When you get to about the 2/4 or 3/6 level, an important goal to set for yourself is to make it hell for your opponents to show down marginal hands against you when they are out of position. The deeper you get, the wider the definition of marginal becomes, and here the stars really aligned nicely for me. The Villain is an occasional short stacker, and although he had a bunch of money spread out across a few 10/20 tables tonight, I still felt that he’d be a little uncomfortable with the idea of a $17K pot:
Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $20.00 BB (6 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
BB ($6735)
UTG ($2000)
MP ($11444)
Hero (CO) ($8761)
Button ($3940)
SB ($6294)
Preflop: Hero is CO with 6
, 9
1 fold, MP bets $70, Hero calls $70, 2 folds, BB calls $50
Flop: ($220) 10
, 2
, 8
(3 players)
BB checks, MP bets $160, Hero calls $160, 1 fold
Turn: ($540) Q (2 players)
MP bets $400, Hero raises to $1555, MP calls $1155
River: ($3650) 5 (2 players)
MP checks, Hero bets $2977, 1 fold
Total pot: $3650 | Rake: $3
Honestly, my initial plan was not to bluff again on the river. I felt that the turn raise would be enough to threaten his stack and get him off of an overpair or AQ-type hand. He called so quickly, though, that I just felt he couldn’t have a set. With the interest I’m showing in the pot and the draws on the board, I think he would at least consider jamming the turn with a big hand like that. So, I decided to throw a big river bluff at him to represent a set or straight.
“I felt that the turn raise would be enough to threaten his stack and get him off of an overpair or AQ-type hand … I think he would at least consider jamming the turn with a big hand like that.”
You made a great move but your thinking is flawed. Villian cannot jam the turn with AQ or KK+, because you are representing J9 for a flopped oesd and the turned nut straight. If he 3-bets tur and you shove then he must fold and if he jams then he knows he’s only getting called by the nuts or a set (i.e. hands that beat a pair).
Villian played it fine on the turn but his mistake was if he plans to call the turn bet and then check the river, he needed to do so with the intention of picking off river bluffs or marginal hands. But who knows … maybe villian was semi-bluffing on some draw that missed and intended to check-fold on the river, hence the quick call on the turn.