Alex Goulder and the massive check raise.

[FredW]

Playing at Alea last night and this hand came up.

Alex playing about £400, I cover.

£4 straddle is on, I make it £15 on the button. Alex peels the straddle.

Flop comes  . He checks, I check.

Turn comes  . He checks, I check.

River is  . He checks. I bet £20. Alex raises to £150.

What is the hero's perceived range here and what hands should the hero call with?

[DungBeetle]

Well when the guys I play with do this, they'll have a ten in this spot very often.   But people seem to call most of the time if they have anything.

No idea about Alex though - just what I have seen in my game.

[Tal]

Seems a little harsh for us as we know so much less of the villain in this case than you.

Is he prone to craziness in this spot for a "bowl" pot? The big c/r is an all or nothing in general, is it not? We now need to decide how many ALLS and how many NOTHINGS and we can make the correct decision.

He must be confident you'd take a stab when the ten comes on the river. That or he "put you on AK".

[Mitch]

Hes put £15 in the pot. Hes bluffing almost never. Leveling almost always.

[RED-DOG]

Thread title is a 'James and the Giant Peach' rip off.

[Bully87]

Hes put £15 in the pot. Hes bluffing almost never. Leveling almost always.

[SuuPRlim]

prolly call with a Ten, prolly losing.

[pleno1]

your perceived range is 9x

[The Camel]

I don't feel qualified to give my opinions on many hands here these days, but this one is easy.

If you have less than 55 it's a trivial fold.

I'd lean towards folding 55, 99 and T5 too.

Sigh call with T9.

Shove QQ and QT.

If he has bluffed you, wp Alex.

[George2Loose]

How does hero ever have a boat here?

[George2Loose]

Agree with Pleno and mitchelina. Good spot to bluff raise but on reality doubt Alex is ever bluffing here although he is prone to rofl about cos he's such a balla and the compulsory bets are only £1 and £1

[Doobs]

Alex should be bluffing nearly half the time here to be balanced, but the reality in overbet pots on the river is much closer to Camel's thinking than GTO.

[pleno1]

If he wanted to choose a good range and size to be balanced I highly doubt he'd choose this size, with heroes perceived range a smaller bet seems like it would put sufficient pressure on our range.

It just looks like a leveling bet from a hand that has perhaps missed value on previous streets and is getting a little greedy. However Alex may have specific reads on you to make this play unbalanced as a bluff too but ofc we don't know them.

[Doobs]

If he wanted to choose a good range and size to be balanced I highly doubt he'd choose this size, with heroes perceived range a smaller bet seems like it would put sufficient pressure on our range.

It just looks like a leveling bet from a hand that has perhaps missed value on previous streets and is getting a little greedy. However Alex may have specific reads on you to make this play unbalanced as a bluff too but ofc we don't know them.

You can bet any size and remain balanced, and just because he is bluffing doesn't mean he is unbalanced. HTH

[Nit Tendencies]

Doobs, Pleno isn't saying that you cannot be balanced with bigger sizing, he's suggesting (correctly IMHO) that he is less likely in this specific instance to have made this play with balance in mind with such large sizing because of how weak the op's range is.

I agree with Pleno, I think that because he's gone for huge sizing vs a range that can't really ever call, he is probably just levelling. But then again, I guess theoretically we should have a calling range which as far as I can see we don't, so maybe it is a good blur spot and he simply made it that big to make it that little bit harder to hero.

I personally would just tell him to go fuck himself and fold my entire range. I assume that in a game of this level there are plenty of soft spots.