Flop: OTF I am employing a selective c-betting strategy with a polarized range and my weakest top pairs often go into the checking range. I think this specific hand can mix. The nice property of checking it is that we can hold straights and defend vs. overbets in the branch of the game tree where we check and an 8 makes a four-to-straight board. Also this hand cannot go for three streets of value, hence much of its EV might stem from (i) bluff-catching and (ii) thin value bets on later streets against a wider calling range after we check back.

River: We face the 2x overbet. Pretty horrible spot, but do we call with the straight blocker?