I think you hit the nail on the head Andrew, thanks for the feedback. This check-raise was definitely a stretch, partially motivated by villain’s 92% in position cbet (11/12 so hardly reliable), but I think it’s a bridge too far considering how many Aces villain will have. I like being able to turn straight draws on 16 cards, but considering blockers and stronger one card flushes, I have many better bluffs for my <=24 value combos (24 if I never 3bet A8/A3s BB v HJ and always check-raise my 2 pairs and sets).

If I want to have any backdoor straight draws in my range, the 3 combos of JTx would be better but they’re still pretty dubious. As mentioned in other posts, I’m trying to add more aggression to my strategy as I move up the buy-ins. Having a relatively steep negative redline has been working for me at lower stakes, but it’s hurting my win rate against player pools that can pick up postflop tendencies well. Still, I 100% agree that there are much better spots to get after it than Ace high boards with a huge range disadvantage.

rppoker said
So the story you are telling seems believable to me, but that is answering in a vacuum. I think a lot depends on what your image has been. Is your image that you are bluffing a lot or does the table view you as betting what you have?

Also, what is villain’s image? Is he sticky? If his image is that he doesn’t like to fold then your bet looks especially strong.

It is difficult to answer without knowing the dynamic of you and the villain.  

Villain and I don’t have much relevant history, have played a little over 500 hands together but that’s over the past 10 months. For this session, image isn’t a factor as we’ve only played about 20 hands. Can’t say if he might have notes on me from our history, my only notes on him are speculation about turn bet sizing. Villain’s WWSF is 47% and WTSD is 41%, which are both somewhat high for his 21% VPIP, but hardly exceptional (and 500 is a small sample for those). Aside from the high cbet frequency, there’s nothing readily apparent that separates him from any other reg with slightly above average aggression. 

Everyone’s so deep because it’s the Bounty Builder series that Pstars is running. This is only the 2nd level, starting stack was 25k with 125/250 blinds.

Maniackid11 said
My guess is villain folded to your turn bet. If he didn’t, he had something like AJ or AQ with the J or Q of hearts. 

River: (48.65 BB, 2 players) 9
Hero checks, MP+1 checks

Hero shows: 9 T (One Pair, Nines)
(Pre 61%, Flop 30%, Turn 32%)
MP+1 mucks: 8 7 (One Pair, Eights)
(Pre 39%, Flop 70%, Turn 68%)
Hero wins 48.65 BB

Never expected to see that at showdown. Not sure if villain has seen me spew chips a few times or maybe just stickier than I realized… calling flop check-raise makes sense but that turn call boggles the mind a bit. I’ve got to stop posting hands where villains show up with the stone bottom of their range. Past few hands are exceptions to the rule, I promise.

Mental Game Tangent: Part of what made this hand memorable was a weird line of thought on the turn. Despite getting ~ the top 10% of possible cards, my brain got hung up on “Ugh, now he’s never folding KK/AK” and it was hard to get past that kind of loss aversion based thinking. My instincts were completely out of whack. Probably stems from playing the flop differently than I usually would and, to a lesser extent, being conscious of my somewhat limited experience at buy-ins >$30. Kind of funny that I can still struggle with such thoughts after nearly 15 years and well over 2 million hands…