Hero Call Brag: You Are Right. I don’t have the spades ♠️
Four people, who have been playing each other many hours and many nights, are doing this again and one new guy is in the mix for the second time, trying to survive, playing tight and watching the action with a bucket of popcorn 🍿
Julio, the any-2-card-boy, opens for 3BB. The Main Villain Alan makes it 10bb from the SB.
I have A♥️Q♥️ on the BB and cold call, because Julio rarely folds to three-bets in position unless he needs to urgently go to the bathroom, and Alan knows it, so he is never 3-betting him out of position without a strong hand. He’s just not getting fancy with A2o here.
I call and Julio calls. We both have Alan covered, sitting on 200bbish stacks.
Flop comes 10 ♠️6♥️7♥️
The Main Villain checks, which means he has nothing. He would always bet here with an overpair or better.
I check my nut flush draw with two overs, because this flop is a Julio neighborhood and I am too likely to face a big raise here if I stab.
Julio would try to take the pot down with any hand as mighty as a gutshot, so when he checks behind, I know that he also missed this board by a dozen miles.
The turn is Q♠️, Alan checks again and I bet 15 bb, half the pot. Julio folds, surprisingly Alan quickly calls and he does not look strong at all. What kind of hand does he even 3-bet, check, check-call with?
Ok, I’ll think about it later, a spade might not be an ideal card to see... and here comes the river:
5♠️
... and here comes a 62 bb bet into a 60 bb pot from the Villain.
I pause for a second and reflect. This card does seem ugly, also because I block the busted heart draw bluff, but wait for a second...
By his bet-sizing Alan is telling me he has a flush, but what kind of hands with two spades is Alan 3-betting the flop out from the small blind with, if the queen and ten of spades are on the board?
A♠️J♠️ and A♠️K♠️ only. Would they check the flop? Yes. Would they check the turned straight-flush draw with overs, after both me and Julio showed weakness and checked back on the flop? No, from what I know about Alan he worships the straight-flush dream so he would be always be betting and insta calling any raise if he had such a draw.
I am certain he is c-betting an overpair or better on the flop 100% of the time, so AA, KK, QQ and sets make no sense in my head. He is not 3-betting pre OP with anything that would make a straight or two pair on this board. This line is just fishy and Vilain’s body language screams weakness.
Well, if he was tricky enough to take this line A♠️X♠️, he’s gonna profit from it, because I am calling.
Alan shows AKo without a spade and I think this play was to state the least ambitious.
Floating the turn in position (!) to bluff the river IF(!) it is checked to you can be a great, but floating the turn out of position to bluff the river is just reckless.
You showed weakness by checking the turn. You are first to act on the river and have to bluff in the dark. It’s true that at least half of the deck would be a good bluff card, but can you credibly represent here?
Your opponent might easily have a hand that you are reping, especially when you don’t have a blocker, like Alan didn’t. We know that if he tried to bluff on a heart, that wouldn’t have gone well either.
It would be a great check on the turn if you were a preflop aggressor and actually turned a straight-flush draw.
You reevaluate if somebody behind you bets: if they seem weak you could jam, if they have a hand and you check the turn, it will be hard for them to believe you have the nuts when you hit.
CONCLUSION
It’s interesting to play people who know: you know and they know that you know and they know that you know that they know.
Here’s exactly were the bloody GTO is to be applied. You shouldn’t always be betting when you turn a monster draw. Otherwise they will know you don’t have it when you check.