Hey guys!
Ok so I don't have any super hero powers. Thread title was selected by pokerstrategy.com! We now have a list of titles to pick from - so I hope you don't go around thinking I have a super inflated ego or something.
Anyway, I'm not sure if this qualifies as a hero call on river (maybe it's too strong for that), but it's certainly a bluffcatcher in this particular scenario seeing as we don't beat any of villain's value-range. However the sizings just didn't add up so it's possible to use deductive hand-reading to find a call here. Hand is below followed by some thoughts.
$0.02/$0.05 No Limit Holdem
iPoker6 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by WeakTight Poker Hand History Converter
Stacks:
UTG ($1.47) 29bb
UTG+1 ($4.10) 82bb
CO ($2) 40bb
BTN ($4.14) 83bb
SB ($2.28) 46bb
BB Hero ($5) 100bb
Pre-Flop: (0.07, 6 players) Hero is BB 8♦ K♥
3 folds, BTN raises to $0.10, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.05
Flop: 7♣ K♣ A♥ ($0.22, 2 players)
Hero checks, BTN checks
Turn: 5♥ ($0.22, 2)
Hero checks, BTN bets $0.20, Hero calls $0.20
River: J♠ ($0.62, 2)
Hero checks, BTN bets $0.60, Hero calls $0.60
Final Pot: $1.82
Hero shows
8♦ K♥
BTN shows
8♥ 10:spade:
Hero wins $1.70 (net +$0.75)
BTN lost $0.90
Preflop - Should be a pretty standard defend here vs a min-raise from the BTN. If you are not currently making this call then there is a good chance you are not defending your BB correctly.
Flop - We flop a pair with a weak kicker so correct option will nearly always be to x/c without some kind of read. Villain checks back though and we find ourself on a turn. We can usually remove most strong holdings from villain's range at this point, since he would usually choose to cbet. But there is a chance he can have some better Kx hands and some weak Ax hands.
Turn - Probably fine to lead this turn OOP for protection. If you've seen my red line rampage series you will know I am an advocate of having a very high probe bet % on the turn. There are a few exceptions here. Firstly my kicker doesn't play that well and secondly my hand is reasonably well protected. It's not super likely villain has either flush draw (hearts are a bit more likely by this stage) and I hold Kh so less worried about getting sucked out on by runner runner flush. Finally I actually still have a reasonable bluffcatcher here on the turn so rather than probe 100% frequency I think we have a pretty reasonable hand to put in our turn check/calling range.
Villain bets close to pot which is interesting. He can probably do this with better Kx hands and the weak Ax he checked back, so we are by no means always good here. He can possibly have some bluffs also so it should definitely be a check/call with intention to check/fold river unimproved.
River - River comes a J and villain decides to bet pot. His line doesn't make a huge amount of sense. I imagine he would have picked a smaller sizing with a Kx for value and also for a weak Ax. It's not impossible he plays an Ax like this however we can usually heavily discount these due to the flop play and population tendencies at this limit of betting Ax hands on the flop for value nearly always.
So by this stage we are only really losing to KJ and JJ. Any other hands that beat us are slowplays, and we don't need to worry that much about being slowplayed at this limit since it will happen with a lower frequency.
Keep in mind that this is by no means a snap-call, there is still a decision to be made. If villain had bet 2/3rds pot it should be a pretty straight-forward fold at this limit. He is repping very little and we can also tell by his stack size that he is probably a fish and capable of showing up with a wide range even on the river. Given our line (check twice indicating weakness) and given the wide range that he opens the BTN with he doesn't need to be bluffing that frequently overall for us to have a profitable call. We can use bayesian probability to help us with this type of situation assuming we had a rough idea of how often he bluffs in general. (ie even if he doesn't bluff that much in general he should have so many potential bluffs that it ends up being a call).
Anyway, we still expect to lose a decent amount but pot-odds should just about justify the river call here.
