[200NL] AQo OOP, raised on river

Villain is decent party reg. A bit on the passive side over a decent sample.

25/18/1.6
3bets 9% on the button.
River AF%: 25%

Other stats available on request.

I open AQo to 4xBB under the gun. Folded to villain on the button who calls. Blinds fold.

Flop comes A-6-2 rainbow. I check, because there aren't many aces in his range that I beat, and there's no sense in folding out weaker hands. He checks it back.

Turn is an offsuit deuce for the dryest turn board I've ever seen. I bet $11 into the $19 pot. He calls, which, after my flop check, I guess he might do with a lot of hands. That's sort of the point with the flop check; to invite looser calls on the turn.

Pot is $41.

The river is a jack, for a complete board of:

[2s][6h][Ad][2c][Jh]

I bet $25. He raises to $65, pot is laying me $131, and $40 to call. I tank for a bit and fold.

At the table, my thought was along the line of "what is he bluffing now that he called the turn with?" and I couldn't come up with anything. After the fact, I'm seeing this:

His range preflop is something along the lines of:

TT-22,AJs-A9s,KJs+,QTs+,JTs,T9s,98s,87s,76s,65s,AQo-AJo

His range is mostly unchanged after the flop, although perhaps the likelyhood for some of his weaker holdings go down some since he declined to bluff the ace-high flop with them. I'm not sure about that, though, since this particular villain is slightly passive.

Turn is a deuce, and I bet and he calls. Here is the pivotal point in the hand, in terms of defining his range. I think we can almost completely dismiss the idea that he's floating the turn with a hand like T9s, because he doesn't seem bluffy, and there's absolutely no draw for him to try to catch.

I narrow his range to: TT-22,AJs-A9s,76s,65s,AQo-AJo

... and that's wide. I don't think that his range is actually that wide, but if I'm looking for a call on the river I need to find a way to make that happen, so I'm going with the wide range.

The river is a jack. And he raises my bet.

The size of his range before that as a percentage of all possible hands (thanks, PokerStove): 7.4%.

If we let him bluff the entire part of his range that I can beat, his bluffing range is: 4.4%.

So, theoretically, he could be bluffing 60% of the time ( 4.4 / 7.4 ). But that seems extremely far-fetched. For instance, why would he bluff raise me with A9 or AT instead of just seeing a showdown? He's passive. Somewhat similar reasoning applies to 99-TT. Removing those hands from his range brings it down to 2.9%, meaning that he's bluffing 40% of hands. And that's if he bluffs every time with the part of his range that he might conceivably think "missed" and also requires him to have made a slightly loose call on the turn.

I think I like my fold.

Thoughts?

I don't think i'm ever folding this for such a good price. But I suck at river plays.

Umm...sure!

I mean, you have pretty much broken the entire hand down already and then asked for thoughts.

You made your case for folding and it makes sense, any info on what he did have, or was it auto mucked?

It was auto-mucked. I realize that it may seem kinda silly to post a hand like this, that I've essentially "solved," but since I was doing the work anyway I figured I might as well post it. Perhaps someone learns something. And if someone disagrees with my ranges, so much the better; I might have been wrong and then I get to learn something.

F Paulsson said:

It was auto-mucked. I realize that it may seem kinda silly to post a hand like this, that I've essentially "solved," but since I was doing the work anyway I figured I might as well post it. Perhaps someone learns something. And if someone disagrees with my ranges, so much the better; I might have been wrong and then I get to learn something.

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i'm not entirely sure that villain is only either playing for strong value or outright bluffing the river. He could be going for thin value with something you beat/tie with. Or raising small because he thinks his ace ties yours and he prefers to get a chance at a fold than to split the pot. You wouldn't do it, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't.

BelgoSuisse said:

i'm not entirely sure that villain is only either playing for strong value or outright bluffing the river. He could be going for thin value with something you beat/tie with. Or raising small because he thinks his ace ties yours and he prefers to get a chance at a fold than to split the pot. You wouldn't do it, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't.

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But that really only leaves AT/A9 for "bluffs" and AQ for a split which isn't a big enough range that I can profitably call, presuming he'll play his sets the same way.

The thing that I learned from this hand, by the way, was this: This is an easy call if there was a draw that could have missed. But as it stands now, he must have called the turn with something - so he's raising the river with a made hand. That just leaves the question if there are any made hands in his range that a slightly passive player raises on this river. I don't dismiss the risk that this is a bluff, but I don't think it's a bluff the requisite > 22% of the time or whatever it comes out to.

Would chk/call the river be a better line here. Bet folding leaves us wide open for plays, whilst he may seem passive he could be getting some real thin value on the river that takes us off our hand. TBH, if I'm chking that flop I'm calling the river bet (a shove would have me in the tank though). You have under-repped your hand a lot and to fold river would seem counterproductive imo.

That's a good point. I thought about check/calling for sure, but decided to bet small for value instead. As a corollary to what I said about his ranges, though, there aren't many hands I can get value from. I don't know, I think it's close. It certainly makes it more likely that I get to showdown.

I think the decision between bet/folding and check/calling this river comes down to what your own image is. If you barrel off a lot with air, then clearly betting is good. If you only check/fold often on the river, then check/calling has to be good.

Of course, after getting raised, I cursed myself for not check/calling.

Yeah it's easy to say in hindsight chk/calling is an obvious line. I must admit I vary my play here between chk/calling and value betting depending on villains. I hate it when I say to myself 'bet/fold this river'..... I never seem to find the fold...DOH! Still think with your line in this hand I call that river though .

Check-calling the river gives up a ton of value. We've already checked one street and the pot's not as big as our hand yet, as played I bet river every time.

As played I agree it's a fold. Very very few 200nl players are tricky enough to raise that small as a river bluff, and in my mind his range looks like monster/occasional smaller Ax/rare bluff (which is a little more likely after your flop check)

ChuckTs said:

Check-calling the river gives up a ton of value. We've already checked one street and the pot's not as big as our hand yet, as played I bet river every time.

As played I agree it's a fold. Very very few 200nl players are tricky enough to raise that small as a river bluff, and in my mind his range looks like monster/occasional smaller Ax/rare bluff (which is a little more likely after your flop check)

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Agreed. I bet/fold here the majority of the time. There's tons of hands in his range we beat that will call a bet, but won't bet themselves here.