2/5 ~ 99 vs young asian guy

Last post before I crash out...

Dango - are you raising turn for value or as a bluff?

You're talking about raising turn and over-betting the river, and saying you think V is capped. That sounds like you know you're raising as a bluff.

The thing is, if you think V is capped, what does that mean, exactly, in terms of the hands in his range that you're trying to make fold?

Are you trying to fold hands you beat, like lower PP's? Why? You're ahead of those hands.

Are you trying to fold out higher PP's, like TT-KK? If so, are you going to follow through with your plan to over-bet the river, if it's an over-card to your 99, possibly improving one of those hands to a set?

Are you trying to fold out a draw? You're ahead of draws. Maybe they fold, maybe they don't. With multiple draws in V's range, are you going to follow through on your plan to over-bet the river when some of those draws come in?

You might have the best hand here sometimes. If you're going to raise as a bluff, it would be better to do it with a hand that has less showdown value, and more chance to improve to a much stronger hand.

You've got a pair that has 2 outs to improve to a set, which could make your opponent a straight or flush, or just lose when V has a higher set.

What you want as a candidate to raise as a bluff is a 12-15 out combo draw, or a pair + a flush draw, some hand that has around 30% or more equity when your raise gets called by combos that aren't better draws with more SDV.

I'm raising as a bluff.

Ok, this logic might be flawed.
But a guy who usually cbets/barrels all the time but checks on this board that perceives to be better for the initial raiser's range in a HU/3way pot.
To me this seems like he either has slowplayed AA or marginal hands like weak Ax/TT-KK type marginal showdown hands. This is why I said his range looks faced up.
But on a flushdraw board and as an aggro player that often barrels frequently, he still has to be cbet/barrel AA some? I'm not saying he doesn't have AA in his range, I'm saying the chance of him having AA diminishes compared to his other weak/capped 1 pair range.

Also as to balance when I have a set/2pairs here, I need a bluffing range right??? But I usually don't have a bluffing range, wtf do I raise with on the turn and barrel the river? This is why I thought about turning my hand into a bluff here. All the draws I might bet/barrel off on the flop, as for 89s I don't even play that type of hand in position, if this was a small open or in multiway pots or with a fish calling I might call on the btn with it, facing a 30 open my calling range tightens up alot. All my calling range is like pairs and pairs only, the rest goes to folding or 3betting.

I know I sound crazy, this plan seems even crazier. I mean I could fold and carry on. I thought it was a good spot, just trying to see what others think.
As to why I didn't bet flop or 3bet preflop, I mentioned already.
His range preflop wasn't defined yet, and he has tightened up alot already, I am in btn, there were no 3bettors in blinds.
Flop, even though he defined his range, in game I didn't want to fire multiple barrels on flop to rep sets when my range is perceived as wide with my stabs. Also the female reg in the bb has some chances of sets, if she calls, her range is still uncapped, nits slowplay/trap sets even oop.
Turn is where I usually make my move. A polarizing range/bet then follow up for stacks play.

Ok, maybe whatever stuff I'm smoking is too different from yall.

I think your assumptions are likely incorrect.

People don't always c-bet ace-high boards as the PFR, even when the board is two-tone, even when they have TP+. When there aren't a ton of draws available, these boards get checked through a lot. We might expect this Ad7d2h board to get checked through slightly more often than if it was Ah7d2d, where someone could have top pair and the NFD.

They c-bet less when they're OOP, or multi-way, and probably less when an opponent on their direct left has been aggressively 3B'ing them pre.

When he checks flop, that action doesn't necessarily cap him. We might think BB is capped when she checks again on the turn after the flop checks through, but if she's passive, I wouldn't rule out that she has some piece of the board, or just a hand that isn't going to fold yet, even if you raise over V's bet.

His turn bet could just be a delayed c-bet he'd make with his entire range, but that doesn't mean he doesn't actually have a piece of the board. He may have been checking range on the flop, and he may actually have a piece.

It's hard for V to start a bluff on the turn and follow through on this board texture, for the same reasons it's hard for you to start a bluff and follow through. There are a lot of run-outs that will be bad for the hands either of you would be repping. For this reason, you could call here, and expect him to give up his bluffs on a lot of rivers.

However, it's easier for him to start a bluff now and follow through, because he's the PFR, and he's really not capped getting to the turn. He could be checking range on the flop, whereas you are very capped, because you're supposed to stab at it with some of your strongest value and highest equity bluffs.

