$10 NLHE 6-max: Third nut flush facing a raise on the river

[Vlad Savchenko]

Effective stacks 106 BB.
Hero is in BB with Qs8s.
BTN is a decent aggressive regular.

Preflop: folds to BTN, BTN raises to $0.30, SB folds, Hero calls.
Flop ($0.65): 9s8c3h
Hero checks, BTN checks back.
Turn ($0.65): 6s
Hero checks, BTN checks back.
River ($0.65): Ts
Hero bets $0.79, BTN raises to $4.00, Hero ???

My thoughts:

Spoiler

Preflop and flop are standard. On the turn all options are available - probing, check/calling and check/raising. I don't like a probe bet because this puts our hand into a "valuebluff" category, so I was going to check and make a choice based on villain's bet size.
However, he checked back, and we rivered a flush.
At this point I don't think that he's ever going to have a flush, other than maybe A3s specifically, and he may also want to bet it on previous streets as a part of his strategy.
This is a spot with very wide weak ranges, so with such a strong hand I decided to go for a slight overbet here (I'd do the same with all the other flushes, QJ, J7 and use some As/Ks for bluffs).
After facing a raise, I thought that while it's possible for him to have the nut flush, we have an important 8s blocker, which doesn't allow him to have a hand like As8s or maybe Ks8s (or even 8s7s, if he checked it for some reason). This limits his value range to 1-2 combos that may have played differently on previous streets.
At the same time, I know that he's a thinking player and if he's sitting there with As, he'll realize that he can bluff-raise here, repping the nuts. And he can have way more naked As than the actual nut flushes here.
So I figured that he could easily overbluff this spot, not realizing the fact that he actually doesn't have enough value hands to balance out all his As bluffs, and made a call.

So, my questions are:
1. What do you think of the turn strategy with this type of hand?
2. What line do you prefer on the river (maybe a check/raise, smaller bet or a massive overbet)?
3. What would you do after facing the river raise?

 

[fundiver199]

1) I prefer leading the turn. When he check back the flop, its very likely, you have the best hand, and now you even picked up a draw as well. So a bet for value / protection is appropriate here in my opinion.

2) When he check back twice, it look like, he mostly have some kind of very marginal showdown value. I would probably just put out a normal bet, but given how small the pot is, I dont mind your overbet either. Its very much about history and dynamics.

Its an action card, because it create a 1-liner to a straight as well as a BDF, and if he will think, the overbet look bluffy, then why not. I am not that inclined to check-raise, because I think, he would have bet most of his draws already, and he dont seem to be interested in bluffing.

3) He overbet raised against your overbet, and even though you have the third nuts, this spot sucks. It sucks even more, because most of the second best flushes are blocked. He can not have JT, J9, T9, 98 etc., and he would probably not raise a baby flush especially not with this sizing.

On the other side its hard for me to believe, he would not have bet his flushdraw on the turn, so he is repping like AK, AJ and A3 of spades exactly, since these hands have showdown value? If he is aggressive enough to pull off a wild bluff for 3 x the pot, I might get curious here and call. But I think, its close, and folding cant be a big mistake either.

 

[Vlad Savchenko]

1) I prefer leading the turn. When he check back the flop, its very likely, you have the best hand, and now you even picked up a draw as well. So a bet for value / protection is appropriate here in my opinion.

2) When he check back twice, it look like, he mostly have some kind of very marginal showdown value. I would probably just put out a normal bet, but given how small the pot is, I dont mind your overbet either. Its very much about history and dynamics.

Its an action card, because it create a 1-liner to a straight as well as a BDF, and if he will think, the overbet look bluffy, then why not. I am not that inclined to check-raise, because I think, he would have bet most of his draws already, and he dont seem to be interested in bluffing.

3) He overbet raised against your overbet, and even though you have the third nuts, this spot sucks. It sucks even more, because most of the second best flushes are blocked. He can not have JT, J9, T9, 98 etc., and he would probably not raise a baby flush especially not with this sizing.

On the other side its hard for me to believe, he would not have bet his flushdraw on the turn, so he is repping like AK, AJ and A3 of spades exactly, since these hands have showdown value? If he is aggressive enough to pull off a wild bluff for 3 x the pot, I might get curious here and call. But I think, its close, and folding cant be a big mistake either.

