Deep in live event AJ hand

[BlueEcho]

$200 buy-in live event 30 min limits 5000 chips.

This villian I've played with at least one other time at a final table and my memory of him had him waiting for good cards but playing the button hard at least twice (it was about 6 months or so ago). I know he recognized me because he instantly brought up a hand we played against each other where I check/called the river to bust him with a marginal holding similar to this.

Blinds: 2000/4000 with 500 ante
Stacks: Hero- 95K
Villian- 70K

There is about 27 left and money starts at 18. I just got to this table.

Action folds to me in HJ with A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]J [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] I make it 11000. Villian likes to look at his cards as they come down and he hadn't shown much interest this time as he had in previous spots but he calls from the button anyway. All else fold.

Flop (32000 pot) A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]2 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
Hero checks, Villian checks.

Turn (32000 pot) 8 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
Hero bets 16,000, Villian calls pretty quick.

River (64000 pot) 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]
Hero?............You tell me what you do here. I know what I think is correct.

[Rupert]

I bet around 35k for value and fold to a raise

[ChipSpeak]

[ QUOTE ]
I bet around 35k for value and fold to a raise

[/ QUOTE ]
Villain has 43k remaining.

[J.A.K.]

c/c

[Rupert]

Oh yeah. I'd shove for value and get hero called by a 9

[Rupert]

FWIW, I think Shove > C/F > C/C since I don't think we get called overly light on the turn and I think most As/9s check behind on the river - I think check calling we are going to be shown a better hand a lot of the time. That said, by betting I still think nearly all aces call and a lot of 9s since I think they expect an ace to continuation bet, and they aren't really scared of an 8.

[ChipSpeak]

Tough to put him on a hand we are losing to here by his postflop actions, any hand ahead of ours on the turn raises to protect as it's getting scary, yet he is quickly flat calling 16000 more of his stack, hard to put him on anything but a pair/weak(er) A, maybe JTs or something I guess? Our line here is very read dependent, can we assume he’s repopping 88+? that's prime repop stack he's got and I would expect a shove there with a decent pp, but what pp he would go with is read dependent and is a big factor in how we proceed…This pot is big enough with his flat call on the turn to shove the river at 2/3 pot for value, looking like the same bluff you’ve caught him on before, making the slow play a greater possibility here.

We surely have value here the majority of the time, outside of a weak played AQ (Highly unlikely if he’s a thinking player with the size of that pot, he’s going over you with that turn card) or slow played A9s/A8s/22/88/99. Any bet we make commits us to this pot with his stack. If you are confident he would raise the scary turn if he’s beating us, I like shoving for value, we’re under repped considering the action, he may put you on a bluff from his recall of your earlier check call and pay you off w TT,66/77 AT maybe Axs and if he’s a big nit he may fold the split AJ. Short of reads we are ahead here the majority of the time, it’ll be difficult to get away from this pot and I feel we’re losing value by checking the river to him, he’s called us on the turn with something, as long as it doesn’t include an 8, we are ahead.

[ChipSpeak]

[ QUOTE ]
FWIW, I think Shove > C/F > C/C

[/ QUOTE ]
Agreed.

A jam on the river would be a very difficult spot if we check this, the whole level 2,3 stuff starts going because he knows that we know that he knows... I think without reads we are getting paid off enough to make the shove +EV as his read on us has us checking the exact hand we have. I really think we're up against a nit w TT, maybe 66/77, or ATx 9xs...

[BlueEcho]

Although I played my AJ rather coy here by shoving you only get called by hands that beat you, except for maybe AT. By checking here we do give villian a chance to bet any A, and a draw that missed on the river. Thus we widen the range of hands we get villian's chips in with.

Villian's stack makes this sort of awkward. He has only 43k and the pot has 64k. That makes this a shove or check spot IMO. I disagree that check/folding should be better than c/c. As this hand has played out, we have keep villian's range quite wide. In the end we have the opportunity to be calling 43k into a 107k pot. In which case we only need to be a winner here 29% of the time. I think we have that pretty easily.

If we shove villian can play his hand pretty close to perfect.

[erc007]

I like checking the turn and blocking most rivers for about 12K.