[rabman50]

Hi Dingo thanks for posting and congrats on the deep run! This is an interesting spot. What type of hand did you think you could get value from? When looking at the range of hands that would open from MP with 50 big blinds there are a ton of hands that totally missed this board. The opener would cbet this flop 100% of the time since it is much better for his range than yours. That means he would have cbet with hands with little equity when called. Then we look at the turn which pairs the board and he checks back indicating that he is possibly trying to get to a cheap showdown. The river completes the flush draw and you bet out. He may have been folding to any bet here. Which means the size of you bet had no bearing on his folding frequency. If you check and he bets how comfortable do you feel. You have trips on a broadway heavy paired board with a possible flush. Can you call if he bets the river? What if he raised your river bet? As far as check/raising the flop do we want to turn bottom pair into a bluff? I think you played it just fine and he just didn’t have a hand that could call a river bet.

[dingo]

Hi Rab,

Sorry for the late reply here.

I was trying to target Suited/Off Kings/X, Ace/X hands that would of opened. This would of included diamonds, however the check on the turn gave me confidence that diamonds drawing in wasn’t too much of a worry so I would of called a river reraise. Though I’d have to think, I don’t believe a set would of only gone for two streets of value.

I like what FivebyFive mentioned, perhaps going bigger here was much better than I thought it was. I thought thin value was the way to go, really haven’t thought too much about big betting, though I haven’t been in a siutation such as this to. I’ll follow more of the deep dives, lots of stuff to pick up from that series.

Thank you both for your thoughts!

[fivebyfive]

I very much agree with Rob. The only thing I would do differently is go LARGER (not smaller) on the river bet. V can have hands like AK/AQ/AT that will play just like this and call a larger river bet. We’re targeting those. When we make this bet, we can’t get cute, we really do have to fold to most river raises against most villains. Good players like this will sometimes bluff in these spots, but mostly this is a board that demands value.

On earlier streets, I see no value in cR the flop (we have bottom pair against an uncapped opponent on a board that heavily favors them). On the turn, I also don’t like a lead. I’m checking this 100% of the time and hoping to call a turn bet. When it goes ck ck, I often have the best hand. When the river comes, I like a big (80%-pot sized) bet to target those value hands. I’m folding to a raise.

As you went smaller, you were never getting more value here. If they can’t call your smaller bet in this spot to close the action, they didn’t have much to begin with.

(PS-If you’ve been following our Deep Dive segments, this is a board that V can and should go larger with their cbets. A larger cbet targets the exact kind of holding you have and puts it in jail where it is a comfortable call with this small bet)