Sorry for the lack of proper conversion; I'm playing on Bovada.Villain is an unknown (as is everyone on Bovada), but after about 12 hands he seems a little . I have seen him check back the river once with second pair when I think he should have definitely bet for value. I'll post my hand later if there's discussion.-----Hero: t993Villain: t2007Blinds 15/30Preflop:He limps, I check.Flop: 5c 4d 2d; pot = 60I check, he checks.Turn: 5h; pot = 60I bet 60, he calls.River: 5d; pot = 180I check, he bets 210-----I'm interested to hear what range people give villain on the river/how lightly they would be willing to call. I bet large on the turn expecting to take it down a large fraction of the time given his flop check back and the fact that my preflop checking range is all over this board. When called I just gave up on the river, expecting him to be checking back A or K high, and often calling a bet.When he bet big, though, I got very suspicious. I think most people are betting a 5, 4, or straight on the flop most of the time, and almost always raising a 5 or straight on the turn, given the draw-heavy board. With a smaller bet I think he can have a lot of 4's, or even a 2, but the overbet really looks polarizing to me. In retrospect, if villain is fishy he can be spazzing with a flush here, too, but I think he often bets flush draws on the flop.Do you agree that the river bet looks suspicious? What's the worst hand you would call with on the river as played?
You need to add your hand into the original post. What you hold can affect his range because he can't have the cards you hold. We don't have enough info on the villian after 12 hands. There are almost no straights in his range though so I wouldn't worry about them. If he had A2 or 36 I think he would have slowed down by the river since the board is pretty bad. It is hard to assign him any bluff ranges but a small amount of the time this is a bluff with like A or K time, but not enough of the time to make a call. I would also say that overbets on the river are not bluffs often. The villians range may include flushes but I think a flush would slow down a little, boats, quads, and maybe some of the time AA or KK trying to trap (which are boats anyway, but it would exlpain how he got to the river). Personally, against an unknown, I don't think I would call unless I had a 4 or better, to make a boat. When I am calling with a 4 I am thinking I am calling for a split some of the time too, and for value vs a 2. The danger is that people do limp in with middle pocket pairs like sixes, sevens etc. If you had a good pocket pair here like TT, 99, or against some players even 88, you could put in a raise here. With TT+ I would always shove the river. I think I could get called by a 4, 2 if the person is super loose, and 66 - 99. You will find some of the time you will be called by a flush here because people don't look at relative hand strength. If you did have a pocket pair like this though people may question why you didn't raise preflop. Limping is ok if you have reads that the player is bad in limped pots.By the way your entire line looks pretty off here which may increase the chance of a bluff a little bit. By checking the flop, potting the turn (why did you pot?), checking the river, you pretty much tell him you have a 2, a 4, or air and the fact that you didn't value bet lead out, seemed to be afraid of draws with the turn pot, and checked the river, pretty much tells him you don't like your hand very much. If you had a 2 here I think you bet too much on the turn. I would consider leading out with a 2 against an unknown since if he has a draw I might as well get value from it (if he had a draw here, he just got a free card). If I was facing someone who would raise a lead out often I would probably check as you did. I would probably only bet like 40 into the turn though. I don't want to waste 20 chips. If he is going to fold for 60 he will fold for 40.
I'll say for now that my hand doesn't materially affect his ranges. I didn't have a pair, and was betting for fold equity on the turn, and checking the river/planning to fold to a reasonable bet, given that I expected him to be calling the river with almost everything he called with on the turn.I think you're very right to question my turn pot. I think the real reason I potted it instead of betting 40 or 45 is pure laziness - the Bovada software is kind of annoying when it comes to entering custom bet sizes. Obviously that's a terrible reason, though, and I'm going to be more careful about this kind of thing in the future. I do think we need to bet more than 30 here, because in my experience a minbet here gets way less folds than, say, 45.I definitely agree that my line looks very weak. I think where we differ is that I think my apparent weakness makes his river overbet much more likely to be a bluff. I also disagree that a random opponent is unlikely to overbet bluff. One nice thing about Bovada is that I can look up opponents' mucked hole cards after the fact, so I always go back and check hands on interesting pots, and from what I've seen a decent fraction of river overbets are bluffs. What is unusual, from my experience, is this kind of sizing for value with anything remotely thin - and I think a 4 qualifies here.Now that you mention it, I do think a tricky AA or KK is possible here, and I think those are actually more likely than a 4. I don't think he has A or K high here hardly ever, though; I think those hands are usually calling the turn expecting to win a lot of showdowns, and they're happy to check back the river. K high might bet occasionally, I guess. I really don't think a random is betting anything better than a K or worse than a 4 like this hardly ever - do you disagree? If not, isn't a 4 more or less equivalent to K high for us?
I don't think a 4 is equal to a K. It depends on the player pool but on pokerstars there are a lot of players who just do some really odd things. 4 is a great bluff catcher since you actually beat the hands he could be bluffing with. If he does this with K high then a 4 beats K high obviously. It is important to note that if a 4 is equal to a K then at the very least its equal to K with an imaginary unbeatable kicker. This could be A high too at least some of the time.Why I differ as to why an overbet is only a bluff some of the time is that I am giving a bit more credit to the general player pool. This may be incorrect though. If you were going to fold your hand to a small overbet, you were going to fold it to slightly under pot likely so he may as well have saved chips. Player pools on different sites probably evolve different meta games too. It could also be my own bias since almost all of the time I have called a river overbet in a situation like this I have been behind and only occassionally has it been a bluff. Really though, I could be unlucky and this may be more of a bluff than I think, especially given the weak line.
Sure, a 4 is better than a K, especially against someone who is more or less a random and thus has some probability of showing up with fairly surprising stuff. But I don't think there's a huge difference, and I'm pretty sure a K is a call here readless.I ended up calling with J9 and winning against 98o. I'm very open to the possibility that this is spewy, and it relies heavily on the assumption that he isn't often flatting the turn and making this large bet on the river with a pair or ace. I took a look at this in pokerstove, assuming he does it occasionally with a 4 (about 10% of the time), with AA and KK 1/6 of the time (I think that's generous, but that's the fewest combos I could put into pokerstove), with 10% of his floats/bluffs (including Q-high and J-high hands that beat us), and with 5% of his K's (lots of these are taking the free showdown imo). Given a reasonable limping range, we then have about 40% equity, if I didn't mess up the calculation.Thoughts? I guess what's important isn't the absolute percentages I've assigned to various hands, but rather the relative frequencies (and the weightings, i.e. number of combos of each).
If he floats a lot with A high though and gives up with his air, then this is also a bad call. I think this is a serious problem readless though and that's why I would give it up. I wouldn't have bet the turn though either readless. I would have check folded the turn with JT. It's a little passive but it's such a small number of chips and I have no reads. If I had some showdown value like A high or K high I would still check the turn and call a small bet (then re-evaluate on the river). The reason you didn't check is likely because you felt you didn't have showdown value which is why you potted the turn in the first place. It seems like an inconsistency in your line of thinking. I also don't think you can get a lot of folds on this paired board either, so the entire notion of the turn bet I think is not the most +EV play. I think checking is. My initial assessment that you should have bet the turn for less was based on an assumption that you had some sort of holding, rather than what is actually complete air.I don't like to use the cop out of 'look for a better spot' too much but since the blinds are so low, you only checked your BB, and therefore have like nothing invested, there is no reason to go nuts here.BTW I would have raised the limp preflop because I think J9 is strong enough vs an unknown's limping range, at least on stars. It's very rare to find someone limping a good polarised range on stars. It is often the lowest end of their range and they don't want to fold it since it looks pretty like 23s, 94s etc.