K♠K♣ vs a River Bet, what do you do here?
DECISION POINT: In a Cash Game, you raise from UTG+1 with K♠K♣. The player in the Hijack calls and everyone else folds. You continuation bet the J♣J♦Q♠ flop and the Hijack calls. The Turn brings the the 2♥, you bet again and your opponent calls. On the Q♣ River, you check and your opponent bets about 75% of the pot. Action is on you, what do you do here?
PRO ANSWER: In order to call $1150 on the river to win what will be a total pot of $3875, we must believe that our hand is good at least 1150/3875 or approximately 30% of the time.
Since Villain is unlikely to value bet any worse hands than ours, we must believe that Villain’s range consists of at least 30% bluffs to justify a call.
They could potentially bluff with hands like T9s, KTs, and counterfeited lower pairs like 99 or 88. However, most of the pairs lower than a Jack fold to a turn bet and we block 2 combos of KTs. So that leaves T9s as the only common bluffing hand for Villain. Those two hands total 6 combinations of bluffs.
Continued below...
Villain could be betting any Qx or Jx hand for value, of which there are around 50 combos that are likely in their range. All of these combos beat us and will often be played this way by our opponent.
Overall, their hand range is comprised of bluffs far less often than 30% of the time. There simply aren't enough bluffs in Villain's range to justify calling.
Folding on the river is the best play.
How would you play it?
Share your answer in the comments below!
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