$2 NLHE Full Ring: A high bluffcatcher - should I call river?

Villian Stats (VPIP/PFR/AF): 100/80/1

Stacks:
UTG - UTG ($1.93)
UTG+1 - UTG+1 ($2.51)
UTG+2 - UTG+2 ($2.12)
MP - MP ($2.26)
MP2 - MP2 ($4.97)
CO - Hero ($2.32)
BTN - BTN ($1.74)
SB - SB ($1.59)
BB - BB ($2.34)

Preflop: ($0.03, 9 players) Hero is CO with 8h Ad
5 folds, Hero raises to $0.06, BTN calls $0.06, SB calls $0.05, BB calls $0.04

Flop: 3d Kd 3h ($0.24, 4 players - BTN: $1.68, SB: $1.53, BB: $2.28, Hero: $2.26)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $0.13, BTN calls $0.13, 2 folds

Turn: 4c ($0.50, 2 players - BTN: $1.55, Hero: $2.13)
Hero checks, BTN checks

River: 6s ($0.50, 2 players - BTN: $1.55, Hero: $2.13)
Hero checks, BTN bets $0.24, Hero?


Tiny sample (5 hands) but this guy hasn't folded any of them so probably a fish.

I c bet flop villain called instantly. I checked turn he quickly checked behind. I checked river then he hesitated for about a second before betting half pot. Is this a snap call? It felt like he was on a diamond draw based on my timing reads and the fact that he's a fish there'll be a ton of suited cards in his range. Even still, if I call here and I'm wrong then I'll look (and feel) like a fish for calling it down with just A high.

Here's another one, villain 32/8/2.5:

UTG - Hero ($2.00)
UTG+1 - UTG+1 ($2.00)
UTG+2 - UTG+2 ($1.86)
MP - MP ($2.36)
MP2 - MP2 ($1.10)
CO - CO ($0.88)
BTN - BTN ($1.94)
SB - SB ($2.46)
BB - BB ($1.97)

Preflop: ($0.03, 9 players) Hero is UTG with Js Jc
Hero raises to $0.08, 3 folds, MP2 calls $0.08, 4 folds

Flop: 5c Kc 3c ($0.19, 2 players - Hero: $1.92, MP2: $1.02)
Hero checks, MP2 checks

Turn: 5d ($0.19, 2 players - Hero: $1.92, MP2: $1.02)
Hero bets $0.09, MP2 calls $0.09

River: 9d ($0.37, 2 players - Hero: $1.83, MP2: $0.93)
Hero checks, MP2 bets $0.36, Hero ?

I checked flop to try and keep the pot small, would I have been better c betting? If so and I got called, what would I do on the turn? Anyway when he bet the river if he had a big club then it bricked, but he could also have a slowplayed flush, full house or 5x. It is a pot sized bet, so is he bluffing busted FD often enough for me to look him up here?

#1: Bet the turn plz...

tomnovember said:

#1: Bet the turn plz...

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I checked for pot control, but i think you're right if he was on a draw i ought to have charged him again.

In the first hand I think our C-bet on the flop should be a bit larger, when we are C-betting to get people to fold we need to consider that there are 4 players in the hand, when we bet a real hand here for value we shouldn't be expecting any folds and thus we should be making our C-bet larger with our air as well, but at these stakes I don't think that balancing is necessary because players are so bad, the reason they are bad is because they don't fold bad hands, and so we shouldn't bluff really often. I'm probably not C-betting here due to it being 4 handed.

If we want to C-bet against 4 players then we need to be expecting a call fairly often, do we think that a villain with 44 or 55 is going to fold for a half pot bet?

The turn misses villains drawing range and also misses their floating range, I think we should be double barrelling here. I'm betting something like .35 to .40c and folding to any raise, if villain calls I'm giving up on the river.

On the river as played I probably call and kick myself for not betting the turn lol. I think based on the few hands we have that this villain may be a crazy fish which would lean towards bluffing this river. I feel like villain should be raising on the turn with all their medium value hands like Kx or pocket pairs. Threes really shouldn't be in villains pre flop flatting range unless they really are playing EVERY hand. And the draws that come in shouldn't be in that range either. I mean if villain has 57d here then I'm noting them and praying they don't leave haha.