To Sub's point, you're supposed to have some slow-plays on the flop, mostly hands like A7 or A2, though maybe also 77/22. Those are hands you could raise for value on the turn, and they're some of the hands you'd be repping with a raise here. But the reality is most live players won't check back these hands, so your bluff isn't all that credible, and it's hard for you to follow-through on the river when you don't actually have the hands you're repping.

So, you're supposed to stab the flop with hands like PP's with 1 diamond, and slow-play A7/A2/77/22. The problem is most people do the opposite. You did the opposite.

I don't really know how to discuss "balance" here on the turn, when you're not balanced on the flop.

You could start a bluff on the flop with your PP's with 1 diamond, because those hands have equity to improve when they get called, and when they don't improve, there are some strong hands we can credibly rep because we bet the flop. We can't credibly rep those hands when we don't bet flop.

Your turn raise would be very polar, sort of. You're obviously bluffing with 99. But, again, to Sub's point, if you're "polar", that means you can have hands like A7, A2, 77, and 22 in range, but you most likely don't, so your range is weighted towards air-ball bluffs, not balanced with enough value.

If I'm V, and you raise here, I'd guess I'm mostly folding my own air, but I wouldn't fold my NFD's, or my OESD's, or my 2P, or my sets, and I wouldn't fold many AX combos. So when you raise, you're mostly folding out hands you beat, and funneling V into a range of better hands and good draws.

On the river, you can try to rep 2P or a set, but that's going to be hard to do when you don't actually have the hands you're repping, and the river card will so often be a bad card for those hands, or someone trying to rep those hands. If you actually had 2P or a set here, you'd be hoping to boat up, because any card that doesn't give you a boat is likely a bad card for your hand.

This bluff doesn't work when V actually has a hand. It only works when he doesn't have a hand. In that scenario, you'd be bluffing with the best hand, which could be re-worded as you're value-betting without realizing it.

ok ok
back to hand

In game we raise to 150, only V calls.

Pot 400
River 9♣
V checks
Hero?

You all said it was hard for me to rep sets. Now set got there time to rep the bluff/set we were going for?

Yikes did you get lucky. I'd jam if I thought there was a hope of levelling V into a call.

My guess though is V stabbed turn with a FD, after flop checked through, hence the call of H's raise, and not a 3!, so now they've given up. Let's see: 400 in pot, like 1020 back, and a board of A7269dd. If my guess on their range is correct, it's a bunch of diamonds that won't call a bet, but might spaz out and raise over one.

Along with a slow-played AA ofc. Are you calling off a shove here, OP? I guess we can b/f something small like 100-150 if the answer's "No," and we don't think that will induce.

Or even x-back. Seems like another situation where 'nobody bluffs at this, like this,' and practically none of V's range can call a reasonable sized bet, but some of their range will make a bet we shouldn't call. Yes, that's a bunch of contradictions.

So we had air we shouldn't bluff the turn+river
Now we got there we xback????

I think the read is pretty good, that OP notices V's in game adjustment. Still we are in a bit of an info vacuum about the meaning of the flop check. Sometimes it is an AA slowplay, and possibly 77 but those are less likely due to combination counting.

V could also be motivated to give up on the fairly dry A-hi board with a hand like Q-10, or is defensively checking a pocket pair KK-88. I do think the lower pairs are more incentivized to bet and fold out high cards, so often you are looking at higher PPs. Ax is also possible, again partly bc villain seems to have gone into a defense mode.

The turn bet can easily be a stab with Q-10 like, now that you and the BB player have checked when given the opportunity to bet against weakness. If you're raising here maybe it is to bluff out the overly tight passive BB? It seems like a high variance parlay.

Nice river.

I wouldn't have raised turn. Calling though, and I'm surprised so many here were going for a fold. It just looked so much like a stab after no one showed interest on the flop.

Now that you're here, with your set, you need to ask yourself if you're high enough in your range to call off a shove/consider whether V's previous actions mean they could've sp'd AA to this point. I'm not concerned about T8/85.

Again, I don't know what in V's range b/c's turn, x's river, yet will only call a bet from H here. I would've thought Ax cbets. (Despite Sub et al saying this isn't a range cbet, and I believe them.) I don't think Ax x's river after calling. Bet/calling something modest, maybe. But they started with a check.

