AJo heads up

Just sat down at table, never played with Villain before. For the few hands I saw, Villain played them all.

On the river, should I have capped against an unknown? He was coming at me pretty hard on both turn and river.

Party Poker 0.15/0.30 Hold'em (9 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx

Preflop: Hero is CO with J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">5 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises</font>, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, Villain calls.

Flop: (4.46 SB) A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
Villain checks, <font color="#CC3333">Hero bets</font>, Villain calls.

Turn: (3.23 BB) 5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Villain bets</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Villain 3-bets</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero caps</font>, Villain calls.

River: (11.23 BB) 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Villain bets</font>, Hero calls.

Final Pot: 13.23 BB

I raise the river and call a 3bet. I'm starting to believe he has an Ace(or 55) after that turn 3bet, I'm just not convinced his kicker is better than mine until he 3bets the river.

I probably call the 3-bet and the river here. When he 3-bets I figure my hand is worth about as much as his on average and it's time to call down. 55 looks very likely.

[Eeegah]

55 kindof sucks for us here [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

He's either got the fourth A (maybe weaker maybe not) or 55, and frankly I dunno which is more likely. I play it as you did.

Stove however says we have a significant advantage over Ax/KK/55, so we might be earning Sklansky Bucks by capping the river if we think he'll overplay his trips (hint: it's .15/30, villains overplay their trips). Even if he plays just as low as A7 this way we have a slight advantage.

Good point.

[goofball]

Perfect. When he leads into you on the river AFTER you've capped the turn he really really really likes his hand.

IMHO, you are missing value by not raising an calling if bet back to you on the river.

Casting my mind back to this kind of level (I guess this is pretty much like Stars .05/.1), the check call on the flop then going nuts on the turn smacks to me of a slightly thinnking, pretty agro player at this level trying to get tricky.

The range of hands that villain has is pretty large, if we cross our fingers and hope that he is bright enough to 3-bet AK preflop (maybe a 50/50 shot of someone doing this at this level), this leaves us afraid of three hands AQ, a slowplayed KK and 55 (again, at this level I would guess at a 50/50 chance he would have dropped this on the very threatening flop).

This leaves us with a vast range of hands that we beat - Ax, Axs QQ-22, if he rivers you with A9 / 99, shug shoulders, try hard not to tell him what a suckout laying fish he is and try and play with him often.

This range of possible holdings is too big to miss value on the river IMHO.