Getting back into poker and LHE after a year of minimal play. I've been experimenting with more passive lines vs certain bad aggro villains with the middle part of my range (hands with showdown value but end up being more bluff-catchers than anything else).

7-handed 20/40. Hero's image is solid, basically showing only winners thus far. The blinds in this hand are bad LAGs who have a fold button (i.e. will bet if no one seems interested, but won't generally raise with nothing).

Hero is UTG+1. Folds to hero who raises with pocket 10s (suits unimportant), fold, Tight-Passive calls in CO, fold, bad LAG calls SB, very bad LAG calls BB.

(I put CO's cold-call range here as the usual for mediocre villains, such as low pocket pairs, suited Aces, or something middle to high suited and/or connected)

Flop: QJ5 rainbow

SB and BB check, I check (???), CO checks.

(I know the common line here would be to B/C or maybe B/F if CO raises, though probably still B/C given the backdoor outs.)

I'll make this a play-along.

Flame away at my deviation from standard TAGfish play...

wa/wb is usually best applied in heads up pots. multiway it's much more about getting value and sometimes protecting your hand.

welcome (back?) to the forum

I think you're going to get a lot of value on a QJx board. AK AT T9 T8 98 99-.

I would bet the flop, and fold to a CO raise.

In general, you want to widen your calling and raising ranges against LAGs, i.e., call some hands you'd normally fold and raise some hands you'd normally call. But like BBB said, multiway, it's less important than ending up with the best hand at showdown.

Unfortunately, you will also lose a lot of value on this board: AQ,AJ,KQ,KJ,QJ,QT,Q9,JT,J9,Qxs,J6s+,55

Note also, that if you bet, get raised, and get one more call, you will be getting 13:1 to call. You have 2 outs to a set and backdoor straight outs. With implied odds, the decision to call or fold will be close. That's an awkward spot to be in.

I think checking here is OK.

Standard check back for me against remotely sane Pf ranges.

I like check back things with outs like AT. And I think that two LAGs in the blinds is a good reason to think ranges may not be sane.

There is a lot to consider in this spot

Against a snug CO, if we check, we can safely x/f and save close to a SB.
Free card is also good with our BDSD.

Checking also gives either LAG a chance to bluff turn/river (Given description of blinds, we don't hate calling down in that spot). If villain has {98 T8 T9}, good chance lag bluffs and we profitably bluff catch. Better than trying to extract value by betting and getting called.

You gain little to no value from betting and getting called by AK or 9T. Villain will have ~33% equity, putting in 25, 33, or 50% of the bets on the flop.

99- is iffy whether betting flop gains value. Say you get called in one spot by 99-. Turn is a blank. What do you do, and what do they do. If you bet turn and they fold, it's a meh result. You could have checked flop, bet turn, and gained more value, assuming they call turn. If they would call twice with 99-, then you could check flop and bet turn+river and still gained more value. Of course different runouts may affect how much value each line gets. Same analysis goes if villain has 5x. If they would call flop and fold turn, by delaying, you can induce them into incorrectly calling a BB on the turn instead.

The scariest part of checking this flop, IMO, is giving Kx or Ax free cards to catch up (or to a PP that would have folded for 1 SB). That's the only disaster to checking. Disaster to betting is plentiful -- someone has a J or Q and you value own yourself.

In conclusion, TT isn't good enough to vbet 3 streets of value. So, give strong consideration to which streets you do want to vbet for value. Most people default to bet flop bet turn. But at least think about the other two combinations. Or vbetting 1 street. Having a semi-strong checking hand to bluffcatch is also desirable.

+1

We have a straight draw bro.

It's a gutshot.

Incorrect. 16 cards make us and 2 more set outs. Nuclear wrap.

Spiking a set gives everyone a straight draw and AK makes your T outs dirty. Only a 9 gives you boner inducing outs and maybe half chub with 8s.

Fff

Thanks to everyone's replies thus far. I think this is a close spot (thus the post). I think if I was playing GTO with regular villains, I might go 60% bet, 40% check here.

The main issue here for me in this situation, in isolation, is a debate between value betting vs. being value owned. I don't mind making a tough decision on later streets if I can maximize LAGs' spew or save some bets to being outflopped by villains.

phunkphish's though process, rightly or wrongly, was what was going through my mind when I checked.

Regarding the LAG blinds' ranges, I would call them marginally sane. As phunkphish says, the hands that I'm worried would get a free card are Ax, Kx, 5x and 99-. Amongst the 3 villains, how likely is Qx and Jx a part of their range?

(Btw, I think we can discount AK here; those get 3-bet for sure, even by relatively snug CO.)

If I bet and 1 or more villains call, do I check a blank turn? (Either check behind if only one or more of the blinds call, or k/f to CO) Or do I bet if CO is gone?
If I bet and CO raises and both blinds call, do I call getting 15 to 1?

