2/5 ~ being raised and barreled

This might be the toughest situation you have posted yet.

If you open j9 and hit the flop (which you miss most of the time) and then nit fold, it’s like why did you open?

Don’t get me wrong, I think you played it well. I prob call flop too, but on the turn when villain keeps charging, I think you have to let it go.

You just can’t range him to have T9 and be this aggressive. I might have been able to fold to the check-raise on the flop if I had watched him bet. His level of confidence might have spooked me.

As you mentioned, the turn looks good for your hand - but we’re always talking about relative strength.

Money talks
I floated a player yesterday and hit top pair with a king (weak kicker) on the turn and he jammed. In my mind, I was positive he had something like TT, JJ, QQ and I have hated my fold (haunts me), but it was too much money to call & have him show me the nuts.

I think he was trying to fold me and a successful hero call would have won a big pot. But I can outplay these guys, and don’t want to get it all-in on a maybe.

You have to pick your battles

In your example, I can’t imagine that this guy is bluffing. If he’s not bluffing, you’re likely behind. It’s not a snap fold though, as some guys will kick up the dirt when they miss with AK. Aggression just wins so often in this game.

What does V call but not 3b pre? I am weighting him heavily toward low-mid PP, SC, A/Kxs and some broadways. Maybe he plays some JJ/TT weakly and flats.

This flop hits V range as I would range him pretty well. While hero still has all the sets and overpairs there is also a decent amount of air in hero’s range too.

What does V raise here on the flop. Value: sets, rare JJ/TT, maybe A9/K9 at some frequency. Bluffs: a lot of good equity bluffs FD, OESD, gutshots and combo draws.

Turn comes 5c. I cannot reasonably think of any 5x V has. But a ton of his weaker draws here just picked up more equity with this club coming and now being double suited.

I personally think in this particular runout anyone someone competent likely is over bluffing this spot in this configuration. And these bluffs are high equity.

I personally would not have c-bet this flop as hero. If you are betting J9 here, what Jx are you checking? As monkey in the in 3 way pot I am checking this holding. But as played I am calling turn here and daring V to triple barrel on a blank (planning to check call) and re-evaluating on draw completing rivers.

Feels like there should have been a fold in there somewhere. Flop raise into two people including a fish is strong and that might be the place to fold (preflop is probably a fold but whatever).

Flop sizing seems OK, you want hands like KJss and A5 to have a tricky decision.and if you go large it's easy for them. I also don't see any 5x by the time we get to the turn so there are only 5 combinations of sets with all the nut flush draws, 87dd and so on. I doubt I'm still in the hand by the turn but feels like it's now a jam as played. In the extremely unlikely event that button is doing this with a better 9x, a jam probably folds that out as well

Don't cbet this flop with top pair or an over pair.

Preflop 5x open seems a bit too loose. I think if you're opening smaller this could be in your range. But ok let's say this is a play to mix it up.
Reads: what's the V's calling frequency like on the button? The flop doesn't suggest many strong hands that would've called pre. Tho facing a larger open I can see QQ-TT just flatting there. There's only one combo of 99 left, and on the turn only one 55.
There are the various 9x that beat you but then I don't know if V is calling pre *and* raising flop *and* betting so large on the turn with like A9-Q9.
So.... reads matter. Villains tendency on how they bet medium strength hands or semi bluffs, which seem to be most likely based on the board (tho the betting says otherwise)

Grunch:

PRE - fish don't limp from EP to fold to a single raise. If you're going to open as wide as J9s from the HJ, I'd think we'd want to use a bigger size, to make it more likely everyone behind us folds and we get to act last post.

FLOP - think we can mostly just check to the BTN and see what he does. If he checks back and the BB checks again on the turn, I'd feel better betting our hand for thin value.

As played, I don't like the situation on the flop, and we should probably just fold,.but I'd probably call and see what he does on the turn.

TURN - yeesh. He's not repping much besides 22. Seems like a jam or fold spot.

I dunno man. With no real read, I'd probably give him credit and just fold. But if I thought he'd take this line with a draw, I'd stick it in.

Pre is right on the border using normal open sizes, probably a fold for 5x. Flop is a check, genuinely doubt it's a bet/call.

As played I'm not sure. Not convinced we want to do a lot of shoving on these turns vs population but I get how 5x is one of the best cards for us to see.

Not sure why anyone would say to check this flop - we have top pair and need to protect our equity. On the turn - I would either call or fold. I lean towards calling - the 5 on the turn limits his set combos, he made a small flop raise on a flop I would expect him to raise larger with a set, there's really no 2 pair combos. Live info/population play can certainly sway this but from what I see I'm not folding.

