Live 50/1 spot: River decision/Line check

[zerofive]

Villain in this hand from what I've seen is a pretty standard level 2 thinker. He's keen to ask questions and discuss hands, but his grasp on the game seems simplistic. He's playing what must be around £150, I cover. The table at this stage is 6 handed.

In before fold pre. I felt like I wasn't going to be put to many tough decisions with this hand but I guess this is one of the times when that is not the case.

Dealt:

Open UTG to £4, two callers including villain on the button, blinds fold.

Flop (£13.50):

Bet £10, fold, villain calls.

Turn (£33.50): Ah

Bet £28, villain calls.

River (£89.50): Ah

We ??

To begin with I thought about jamming, but I don't know how wide he's going to call me, or indeed if we even have the best hand. Bet-folding seems like it's out of the question because there's literally no amount we can bet without pricing ourselves in. At any point in this hand should be realistically anticipate having to bet-fold and bet less down the streets?

For those of you who believe in physical tells, I picked up chips to count out a bet and his breathing was ridic heavy and his neck was throbbing. This is an indication of a massive hand, so I weighted him towards the top of his range. He can have TT here, unlikely to have AA. Sometimes he has AT, but he might raise the turn given what my hand looks like (imo AX that c-bet and hit the turn). He's quite likely to have played a 5 this way as well, in which case I'm losing the loads of 5X combos.

If we check-call then how much are we prepared to call?

Check-fold?

[Honeybadger]

Which 5x combos are you realistically losing to? He's not likely to play stuff like K5s is he?

Bet quite big on the river. Your hand is disguised and you can get called by a lot of worse hands; all his Ax that floated the flop and every now and then a hero call from a pocket pair or Tx. Obviously it sucks if you get raised, but you should make a crying call and expect to be chopping sometimes, ahead sometimes, and losing sometimes.

BTW, if you had AK here you should bet/fold the river IMO.

[zerofive]

I didn't have much info on villain but he showed up in a big pot on KKx with K3 suited. That's not to say that this fits villains playing style, but it's certainly possible that he shows up with a decent suited 5. I'm also not sure how often he floats with Ax if that's what he's going to think my hand looks like. Bet-call does seem like the obvious line, but how much he visibly loves his hand given his line does make me feel that his worse value range is basically A9

[stato_1]

because there's literally no amount we can bet without pricing ourselves in.

If his range for jamming is beating you 100% then there is no time you are ever priced in

[cambridgealex]

I'm a massive advocate in general of taking ridiculously exploitable river bet/fold lines vs fish.

If you bomb river (not allin) a large majority of fish in a spot like this will only ever shove if you're beat, and the times they have Ax or whatever they will sigh call/sigh fold so you can defo bet/fold the river here.

This isn't a particularly popular view btw, lots of online sickos will disagree. But they don't understand how live poker works!

[Honeybadger]

I'm a massive advocate in general of taking ridiculously exploitable river bet/fold lines vs fish.

If you bomb river (not allin) a large majority of fish in a spot like this will only ever shove if you're beat, and the times they have Ax or whatever they will sigh call/sigh fold so you can defo bet/fold the river here.

This isn't a particularly popular view btw, lots of online sickos will disagree. But they don't understand how live poker works!

Villain is not a complete fish though is he? Sean described him thus:

Villain in this hand from what I've seen is a pretty standard level 2 thinker. He's keen to ask questions and discuss hands, but his grasp on the game seems simplistic.

I think bet/folding the river is wrong and we should bet/call (although it is close). To villain our hand looks like AK/AQ (and he is thinking about what our hand is according to Sean's description of him as a level 2 thinker), which means he likely jams anything that beats or chops with AK, and a good chunk of that narrow range we either beat or chop with. He is obviously unlikely to bluff, but everyone goes crazy occasionally so this can never be completely ruled out - spazz equity should always be taken into account.

I am personally trying to stop using the term fish.