On hand two I don't really mind checking this flop, by betting we either get villain to fold everything we beat and call with all the hands that either have us beat or are drawing better than we are.

I'm not really sure what to do on this turn, I think I would check it again and probably fold to a raise, I just think that when villain bets they are either already beating us or are drawing pretty good against us. I mean by betting are we turning JJ into a bluff or hoping that villain will call us with a ten high flush draw? like TT with a club?

The river is worse haha, the nine is a pretty big brick, we can only beat a bluff, we need like 50% equity to call, so how much of villains pre flop flatting range gets to the river in this way and decides to bet pot as a bluff, does villain decide to bluff with A high here? I think a lot of these guys would just check back A high and hope its good. They might have say QT with one club and decide to bet this river as a bluff maybe.

Villains stats would lead me to think that they are more the passive type and would be checking back all their medium strength hands. I probably fold.

Hi thanks, you seem to have a good read on both situations and explained it well. In the first example I agree in hindsight it was foolish of me to bet into such a wide field with just A high, but double barrelling on the turn definitely seems like a good idea, although villain might not necessarily fold a pocket pair to a double barrel if he's a fish, but it's worth a shot and it does charge diamond draws and folds out random floats that might have taken a stab at it. On the river i did call actually and he had J-10 of diamonds for busted FD, so my read was pretty accurate.

In the second example checking 2 streets and just c/f to any bet seems pretty nitty. I mean once I checked twice villain could semi-bluff any club or even bluff with complete air after I showed weakness. It could be the right play but it just seems like we're giving up on what could well be the best hand, especially after villain checks flop behind. I also didn't want to give any random club a free card so I bet as another club would be ugly for me. On the river I agree it doesn't seem like villain bluffs very often here but given the action i wasn't really sure what villain could be representing (99 or 5x i guess but what else?) so in the end i called hoping villain would have a high club like a Q or J. Villain actually mucked QJ with Q of clubs so you were pretty close with your guess haha that was a great read. I know I won the hand but I'm not confident in the long term that call was +EV.

Why are we c-betting hand 1?

tomnovember said:

#1: Bet the turn plz...

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What does that possibly accomplish? We are never getting folds on the turn there.

I agree I shouldn't have c-bet first hand in a 4-way pot.

youregoodmate said:

What does that possibly accomplish? We are never getting folds on the turn there.

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Well if he's drawing to the flush (which he was) then betting again stops him from getting a free card.

mottotom27 said:

Hi thanks, you seem to have a good read on both situations and explained it well. In the first example I agree in hindsight it was foolish of me to bet into such a wide field with just A high, but double barrelling on the turn definitely seems like a good idea, although villain might not necessarily fold a pocket pair to a double barrel if he's a fish, but it's worth a shot and it does charge diamond draws and folds out random floats that might have taken a stab at it. On the river i did call actually and he had J-10 of diamonds for busted FD, so my read was pretty accurate.

In the second example checking 2 streets and just c/f to any bet seems pretty nitty. I mean once I checked twice villain could semi-bluff any club or even bluff with complete air after I showed weakness. It could be the right play but it just seems like we're giving up on what could well be the best hand, especially after villain checks flop behind. I also didn't want to give any random club a free card so I bet as another club would be ugly for me. On the river I agree it doesn't seem like villain bluffs very often here but given the action i wasn't really sure what villain could be representing (99 or 5x i guess but what else?) so in the end i called hoping villain would have a high club like a Q or J. Villain actually mucked QJ with Q of clubs so you were pretty close with your guess haha that was a great read. I know I won the hand but I'm not confident in the long term that call was +EV.

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Yeah I kinda think barrelling the turn on hand 1 might be necessary if we decide to C-bet the flop but I'm not sure, maybe we should cut our losses and give up? I'm not sure.

In hand 2 I think you might find that this villain is rarely bluffing here, the only hands that would really call pre flop and bet the river as a bluff are the Q high club draws which shouldn't be many considering villain is flatting a raise pre. So I think that calling here might be -EV.

