$55 NLHE MTT: 3 bet OOP, missed board, bluff on river

[Rajten]

pokerstars, $50 + $5 - Hold'em No Limit - 200/400 (60 ante) - 7 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat - https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/7253GXRDe

UTG: 25,000 (63 bb)
MP: 34,430 (86 bb)
MP+1: 20,961 (52 bb)
CO: 25,834 (65 bb)
BU: 18,850 (47 bb)
SB (Hero): 24,455 (61 bb)
BB: 22,800 (57 bb)

Pre-Flop: (1,020) Hero is SB with J♦ A♥
3 players fold, CO raises to 900, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets to 3,200, 1 fold, CO calls 2,300

Flop: (7,220) 6♦ 8♦ 2♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets 3,610, Hero calls 3,610

Turn: (14,440) K♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: (14,440) Q♥ (2 players)
Hero bets 6,400, CO calls 6,400

Villain unknown, I thought about betting flop, if I done it, I would gone for 3 barrels. This time I checked flop, to let him bet with air. On river I thought about betting all in, but it was bounty, so I am not sure, is it more fold equity betting all in. I was also thought about betting turn. What do you think?

 

[300HPGOD]

Pre is fine imo so I will jump to the flop. This is a spot where I would really like to have villains fold to c bet % handy but since they are an unknown I would go with a bet here to keep telling the story that we are telling with our 3 bet pre. Should be a sizing that makes it look like we have an overpair and want a call so somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000 give or take sounds right to me. I would be looking for a fold with the bet but need the bet to look like it is a bet of strength and not one that is begging for a fold. From there, if you had bet the flop, I would have double barreled turns that were not diamonds. As played on the flop with a check we are in a bit of trouble here because I dont think we know anything about the villains hand yet but given the stacks I think we can peel one just to see if they were bluffing and see what they do on the turn.

Turn as played is a check imo. I dont do a lot of leading in these spots and maybe that is one of my many leaks but if we were slowplaying a big hand here for some reason I would not love that the board is double suited so maybe that is a case for leading but I would still check hoping they bet (assuming we had the monster) so I believe checking to the villain here makes sense. When they check behind we should start to think what could they have that is a made hand that would check behind here? Sets dont check behind, Kx doesnt check behind unless maybe is it exclusively AK of diamonds but I even think that bets for value and some level of protection. The check here seems to me the villain bluffed the flop and is now just trying to get to the river to see if they catch something.

The river is not the greatest card for us even though it does not bring in the flush. It just brings another high card out there on the board that we dont have. The beauty of this now is that 1010 and 99 will fold if we lead but would those hands have checked the turn? I kind of doubt they would although its possible. I think villains hand has a lot of flush draws that missed but those could include a queen. In my thinking (right or wrong) that 1010 and 99 would not have got here like this I believe there is no point in attacking trying to get those hands to fold and we should check river here and evaluate whether or not to call based on sizing. The queen on the river I think really hurts us though and we are probably better folding the river as played.

Just a note betting all in does not make sense to me as villain covers you therefore it is more of an incentive for them in a bounty to call you if you do make it an all in. To me, bluffng all in within bounty tournaments up against someone who has you covered is going to not go your way more often than not.

 

[Rajten]

Thank you for comphenesive analize, I was targetting 99 and TT on river, mayby some 8x, this time villain got JJ, what was kind suprising, that he didn't 4bet pre, but whatever.

 

[IADaveMark]

Thank you for comphenesive analize, I was targetting 99 and TT on river, mayby some 8x, this time villain got JJ, what was kind suprising, that he didn't 4bet pre, but whatever.

Ugh... no one is going to 4-bet pre with JJ. Even the call took balls with JJ.

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
3-betting is completely fine. Maybe we can also just call at some frequenzy. SB defense is a complicated topic with many different opinions and styles, but we can probably all agree, that folding would be to tight against a CO open.

Flop
This is not the best flop for your hand or range. Yes you have all the overpairs, but he have more sets and draws. It would be interesting to know, what a solver say, since you are playing a fairly high (for online) stakes here, where most opponent should be somewhat competent. I am not a fan of check-calling, because I think, your hand is simply to bad. You dont even have any sneaky backdoor draws, that can improve you, and if you hit top pair, its not always good. So my choise here would be to either C-bet, and it would mostly with in a one-and-done mentality, or to simply check-fold. It must be ok to have some hands, that just give up on bad boards, especially when we are out of position.

Turn
As played standard check, and now I would definitely check-fold, but luckily he check back.

River
This is a decent bluff card, because it apply pressure to 99-JJ, and his line is consistent with that kind of hand. You can also tell a credible story, mainly that you have AK, maybe AQ or KQ as well. So I dont mind bluffing here, and with this board runout AJ must be one of the very worst hands in your range, so its definitely a candidate for bluffing. The question is sizing. Do we go for a small bet, like you did, or do we move all in polarizing our range.

The small bet is better for representing a hand like AK, but if its not getting him to fold the exact kind of hand, we are targeting, then maybe the raw power of a jam would have been better. Betting less than half pot the bluff dont need to work every time though. Its enough, if it work around 30% of the time. So getting called does not in itself mean, it was a bad play. But of course if he is also calling 99-TT, because its essentially the same hand as JJ, then you probably picked the wrong sizing and/or the wrong opponent.