check a boat on the river, so I’d look for thin value there.

Like I said above, I think his turn range is heavily weighted towards 2P/sets for value, and flush draws / combo draws / 1P + a draw for semi-bluffs, not that I think he's semi-bluffing any more than occasionally. I actually think he'd rarely be semi-bluffing.

His value range isn't check-raise-folding often enough for us to NOT want to 3B when we have a nutted hand we shouldn't have. Most low stakes recs don't have a check-raise-fold range on any street, and they have far fewer on later streets.

Even if he's semi-bluffing or over-playing thin value, he's either semi-bluffing with a hand that has equity to improve or he thinks he's actually got the best hand and is raising for protection.

Most of his value range is going to shut down on a ton of rivers - any club, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, or T completes a potential draw. Any 5, 6, 8, or J pairs the board. Any over-card might make us a higher 2P or set. There's literally no river card that doesn't potentially change the nuts. There are no brick run-outs on this board.

Yes, if we 3B and he calls, he can improve to a better hand and we lose (as often as 22% of the time when he has a set, or 10% with 2P), or possibly he'll find a fold and we don't get any more value, or maybe he over-plays his hand on the river if we flat call. But the odds of any of those outcomes happening isn't really all that high. It's more likely we're just leaving money on the table when we don't try to play for stacks with the turned nuts.

In fact, the worse he is, the less likely he is to find a hero fold on the turn, and the less likely he is to go for thin value on the river after we call his check-raise. I'll happily take the risk his 2P and sets out-draw us 10%-20% of the time rather than let him off the hook on the river 80%-90% of the time. If he somehow is bluffing with a combo-draw, he'll only improve around 1/3 of the time, and shut down the other 2/3.

Which cards do you think he bets on the river, and for what size? If he's not betting when he improve to trip J's after check-raising the turn with TP, what does he bet?

You slow play too much, and apparently rationalize it with overly optimistic ranging of your opponents, combined with a dangerous tendency to assume they're going to make a lot of egregious mistakes.

There. Are. No. Brick. Rivers.

What the river card actually is doesn't change what we want to do on the turn. The river will be whatever it will be. We should aspire to make the highest EV play at each decision point, not hedge against future disasters. Not getting max value for our hand when we have the nuts is a bigger disaster than V getting lucky and sucking out on us 10% to 1/3 of the time.

Think of it this way - suppose you had AA pre, and your opponent limp-3B from UTG over your BTN open. He's repping a very strong hand. Would you worry more about him out-flopping you with KK, or possibly finding a hero fold with KK if you 4B, or would you be thinking about how to get as much money as possible into the pot?

Would you be overly concerned that he might be making some sort of play at you as a stone bluff, and might fold to a 4B, but will continue to bet if you just call? Does that scenario seem more likely than the one where he just has KK and is happy to get stacks in pre?

Focus more on getting max value from your nutted hands, and less on trying to avoid low probability outcomes.

Well, I haven't made an argument based on what the Turn actually was at any point in this thread. I've sketched an EV calculation here, where the possibility that the River pairs is just one of several cases, it's no more or less likely based on the River actually pairing. I've never said it's a big factor, but it's one factor, and I don't see much of a factor in the opposite direction.

Alright, so my main argument was "3bet is unnecessary because we probably get paid anyway" and your main response is "actually we probably don't get paid anyway since the River could kill the action". That's a coherent response.

I'm not sure how much I agree with it though. A 2♠ for example is a complete brick. He's not ever going to give me 43. The only thing this card does is make it slightly more likely that he has a worse straight. It increases action. Ditto with a 3, 4, or 7 (of not-clubs); all of those make it more likely he pays me rather than less.

Overcards kill action a little bit. A J increases action because he'll always fold a J on the Turn but is less likely to fold trips on the River.

(Have to go rn, will respond more later, but yeah the framing of "River card will kill the action" is a real argument but doesn't seem entirely true; it seems like a pretty mixed bag. I'm not really convinced this is altogether enough to justify the 3bet.)

Yes actually, I would worry a lot about this. Depending on Villain I would heavily consider just flatting so he doesn't get away from his QQ or possibly AK. (There was an entire past debate about this where everyone told me I shouldn't have flatted AA, but I did not find the arguments I got to be convincing.)

Many people seem to think that if someone 3bets you, there is no chance they'll fold to a 4bet. Which is kinda odd because I think if I made a thread here under a different account and was like

I'm pretty sure the main two replies I would get are (1) lol you're a fish for limping, and (2) this is obviously KK+, easy fold.

(I considered actually running this experiment but then didn't go for it.)

