Mid Stakes Shorthanded NL Poker Forums

So, villain is reasonable, tight and aggressive, a 19/15/5.6 with a c-bet of healthy 88 and a WTSD of 20. We didn't play much together, but he saw me playing tight at that table and didn't really get out of line.

I KNOW that I screwed up the flop c/r - shame on me - it's a bit to small. So we don't have to discuss that, except you think the c/r itself is a mistake.

Grabbed by Holdem Manager
NL Holdem $4(BB) Replayer
Hero ($689)
BB ($282)
UTG ($428)
UTG+1 ($400)
CO ($410)
BTN ($406)

Dealt to Hero 55

UTG raises to $14, fold, fold, Hero calls $12, fold,

FLOP ($32) 982

check, UTG bets $24, Hero raises to $58, UTG calls $34,

TURN ($148) 9826

check, check,

RIVER ($148) 98262

check, UTG bets $125, Hero dumdidums and…

So, here's the thing. I know, at first glance this hand doesn't look very exciting. But if we have a closer look: He raises UTG, he doesn't re-raise my weakish c/r on a super-wet board, but he just calls it. He checks the even wetter turn behind. And then he bets river really big?

On what range of hands do we put him here?

his line is weird, but two possibilities come to mind for types of hands he could have:

a weakish made hand like JJ or TT that didn't feel like flipping for stacks on the flop, and now has new confidence in making a bluffy-looking value bet after you check twice.

or,

a shitty bricked draw like AK, JTdd, or something that peeled flop in the name of pot odds and is now trying to fold your obv shitty pair-turned-bluff.

idk, i guess i fold, since even if you do snap him off sometimes, at best it's likely a small +ev/big variance sort of spot...

I don't like the Flop c/r too much but I don't really mind it. I prefer to do it with a hand that has at least some equity with backdoor draws and stuff like that but it depends on your image and how likely he is to float. River is kinda akward but I am probably folding. He might have checked back the Turn with a weak OP or something but now he can beat 98 and tries to look bluffy with a big bet. If he had Air i think he would bet much smaller since you won't call with your likely Draw since you can't beat anything. (i am talking about a Hand like JT that is trying to get you off a Split/Axhh etc.)

Why didn't you barrel this off? He can prob fold an overpair by the river... given how the hand played out, I'd say he had TT-QQ... the 2c is a bad card to bluff, plus it counterfeits your two pair combos.

If the villain is tight and is opening from UTG shouldn't you put him on a pretty tight range to begin with? He really has no reason to 3bet your c/r on a wet board if he has a made hand less than QQ. If he's decent he should know on that board he could just be flipping with a good draw or dominated by a set. Your flop c/r doesn't make sense if you think that it has no fold equity since the board is so wet and draws aren't folding, neither are made hands (to 1 small c/r) on top of that it gives you very limited information about what cards he's holding when he does anything but fold. He is checking back the turn on any showdown bound hand and any draw that may have improved in equity w/o wanting to get double c/r'ed. When you check again on the river he should know that you have a marginal showdown bound hand or a missed pr+draw. Any good 9 or tt+ is betting for value on the river, the paired deuce is a bad card to bluff and so many draws bricked that if your opponent is thinking he should never be bluffing it. Without history I'm just check folding the flop vs an utg raise from a 19/15. I think if you called his river bet you are not going to win at sd very often in this spot.

his line looks bluffy i know, but a 19/15 is going to have a very tight range utg and a lot of people dont auto-reraise this flop with TT+ for the reasons stated above by the other posters.

when u think about the combos of hands that he could have to open UTG and call a flop-cr, there arent a lot of hands that dont beat 55 here. any big Axhh or KQhh and QJhh(he might not even open that utg) will most likely 3b this flop or at least bet turn since they have no SDV. so hands that he can play this way is made up by hand combos that are too strong to fold but too weak to reraise this flop. that range will mostly be low FLDs and OESD and over pairs. but since he cant have the low FLDs and OESD since hes not opening 76s, JT utg he is going to have an over pair almost always. he might show up with a JT no hearts like 5-10% of the time but far from enough to make this call profitable.

while he could be bluffing here, he could also have been pot controlling a hand like TP or JJ or something , checking behind on the turn to avoid a double c/r and allow you to bluff the river, and now realizes that he is good and is making a large value bet