20NL - river decision

Hi guys,

What do you think about these hands?

Villain was running at 25/22/4 over 300 hands (WTSD% = 25). No real history, some pots he won, some pots I won but no one seemed to go out of line.
Everyone else was sitting out.
It's HU but my range is pretty strong, FLOP really hits my range. TURN hits my 87. RIVER is mostly a blank.
With TP or over pair I would happily c/c his missed FD. I have no showdown value, the possibility for me to win the hand is by shoving.
Villain's range doesn't have a lot of sets in his range I believe as he didn't raise until RIVER, maybe Tx, JJ+, QJ, Q8, some suited spades, maybe 9x (but with the 2nd 9, he doesn't have a lot), 77, 88, 66.

Shoving or c/fold?

iPoker No-Limit Hold'em, $0.20 BB (6 handed)
SB/BU ($25.32)
Hero (BB) ($20)
Preflop: Hero is CO with JsQc
SB raises to $0.50, Hero calls $0.50
Flop: ($1.00) Ts 4s 9h (2 players)
Hero checks, SB/BU bets $0.80, Hero raises to $2.40, SB/BU calls $1.60
Turn: ($5.8) 6d (2 players)
Hero bets $4.2, SB/BU calls $4.2
River: ($14.20) 3c (2 players)
Hero ????

No need to shove. We can b/f like $7 and get the same amount of folds while saving four or five dollars when he shoves. I would want to be betting this river though because he has so many missed draws in his range. He's certainly not going to expect us to fold after seemingly committing our stack with a river bet, so I really don't anticipate being bluffed.

Your betting seems a tad on the high side. I'd raise flop to $2, then bet 60-70% on turn.

I see about the betting size however I would do the same with set/2 pairs because I would like to be able to put all my stack in the table. In order to balance.

I like bet/fold river for $7 but with set/2pairs I would shove so not balanced :(

Your raising range for value will be so narrow on this board that your hand is so face up as a draw.

The only reason I like raising OESD here is that we can credibly rep flush cards later. But when both brick out I don't think it's a good river bluff.

If we're bluffing river it's to get him to fold stuff like KQ/QJ/FD's himself.

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Originally Posted by jimmy44

I see about the betting size however I would do the same with set/2 pairs because I would like to be able to put all my stack in the table. In order to balance.

I like bet/fold river for $7 but with set/2pairs I would shove so not balanced :(

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I agree we should be playing our hand like a set, at least on flop and turn, if we intend to bluff. However, I feel like I should be playing my sets less aggressively, rather than my bluffs more aggressively, because I'm more likely to be semibluffing than holding a set. I want his AK type hands to fold as cheaply as possible.

I suppose when he calls our flop raise we can give up. He might have a flush draw, which hurts our hand because we only have six nut outs, and gives us less fold equity on the turn. He doesn't have easy folds like AK. If we bet the turn, I feel like we have to follow up river to foce out his missed draws, otherwise what's the point of betting turn? I don't see what he calls flop raise with that then folds turn.

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Originally Posted by griffey24

Your raising range for value will be so narrow on this board that your hand is so face up as a draw.

The only reason I like raising OESD here is that we can credibly rep flush cards later. But when both brick out I don't think it's a good river bluff.

If we're bluffing river it's to get him to fold stuff like KQ/QJ/FD's himself.

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Our range for c/r would be 44,99,TT,T9,87s,QJ,AK,half of AQ, AJss, KJss,A4s
Out of those 22 hands are for value.
And 51 are as semi-bluffs.
As I'm the caller from BB that board hits better my range then villain's.
I thought it was a good bluff-raise as I have a lot of outs (can represent spades as well when that hit) plus the board hits my range a lot?

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

I agree we should be playing our hand like a set, at least on flop and turn, if we intend to bluff. However, I feel like I should be playing my sets less aggressively, rather than my bluffs more aggressively, because I'm more likely to be semibluffing than holding a set. I want his AK type hands to fold as cheaply as possible.

I suppose when he calls our flop raise we can give up. He might have a flush draw, which hurts our hand because we only have six nut outs, and gives us less fold equity on the turn. He doesn't have easy folds like AK. If we bet the turn, I feel like we have to follow up river to foce out his missed draws, otherwise what's the point of betting turn? I don't see what he calls flop raise with that then folds turn.