I don't know if Ax calls a small bet from H on the river. I guess if they do, then H should bet/fold something like 200-250. I just imagine the next entry is going to be, "So H bets 250, and V says 'All-in.' HALP!"

This is why we don't want to raise turn. We don't know what to do on the river, even when we improve.

We lose to AA and some straights. Otherwise, our hand should be best. The 9c on the river doesn't improve the hands we were repping on the turn, so it's unlikely V is going to give us credit for a hand better than 76, especially when we only raised 3X. That sizing looks somewhat bluffy.

If he had 2P or better, he might have 3B the turn. I'd say his range is mostly going to be AX at best, and a lot of worse value or bricked draws.

I'd probably bet 1/2 pot, praying he thinks we're weak and he either raises, or at least makes a crying call.

Had you just flat called the turn, we'd have more clarity on the river. If he checks we could bet big. If he bets small we could raise. If he bets big we could call or raise.

Say we called. The pot would be $200. If he bets $100, we could raise to $500, and expect him to call with AX. We could have made $550 profit (the $50 turn bet plus $500 on river). Now, we're hoping to make $300 (the $100 turn raise plus the $200 bet). Our turn raise likely cost us $200 in value.

You guys said I don't rep anything when I overbet river and will get called, now we got there we bet small??

No, I said it's hard to rep the hands you're trying to rep on most rivers. You hit a two outer to make a set.

Stop thinking about your actual hand and focus on his range, compared to what he might think we have.

Is he going to think you raised turn with a bluff and now you're barreling for a big size after he calls and your draw bricks? Is he going to think his AX is the best hand if you raised and barrel for a large size when your most likely draws missed? Is he going to call a bet of any size with a missed draw or a PP between TT and KK? Is he capable of raising as a bluff if he thinks you're capped at 2P or a low set, when a straight draw comes in, and he might be able to credibly rep some hands that beat your low sets?

All of his range changes on the river??
He was going snap off our overbet bluffs, when we get there we bet small for value.
So bluffing is bad as an overbet?
So valuebetting is also bad as an overbet?

Say you're villain you have AK
We polarize our range on river with an overbet, you call or fold or 50/50 indifferent?

Isn't AK 3!'ing your turn raise? If only because, in V's mind, what are you raising with on A726, that you called with pf? Yet didn't bet A72dd? Semi-bluff FDs? 65? 76?? Your 100 raise, with 1050 more back, doesn't make a 9-out draw to the flush -EV. A turn 3! from V would. A 7-out draw (if V has AA) might be -EV with your raise, so an AA-holding V might not raise, but I'd expect AK-AT to mix raising and calling. Bluff catching a non-diamond river

You've said you've been frequently raising V in other hands, being aggro, so V might count on you strongly bluffing river if you whiffed. Or vbetting a 76-type hand. Either way, I'd expect V to just call river here with their Ax and not need to bluff shove

So, after thinking a bit about it, I think we can get value from some of V's range, and that outweighs how terrible H feels if they get shoved on. What size would you bet whiffed diamonds here, OP? 75-90%? You can still fold to a shove then.

Edit: If I were V, I call river b125 with AK. I'd feel smug doing it, and I'd be very surprised to see 99.

No. You're mischaracterizing what we've said.

I said it's hard for you to follow through on your bluff on almost every river card, because the hands you're repping on the turn hate almost every river card, and would check back.

So, yes, over-bet bluffing on most rivers would be bad, if we want him to FOLD, because he's not folding most rivers when we over-bet bluff and the river doesn't help us, it actually downgrades our hand.

Now that you made a set, you actually want him to CALL. So, over-betting for value is bad, because you want him to call, and this river is actually one of the least dangerous for the hands you were repping on the turn.

Usually, we'd want him to raise, but...we've got the second-best hand we'll ever have here. If he raises, he's going to be polar - 2P+ for value, and busted draws doing some kamikaze $hlt because he thinks you're capped.

I correctly predicted you were going to raise based on your earlier comments. Based on your comments since, I'm going to make a prediction about what you did on the river:

Option A - you bet small, he snap called or snap folded, and if he snap called, you think you could have bet bigger, and missed value.

Option B - you bet big, and he snap folded, snap called, or snap raised. If he snap folded, you think you got unlucky because he must have had nothing. If he snap raised, you either folded because you think you got unlucky and he only has the nuts, or you called and think you got unlucky when he showed you the nuts or the second nuts. If he snap called, he showed you AA, or at worst, aces up, and you think you're a genius for taking this line and getting max value, not realizing you left money on the table with this line.

