$2 NL HE 6-max: AQo vs BB (Online fast fold): Should I call the River bet?

Preflop, flop and turn are all pretty standard. Maybe the sizings can be debated, but thats kind of a detail here. The river is not the card or action, you were looking for, and I think, its fair to say, your hand is now a bluff catcher. Meaning that either the Villain is bluffing, or you are beat. He is mostly representing a flush, and of course he could be bluffing. But its difficult to find the bluffs, since the only real draw got there. You also dont hold a diamond in your hand, so you dont block any of his flush combos. For these reasons I am ok folding here against an unknown 2NL opponent.

Not a good river to bluff catch with AQo and no diamonds.

ReaDen said:

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We can asnwer this question of river calling if we know who we are playing with. I think that depending on villain profile we could've made a 3-bet preflop, because button opens a lot of hands and AQ is not a huge hand to try to trap preflop. Villain will own plenty of dominated Ax opening from BU, but when we simply call from the blinds we have no idea where we are. We must assume all combos for villain, including AK and AA, so what's the point of calling with AT, AJ and AQ?
Personally I'm more inclined to call more often from the blinds versus button when I own AK. But AQ most of times is a 3-bet preflop, and this regardless of player profile, whether this is a NIT, a tight regular, a passive recreational or a maniac recreational.
Because when we call preflop we must already have a plan for flops that miss, for flops that hit like this one and villain bets, we must have a plan like "if we are calling on the flop is because we think we are ahead and we continue calling on X, Y, Z cards, fold to A, B, C, D, cards and raise to 1, 2, 3 cards. Even if it comes Omega, Sigma and Beta cards our plan is to fold. We must have this plan on our mind before calling because we believe we are ahead.
In this case we thought we were ahead and we called preflop. We called flop. We called turn. To simply give up the hand because it completed a flush.
I think that most of times in a situation like this, on the flop and on the turn we are way ahead of villain and we could check-raise to protect our hand and make value out of it: villain might continue paying with flush draws, gutshots, dominated Ax, and even try to defend weaker pocket pairs because we are in a blinds versus button position where ranges tend to be wide.
The point is, if there is a mistake in this hand, it began preflop, when we flatted AQ instead of making a 3-bet and taking initiative upon the pot, upon the range and upon our opponent.

Aballinamion said:

In this case we thought we were ahead and we called preflop. We called flop. We called turn. To simply give up the hand because it completed a flush.

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Am I reading that picture wrong? I thought hero is the one betting and BB is calling? And then BB donks out on the river.

puzzlefish said:

Am I reading that picture wrong? I thought hero is the one betting and BB is calling? And then BB donks out on the river.

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Nope. I read the picture wront and assigned hero to a wrong position. This way of posting hands is not very standard and it doesn't fit to the forum rules.
But mistakes can happen and the idea is also the same. The only difference is that instead of folding hero must be calling this donkbet more often than folding. Why in the world we raise preflop, bet flop and turn to fold to a donk river? If villain really completed a flush would it be doing this move to get a lot of chances of folding? And if it does complete, the odds are not so bad.
Besides this hand is not attached in a forum format, or replayer, it is all written in German.

Aballinamion said:

If villain really completed a flush would it be doing this move to get a lot of chances of folding? And if it does complete, the odds are not so bad.

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Basically this is exactly what happens at these stakes. Calling station gets there on the river and, knowing that the opponent may check back their completed flush, they will send out a "value" donk bet to try and entice a crying call from various Ax. I personally have not found people to bluff this spot very much at these stakes. They really do play this way.

puzzlefish said:

Basically this is exactly what happens at these stakes. Calling station gets there on the river and, knowing that the opponent may check back their completed flush, they will send out a "value" donk bet to try and entice a crying call from various Ax. I personally have not found people to bluff this spot very much at these stakes. They really do play this way.

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It is possible.

puzzlefish said:

Basically this is exactly what happens at these stakes. Calling station gets there on the river and, knowing that the opponent may check back their completed flush, they will send out a "value" donk bet to try and entice a crying call from various Ax. I personally have not found people to bluff this spot very much at these stakes. They really do play this way.

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Exactly. And its not an incorrect strategy either. If we want to play a GTO game, we are suppose to have a leading range on turn and river cards, that change the nuts. And a flush filling card certainly fits that bill. A GTO player of course have to balance the value leads with some bluffs. Which on this board could perhaps be busted gutshots, if these still call the turn. Or otherwise hands like KxQd or KxJd.

However as you say, in the micros many players wont have the bluffs and will typically show you a flush or another nutted hand almost every single time, they take this line. And if we want to sometimes call with top pair to confirm this population read, then we can do it, when we have a diamond in our hand. Ad5s is a better call here than AhQs, since people are almost never leading this river with an in between hand like AJ or A9.

Thanks for your thoughts on this. Sorry for not posting in the right format and confusing.

ReaDen said:

Thanks for your thoughts on this. Sorry for not posting in the right format and confusing.

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The format is fine. If possible try to change your language on GG Poker to english, since some forum members dont understand german. So that next time it will say "Bet" rather than "Setzen"

Aballinamion said:

If villain really completed a flush would it be doing this move to get a lot of chances of folding?
Besides this hand is not attached in a forum format, or replayer, it is all written in German.

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They're thinking "I HIT MY FLUSH!! I needz to get value for it! I don't want HERO to check it back"

This is your only Hand History option at the tables for GGPoker. It is same as the old ipoker sites. (software on GG is great, just the HH sucks)

Poker Orifice said:

They're thinking "I HIT MY FLUSH!! I needz to get value for it! I don't want HERO to check it back"

This is your only Hand History option at the tables for GGPoker. It is same as the old iPoker sites. (software on GG is great, just the HH sucks)

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Yeah, maybe I'm overthinking this situation a little.

ReaDen said:

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Safe fold, i dont know about the vilan game, but in most of time they will not bluff this kind of board

Seems fine to make an exploitative fold here on the river, it's very unlikely to be a bluff.

I think folding is pretty standard here if we don't have more information about villain.