[SuuPRlim]

I think this is a JAM personally.

People at this level generally have calling ranges somewhat un-elastic to your bet-sizing in spots where you're kind of polarised, I don't think he'll fold an ACE here to any bet (he may well do, and prolly should) and whereas it's true he'll prolly be more inclined to hero a smaller bet I think even a bet of £58-£64 should be folding out anything less than Ax but I don't think it'll make enough difference to justify not jamming.

Remember bigger bets need a much smaller success rate to show a profit (when you're value-betting )

[WotRTheChances]

Anything other than bet-fold or checking is fine here. Bet-calling is the line i'd probably take (betting 60-70). Seems bad to ever be bet-folding even if villain is only sometimes jamming AT here (which he must be sometimes). Jamming is fine too, depends on how you've seen villain react to big bets in the past.

As for having shown K3 in another pot, do you know what happened pre in this hand? if not, it's pretty irrelevant. If he knows a decent player has opened UTG then he wont be peeling stuff like K5s.

ps how dare the words check fold appear in the OP. You're fired

[Oxford_HRV]

I think you should have checked the flop here, if you know well how the villain thinks about the game, you will know he is likely to 'float' a dry board with basically overs thinking he may be good against a small pair as it is very viable for you to have it raising UTG and your 66 don't hold much equity on that board, I think you should have played this hand safer against his range and price v his stack to see the turn poss tank check flop if he checks back you look stronger betting the turn IMO

[Honeybadger]

I think you should have checked the flop here, if you know well how the villain thinks about the game, you will know he is likely to 'float' a dry board with basically overs thinking he may be good against a small pair as it is very viable for you to have it raising UTG and your 66 don't hold much equity on that board, I think you should have played this hand safer against his range and price v his stack to see the turn poss tank check flop if he checks back you look stronger betting the turn IMO

I don't understand any of this.

[zerofive]

I think you should have checked the flop here, if you know well how the villain thinks about the game, you will know he is likely to 'float' a dry board with basically overs thinking he may be good against a small pair as it is very viable for you to have it raising UTG and your 66 don't hold much equity on that board, I think you should have played this hand safer against his range and price v his stack to see the turn poss tank check flop if he checks back you look stronger betting the turn IMO

I don't understand any of this.

I think he's misread our hand.

[PutYouOnAK/AQ]

As played this river is a jam or £75/fold imo.

Bet/calling is bad here I think, we're never getting exploited if we bet/fold this river I think he's going to flat A10 more than he will jam (and more likely ro raise turn with this hand)

Check/call is worst option surely, we just lose loads of value from loads of hands we beat on this board.

Oxford HRV - Amazing post!

[Junior Senior]

I think you should have checked the flop here, if you know well how the villain thinks about the game, you will know he is likely to 'float' a dry board with basically overs thinking he may be good against a small pair as it is very viable for you to have it raising UTG and your 66 don't hold much equity on that board, I think you should have played this hand safer against his range and price v his stack to see the turn poss tank check flop if he checks back you look stronger betting the turn IMO

Man who is Honda from Oxford doth talk in tongues methinks

[SuuPRlim]

I think you should have checked the flop here, if you know well how the villain thinks about the game, you will know he is likely to 'float' a dry board with basically overs thinking he may be good against a small pair as it is very viable for you to have it raising UTG and your 66 don't hold much equity on that board, I think you should have played this hand safer against his range and price v his stack to see the turn poss tank check flop if he checks back you look stronger betting the turn IMO

we have 65 (not 66), and somewhat delightfuly there are two fives on the flop

[Derbylad]

Value Bet/Fold 70-75 IMO.... Your likely to get stubborn calls from AJ-K and he's not going to re-raise on A10 if he's a thinking player, but its enough for him to stay in and hope he's good.
It's also dependent on how you presume the player thinks what you've got but if he is definitively a level2 i'd just go into your standard durr mode and hope he doesn't raise. Result???