The reason I'm being so nitty on this flop with JJ is mainly our position, being OOP really sucks and I like to mitigate the amount of money I put in when OOP especially on wet boards like this one. This guy seems pretty passive, I'm just looking for a better spot to get my money in.

You're right actually, being OOP really sucks. Like if I 3 bet from the blinds with AK and then a fish or unknown calls and I bet flop when I miss and they call, then what? I think it's these 3 bet pots OOP where I leak the most tbh. I'm considering just not c betting the flop when I miss with AK cos people seem to call me way too often.

Same thing with JJ if i 3 bet OOP get called and an overcard hits the flop it gets really tricky. What do you do? Do you bet flop and give up if they call? Check/fold flop? Check/call flop and check/fold turn?

mottotom27 said:

I agree I shouldn't have c-bet first hand in a 4-way pot.



Well if he's drawing to the flush (which he was) then betting again stops him from getting a free card.

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We have ace high. You either triple barrel here or give up. I don't like barreling this board.

Hand 1 on the flop i would just give up. Firsty its a mw pot and if theyre fish like you said they will just continue with worse value hands but yea otherwise i would fold river

Give up flop , you dont have enough fold equity here , fold on river too , he is probably betting you thin here to get value with his Kx or second overpair.

fold river for sure, talking yourself into calling this sorta spot is bad.

and bro, timing tells do exist, but hving a note on a villain, or a hand sample is huge for timing tells. spulating why an unkown villain tanked, or not .... he's unknown maybe he lost his straw in his soda pop and employed a pair of tweezers or a couple seconds...

Agree that timing tells aren't conclusive, but then poker is a game of incomplete information so we have to use the info that we're given and try to make the most of it.

Having said that, I agree it was perhaps a bit too ambitious call.

mottotom27 said:

You're right actually, being OOP really sucks. Like if I 3 bet from the blinds with AK and then a fish or unknown calls and I bet flop when I miss and they call, then what? I think it's these 3 bet pots OOP where I leak the most tbh. I'm considering just not c betting the flop when I miss with AK cos people seem to call me way too often.

Same thing with JJ if i 3 bet OOP get called and an overcard hits the flop it gets really tricky. What do you do? Do you bet flop and give up if they call? Check/fold flop? Check/call flop and check/fold turn?

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Yeah position really is everything in this game. For the AK example, the times that we C-bet should be determined by a combination of the board texture and villains tendencies/stats. For example, we know that most villains at these stakes probably are calling relatively wide with their raising ranges unless they are playing 10 tables or something. Grab an equity calculator and punch in their opening range, then narrow that down to what you think their calling range is and look at it, even run AK against it and see what your equity is. Now run some flops through there and look at how villains range hits those flops. What you should find is that villain misses the flops like 942 rainbow, but hits flops like KQ9 two tone. So the first flop texture is the one we C-bet and the second is the one we give up.

So you should find that most villains just fold to your C-bet on flops that miss their range, if they do call you that tells you something. In this situation when we have AK and say the flop is 942 rainbow, if villain calls they either have us beat with a hand like TT/J9, or they are floating us. At these levels I have found that most regular villains do not float with nothing. The same as you don't randomly call someone's C-bet in a 3-bet pot with A high and no draw. With no information I am checking any turns that don't improve me and probably folding to a bet, if this becomes a recurring situation and I find villain constantly betting turns when I check then I will adjust. Hasn't happened often though.

In the JJ situation you describe our decision should be weighted more by who the villain is. The flops we want to C-bet are low but that hasn't happened in this case, when we bet we should be betting for value (as we don't expect villain to fold top pair on the flop). So we need to decide if villain will call us with worse, If we think villain will call with middle pair, and middle pair is in their 3-bet flatting range then yeah sure we can bet, but we might not bet the turn because we think villain will fold to two barrels so we can check the turn, we also wouldn't expect villain to bet their middle pair either for value or as a bluff so if they do bet we can put them on top pair a lot of the time and pretty safely check fold a lot of turn cards.

Remember that these situations are in a vacuum against standard 5nl players. If they are 1 tabling muppets then maybe we can bet two streets for value, or if they are nitty regs we can check fold the flop. We will make way more money when we are in position and thus in control so don't get married to hands OOP, there will always be better spots, this is cash not tourneys .