Bluffing line check @ NL50

shakinaces

Figured the donk lead to include sets, Qx or flush draws.  Possibly some tentative 2nd pairs that didn't squeeze (JJ-88).  Not much experience at NL50 though so perhaps BB defence range is much wider than lower levels.

The prospect of better flush draw, plus it still being multi-way, being what made me shy away from raising flop. Don't really want to get blasted off my own draw if they have hit a set and not sure Qx folds flop, although appreciate it lines them up to be barrelled off.

In retrospect, I figure I probably should have raised turn when I pick up a gutshot as well?

As played should I just be giving up river (can't really rep hitting anything so only clear out other flush draws and any 2nd pairs that were value/protection betting)?

Player	Action	Cards	Amount	Pot	Balance
sb	Small blind		£0.25	£0.25	£56.61
xxxxxxxx	Big blind		£0.50	£0.75	£55.70
	Your hole cards	8 9
Simpson88	Fold
killinder1	Fold
shakinaces	Raise		£1.50	£2.25	£48.50
BU	Call		£1.50	£3.75	£8.16
sb	Call		£1.25	£5.00	£55.36
xxxxxxx	Call		£1.00	£6.00	£54.70
Flop
		Q 2 7
sb	Check
xxxxxxx	Bet		£3.00	£9.00	£51.70
shakinaces	Call		£3.00	£12.00	£45.50
BU	Fold
sb	Fold
Turn
		5
xxxxxxx	Bet		£6.00	£18.00	£45.70
shakinaces	Call		£6.00	£24.00	£39.50
River
		4
xxxxxx	Check
shakinaces	Bet		£15.50	£39.50	£24.00
xxxxxx	Call		£15.50	£55.00	£30.20
shakinaces	Show	8 9
xxxxxx	Show	Q 8
xxxxxx	Win	Pair of Queens	£53.20		£83.40

BigHawk89

What you trying to bluff him off on the river? Doubt he folds the Q and doubt he has 88-JJ.

One of the most annoying situations here is if you decide to check give up and he turns over Axss or Kxss etc so if you think he has a wide range of these hands there's no need to bet so big you could even bet something really small like £5-£10 make it look like your dying for some value. 

Makes it cheaper for us to bluff and we lose less when were just getting x/c.

yuranASSet

With two behind on the flop and your draw so weak, you probably should be folding in that spot. 

JustPaid

Fold turn. 

LittleGJ

raise turn shove river 

The--Don

I would have taken a very similar line to you.

I go for the bluff more often than I probably should in spots like this. 

I wouldn't hate shoving. He so rarely has anything better than one pair here and I don't think overbetting rivers as a bluff is something you see too often at these limits, so even though we can't have much either, I think people see nutted hands so often when they call shoves, it carries a decent amount of fold equity.

percival09

I'd say the river analysis from Don is quite solid. By the river, any Qx we have is going to be a very marginal value bet and is most likely going to be a check. This basically means our main value hand on the river is going to be quite strong, minimum some strange 2 pair or more likely a flush. With this range we want to bet big, presuming villain quite often has a 1 pair hand and isn't likely to be slow-playing a big hand (and therefore reducing the chance of getting x/r).

When our value betting range is so far ahead of villains defending range on the river, more often than not theoretically it makes sense to increase our betting size, which makes a overbet good play. I'm not sure if it'd be the most effective thing vs this player since a lot of weaker players don't understand pot odds and ranges. If you think villain is stationy then yh, I'd say check quite easily becomes the best play. And of course if you think villain is just checking here with missed flush draws or something, then a small bet makes the most sense.

With regard to bluffing frequencies, we do have to be careful here because we're not going to have too many flushes, and villain might just insta put us on a missed draw and snap with anything. I think checking is completely fine even though it is "the bottom of our range" - that just doesn't matter when we're not repping a wide range of hands and villian might be stationy. In game, I'd take a nice deep breath, repeat in my head over and over "OMG he's gonna snap OMG he's gonna snap" and then bet exactly 148.4% pot.

I think raising an earlier street is fine too, flop or turn. 

shakinaces

Thanks for the feedback.  Not played much at NL50 so the names were new to me and therefore no real reads to work on, just trying to figure population tendencies.

At the risk of setting myself up to be utterly stationed in the coming weeks, I do fear that I bluff too much in these spots which was the main point for the post.  As BigHawk suggests, I just have an inner hate all the times I check behind in these spots and see a better FD that would almost certainly have folded.

FWIW as well as missed draws I was also hoping to push off all other non Queen pairs - although that is probably the impact of too much time at NL10 where a donk multiway is just as likely to be a 7x or 88-JJ.  Perhaps the general population at NL50 are a bit beyond that. 

Either way, comments on bet sizing makes sense, I'm in no-mans land here and that is arguably the worst part / easiest fix. Good case for 1/2 pot (maybe even slightly less) or pot (maybe 148.4% ) but 2/3... meh.

There's probably also a lesson to self in respect to defending BB, something I've been trying to work on recently... although still not sure I'm super keen to add Q8o to my own defending range just yet. Definitely starting to appreciate the need for a wider defending range though...

F_Ivanovic

His defend with Q8o pre is pretty bad.