River decision.

I'm not sure that a checkraise with ATo with no draws is reasonable though unless you know that this particular villian cbets too much on low boards or that the population for your stakes cbet too much here (as a population read is probably fine).

The check call on the turn is fine.

The river call is fine, a missed front door flush draw is far more common a jam for value at these stakes.

Your thinking is how I want my thinking to be, but at 2NL I think this kinda play is going to cost you in the long run. Players don't fold enough. Players are barely thinking past the cards in their hand. Other than that, nice hand

Problem is that a random villain on NL2 isn't thinking to often about what kind of range you will check/raise with. That makes a move like this really tough to make without any room to improve except 1 of your over cards. Read less it's already tricky to defend with ATo without position and you could be easily dominated against villains range.

As played I would most likely check/fold the flop with 2 over cards and not much room to improve otherwise. Turn I would play the same, but the river you need to have reads villain is capable to over bet bluff with a busted draw like now. Most villains aren't capable on moves like that on NL2 I think.

Cheers,
SDK1987

My reasoning of check/raising the flop is simple. The flop hits my BB defending range quite well, while UTG range has very few value bets on such flops. If we think of his value bets it's really only 88-AA. I think population over cbets on boards that don't Favour their range, so I think I can easily take down the pot here vs hands like KQ/KJs/AJ/QJs with no clubs. After he just calls the flop, I can safely remove his 66s/77s from his range as I don't see sets just flatting here.

That reasoning might be fine, nonetheless we don't have a profitable XR with a non equity bluff.

You can do the math, or some database research to get the answer vs population tendencies. Then you can do the same for a hand like A4o or ATdd and see how it changes...

On this board we have so many better bluff candidates (any gutshot, any backdoor flushdraw, JT) that we don't really want to start bluffing this random hand. Having equity also protects us against mistakes in our initial asesment of UTG's preflop range, betting behaviour... Eg. in this case we expected UTG to have a tight range, nonetheless he showed up w/ Q4s.

But all of this said, you should try to separate the population tendencies of unkowns or recreational with those of more serious players (nits)

Whatever the reasoning I would not make fancy plays on nl2...

Thanks for everyone's replies.
I ran this hand with a solver today, and it should be a check/fold on flop. I agree that there are better hands to X/R on such flops (gutshots/FD/Backdoor flash draws and A3 without a club blocker).
As played, solvers are check/calling Turn and River.

Hello,

Villain has an incomplete stack, I think he won't be a regular, for this reason his OR range can be very loose or very tight; it would depend on how he was playing.
I don't see a bad defense with that hand in BB, but against a villain who can be weak.
Flop I could consider an x / c with that hand, to leave all his range inside him and dominate some Axes and broadways and try to reach the SD or bluff a favorable turn or river in the face of villain's weakness, if he continues betting folding .
If I could raise an x / r with the A of clubs, because if a club falls, turn or river, I could bluff it since we could have Axs and if our bluff would be credible.

Originally posted by Xintrea
Thanks for everyone's replies.
I ran this hand with a solver today, and it should be a check/fold on flop. I agree that there are better hands to X/R on such flops (gutshots/FD/Backdoor flash draws and A3 without a club blocker).
As played, solvers are check/calling Turn and River.

I am starting to try some range moves, instead of hand moves.
One of the things I am struggling most in spots like this is to consider that my hand is blocking a big part of villain range I'd want him to have and fold:
You block a lot of his A combos. He is likely to drop A combos on the flop, but is not as likely to have one of those as if you were not holding an A yourself. Same for T (JT+ combos).
For the above reason, I find the line you took "easier" to play with absolute air, or low pocket pairs.

I don't see a lot of need to deffend BB vs UTG range (even in NL2). If that was a CO or BTN opening default ranges would be different and much on your side. Against UTG, ATo is on the bottom of his range, so no need to play a difficult hand OOP, imo.