1. I see your point, but I'd much prefer to lead here with a hand like A8s, because with Q8s we may be valuebetting ourselves against better 8x, while also getting value from worse. I'd say that J8 is a clear check for me here, and Q8 is borderline, but OOP I just prefer to take more defensive approach in close spots.
2. Yeah, I have a "proven record" of showing up with bluffs in these spots, so it's not like I'm telegraphing that I have a flush.
3. The core point in my decision-making here was that he'd likely bet any draw other than A3s earlier. Basically I expected him to choose an aggressive option over balancing a check-back range with nut flush draws.
I'd definitely be surprised to see anything other than the nuts or As after a raise, so it just came down to a set of assumptions about the way he plays his flush draws and his bluffing ability.

 

[gustav197poker]

Q-8 is not a good hand to play it out of position against an aggressive, because it increases the probability that villain neutralizes our range, since the internal cards of our combination are likely to be located in rank v, thus limiting Our room for improvement. In addition, 8 protects us in preflop around 45% for which, we are a little unbalanced preflop, either in our high structure or in our implicit odds.
On the turn I prefer to bet on value, and if I am facing an aggressive I really like to bet hard in this place.
On the river I would play check-call.
Regards.

 

[delirium1129]

1. About turn I think there was good to make I value bet vs agr player. But your line is good to.
2. On the river I prefer to make big bet ~ 80-90% of the pot.
3. His overraising is lry strange. I can't understand how didn't agr player make the raise with A/K high flush draw. It is rly hard decision but I believe on the range is better to fold there. To call I need some notes like (100500bb bluff lover))

 

[John A]

1) Don't like it. Much prefer betting. Pretty sure solvers would agree.
2) Prefer river check raise. As played, it's probably close between shove and call. Without more info, call is fine.
3) Already said above.

 

[c0rnBr34d]

1) Don't like it. Much prefer betting. Pretty sure solvers would agree.
2) Prefer river check raise. As played, it's probably close between shove and call. Without more info, call is fine.
3) Already said above.

Am I reading number 2 correctly? Very curious why shoving river is so close to calling as played in your opinion. I can't think of a single hand that would call that we beat and I can't imagine getting a K high flush or better to fold.

 

[gustav197poker]

1) Don't like it. Much prefer betting. Pretty sure solvers would agree.
2) Prefer river check raise. As played, it's probably close between shove and call. Without more info, call is fine.
3) Already said above.

Very interesting point 2) John, thanks.

 

[fundiver199]

Am I reading number 2 correctly? Very curious why shoving river is so close to calling as played in your opinion. I can't think of a single hand that would call that we beat and I can't imagine getting a K high flush or better to fold.

I agree. With this sizing he is never raising a worse hand for value. He either have the nuts or nothing, so 3-betting would be a total disaster.

 

[Vlad Savchenko]

Thank you all for your replies.
Many people have proposed leading the turn, and while my strategy for this spot involves checking medium flush draws with SDV, I will definitely look more closely into this situation.
For the most part people agree on making a big bet on the river. Check/raise risks to leave a lot of money on the table and we're actually not going to get called by many worse hands here if we go for this line. Plus it opens the door for him to 3-bet us, which would be a disaster with our non-nutted holding, as we would've had to make a close decision for an entire stack, not just the 40%. If we were to build a check/raise range, it should've been nut flushes and naked As, and we'd have to go for a massive sizing.
As for whether or not to call his overraise, people seem to lean towards a fold, and while it would've been by far the best play against most people, I just didn't feel like folding the best hand in my range against an aggressive villain who doesn't really represent a lot of hands is good decision.

So yeah, I called and he had AQo with As. I have to repeat myself - the guy is pretty aggressive thinking reg, probably one of the best in the pool. Against an unknown I would've folded.

Btw, the only reason I'm posting the result is because it actually matters, as it confirms the assumption that this particular villain is capable of making such bluff.

 

[c0rnBr34d]

Blocking the nut flush is good for his bluff attempt but the nut flush will almost always bet turn after we check twice. His line doesn’t make much sense so I like the call. I just don’t see any value in raising river. I still prefer leading turn for all the times we miss the flush on the river. We are ahead a lot and even when behind we have plenty of outs. Nice hand

 

[0815am]

Ad 1)
I prefer leading the turn. Taking down the pot would be a good outcome here. You will often not hit river and might face overs or even 4-straight.
Ad 2)
I would bet/call river. I would really expect him to bluff K/A high flush draw
I don’t expect him to try to represent the flush so I hardly see him bet here. Which means we will check down a lot.
3) I would call as I don’t see him with the flush to often.