These two things seem not very logically consistent. I guess you could argue that even if you would fold there, a weak player will always call, but that's also just not true imE; people fold to my 4bets all the time. Just two days ago I 4bet a very tight player with AA (because there was a flatter and I had worst position, didn't want to play a 3way pot OOP), he folded, I paid him 2€ for the hand and he showed QQ.

So yeah I'd worry about pushing people out of the pot, absolutely. I would think pretty hard about this and then flat or 4bet depending mostly on my read of Villain.

(will respond to rest tomorrow on Desktop.)

"I'm not 3betting when I'm in position with the nuts; there's a high chance a 3bet bullies a hand out of the pot that would pay me on the River...If he has a set, we can get his entire stack anyway on a brick River."

You demonstrate inconsistent logic, which creates blind spots for you, such that you see what you want to see, rather than what's actually there.

Like, what hand does he have that's strong enough to check-raise the turn, but not strong enough to call a 3B, yet will bet again for a large size when we flat call the x/r, or check-call a big over-bet, which is what it'll need to be if we want to get stacks in, when we're starting 800 effective?

Do you really think he's folding 2P or a set on the turn? How often is he check-raising JX? Which JX combos does he raise? Is it likely they'd only be the stronger JX combos that picked up the BDFD? Are any of those folding?

He has very few worse hands that are going to flat call pre, flat call the flop, check-raise the turn, but not call a 3B, and either bet big or check-call a big river bet on this board. If we're extremely lucky, he has one of a handful of JXcc combos that picked up the BDFD on the turn and ran into trips, but for some reason doesn't bet the river. Every other hand in his range is a boat, a counterfeited 2P, a worse straight, a missed combo-draw, or a chop.

Bart Hanson has frequently made the point that many low stakes players have a tendency to underestimate the number of action killing cards that can come on later streets. I think implicit in that assertion is an assumption or understanding that low stakes opponents tend towards playing later streets more conservatively - they tend not to value bet thinly enough or bluff enough, and will instead opt to check a lot, and very often fold a lot.

If our read is that V gets to each street with too wide a range, okay, but if he's calling too wide, would it not be reasonable to infer that he's likely to raise very tight, especially when our read is also that he has almost no bluffs? Would it not also be reasonable to infer that if we flat call his check-raise, rather than 3B him, he may begin to wonder if we're on some sort of draw, or may be trapping him with a very strong hand?

Now, given the above, consider the very strong likelihood that V is check-raising with thick value - 2P, a set, or a lower straight (and let's ignore the possibility that he's free-rolling us with 97cc). Imagine the river is another club, or a card that completes a higher straight draw. In fact, say it's the Tc or Qc, bringing in both higher straights and a flush, and potentially giving us top or second set.

How many of his 2P and set combos are going to want to bet again, or call a big bet? Will his lower straights bet again, or call a big bet? Is 65 going to call if he checks to us on the 2s? Recognize that your future value scenarios all involve very narrow parts of his overall range betting again or calling a big bet on very specific run-outs.

I would venture to say that there's not much scarier for a low-stakes rec-fish than check-raising a marginal hand on the turn and getting flat called. And if you think about this situation objectively, almost his entire turn check-raising range is going to be made up of hands which seem strong, until you call the raise, at which point they all seem pretty marginal, with the exception of the single combo of 97cc, or maybe JXcc that runs into trips.

As such, I don't think we'll be getting anywhere near enough value, anywhere near often enough, to warrant flatting the turn check-raise. If he's a typical low-stakes rec-fish, the only cards that increase the action on the river are those that improve his hand.

While the 3B may seem "too strong" to you, we need to remember that V came to the casino to gamble, not to fold whatever hand he has that he thinks is good enough to check-raise the turn. And he damned sure doesn't want to lay it down if there's even a remote possibility we could be pushing with a draw or just an over-pair.

If you post a reveal that V check called with some hand that should have check-folded, congrats. But you left money on the table by not 3B'ing the turn, and it doesn't matter what his hand was, because you can't know he would have folded, and I'll bet if he does check-call, he does so with a hand that very likely would have called a 3B.

Just look at what actually happened here - he did NOT bet the river, likely indicating that either your flat call of his x/r or the river card (or some combination of the two) has him concerned, and you're unlikely to get called if you make a big bet, and making it fairly unlikely he had a set when he x/r'd the turn.

It looks like he had 2P that got counterfeited. So much for getting his entire stack. Now we'll be happy if he pays off even a modest 1/2 pot bet, and if we do try to play for stacks, he probably has us beat.

yooo before I write my proper reply, let me just say that I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to discuss this with me (and actually making logical arguments). Minus the psychoanalyzing/accusations of inconsistency, but I'll still take it.