Let me explain why these are the most likely outcomes - when you raise turn and bet the river, your river bet sizing says something about your hand strength.

If you bet small, he can call with all his AX, and maybe some worse PP's that just don't believe you, but they mostly fold. He can also call with most of his 2P. There's a chance he might raise with 2P, but his preference would be to raise with A9, which you heavily block. He might also occasionally raise as a bluff with his missed draws, because he perceives you to be capped at 2P, likely 76, and he can rep all the higher 2P and some sets. He'll also raise with a rivered straight, and there's a pretty good chance he'll raise with top set, though not always, since your line doesn't make much sense and you could have raised turn with a combo some combo flush draw - gutshot combos that got there.

If you bet big, he might call with AX. He's not calling with worse PP's. He's mostly calling with 2P, but rarely raising when he can't beat some of our 2P. He's not raising with his busted draws. He'll definitely raise with straights. He may or may not raise with AA.

Your line polarizes your range, and condenses his. You're repping 2P, sets, and some very low number of straights. He can only call or raise with the strongest hands in his range. The bigger you bet, the more you polarize your own range, and the more you funnel him towards calling or raising with the top of his range.

You literally quoted a post in which I told you what may happen if you over-bet here.

checking the river cannot be serious advice lol

i think turn raise is too small

i dont think your thought process really makes much sense tbh, you contradict yourself a few times in post 28. really, poker is a simple game. you never need to do anything like this and you can be a large winner. instead you're trying to focus on what to do in extremely rare 0% nodes and how hes going to react etc when you might gain more by looking at basic things like why doesn't villain cbet on a72tt.

id bet like 125-150%? pot now but you could go for all of it

Been on the road for work all day. Just got back...

Dango - it feels like no amount of discussing this in the abstract will resolve the debate. As such, the next best idea I have is a practical (yet somewhat tedious) exercise...

Get a deck of cards, a piece of paper, and a writing instrument.

From the deck, pull out the first four cards on the board, and put those on a table in front of you. Now, at the top of the paper, write, "Hero's turn raise range =".
.
Next to that, write down all the two-card combos of hands you think you're credibly repping when you raise the turn, and how many combos of all those hands are possible. So, if you have 77 in your range, and there are 3 combos possible, write, "77 - 3".

I want to be clear - you're NOT writing down every single hand you think you'd actually raise on the turn. You're just writing down the hands you think V is supposed to think you have when you raise - all the 2P, all the sets, all the draws, whatever. If you think V is going to think you could be raising the turn with 99, okay, go ahead and put 99 in there.

Next, under where you wrote what you think your range is on the turn, write "V's river range =". Next to that, write down all the the two-cards combos you think he can have after he raised pre, checked flop, bet turn, and called your raise. Do the same thing, with counting the combos, so if you think he has A7, write down how many combos of A7 you think he has. If you think he ever gets to the river with A9, remember that you have two of those in your hand, so he can't have some of those combos in his range.

Now, go into the deck, and pull out the two 99's that are in your actual hand, and place them in front of you, face down.

Now, start dealing out river cards, one at a time. Every time you deal a card, look at the two ranges you wrote down for hero and V, and ask yourself if that card is good for V, bad for V, or neutral. Ask if it's good for the range you were repping, bad, or neutral.

Ask if that card reduces the likelihood of you having one of the combos in the range you gave yourself on the turn. So, if you were repping 3 combos of 77, and the river is a 7, you can only have 1 combo, making it less likely V is going to believe you have 77.

After asking those questions on each card, before dealing the next, ask if you think V would be likely to donk on that card, for any size, more than half the time, or if V would be likely to check on that card, more than half the time. If you think V would donk, put the card in a pile, face down, on your right. If you think he'd check, put it in a pile on the left.

Go through the whole deck, one card at a time, and on each card, decide if it's good for V, bad for V, or neutral, good for your range, bad for your range, or neutral. Decide if it's a card V would donk, or a card he'd check.

When you're done, make sure you have the 9c in the "check" pile, and put the "donk" pile away.

