routine middle set hand

[soah]

Party 5/10. I've played a few orbits and might appear TAG to anyone paying attention (although none of the pots I've been in have gotten very large or gone to showdown). I have one note on my opponent from a previous session which says he limped in and then called a preflop raise with AQ, check-called a Q88 flop, check-called a brick turn, and checked an ace river. So that's about all the information I have on him. Overall the table is playing fairly rationally -- none of that [censored] where if you raise preflop you can expect to get checkraised on the flop 85% of the time by any two cards, call all-in with any pair, etc.

So we're eight-handed atm and I limp UTG with 99. UTG+1 limps. Just us and the blinds see a flop of J97, two-tone. Checked to me, I bet $30, UTG+1 raises to $80. Blinds fold. I call.

Turn brick. I check, UTG+1 bets $100 into a $200 pot, I raise to $350.

River brick. I go all-in for $715.

Basically on the flop I'm thinking I'm ahead because he would have raised preflop with JJ, and he wasn't bad enough to limp with T8 UTG+1 (at least, I haven't seen him do anything like that). So I'm trying to get in as much money as possible. In retrospect though, the only hand he can really call $715 on the river with is 77 (and if he knows my play very well he would probably be correct to muck that as well, but he probably doesn't know me good enough to make that big of a laydown). Was it too greedy to try to double up in an unraised pot here?

Some alternate lines I considered were reraising on the flop (to like $220-250) and then betting out on the turn/river to get all-in, or doing a stop-n-go on any safe turn card. When I decided to check-raise the turn, I was assuming he'd bet like $150 instead of just $100, which would make it much easier for me to get him pot-committed.

Just curious what others think.

[fimbulwinter]

If you raise the turn more the river is much more inviting. look at what happens if you make the turn 400.

fim

[xorbie]

After being called on my turn CR I would probably check the river. He either has a monster draw like Q10s or K10s, a made straight on the flop or a lower set. He could also just have a severely overplayed AJ, unless you can rule that out. I think he's probably looking for a cheap showdown with either 77 or AJ, but could very well try to take a stab at the pot with a missed draw. Given that you are trying to get all in here, I think there's a lot more hands he bets with here than those that he calls with, so why not check the river, especially if he puts you on a draw as well (which is possible).

[soah]

I felt the opposite. After the enormous amount of strength I've shown, he is taking a free showdown with nearly all made hands (refer back to the comments I made about the AQ hand which I saw him play earlier), and it would be pretty stupid of him to try bluffing me given that I've pretty much told him that I love my hand. I think I may have had a better chance of getting him to make a crying call with AJ/etc had I bet like $450-500 on the river.

As for fim's comment of raising to $400 on the turn, I was worried that if I raised too much he'd be able to get away from worse made hands. Raising to $300 didn't seem like enough (in case he was on a draw) and $400 felt like too much, and I did some quick math and saw that raising to $350 would allow me to push the river without overbetting the pot. It wasn't until I actually got to the river that I started to have second thoughts about whether I'd actually get paid off if I pushed.

[xorbie]

If he has a made hand, what is the logic on his turn bet? He's giving you 3:1 on a board where you could easily have 12 outs to beat him, and any 8, 10, Q, K or card that makes the flush is a scare card, which is over half the deck. It seems to me that when checked to any strong made hand (77, two pair like J9s) is going to be betting at least the pot. But if you see him as more passive than that, I think your CR is good, but you may as well make it $400 to kick out any draws for the same reason I would say he should bet more.

[soah]

I saw his turn bet as a sign of weakness. He wasn't worried about draws because there were more immediate concerns present to him (as in, that he's already behind) or because he was on a draw himself and simply taking another cheap stab at he pot to see if I'd go away.