To preempt just point right now, I don't agree with Villain raising tight. I said weak live player who calls too wide and doesn't bluff, I didn't say passive. So when I'm going to give him a wide raising range in my reply, that's not me tweaking it after the fact to get the result I want. I won't do any retroactive tweaking (and who knows, maybe the result will show that the 3bet is better).

IME bad players who don't bluff either don't raise or they go with their raises, meaning I discount top pair and consider if he has 2 pair, he's going to go with it.

This sounds suspiciously like a broad argument against raising before the river because we want to know that our hand is going to hold up on the river before we raise a turn and by extension the flop.

Yeah, noted. Maybe the calculation will turn on how many Jacks you give Villain after the raise (we'll see). But again, don't lump all raises together, he raised a super weak bet. And also remember the anecdote of Villain donking tptk on a blank Turn after he's called a raise on the Flop; imo this at least somewhat points toward a guy who kinda just plays his hand . "You bet 30$? That seems to little for my top pair, let's raise 120$. Oh you re-raised 400$? That seems like too much for top pair, let's fold."

I would agree with that. If you think someone is easy to read, then that incentivizes leaving more options open until the River. And most people play each successive street more straight-forward/predictable. If hypothetically you could see your opponent's cards, you'd generally want to commit as late as possible. But it's just one argument for not raising early, it doesn't mean never do it. It could be outmatched by other factors.

E.g., here's a hand I played yesterday. In this one I jammed because imE that Villain (BN) raises flush draws all the time, and that seemed more important than any possible information edge on the River.

FWIW, I'm not one of those who gets an ego lift by "winning" a debate on the internet. My objective here is to improve my own game, by way of posting hands I play for others to critique, and by way of critiquing hands others post. To whatever extent I may seem overly willing to engage in argument, it's intended to improve my own ability to apply the same logic when I'm at the table (admittedly, much easier said than done).

I wouldn't attempt to psychoanalyze anyone, but I'm not incapable or unwilling to draw reasonable inferences and share them, when I think they have the potential to help someone improve. For example, in this thread, you said this, in defense of slow-playing bottom set on a board of KhQs4h: "I'm not fast-playing just because there are two hearts. Gotta take risks if you want to win big."

The majority consensus in that thread was that we should fast play bottom set. Here, the majority consensus is that we should fast play our turned straight. In both scenarios, you advocate for slow-playing, which gives rise to a few objective observations:

1. I don't know if your preference for slow-playing is a function of risk-aversion, or the opposite, thrill-seeking behavior (or perhaps some tendency to swing between the two extremes). Your statement in that thread, that we "gotta take risks" suggests the latter, but your statements here, that V might improve on the river suggest the latter. But either way, risk-aversion and thrill-seeking behavior shouldn't over-ride logic as a way to find the most optimal (highest EV) play.

2. The dissonance itself should lead you to take a close look at your own thought processes in-game. More importantly, I'd urge you to consider the possibility that you're capable of under-estimating the vulnerability of one hand (bottom set on a flop of KhQs4h, OOP as a pre-flop caller in a four-way pot) and over-estimating the vulnerability of another hand (the turned nut straight, IP, as the PFR in a heads-up pot).

3. You're clearly capable of determining how many combos of certain hands an opponent can have based on card removal (you correctly deduced V could have more K8 than K9 in that other thread, given the 9 on the river), but don't seem nearly as competent when it comes to ranging an opponent street-by-street based on the action up to any give point (as evidenced by your suggestion V gets to the flop with K8 as often as K9 in that other hand, but not QXhh, the cognitive error of which should be obvious if you know population tendencies).

The title of this thread, and your post about it (post 6), suggest you think JX is V's most likely hand. But his actions in sequence make JX seem fairly unlikely, much less likely than 2P that hates the river, or a boat that may be trapping (not all that likely, but more likely than JX that check-raises turn yet checks again when he improves to trips on the river).

If it was just wishful thinking in lieu of admitting you made a mistake on a prior straight, we'd understand. But if it's your logical conclusion, then it points to faulty logic.

When combined with your other posts about not wanting to bloat the pot because his 2P and sets can improve to a boat, it seems undeniable that you're not being consistent in your logic, which in all likelihood is causing you to make mistakes, and your reluctance to correct the logical inconsistency is what's keeping you from seeing your mistakes, and leading to the wishful thinking.

The majority consensus here is that you should 3B the turn, but having failed to do that, you should bet-fold the river. That consensus is the product of multiple people applying the same logic to this situation, at least some of us doing so independently. It's possible we're all wrong, but does that seem most likely?

My experience with internet discussions suggests that it'll be wise in this situation to hold off on responding further until I get to post my proper EV calculation (which I promise is coming, but might need more than 1 day), so I'll do that.