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The 6 on the turn completes "our" perceived straight. Plus i believe we might have a fold from sticky 9 or even 88 with his 25% went to show down.

I assume we only have 78s in our range that makes the nuts on the turn, so I'm not expecting villain to hate this turn. We're much more likely to have something weaker.

I'm not sure villain is calling flop raise with 9x or 88, at least not often enough for us to be putting further pressure on this part of his range on the turn. His flop call tells me he likely has top pair, draw, overpair, set, or 2pr. The latter three will reraise flop at least sometimes, but maybe he can slow play or proceed with caution, so I keep them in is range.

I think we should be expecting a turn call a high percentage of the time. I think I'm gonna c/f this turn. If it checks through, I'll c/c Q/J rivers, lead on spade and nut rivers, and prob c/f everything else. If I do bet the turn, it's definitely going to be less than this size, around half pot, since I expect a call and want the pot to be under control so I can bluff the river cheaper.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OngBonga

I assume we only have 78s in our range that makes the nuts on the turn, so I'm not expecting villain to hate this turn. We're much more likely to have something weaker.

I'm not sure villain is calling flop raise with 9x or 88, at least not often enough for us to be putting further pressure on this part of his range on the turn. His flop call tells me he likely has top pair, draw, overpair, set, or 2pr. The latter three will reraise flop at least sometimes, but maybe he can slow play or proceed with caution, so I keep them in is range.

I think we should be expecting a turn call a high percentage of the time. I think I'm gonna c/f this turn. If it checks through, I'll c/c Q/J rivers, lead on spade and nut rivers, and prob c/f everything else. If I do bet the turn, it's definitely going to be less than this size, around half pot, since I expect a call and want the pot to be under control so I can bluff the river cheaper.

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You know better, i'm losing 4 buy ins on my shot at 20NL so I'm the fish here :)
Which turns would you bet the turn? Spades? A? K? 8? That's half the deck. I suppose that you c/c vs a Q and J?

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Originally Posted by jimmy

You know better, i'm losing 4 buy ins on my shot at 20NL so I'm the fish here

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Let me be honest with you. I'm far from the best poker player in these circles. I throw my two cents in because these days we're low on active posters, and I'm not bad at poker so it's not like I'm just wasting people's time. But my advice is often wide of the mark, so please don't put me on too high a pedestal! Griff will give you the most solid advice (imo), so take him as gospel. Mojo will give the the most detailed analysis, so respect him more than me too!

As for what turns I'd be betting, obviously 8 and K turns, non-spade Q and J are also a given, these are my value bets. I'd likely only c/c the Qs (we have the Js). As for bluffs, well I might fire turn on spades, but really this depends on whether I think villain knows I'm c/r'ing flush draws on the flop. The "no real history" has me thinking in this case, villain won't know how aggressive we are with draws. So I'd probably just give up on spade turns, because there's a good chance he thinks I just call flop with a flush draw, so it allows him to rep the flush. Plus, he might actually have it. So I think in this case, I stop bluffing after the flop.

Wait, a spade turn gives us a flush draw. Not a very good one, but it's probably worth a b/f, considering we're also still drawing to a straight. Villain will raise the nuts because we showed such strength on the flop and could be drawing to beat him, so yeah I think we can comfortably b/f spade turns.

If the range you stated previously is your actual range then I agree it's not that bluff heavy.

But I think on this particular runout it will be perceived that everything just bricked. If he has 9x or Tx he'll further convince himself that he blocks your value hands (which he does, so 22 value hands comes down to 16) and that all draws brick.

It's ok to shutdown on missed draws once in a while. If anything gives more credibility to future barrels. That being said if we were somehow turning 4x into a bluff or something this could be a spot I might actually c/c on the river.

Thanks Griffey, brilliant analysis!
I actually just forgot something really important I didn't 3bet pre (my 3bet stats are around 7%) so villain would remove most of my TT, 99 for that and maybe 44 as well! So that would leave T9s only as strong hand in my perceived range for him (even though I would flat quit often with 99-TT here).
As per the hand I shoved and villain called with A9 for 2nd pair. Initially I thought WTF? But now I see he's a good hand reader and now I can exploit that in the future :-)