Thanks for all the comments on What’s Your Play? Kings on an Ace River.
Needless to say, a lot depends on how you interpret Villain’s actions up to this point. If you believe he has a polarized range for raising flop and betting turn – meaning probably two pair plus or a bluff – then KK is a bluff-catcher and the best you can do is check and then make a guess as to Villain’s bluffing and value betting frequencies in this spot.
Personally, I agree with Pepito that, “a lot of amateur players mini-raise cbets with just top pair versus players they perceive to be aggressive usually with the faulty logic of “seeing where they’re at””. I think there’s also an element of wanting to win the pot immediately or get in control of the betting so that he won’t face a tough decision later. It’s not exactly rational from an EV perspective, but I’ve found it to be a common response when a player is nervous.
I also agree with nyy214 that, “his flop raise doesn’t look like a big hand.” Only a couple of monster hands are truly likely given Villain’s preflop call, and I’d expect some if not all of these to go bigger, on the turn if not on the flop. My first instinct when he raised the flop was that he probably had a Q. Had he bet really big on the turn, I’d be more inclined to think he was polarized, but this felt like wanting to bet but not let the pot get out of control with one good pair.
There’s also some chance of a flush draw, but I’m less sure he’d raise the flop or bet like this on the turn with a draw. I certainly can’t rule it out, though.
Check-Raise the Turn?
This raises the question, as did several of you, of whether I should have raised the turn. I think it’s close. If I were sure Villain had a flush draw, raising would clearly be correct. My value target, however, was a pair of Queens, both because I thought those were the largest part of Villain’s range and because I’m a bigger favorite against those hands.
My objective after the flop was to get two more bets out of a Q. In theory, I could get them by calling the turn and check-calling the river, calling the turn and betting the river, or check-raising the turn and checking the river, but the second option seemed best to me. A turn bet, especially on a relatively blank card, is extremely likely to get paid off. A check-raise is more threatening and may result in Villain folding weaker Qs.
Then again, three more bets may not be too ambitious against AQ, and that would require check-raising the turn and betting most rivers (though probably not Aces or spades). Given that it seems close against weaker Qs and that raising is better against flush draws, it’s very possible that raising the turn is a better play than calling.
Betting the River
Because I didn’t think that spade draws factored heavily in my opponent’s range, and because many of the spade draws he would play this way would be improved by the Ace, I didn’t see a lot of merit and checking and calling. Especially on this river card, his range consists mostly of hands with showdown value, either monsters (two pair/sets), marginal hands (queens), or something in between (aces).
The question, then, is how often he’ll have each, and whether he’ll call a bet with enough hands I beat to make up for the times that he has me beat. Pepito thinks so, and I agree:
provided [QT, QJ, QK] are within his preflop calling range (which based on effective stacks and your description of villain seems reasonable), that’s 30 combos you beat versus 19 combined combos of AQ and Axss you lose to.
given the board (busted FD), your line, and your image, this should look bluffy from villain’s perspective.
finally, villain will raise sets, and presumably never bluff raises worse. so easy bet/fold.
The only point on which we disagree is bet sizing. Whereas he advocates a little over half-pot, I decided to go smaller because the profitability of the bet is so dependent on keeping those weaker hands in his calling range.
I bet 1000, and he sort of agonized and looked annoyed in a way that told me he thought I hit the Ace, and he folded. Given that he probably folded a Queen, this retroactively calls into question the value in betting, but given what I knew at the time I still think it’s the best play.
Bluff the River?
A few people advocated either betting or check-raising the river as a bluff. Rant2112 explains the problems with bluffing quite well:
Can we turn our hand into a bluff? Probably not. I doubt Villain would fold Ax to anything but a huge bet. It is possible that we can rep a backdoor flush with a huge bet but that is very risky and counts on Villain reading the hand in too specific of a way. If we were to bluff I would prefer a check raise so we take advantage of our showdown value when Villain checks behind and because we’ll be able to make a much larger/scarier bet. I would be more inclined to bluff against a better player.
I don’t really have anything to add that.