Now, under where you wrote V's range, on the far left side of the page, write "XB" for "check back". Under that, write some abbreviation like "BF" that will indicate you'd bet Big, and expect V to Fold. Under that, write something like "BC" to indicate you'd bet big, expecting V to call. Then, under that, "BR" to mean you'd bet big, and expect V to raise.

Under that, do SF (small / fold), SC (small / call), SR (small / raise). Just put one abbreviation per line, so that you have a column of abbreviations going down the left side of the page.

Now, take the stack of cards that you think V is checking on the river, and deal each one again. If you think you'd bet big on that card, and V would fold, write down an abbreviation for that card, like "Ad" for the ace of diamonds next to "BF". Do that for every card, noting if you'd check back, bet big, or bet small, and if you'd expect V to fold, call, or raise.

When you're done, look at how many river cards you'd check back, how many you'd bet big, how many you'd bet small, and how often you think V is folding, calling, or raising when you bet big or small.

If you're doing this correctly, and being intellectually honest with yourself, what you should see is that there just aren't very many river cards that are good for your turn raise range, that would want to over-bet the river.

You should notice that the best cards for your turn raise range would bet SMALL, not BIG, because, for example if you have 77 and the river is a 7, you're not trying to make V fold, you're trying to get him to call, and he has fewer strong hands in his range that can call, when it looks like you boated up, and all his draws miss.

Now, turn the 99 in front of you face up, and look at all those cards again, and ask yourself how many of those cards you'd play the same way with your actual hand of 99. Are you going to over-bet the river on a 7, confident he'll fold, without actually having a 7 in your hand? How do you know he didn't just boat up with A7, or make quads with 77?

This is the problem of trying to answer your question of whether or not he folds most of his range when you over-bet the river. If you have 77 in your hand, and a 7 comes on the river, he can't have a 7, so he's pretty capped at AA, some aces up, and AX. But if you have 99, and a 7 comes on the river, he can have 77, A7, and 76 in his range.

Your 99 doesn't block any hands that call when you over-bet as a bluff. If you have the 9d in your hand, then your hand blocks hands that fold when you bluff, like A9, K9dd, T9dd, 98dd, 99, etc.

I can't tell you if he folds most of his range when you over-bet. It's a Schrodinger's range problem, where the outcome shifts based on what he actually has, what you actually have, and what cards come out. He ends up calling more when you're bluffing and folding more when you have it.

When you don't actually have the hands you're repping, and you bluff big, he ends up calling more, because he has more of those hands you're repping in his own range. If you actually have those hands, you wouldn't be bluffing, and you'd bet smaller, and he'd call more. You bet smaller because you know that when you have the hands you're repping, and you over-bet, he folds more.

When you have 99, and you bet huge on the 9c river, he folds his weakest hands, raises with all the hands that beat yours, and does whatever he does with the rest of his range. If you bet small, he still raises with hands that beat yours, but also maybe some hands you beat.

Hope that helps.

I would pot the river. I agree with OP's read that villain doesn't have that strong a hand checking A72, 2-flush. Also, hero's line looks unbelievable, representing a set or aces up. It isn't clear hero is calling preflop with 22/A7s/A2s. So I would go sort of big, but not a huge overbet, as he probably has like TPGK.

Leaving out the particulars of this hand, and not rehashing a story I’ve told dozens of times here over 25 years, I cannot recommend doing some pen & paper figuring highly enough.

most important learning from this would be please how to bink a set on the river after setting $$ on fire on the turn like this.

Yes, you should have gone smaller here, when you actually have it, because now you want him to call, not fold.

No, you shouldn't be balanced with your bet sizing on the river, at low stakes. You should size up or down based on what parts of his range you're trying to get to fold when you're bluffing or call when you're value betting.

If you think V is capped on the river, you generally want to size down for value. If you think he has some strong hands that can call, you generally want to size up. If you're betting for thin value vs a mixed range, you'd size down. If your opponent is likely to bluff catch, you'd size up with your thin value.

If you think V's range is weak, you want to size up with your bluffs. If you think his range is strong, you want to size down. If you think he has some very strong hands and some very weak hands, you want to size somewhere in the middle.

Once again, and I think I've told you this multiple times across multiple threads, stop focusing on your hand, and start thinking about your opponent's range, and find the action that is highest EV for your hand based on that range.

Thank you and appreciate the time and effort you spent in all your replies and advices.

I go to parx on the weekends now, maybe we can play together sometime at the tables.

Thank you again. Have a wonderful day.

You never know.