99 bottles of beer on the wall...

[W. Deranged]

Hellite,

This hand is quite interesting and you should bet the river.

I initially was a little surprised by the pre-flop cap, but this is clearly quite read based. I find it quite useful in certain situations to cap heads-up with a reasonably wide range in position, as a pre-flop cap is a strong statement and often gives you much more control/leeway later in the hand (including the extremely valuable ability to encourage opponents to fold better pocket pairs on overcard boards). So I like that idea.

The aggro line on the flop and the turn is interesting. My inclination after my opponent bet out after my cap would be to call the flop and raise a blank turn, folding to a raise or taking a free showdown if given the chance. Raising the flop seems to often get in the tough position of getting three-bet and then having to making a very marginal decision against an aggro opponent. The turn raise I find to be a bit better; though you're probably not folding a better hand on this board against this opponent, a turn raise does charge draws and overcards the maximum (though this guy might just bet down with AK/AQ anyway), and costs the same as calling down. It gets in .5 BB less when you take the free showdown than the line you took, but I think it gains quite a bit in preventing marginal decisions (and possibly folding the best hand) as well as allowing for a cheap and graceful departure if the turn is an A.

(Another thing to note: against a skilled opponent-which this guy clearly isn't-the line I advocate strongly encourages villain to fold many better hands... certainly TT and maybe even AJ or QQ. The idea is that our line sort of "represents" AA or KK, and a skilled opponent might be hard-pressed to read our hand for anything but that. I've played against plenty of super-reader types in live games who would often fold QQ there.]

As played, you ended up getting the absolute best scenario, namely you raised the flop and villain showed no further aggression. With that info, I think you can bet the river.

[ErrantNight]

what do you think if you get c/r'ed on this river you're good against?

[W. Deranged]

[ QUOTE ]
what do you think if you get c/r'ed on this river you're good against?

[/ QUOTE ]

A player with 66% vpip and 1.8 aggro. factor could actually be really aggro/tricky/nuts sometimes. That's my only thought. I think a river fold to a check-raise is probably +EV, but not hugely so.

Like others have said, I think it is a bet/call based on your read. The PF cap did seem a little agro, but as you said, this was read based. I like the flop raise and turn bet.

[hellite]

Capping this preflop is certainly not standard, but I have seen this opponent raise some very mediocre hands. Further, this opponents range of 3-betting hands is wide and i am certainly ahead of a vast majority of them. I see your point regarding the turn play. My problem with this play is that sometimes it seems what happens is villain will bet flop and check or check-raise a brick on the turn even with a hand like AK. While a bet/call line on the river is ok, a bet/call a raise on the turn is not. my problem with the river - i'd obviously bet this against a fish - is that I have not seen villain call any river bets with A high or small pairs. Obviously there is no value if villain won't call with a worse hand. Even though I am pretty sure that I have the best hand, does villain call with anything worse?

[Harv72b]

If I bet this river (and I do), I'm calling a check/raise and am confident of being good well over 50% of the time against this opponent. If he had the jack or AA-QQ he would've (at least) 3-bet the flop, and if he has TT, well that's just tough luck. I'd anticipate him donking the river if he had TT, though.

Admittedly, this is assuming that a read over 40 hands is accurate, but to get an abnormal 66 VPIP/1.8 AF reading he'd have to be on the biggest rush since Limbaugh. If the read were over a larger sample, I would seriously consider 3-betting a check/raise for value.

[ErrantNight]

nice.

[W. Deranged]

A couple of thoughts:

1. The play on the flop and turn here is really open to a ton of variation based on your opponent's playing style and so on. Part of the reason I like waiting until the turn is I feel like it's probably less likely that I get three-bet or check-raised on the turn by a hand I'm beating, than I get three-bet after a flop raise by a hand I'm beating. In other words, since the turn action with generally be more reliable, I prefer to use that as the time to get aggressive. I just think that in general raising the flop puts you in many tougher position than does raising the turn. (For example, what are you doing being if villain stop'n'gos the turn...) Villain will check-raise the turn or three-bet a turn raise with AK only if he's really quite maniacal; in which case I'll agree I prefer just raising the flop and calling down if three-bet.

3. I see what you mean on the river, but note that any smaller pocket pair is almost certainly calling you down here, as perhaps is AK. His weak flop lead actually makes me think hands like AK and 88 are very likely here.

[ErrantNight]

hero's equity will improve greatly on a safe turn. i think i'd prefer to wait to raise.