should you always triple barrel after a double barrel?

It depends.

If villain is a calling station who would go to showdown with A6o (third pair), then your expected value from a river bet would be much worse than playing a nit. If villain is a nit, what would he have called two streets with, that would give up on the river?

I would presume one of the best ways to calculate whether your decision in this spot is +/- EV is to calculate the fold equity.

pot : river bluff size = 1 : 2/3 = 3 : 2 => 40% fold equity required.

for a 1/2 pot bluff - 1: 1/2 = 2:1 => 33% fold equity required.

for a 1.5x pot bluff (consider a shove) - 1 : 1.5 = 2 : 3 => 60% fold equity required.

This becomes difficult if we don't have any reads on villain; else we may not have semi-bluffed our straight draw to a calling station on fourth, or we'd know we're behind if called by a nit.

I would say play an optimum equilibrium (though without any population reads (by its strictest definition) we may not be able to define an equilibrium). Optimum? Big pots for big hands, small pots for small hands.

Hi, Suboptimal88
Disclaimer: I am NOT a coach!;

(btw, I love your name!)

There is no "always" in poker.

However, in this case, where you were betting solely on overcards OTF and OESD OTR, can bet/fold really hurt on the river?

Some alternate lines:
♦  X flop, B turn -- the delayed CBet. nice if T is a scare card -- A, K or Q
♦  CBet flop, X turn, B/F river

Some random thoughts:
♦  What is your image? Are you hyper-aggressive? If so, they are less likely to believe you.
♦  OOP, if you check the R vs a hyper-aggro villain, you may try a check/raise -- but that's gambling ♠_biggrin:
♦  IP I really, really hate it when I get called down on two streets on an A-high board, check behind on the river and lose to pocket 3s or some such, when a bet on the R would almost certainly take the pot.

Best of luck,
VS

What you read doesn't necessarily mean that the third barrel is always +EV but more likely that (in some situation) it's best to shoot either 1 or 3 barrels, not 2. This is of course villain dependant.

One example when it's best to choose between 1 and 3 barrels would be a villain that never folds made hands to 2 barrels but does against 3 barrels. If you cbet the flop and the villain calls assumingly with a range of a lot of made hands of different value, a second barrel as a bluff would be a total waste of money if you weren't going to fire a third one on the river. Therefore you should either check the turn or triple barrel.

It can be quite the opposite as well. For example, we could have you 3betting against a villain that usually makes his decision of calling down or not on the turn in 3bet pots. Against him you should never fire the third barrel as a bluff whereas double barreling air could be a viable option.

It depends on opp. There's no answer is it +EV or -EV

Perhaps surprisingly, the calling station is the ideal opponent to 3-barrel against. (Why?)

Hi, Suboptimal, you are the only one who can find the answer you are looking for, as you know it is complicated thing and it needs a lot of info, i suggest get pokerstrategys equilab, flopzilla or some other calculator where you can do multiple street analysis, i suggest check out google or ps video section to find a guide how you can calculate similar spots yourself.

This is the first time i hear this generalized claim.
What calculation would you base this on?

If you are looking for general answer, I would say answer is YES.
Since poker is game of adjustment played by real people, having a fixed strategy can really back fire. In other words, if opponent sees you ONCE that you tripple barreled bluff or turned 99 into bluff on KQxxx board, he will adjust accordingly and then you will be the one who is loosing money long term.
To answer this question, you obviously have to take into consideration some key factors:
- Blind/stack size
- Opponent type
- General tendencies at limits you play regarding opponents facing triple barrel
- If that opponent has specific reads vs you
- How does that opponent sees you and your perceived ranges pre and post flop
- Board texture and how it improves or improved his/hers or your range

This is just from top of my head but I am sure many other cash game pro's can elaborate on this topic even more in depth.

Great idea for thread by the way