Blocker Bet

 

So here was a hand I played last night that I can discuss how I could have played it differently.  

First lets talk about villain.. he was an aggro donkey that was playing 88/36 w/ 27.7% 3b over 150 hands.  LOL.  His aggression continued post flop as well, 3.8 AF, 47% ag frequency.  wtsd 22%, w$sd 16%. So he was blowing people off their hands a lot of time, but was bluffing so much that he was losing almost everytime he did go to sd. 

I don't mind how I played this hand through the turn, letting him hang himself is easily the best way to get value from this donkey, no need to scare him off.  Obviously this turn card is super terrible for me, otherwise I would have gotten it in right there.

So... river play is where I think I could have done something different.  This guy is so aggro, I know he's going to bluff me with all his Ax, Kx hands and also obviously bet out his Jx hands that have the nuts.  Knowing that he's going to bluff me everytime and there's just not a way I can call his bluff, I could have put out a "blocker bet" to try to get to showdown w/o putting the rest of my stack on the line.  Sure, I could still face a shove, but even an aggro donkey is going to think I have a J here 90% of the time if I lead out, so I think by making a $3 blocker bet, I could have gotten to showdown and won the hand in this case, or at least had a much greater chance of getting there.  Facing his shove there's just no way I can call here.  If I did have a J here, 100% of the time I'm checking to this idiot and letting him hang himself.