77 BB on AAKfd: River Boat Discipline
- Hero
- 7♣7♠
- Position
- BB vs SB
- Pot
- Single-Raised Pot
- Flop
- A♦ K♠ A♠
Defend pre, bluff-catch twice, then overbet-raise the river with our full house but comfortably fold when the small blind 3-bets all-in, which is almost never a bluff at NL200.
Flop Analysis
Calling once versus the small c-bet with our underpair and backdoor equity is mandatory given the excellent price and deep stacks, even though the paired ace–king board heavily favors the aggressor.
**Ranges:** Small blind has more strong aces and kings, plus boats, but also plenty of board-pair hands and bluffs; we sit in the middle of our range, ahead of their one-pair and some air.
**Math:** Facing ~27% pot, we need only ~17% equity and have well over that, so folding would be a huge over-fold.
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> **Takeaway:** On tiny bets in range-favored spots, continue wide with anything that isn’t trash; the price does most of the work for us.
Turn Analysis
Turn is close, but calling the 2/3-pot barrel with our underpair is acceptable as a mixed strategy bluff-catch; solver splits roughly between call and fold for this exact hand.
**Ranges:** After a second barrel, small blind’s range is value-heavy (strong aces, boats, and some Kx) but still contains gutshots like JT and a few bluffs; our pocket pair is now a pure bluff-catcher that still beats their thin value one-pair region.
**Math:** We’re getting about 2.5:1, needing ~29% equity; our hand’s equity versus the betting range is around that threshold, which is why equilibrium mixes call and fold rather than taking a pure line.
**Plan:** Once we call turn, we should be ready to fold many rivers versus big polar bets with this specific hand, but continue aggressively when we improve to a boat as we did.
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> **Takeaway:** When the price is good but villain is value-heavy, underpairs on paired boards become thin bluff-catchers that can mix call and fold rather than always doing one or the other.
River Analysis
Turning our hand into a big value raise on the river is exactly what strong play looks like here: with a full house we should not just call; we should overbet-raise for value much like we did.
**Ranges:** By the river, small blind’s betting range is dominated by strong aces and boats, while we now sit at the top of our range with a full house that beats all their trip-ace holdings and many two-pair; they still have a few better boats, but those are a minority.
**Sizing:** Solver prefers a large polar raise, mostly around 1.5x pot; our raise to ~58BB over the 14.5BB bet closely matches this, extracting maximum value from trips and smaller boats instead of leaving money on the table with a call.
**SPR:** With SPR ~2.4, this is the street where stacks can realistically go in; using a big, committing raise with a top-end value hand is exactly how we capitalize on our improvement.
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> **Takeaway:** When we river a strong but non-nut boat after bluff-catching, shift gears from "call down" to "polar raise" and use a big size to punish all the trips that feel too strong to fold.
River Analysis
Folding our full house to the river 3-bet shove after we overbet-raise is correct; this line is massively under-bluffed and represents almost exclusively higher full houses or quads.
**Ranges:** Once we raise big, small blind continuing with a 3-bet almost never comes from trip aces or small boats; their remaining range is extremely concentrated on hands like higher full houses that crush us, while our bluffs have mostly folded.
**Math:** We’re getting about 4.3:1 and need only ~19% equity, but against such a value-dense 3-bet range our full house does not meet that threshold, so calling or jamming would burn money despite the attractive price.
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> **Takeaway:** Even very strong hands like full houses should be folded when our own polar value raise gets re-raised in a spot where the pool almost never finds bluffs.
Key Concepts
- Multi-Street Play
- Villain Strong Advantage
- IP
- Wet Board
- 8s7s,7s6s