$250 NL HE STT: Your thoughts?? 💭

Probably didn’t play other part of this right but mainly looking for input on the River. I’m BB in 1/3. Only 5 handed. Action goes, fold, fold, player bumps it to $10, fold, and I call with Q/8 of Diamonds. Flop comes 7, 8, 9 with 2 hearts and a Diamond. I check, he bets $20, I call, turn comes another 8 so I have trips. I check (hoping he keeps betting into me), he checks back, and the River comes a queen of hearts. I boat up. J/10 make a straight and the flush gets there. I only bet $20 on the River hoping he hit something. He min clicks to $40, I make it $140 with another $110 behind. He tanks for 2-3 mins says “I just don’t believe you” puts in the call with J/Q in his hand. Being told that I should’ve jammed but I don’t think he calls if I jam on the River. Thoughts?

You posted this in the tournament section, but I assume, this is a hand from a $1/3 live cash game?

Preflop
Definitely a standard defend to a little over a 3BB open raise from BTN.

Flop
This is a pretty big bet of almost full pot, but even so I think, you have to continue with second pair and a BDFD.

Turn
This was obviously a great card, since you now beat all overpairs and top pair hands. You also gained equity against a flopped straight, and his draws lost a lot of equity. I do think, this card gets checked back a lot, so I think, there is a lot of merit to donk betting here. If you do so, you are however representing pretty much exactly the kind of hand, you have, so I dont hate sometimes checking as well.

River
Another great card not only because you filled up and now have the third best possible boat, but it also potentially gave him a flush, in which case you can now win a big pot. Pot is $60, and apparently you have $250 left behind. Depending on your read on the opponent and his tendencies, you can both lead out for value or get more tricky and try to go for a check-raise.

If you are going to lead, I would bet more than just $20 into a pot of $60. I cant imagine, that $20 get called twice as often as $40. So I think, this is the first real misstep in the hand. However luckily for you he now raise, and of course you have to put in a 3-bet. After his raise (and your hypothetic call of it), the pot is now $60 + 2 x $40 = $140 and you make it $100 more for him to call.

I think, this is a pretty reasonable sizing, but it does depend a lot of, what you think of this player? If he is never going to fold a flush, even on a paired board, then its fine to jam for $210 more, although it is an overbet of 1,5X the size of the pot. But if he is more likely to sigh-call $100 instead of $210 with a flush, then I think, your sizing is fine.

Results
You definitely made the most, you possibly could against his actual holding. Its a pretty big mistake by him to raise top pair on the river, but apparently he misread your sizing as weak. And then as an even bigger mistake he was unable to raise-fold a marginal top pair hand. He should clearly just have called your $20 and taken a showdown.

River play- Your V told you- you made the correct play. Your read was most likely correct if you jam, they fold, they were expecting you to jam your best hands. This player was looking for a reason to call you, jamming would not be that reason.
Plus do you think the flush min clicks in this spot when you blocker bet? Also this V losses to boats-flushes- straights- 2 pair. Even the worst players can fold 1 pair on a river jam-
Would we play this differently vs other players yes- did you get the max from this player type in this spot yes.

You had a read that this V was very weak on the turn-(if so bleeding the player not jamming is better) - V should be checking over pairs on turn when you can have the nuts in your range- you have slow played straights on this board and a lot of 8x in your range and gutty combo draws etc etc. We are not always going to XR flops if our V are going to make huge EV mistakes like this player did on later streets. We will however XR the hell out of this board if the V bets turn too often.

Therefore, we would not blocker bet here but use a value/bluff bet sizing expecting to get crying call value from top pair and over pairs and for the V to jam their best flushes. That is the EV miss in this hand letting AA - QJ call $20 when they would call 35 or 40 while getting jams from flushes or even maybe some bluffs?

In this spot this V has an easy call on river when we lead, we cannot always hope our player pool play this poorly so we will miss value vs the other player type by blocker betting if they do not attack those bets regularly.

Dude is a bad player. Mark him and get him again.
What site gives you 2 - 3 min of clock? You said min clicked so I assume this is online.

Anyway, the fact he min raised the river likely means he had no flush. So an all in probably would fold him out.