ZOOM 2P against big River shove

At a first glance this looks well played. I would probably fold OTR too. Imo river raises are very often nuts. I haven't seen many river raise bluffs from regs.

I tried to figure out a GTO answer to this and oh boy it is difficult (because I'm not very good at this :roto2:)
But here is what I came up with:

I tried to put you on a reasonable range and see what range you should end up with OTR if you play balanced. Imo it looks like your range is quite value heavy on this board from the start. But let's skip my flop and turn analysis and go straight to river.

I tried to put you on a river betting range and for me it looks like you could 3barrel with these hands: JJ+,99,66,J9s,AhJh,JhTh,8h7h (32 combos)

So, the pot size after your bet is 4.42$ and villain raises to 7.08$, right? This means you have to defend about 39% of your betting range (12 combos).
So if you fold QQ+,AhJh and call with the rest, you should be unexploitable. If I'm right.
However I have probably screwed up with my calculations. In real life I still would like to fold vs a NL5 reg who is raising the river

Bet bigger on the turn and x/call any river that is not a heart, A or K.

I like it as played. The smaller betsizing are good to lure villain into calling with weaker hands. That is exactly what we want. Lookin to villain's stats, it is highly likely that he has it.

If u like missing value and enjoy giving draws great odds, then by all means, bet small on the turn.

Half pot bet size already means villain doesn't have odds to call.

But I can sort of agree with you both. Imo it is not bad to just barrel big when we hit and hope villain calls too much, but that might not be theoretically correct. When we look at hero's turn barreling range, I believe it has a lot more strong made hands (QQ+, sets, 2pair, TPTK) than bluffs. With bigger bet sizes (and planning to 3 barrel) we want to have about 1 to 1 bluff to value ratio OTT. Since I think hero's range is more value heavy, it speaks for smaller bet sizes. The more value hands we have in our range, the smaller we can bet.

I like betting river smaller and fold to a raise more than I like check calling. By betting small we get calls from weaker made hands and might prevent villain from bluffing. I think the river bet could be even smaller. Our range is strong and looks strong and I'm not sure how many good hands villain has here. The EV of a thin value bet is often close to checking.

The turn is where u will make most profit in this hand and where u should bet big. At least bet 2/3, plenty of weaker made hands and draws to call. Please, notice that a lot of draws on this board have 12+ outs and are getting almost direct odds to call with 1/2 bet. The turn is where u get value from them and where u should press for value and protection. Imho, u r way overthinking since this is 5 NL and u r always correct to bet big with strong made hands.

Noo I'm not overthinking. I just looked this from another perspective but I can still see your point and imo it is not bad. Betting big can work well here.

Btw: how many draws have 12+ outs exactly? Imo CO vs MP calling range shouldn't be very wide. He probably has big broadways and suited connectors maybe 76+? Hands like KTs,QTs and maybe even KJs and QJs might be out of his range. Since board has 9h and 6h many of his connectors that have some kind of straight draw can't have a flush draw.

KhQh, AhJh, JhTh, 8h7h .. I looked at this quickly and came up with those.. 4 combos..

Thanks for the opinions so far, this was a very difficult spot indeed :f_eek:. Regarding the bet sizing OTT, at this point, I was kinda concerned by being called by both CO and BTN. In a heads up pot, I go for bigger sizing almost always, but betting 2/3 pot size OTT in this case (3 way pot and OOP as well) has quite a big difference on pot geometry and if somehow both CO and BTN end up calling the turn, the pot gets very bloated with me having a hand OTR that I am not completely comfortable with. Then, I am probably not very comfortable either thin value betting or calling any decently sized bets from any of the Villains. Also, IMO we still have to keep in mind that both me and CO have quite a big stack behind and if we bet bigger and get called, the situation may get even worse.

OTR I tried to strike a balance between a somewhat thin value bet while it not being too small to induce bluffs from a relatively aggro Villain (may not have succeeded, oh well...), thinking about it, I should maybe think about x/c OTR against aggro Villains sometimes. The problem I see with that is that I probably miss out on a lot of value by doing this.

BTN range in this spot includes multiple combodraws as he overcalled preflop and his range is quite wide. Hands like QT, T8s, T7s, 76s, 65s and more are all there. Add the fact that a huge part of both villain's ranges is top pairs and draws and they show no aggression which in multi-way pot on such draw-heavy boards is an indication they do not have a very strong made hand, makes this an easy value bet for me on the turn (2/3 at the minimum taking into account board structure, villains' ranges and the actions so far). Betting small on the turn and river neither extracts enough value, nor protect our hand, which while strong is also very vulnerable.

I like the bigger bets idea better. We have a good hand and drawy board, so betting big has more value.

It is an easy, easy fold in deep stacks. I would avoid such a small bet OTR, probably, 1/2, may be 0.6 post size bet to avoid levelling myself. Even his wtsd is high, you, also, need to check his river raise and won when river raise. There are also not only KQ that could get lucky, but also 87. WP.