1/2: Double-barrel bluff with AJo, then check/fold river (spot review)

You're too short to do anything other than play bingo poker, so forget all the big multistreet bluffs, there's just no room for it. Flop is a check. Your iso failed, it's multiway, the pot is quickly spiraling and there's a draw out there, just too much can go wrong. If the flop was dry and you cbet then sure go ahead and stab at the King since it represents your last best hope to get 33-99 to fold, and even 99 might be a little wishful thinking. For some reason you seem to think the flush is a good scare card for you but it's not, it's a good card for them. Someone called 2 big bets on a wet paired board with a big face card out there, what do you think they're really calling with?

This is a flop you should be c-betting very rarely and primarily when you have the Ah or a made hand. C-betting here is a mistake in theory even if you were HU against the CO, I think it's a worse mistake against two fish who have more 4x and 2x than they "should" in their range.

Once you bet flop, I think barreling the turn is almost mandatory because you want to extract value from a heart draw on a brick river. I'd expect to almost never take down the turn - we're betting to jam brick rivers and shake out 4x, 55-TT type hands. River isn't a brick - we lose. No sense to running into a wall.

But again, we shouldn't get to the turn that way very often. If you had AhJx, now we can jam river, though against a fish that might still be -EV. Just check the flop, see what Vs do, and we can start betting turn if they check and get away if they start betting because it isn't like fish are overbluffing.

Grunch:

PRE - What's the rationale for raising to $20? Is the game super loose-splashy? If so, I think I might over-limp with AJo rather than raise, to keep the SPR more manageable post-flop.

FLOP - Either check, c-bet very small, or c-bet huge on this board, like full pot. That 1/2 pot c-bet size isn't accomplishing anything. What size would you bet with AA or KK? Really small or really huge, right? So bet really small or bet really huge.

I might actually go for a check-raise here. A lot of our opponents' PP's from 55+ are going to want to bet for value and protection, and their flush draws might get antsy and start a semi-bluff. A check-raise on 422 two-tone looks pretty credible as a line we might take with a big PP.

TURN - this is the problem with our pre-flop raise size and our flop c-bet size. Even though this is a card that we'd like to barrel on, we're not deep enough to barrel and have a big, scary bet left for the river.

Since we have no pair and no draw, and got two callers, I'd either check, or over-bet jam. Any other bet size is probably spewing if we're just going to give up when we get called.

RIVER - with the Jh in our hand, we block some of his flush draws. I'd prefer to have the Ah, but we got here how we got here. A jam probably gets through often enough. It's a credible line, and V should over-fold if he was just being stubborn with a PP.

That said, if he's truly a fish, he might hero with something ridiculous, like 77, because fish gonna do what fish do. He may also have been chasing a flush draw that got there.

Regarding your thoughts:

- Ks is a good (scary) card for you to barrel, but the size needs to be scary, otherwise - it's not scary. What size would you bet with AA or AK here? Huge, right? So bet huge. You'd probably just jam with AA or AK, praying someone calls with KQ or a flush draw. You'd probably just check back or bet small with KK, right? But with no K in our hand, and no draw, we probably don't want to screw around betting small.

- CO should fold his small/mid pairs to our turn bet. He might not fold his flush draws to this size, at this stack depth.

- You just said you were giving CO small / mid pairs and flush draws. You can't logically change the range you're giving him when you get to the river. If he doesn't have trips / boats on the flop, and he's mostly folding his small / mid pairs on the turn, he can't have trips / boats on the river.

He's probably raising trips on the flop. He's probably raising boats on the turn, and almost certainly raising trips if he decided to slow-play them on the flop. What trips does he have? He can't have A2dd, A2hh, or A2cc, so it's just A2dd. We can't be scared he'll show up with that one combo.

As for your questions:

1. The turn barrel is usually correct. The sizing is too small, though.

2. Jamming the river can be correct or incorrect depending on our reads. I don't think we know enough to say if it's better to jam or better to save our stack and check-fold.

Rather than simply labeling opponents as fish, focus some attention on how they play, what mistakes they frequently make, etc. Is CO fishy because he calls too much, or bluffs too much, or folds too much, or what?