NL25: Aces in three-bet pot with deep stacks

[Emperor Norton]

Blocking bets and bluffs are good for me, since they mean that villain has a weak hand, that he doesn't know how strong I am, and that he's making a stab with a hand that probably couldn't call a decent-sized bet. If villain blocks me here for $6 with 99 when he would have theoretically paid twice that to see a showdown, that's too bad; but by the same token, it's often only by checking the turn that I convince him it's worth it to put in any more money at all.

That said, I think that I may have approached this hand all wrong. You're right that KK and QQ are definite possibilites. Given that nobody is going to fold QQ as an overpair, maybe I should be playing this hand for stacks. If I only put villain on sets and overpairs, these are my Stove results:

Board: Jh 8d 5c
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 55.441% 53.17% 02.27% 11580 495.00 { AcAd }
Hand 1: 44.559% 42.29% 02.27% 9210 495.00 { JJ+, 88, 55 }

Maybe I should be trying to jam the pot as soon as possible. Or maybe I should still check behind on the turn, to get value from all of villain's marginal hands, but raise the river and call a shove. Hm.

[Vyse]

it's quite tough to play big one pair hands deep and I am personally quite bad at it, so I don't mind the pot control idea.

[Dastone]

[ QUOTE ]
KK/QQ are more than possible

By checking behind on the turn you will find yourself in spots like these, where you don't have a clue what to do.
But by betting the turn you can check behind on the river most of the time since you will be the one closing the action. Also you will be opened for all kinds of blocking bets and/or bluffs, in which case you will have no idea what villain is doing.

[/ QUOTE ]

What makes us clueless here on the river?

OP's line is fine, and river is an easy call. Much easier than calling a big checkraise if we bet the turn.

Against an opponnent deep and with out much of a read I prefer just calling, and playing for stacks with a stronger hand, or against a shorter stacked opponnent.

[ama0330]

Given that we checked the turn for pot control because we were concerned about the board texture (i.e. he could well have a monster), we can't raise the river because it turns our hand into a bluff. I just call river.

[Emperor Norton]

Wait, what now? Why does it make our hand a bluff?

[ama0330]

In your OP, you said

[ QUOTE ]
The fact that he cold-called preflop and then called a big flop bet on this dry board concerned me, so I decided to check the turn for pot control, and to get value out of weaker hands on the river.

[/ QUOTE ]

So on the turn, you are not sure that your hand is good, thats why you check for pot control. If you were sure your hand was good, then you would bet for value (especially this deep), but you aren't, so you check. Its not that your hand is garbage, but its a bit "hmmm".

So on the river, you have induced a bet with your turn check. So if you are considering a raise, what hands is he going to call your raise with? Probably not many that you beat, right? Especially given that the flush hit. So you have turned your hand into 72o. You might say well hey who cares, but the problem is that by raising you keep the action open and allow him to make a great call with a set, or push over you again with a really strong hand like QJ[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] that may have been trying to cr the turn.

The cliffnotes are basically that to raise this river for value, you have to be sure you are ahead, and given that your turn action and thought process leads us to believe that we are not definitely ahead, you are therefore raising as a bluff.

A raise manipulates villains range such that he folds all the hands we would have won against anyway at no extra risk, and calls all the hands which beat us.

(another thing to bear in mind for metagame purposes is that its really unlikely that you have the flush given the action, and therefore taylor caby would shove the river on you because he knows you have to fold an overpair, as you would have bet a set on the turn for value/protection)

[Fiksdal]

This becomes a whole lot easier if you bet the turn. Villain isn't folding AJ to a 3/4 pot bet there I don't think. As played, I'¨m not raising river because reopening the betting isn't worth it when very few worse hands call.