I can come up with something, but maybe it would involve villain being a bad player or having a tell or it being a tournament or a heads-up game.
Multi-way to the flop, villain bets with a range of made hands top pair or better plus some draws in a pot that is protected by being multi-way on a wet board. Hero is the only caller. Turn is a brick. Villain bets turn with a range of most made hands trying to deny equity against draws plus some draws, so turn checking range is draw-heavy. River brings in both the flush and the most obvious straight draw while not changing top pair. Hero has the nut flush. If villain is the sort to just call a river bet, bet if checked to, and might bet-call against a river check-raise, then going for a check-raise on the river is the correct play.
I wouldn’t be that scared of the old guy in BB. He seems like the sort who would never slowplay two pair or a set on that flop because he’d be too afraid of letting the possible draws get there. Checking the turn feels weak-tight.
I’m gonna disagree with this, if villain suspects I’m taking a pot control check turn, bet river line, which I think is pretty normal when there’s one to a straight on the turn, there is a ton of value in a river check raise, blowing up a pot he knows I don’t want getting blown up. He reraises light and has more straights than I do in this spot. I don’t know why you think if I checked turn I’m automatically checking the river. Deep stacked poker there’s lots of turn checks to control the pot, especially against really good players, which leads to some interesting river bet sizing when such a good chunk of my range checks this turn. I think I should have sized up the river bet to polarize it more between bluffs and value bets, or mostly just check it back.
A pot-control line is often a decision to go for two rather than three streets of value. Recognizing that they have decided to go with flop and river as their value streets rather than flop and turn is a useful skill. (For some reason, many players don’t seem to consider checking flop when going for two streets of value).
That is something that I acknowledge is a flaw in my game. I don’t overbet pot in general, which is why limit and pot limit games are attractive to me in general. I don’t rely on live reads to just bluff with any two cards; I always need relevant blockers to give me the confidence to run a big bluff.
I also am at least somewhat balanced and take pot control lines with some of my strong hands so that someone occasionally gets punished for shoving it in my face. (Not perfectly balanced, just balanced enough that they can’t assume my range is capped.) Maybe it’s bad that I’ve taught regs with some LAG tendencies to be more cautious when I am in the pot, but I’m not sure how else to play.
The scariest NL players are the ones who put you in spots to call off 300 or 400 bb with top pair with a balanced range, as villain likes to do, as most people are over folding river
Against those players, I try to be the scariest one to try and put in those spots by being more likely to have hands better than one pair there. If I’m capable of having a straight on the turn, I’m checking behind with some fraction of them.
You just have to show them you do it more than zero percent and usually they are cautious enough that you can make exploitative folds.
With some regs, there’s this dance where I demonstrate I can slow play and they back off for a time. Then, I slowplay less or not at all. Eventually, they revert to their more aggressive tendencies and start bluffing more. And I go back to setting more traps.
I know some in this thread seem to have an “lol live reads” attitude, but I’ve always found that the most useful live tell is when they show me they telegraph whether they are going to bet or raise or call or check behind me. It’s more useful than strong or weak tells, which often just confirm what you learn from their betting.
At low levels, trapping is the least important poker skill as it’s almost always wrong yet you (and hellmuth) are under the impression all your profit comes from trapping people who can tell within three orbits you are a 10% vpip nit who should never ever be paid off.
I’m not sure who is the lol live reads crowd, as it’s a super important part of live poker, but it’s much more effective when you’re the aggressor and not the check caller
With a tight image, your profit comes less from value betting and more from bluffing and bluff-catching. The nits who always have exactly the hand they are representing are the ones who don’t get paid off. If you have a tight image, you need to under-rep your hand sometimes.
I’ve always found it easier to read an opponent’s hand when they have more strategic options. Hand-reading is harder when you give them more opportunities to auto-check with 100% of their range.