joesmoe88 said:

I haven't played anything higher than 5/10 so I can't really speak to the dynamic involved but I don't really think you can have 77 in your range. That's in your 3 betting range pre?

That's a bit situation, but I think generally it should be a 3-bet bvb when deep. Not being capped in this sort of spot is one of several reasons why. Also there's a lot of value in folding out Q8s, K5s, etc.

Or do you just think your flop call puts that hand in your perceived range. I guess sets could be a possibility but it seems like a pretty bad board to check raise for the reasons you said it was a good board to check/raise as a bluff.

You must think I'm pretty easy to play against. You're just going to slowplay all your nuts hands and check-raise all your bluffs? Note that I didn't fold to the check-raise.

Also not sure how often he checks a set on the turn.

I would think not that often but like you said the turn is such a good barreling card that I found the check suspicious. I was planning to fold to a bet.

I guess there is a chance betting the turn gets you to showdown because you can possibly have 77 or 65s but you are never getting called by worse and there are certainly times you don't get to showdown still. I think the biggest problem you have is that the turn is probably the best card in the deck for him to continue bluffing so when he checks the turn he is either giving up or trapping. Now that I'm thinking about it, I fold the river if he leads.

I think checking turn and folding river is easier to do against a player who isn't good enough to turn a pair into a bluff. What would your range be for checking turn and calling a river shove on a blank? 77 and 65? You've got 7 combos of those when Villain doesn't have blockers, compared to 42 combos of overpairs. A5s gets you another 4 combos of calling hands, but I can't see 3-betting A5o.

It's not crazy to think I might check a straight, and that would help make the case for checking this hand. The problem is that straights are a pretty small part of my range compared to one-pair stuff that will be in a nasty spot facing a river shove. Basically, if I check and Villain just shoves all of his air/weak pairs, he's going to show a profit doing that even if he occasionally runs into a straight. I mean, I'm not 3-betting 65o or A5o, so I have 8 straights possible, fewer when Villain holds a 5. Meanwhile I have tons of one-pair hands.

Checking sets helps, but I still don't think it's enough. If I check and he shoves 2x pot on a blank river, I need to call about 1/3 of the time to make him indifferent to bluffing. Giving me 8 straights, 3 sets, and 42 combos of overpairs would mean 53 combos for seeing the river this way. In practice, I'll have some other one-pair hands as well (87, 76, 54), and sometimes a seeming blank will improve me (I'll have a few more sets on any card 8 or bigger). To keep math easy, let's say I have 75 combos of hands for seeing the river this way.

I need to call with 25 of them. 8 straights and 6 sets is a good start. The 76 and 54 also make good bluff-catchers, as they block some of Villain's value range, but there's a danger that they might not be all of his bluffs.

The above actually doesn't sound so bad to me, but there are some other downsides to this strategy, namely that it also enables him to realize equity when a lot of my range, even the sets, is somewhat vulnerable.

Where this really gets gross is if you try to balance both a checking and a betting range. If, for instance, you check the straights but bet the sets, then you need to do even more bluff-catching on the river. If you bet your straights on the turn, then you're basically just surrendering your checking range to a shove.

I'm not so worried about Villain calling turn and then bluff-shoving river, because what hands that need to bluff can profitably call the turn bet? Plus as long as I'm betting all of my strongest hands as well, this isn't going to be any better for him thant he scenario where I check turn and he shoves river.

No matter what, we're not in a great spot here just because this flop is better for his range than for Hero's. We mostly just need to find the best way to avoid getting run over too badly. The key is keeping as many strong hands as you can in your range so that it won't be obvious when you have a marginal hand.

ltcolumbo said:

It seems almost like “turning the tables”.  He tries to put pressure on you with the c/r, but when you call and then he checks, that is an indication that applying pressure on Villian now has some value.  Still we do have a ton of showdown value at this point in the hand with an overpair, so the pressure is designed to fold out draws, not marginal hands?

Really, we shouldn't be able to pressure Villain here, because his range for seeing this flop is less capped than ours. I think his check is bad because I wouldn't expect him to check strong hands and this is such a good card to barrel that he might as well bet any hand he's going to check-fold. This is why I was suspicious about the check.

Marginal hands that aren't going to put more money into the pot unimproved are essentially draws, they just don't have as many outs as the hands we traditionally think of as draws. But yes, the main point of a bet is not to get called by second-best hands.

Can we assume Villian folded to the $1k turn bet?  More importantly, clarify if you would have called the shove for another $1500 knowing that he is polarized and probably shoves with hands that have you beat.

He did fold. I would have folded to a check-raise, though that may be a mistake. Pokersnowie is pretty happy about bet-calling the turn, and this is a situation that I believe it tends to play well. My thinking was that he'd be more likely to bet again than to check-raise any bluffs, and I think that probably is true of even very good human players, even if it isn't GTO. The biggest concern would be if he check-raised something like 76, I guess, meaning if he isn't polarized. It's possibl that he just wouldn't have a check-call range. If you are going to bet-call it off, then I think giving him room to shove weaker hands by betting smaller becomes all the more important.