€400 NL HE Full Ring: Can you win this pot while playing the board?

[primrose]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Stakes

$2/$4

Table Format

Full (8-10 seats)

Currency

€

In this hand, LJ opens to 14 and I call in the BB with . LJ is a player that I feel like has improved a lot, which is rare (seriously, almost all the losing regs just play their own style without ever learning, it would be depressing if weren't good for me). At this point I think he's actually quite scary and I'd be shocked if weren't a winning player. But of course this hand is way too strong to not defend, so I call.

Flop comes (Pot=30).I check, and Villain bets 14. I don't think there's any point to raising, and my hand is much too strong to fold, so I call.

Turn comes (Pot=58). This is not a great card, but it's not a terrible card either, and a good player should be very careful about bluffing now since I could have a really strong hand here. I check, and indeed, Villain checks behind.

River comes (Pot=58). This means I'm playing the board now and am almost certainly losing (unless villain has exactly a pocket pair below 8s, in which case we'd chop).I don't think you can check-raise here though because I think it's quite unlikely for a competent player to bet this card, unless he actually has a storng hand. So it's only really choice between, do you bet now as a bluff, or do you check and give up? And if you bet, how much do you bet?

My action:

Spoiler

I decided to bluff small, only 34. To a good player this doesn't look like a bluff, it just looks like a "I'm strong but you're not, please hero call me" bet. I think if Villain has no pair, he folds to this.

Reveal :

Spoiler

Vilain folded almost instantly.

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop, flop and turn
Dont think, there is much to discuss here. All very standard.

River
From a theoretic point of view this is now one of the worst hands, you can have, since you are playing the board. Most of the draws got there, so in GTO this has to be an almost mandatory bluff. And I think, I would bet pretty large. You are basically representing a full house, which you can absolutely have, and you dont want him to hero call with A high, as he might do against small sizing.

Results
Ok so he did in fact fold to a small bet.

 

[primrose]

And I think, I would bet pretty large. You are basically representing a full house, which you can absolutely have, and you dont want him to hero call with A high, as he might do against small sizing.

Yeah -- I actually can't really explain why I think a small bet makes sense here. My intuition just told me that, against a strong player, the small bet looks very strong. Usually I know why I think these things but not really here. Hmm.

Obviously the result doesn't mean the small bet was correct; for all I know he could've had .

 

[fundiver199]

Yeah -- I actually can't really explain why I think a small bet makes sense here. My intuition just told me that, against a strong player, the small bet looks very strong. Usually I know why I think these things but not really here. Hmm.

Bart Hansson from CrushLivepoker regularly say, than in his experience live players often interpret small bets as being value and big bets being bluffs, which mean, they are far to inelastic in their calling frequenzy or might even be more likely to call a large bet. So its quite possible, that you actually found a good exploit here. Whereas in online poker I think, almost everyone call a small river bet with A high on this kind of board.