Yup.

You have found that GTO limit holdem is a mixed strategy of 60% betting and 40% checking in this spot? How do you know that?

It's a very uneducated estimate, obviously. I don't want to spread misinformation, so I appreciate being called out on that FOS number.

Any advice on how to estimate how often I should bet and how often I should check in this spot? (short of doing some advanced number crunching on-the-spot)

Mixed strategies are to be used when two options have the same ev. If checking and betting have the same ev, which they probably don't, then it doesn't really matter which line you choose because they both have the same ev. If you in fact find a threshold ev hand somehow, then you'd need to look at the rest of your strategy to figure out how often to bet and how often to check. Fortunately, the probability of being dealt the threshold hand is low before the river, thus we make our best guess as to which option yields the highest ev and we choose that option 100% of the time.

I wasn't actually objecting to the number as much as the claim of GTO in that spot. You could claim balance or "default strategy", but it just seems like every third post in the LHE forums is an offhand claim to having solved the game in a math sense. When someone says "I'd just revert to basic GTO play here", I never know what that means. Is this person someone who has spent thousands of hours in CREV analyzing flop spots? Is he/she someone who skimmed Pinewall's posts and cracked the first chapter of his second book.

In the end, it doesn't matter except for one thing -- by hiding strategy in opaque words, we no longer discuss why. If you said, "My equity is good, but this flop hits the other players ranges in such a way that I'm always getting raised by better and folding out worse, so I decide to check and see what happens" we have a poker discussion. If people say "I'm going GTO here and checking", we have a debate about semantics of game theory.
I'm not a some of this and some of that person. I'd look at my range, their range, the board texture, and where I'm at in my range and guess at whether betting or checking is more profitable. It wouldn't be advanced at all, I'd just guess how wide they are and how often I'm crushed drawing to 2 outs plus my BDSD and comparing that to how often I get called on 3 streets by the ace and the 7 of not having a suit.

So what would you guess you would do on this flop? If you think you get called 3 streets by A7o, something is way off.

I think its an easy check. So, a follow up: What would you do 3way (say SB folds)? What would you do 3way with QQ on a AK6 board?

Not exclusively. They can be employed when lines have different EVs but each line is exploitable in a mutually exclusive way. See the GTO RPS discussion in the MSLHE NC thread for an example.

I'd put it a little differently. We should strive to avoid being in so many "c/c and b/f are the same EV so it's a tough decision and I'm going to randomize" spots. Having these situations come up routinely is a sign you're being outplayed and your opponent(s) have found a way to pwn you repeatedly.

I have no feel for his villains. I think the spot is close. It depends on how much of the given cc range is big connectors, vs. Ax and PP. The bold part is you assuming something about his villains. Could be you play in his room and have this dialed in. This is part of the "we don't know" area of the problem. If you're saying that no villain in any game I've played would A high calldown, that's not true. If you've played in this game and you're certain, I'm good with that assessment. It means the "then" part for that case doesn't apply.

It could be the easiest check ever, assuming that you fold out worse, get called or owned by better, and that you can make your best profit by inducing. If these guys are that way, checking is perfect. I'm right with you.

Your next question is really about stoving (or combo counting) vs ranges. TT on a QJx board in a raised pot could be a decent spot. Bad villains love Ax, they re-raise a lot of big cards, they crush the raise button with big suited cards. It could be not as bad as it seems. Those same villains hit the AKx harder, because there are just so many combos of Ax in the world. We assume the villain does X so we do Y.

Now think about us (the forum people) when we decide to have a cc range. We hate dominated hands, so our range is ace-poor. We're fearless vs. LAGs with KQs and KJs and so we suck some K's out of our range. We love middle suited connectors, PP that we don't 3 bet, and maybe a few A-bad-suited. Think about our range on AKxr. We don't actually crush the board with as much of our range. The villain might decide that he's still turning QQ into a bluff by betting, but he's probably happy with his hand equity.

The board can always come out badly. With TT vs. a nit a QJx board isn't bad, because he's playing faceup and our equity is poor so folding mistakes aren't terrible. That same board with wide range nutjobs is harder, because we just have so much equity. The spot where they're just sane enough to make our decision even is a tough spot. It has nothing to do with getting outplayed. It has to do with range vs. range on a given board texture. You're not folding TT vs. these guys, so that part of your range is just going to have some flops that are meh.

I just think that if we check the flop we fold the turn something like 95%. Even if we check and the turn is a 9, we don't have the odds to call a turn bet. We are pretty much waiting for a T on the turn to continue. Essentially we are giving up on this pot.
Betting gives us a chance to push a hand w/ J out. If our table image is good, it might work to bet here.
I'd rather b/f, but I see a c/f here as well. It depends on LAGs response to cbetting. I don't think c/c is a play here vs 3 players.