$40-45 is fine.

Not because I'm scared to play OOP vs 4 players.

Because $40-45 will still get called by 1 or 2 players most of the time, and your equity is way better vs 1 or 2 players. $40 is only too much if no one calls most of the time (which is just never true in LLSNL).

Raising to $20 and have everyone call IS bad for your equity.

Unfortunately that's not what people were saying. It makes a difference why we're doing what we're doing. Most people explicitly said we should raise to $45 because we WON'T get multiple callers.

I'm also curious why raising to $20 and getting 4 calls is bad for our "equity?"

If they're going to setmine they're going to hit the same regardless of the pot size. It's only an issue if we can never fold post, and we just need to make the SPR as high as possible so that we're not making as big of a mistake when we stack or that we get more money when we stack and we're best.

IMO the only reason raising to $20 is bad is that they'll call bigger bets and we miss value because we could have got more $$ in with the best hand.

1 vs 1 has better odds than 1 vs 5 for the most obvious reason...

I can see why you have issues with thinning the field if you can't grasp above concept.

because it drops a lot?

Is it better to have 80% equity with one caller in a $90 pot when you raise to $40, or ~ 40% in a $110 pot with 4 callers of $20?

Admittedly, I'm not sure what our equity would be like 5-ways, I know it is a lot less than HU though (maybe my 40% estimate is to low?) This is also talking hot and cold equity, obviously it goes way up for just flop equity.

1 vs 0 has better odds than 1 vs 1, so I assume your advice is always open shove with KK regardless of the pot size since it improves our chances of not getting sucked out on.

I can see why you have issues with playing any hand postflop if you can't grasp the above concept.
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I never said we should raise to $15 so everyone has to call. I said we shouldn't raise to $45 FOR THE SOLE REASON OF SHUTTING EVERYONE OUT, AND IF 1 PERSON CALLS SO BE IT.

There's a huge difference between what SABR42 said, which is "raise to $45 to get more money in the pot because they'll call you anyway" and what you and others are saying, which is "raise to $45 because we want at least 2 to fold because we can never play KK multiway."

You might as well say that we should always limp with AA so we can get everyone in the hand.

Come on! It's really quite straight forward. Our raise is intending to thin the field because at SD or even just the flop, KK is really not that strong against 4 players.

This is a mistake people frequently make. We're 80% vs a small pp WHEN ALL 5 CARDS ARE OUT. We're not 80% on the flop only, we're much better than that. Otherwise we'd only need 4-1 to setmine.

Sure, if we get 5 ways and they're all in preflop we're ~40%. Does that mean if we saw 4 shoves in front of us with AA we'd fold preflop? No.

So again, I'm not necessarily thrilled with 5 callers but a lot of that 60% equity you're talking about comes from gutshots, backdoor flushes, spiked sets etc ON THE TURN AND RIVER which SHOULDN'T CALL ON THE FLOP. With KK, part of that 60% equity is like A2 on a Q873 board hitting an ace on the river.

If they fold preflop, they don't have that opportunity to make a mistake calling our cbet with Q9 on a QT3 board and hitting the 9 on the turn.

...

I guess we can agree to disagree.

OP said $20 would get THREE TO FOUR CALLERS. I'm going off of his reads.

If $30 gets us 2-3 callers we should be decent enough postflop to play KK in a 3 way large pot even if we're OOP. That's all I'm saying.

I would rather have poor players in the hand so they can make mistakes calling when they shouldn't. If you disagree that's fine.

@pokerisfrustrating

Finally some decent advice in this forum.

Depends. If we have a choice between 40% of $400 and 80% of $250, it's 80% all day. Simple math.

this is a really good thread

so frustrating what do you do if you raise it 20 on top, get 3 callers, flop comes Q84 two hearts you bet get 1 caller turn 2s you bet and he raises? or what if he raises that flop? you can easily be ahead of a AQ, KQ, QJ, combo draw type hand but now you are oop playing the guessing game

say villain is random dude you have no experience against, since its so easy to fold an overpair do you just let it go?

or say the flop is the perfect flop for someone with a set to slowplay on like 10 3 2r, turn 7 and you bet flop, bet turn, and now a Q hits the riv you value bet again right? so if you are starting with a 500 stack, put in 25 pre, bet 70 on flop, 145 on turn, now your river bet is probably a shove right?

im not disagreeing with you and think you are giving some good advice here, just wondering what you do in those spots because i think they would be some really tough ones and are the situations i try to avoid

WTF @ anyone suggesting $20, WTF WTF WTF

Raising to 4BB with 5 limpers is an absolute joke. Raising to 8BB with 5 limpers is not even remotely high, especially not for live- hell that's not even high for online. Sorry that everyone folded this one hand, but if this is a common occurrence (like even 25% of the time) I suggest doing this with ATC.

The reason we are raising to 8BB with 5 limpers and not 4BB is for VALUE. Same reason you bet PSB instead of half pot even though you are less likely to get called.

EDIT: by the way, raising to $40 and getting 2 or 3 callers is higher EV than raising to $40 than getting 1 caller. So I don't really want to discuss "thinning the field" here. The most relevant thing by far in this hand, is that a $40 value bet is better than a $20 value bet in this scenario.

You're probably making at LEAST 100bb/100 for this one hand if you bluffraise to $65 in this situation then with 23o, obviously you can't do it every single hand but yea.

If he raises the turn I fold. That's never a bluff. If he raises the flop, it's villain dependent. If he's like a 70 year old nit I just fold, b/c he's not raising AQ. If he's some aggro drunk guy maybe I shove. That's poker though isn't it?

If we're HU, how would it be any different? If you're never folding KK preflop, why do you prefer a smaller flop pot size? Why would villain be more likely to raise AQ on a Q84 flop multiway (when there's more ways for him to be behind) than a HU pot where he thinks he's good?

We face the same problem HU. We raise to $45 preflop. We get 1 call. Villain calls TT and flops top set on 10/3/2r. Do you fold somehow? No. So we get stacked anyway, only we get less money in preflop from other villains when we get it HU.

We have to remember villains don't set EVERY TIME. What happens if Villain calls our raise with AQ or QJs and flop comes Q84? Most of the time they're not folding if the turn and river brick out.
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I think maybe I got a little heated and wasn't totally clear. I understand "thinning the field," but the advice I was hearing was obliterating the field, not thinning.

If $20 is going to get 4 calls then go ahead and make it $30 or something. But lets not waste KK by making such a big raise that we blow everyone off of their junk hands that we really want to call.

My reading of OP was that $45 was huge for the game. So I'd rather raise small and risk 4 callers than raise huge and risk zero.