blonde poker forum

Not the most exciting first hand post, but one where I think you can plausibly argue for many different actions on each street.  Villain is Estonian, never seen him before but pretty readless, would lean towards fish, wladimir seems very much like a fish, but again havn't played many hands with him.

PokerStars Hand #99284459480: Tournament #737300685, $69+$6 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level III (20/40) - 2013/05/29 19:42:13 WET [2013/05/29 14:42:13 ET]
Table '737300685 7' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: gs08bjohnson (2985 in chips)
Seat 2: giorgio 58 (2725 in chips)
Seat 3: wladmir781 (3740 in chips)
Seat 5: IneedMassari (3400 in chips)
Seat 6: mmetsla (3000 in chips)
Seat 7: swansfc_CJ (3035 in chips)
Seat 8: StoyanB (2775 in chips)
Seat 9: pimenta7 (2700 in chips)
IneedMassari: posts small blind 20
mmetsla: posts big blind 40
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to gs08bjohnson [Ac As]
swansfc_CJ: folds
StoyanB: folds
pimenta7: folds
gs08bjohnson: raises 60 to 100
giorgio 58: folds
wladmir781: calls 100
IneedMassari: folds
mmetsla: calls 60
*** FLOP *** [8c 7h Kc]
mmetsla: checks
gs08bjohnson: bets 180
wladmir781: calls 180
mmetsla: raises 380 to 560
gs08bjohnson: calls 380
wladmir781: folds
*** TURN *** [8c 7h Kc] [2c]
mmetsla: checks
gs08bjohnson: checks
*** RIVER *** [8c 7h Kc 2c] [5d]
mmetsla: checks
gs08bjohnson: bets 925

General thoughts appreciated.

feels like he might ck call a set, im checking behind and taking a note

Looks good to me. I tend to 3* pre early. If he check calls a set u can
Still make a note

looks wp to me

I'd change nothing.

Perfect imo

assuming you bet/folded if raised, seems nice.

his flop cr and then checking turn seems...interesting. prolly just clicking buttons with KQc or AK etc.

We obviously can't with this stack depth but I love situations where you bet the river for value and then turn your hand into a bluff when raised.

He had 78dd and just called. Was pretty surprised I was beat but is pretty reasonable I guess.

I 3x when I have 100bb+ I like playing postflop vs weak ranges... usually :)

Vwp tbh.

Am I the only person that thinks betting the river is a mistake here?

It seems like his flop check/raising range is 2pair or better and some semibluffs (some of which we block with  Ac). Basically it seems like his range that gets to the river is, 2 pairs, sets, flushes and Q high / J high / T high. Vs that range then value betting 1 pair seems like quite a big mistake. Even if he does get to the river with AK like this, he isn't always gonna call with it and its still not a big part of his range when we have two of the aces (even if you discount flushes)

Basically I'd need some read that he was getting to the river with enough Kx with this line to make me wanna value bet and vs someone who's bad enough to take that line with KQ/KJ etc and call the river then 3betting the flop and getting it in is probably gonna be optimal

He sure is reasonably strong on the flop but we're obviously not folding. When he checks the turn he's taking some of his flop semibluff c/rs out of his range and moving it to made hands, which range from sets, two pairs and one pair hands; when we check the turn, our strongest hand is a set, but we often 3bet sets so we can't be that strong at all, really. I guess we can have the occasional flush as well but we'd usually bet that on the turn. So when we're marked as not having a particularly strong hand - but one that seemingly wants to get to showdown - and he checks the river again, he shouldn't have a particularly strong hand. We've played our position and seen him check twice after check-raising, so we believe we have enough information now to know that our hand is best.

Obviously that's all gone out the window with results, but villain played the hand weirdly by refusing to bet either the turn or river.

villain doesn't play hand weirdly at all. He turns up with 2pr and sets here literally all the time, the only other hands he raises flop with are missed str8 draws or 1 pr combo str8 draws which don't get there and that he isn't paying a bet with

so with his better than 1 pr hands he is never folding and his 1 pr and missed hands (and pure bluffs)he is never calling which is why betting this river is a waste of time

I get that we're both pretty capped in the sense that he almost never checks turn and river with a flush and we almost always bet the turn with flushes. I don't think he has as many 1 pair hands as you give him credit for and I still think the relevant parts of my first post apply. The other important thing is that we so infrequently have bluffs here. The only bluffs we rep credibly are the 3 combos of T9s that aren't a flush and given that we are or are at least perceived to be bluffing the turn with these some times we just have almost no bluffs. Because of this trying to value bet thin (which this is given the board and the action) when we are capped (more so than the villain, as he more credibly has sets and 2 pairs and a lot less 1 pair combos) and have very few bluffs is gonna create problems. I'd still be surprised if we're winning >50% of the time on the river when bet and villain continues (which we need to be to value bet)

Just because you never raise the flop with 1p, or because it wouldn't be good never to raise the flop with 1 p, doesn't mean it's not in his range.

When he check-raises the flop, I agree, I don't think he has many one pair hands. But the only reads provided are that he suspects villain may be a fish. Usually we can expect a better hand than ours to valuebet the turn or river, especially after we check back the turn. So he's weighted his range away from hands that beat us towards hands he beat.

Again, it's important not to make the mistake of putting ourselves in villains shoes. If villain is a thinking player we can project our own thought process onto his, as we are thinking players, even if we have a different style; but if we have no info on villain, it's usually more profitable to assume villain is a fish (this is actually 'wazz theorem'  ;djinn;) and we can valuebet accordingly.

I quite clearly say he can have 1 pair, he just isn't calling with them

Fair enough, but even though we shouldn't rep that many bluffs, I think hes still calling with a lot of his 1p hands after we check back the turn, as we've capped the hell out of our range and on average most opponents just get curious.