Some reasons you might check:
-Board favors callers, not raiser
-Board is dynamic. Checking can keep pot smaller until turn when equities will drastically change.
-Protects your checking range when you raise pre and miss (e.g. overcards, w possible backdoor draws)

In a lineup where opponents will vigorously attack a board like this with all kinds of crap, I think we can lean toward betting and play a big pot if the turn looks safe. Against super passive players we can get away with bet small for value.

It's this in-between "no special read" where it seems like hewing closer to GTO thinking could be useful and makes me want to play more cautious/passive out of position.

what are we C-Betting with if not top pair or an overpair?
are we giving flush draws a free card?

Small cbet seems fine to deny equity to overcards

Yeh I get the theory behind it I just don't think in a live 2/5 game people will raise enough to make it a bad decision, and even here he raised yet we're continuing with the hand. I also don't think 952dd will get raised as much as say 972dd 982dd ,etc. Even against better opponents they can't really raise too light here as there's very few combos other than sets, and the turn reduces the set combos even more.

If they don't raise "enough" then it seems like this should be an easy fold. On the turn if not the flop.
And I get it could be, welll...V picked a good spot to be brassy or as seems to be occuring on a lot of our threads, he read the 40% cbet as weakness.
But I think if you're saying just bet top pair into a population that won't fight back much (which I could agree with if it fits the player), and now they're fighting back, it implies we don't continue.

Check out this guy, everyone, using logic on the internet.

WTF?

Just throwing this out there...

We don't have much of a read. I'd probably just default to population tendencies and basic logic / combo-counting to figure out what we want to do here.

I may be seeing something that isn't really there, but something about the OP makes me think about a certain type of V we've all encountered. The type has a super-tight 3B'ing range pre, but will be fairly wide with the range that calls a pre-flop raise, particularly when they have position or are defending their blinds.

Like, they'll 3B AA/KK, and sometimes QQ, but won't always 3B with JJ or lower PP's, and maybe not with AK or worse AX, even from the BTN or the BB. They'll just flat with a really wide range, including every PP, all their suited AX, a lot of unsuited AX, all their Broadway combos, a ton of SC's and S1G's, etc.

And then they'll take some weird / aggro lines post flop, like over-playing thin value / SDV by donking and x/r'ing, and they'll sometimes turn AK into a bluff.

If this is that sort of V, or even if he's not, I think we can rule out AA/KK, and probably QQ. We have a J in our hand, so V only has 3 combos of JJ. There's only 1 combo of 99, 1 of 55, and 3 of 22.

What's he repping for value here? Even if he's super-wide pre, he probably doesn't have 2P or many sets on the flop, especially not when the 5 comes on the turn. But he could have a ton of draws, including a bunch of combo draws or NFD's - all the AXdd, 32dd, 43dd, 64dd, 76dd, 86dd, 87dd, T8dd, J8dd, JTdd, QJdd, etc.

Is this the sizing he'd choose to raise with a vulnerable hand, on this board? Just 2.5x? Really? Or is it more likely he's got a draw?

Any of the 87/86/76/64/43 straight-draw combos on the flop that are clubs picked up a ton of equity on the turn. He might play A4cc/A3cc this way. Or T9cc/98cc.

Yeah, maybe sometimes he takes this line with TT or better, but...how often? We could have all the over-pairs. We could have 99. We might have 55. How likely is it that he's going to min-click the flop with TT or better, and then bomb it on the turn, when we could have a better hand? Wouldn't his boats bet smaller, to give our FD's a good price to chase?

I dunno. It just seems to me that we're not losing to very many hands that very many opponents would play this way very often. If we jam for $650 on the turn, maybe he sigh-calls with TT or better, but he could find a fold with some thin value that we're behind, and the 14 combos of TT or better seem less likely than the umpteen million draws he could have in this line.

Not saying I'd always jam, but jamming seems like a better play than flat calling. And if we're going to get to the turn the way we do with J9ss, jamming seems better than folding, when we block so much of V's better value range.

The flop is never a fold - his sizing is too small unless he only raises sets 100% of the time here and nothing else. The turn is the decision point - there's now 5 set combos, no 2 pair combos. I also find his flop sizing odd if he has a set - you would think he'd go larger. While I agree with your concept based on the point I made there's varying degrees that doesn't make it black and white. 952dd is not a dynamic board - 982dd is. I would feel much more comfortable either checking or bet/folding 982dd then this board as we're now contending with 2 pair combos, JT/T7s/etc.