So i was in a spot last night that made me learn something new. Thought i'd share. Hero has starts with ~$60 in the SB with AKo there are three limps in front of me and raises were called rather loosely so I decided to make a big one to $6 out of the SB. This might be a bit big, in retrospect I would rather make it like $4 or $4.50. Anyway, second limper called and he has a little less then me about $58 effective. So the flop comes KTQhh. My hand is probably best here and I decide to bet $8 for value and probably fold to a raise. Villian just called. I ruled out two pair, set type hands as they probably would raise the flop so still think my hand is good. The turn is a big fat brick the 4s.

Ok here is my question. The pot is ~30 and I have 44 behind in my stack. Whats the best option. Shove All in. Bet 2/3 pot, Bet 1/2 pot. I think if you bet you get called here by draws and weak made hands a lot but if the draw misses on the river they most likely won't bluff. With that logic it makes sense to just shove all in and look to get called by worse hands and draws if they so choose to. Is there merit in betting a normal size bet. e.g 2/3 or 1/2 pot and then checking river if draw hits. At that point pot would be so big u would get like 3 to 4 to 1 on a call on the end, but you're probably beat and its such a big mistake to fold a hand such as TPTK in this spot.

Would love to hear your thoughts?

Do we have the A/K? Your hand is pretty face up IMO. The board should smack your range. All your questions depend on the tendencies of V. I don't think there is anyway we could answer the question without you giving us more info on him/her.

You want to bet enough to make him really pay to draw. Bet at least 2/3rds pot. Hope he calls with his flush draw or other drawing hands (pair + straight draw). If he's really bad, you could shove and he will call with a draw.

We don't have any hearts in our hand. Villian can be tricky, he is passive mostly in general but will bet his strong hands aggressively.

If we bet 2/3 pot e.g. 20 on the turn we are left with 24 behind on the river. What do we do if a draw comes on such as a 9, Ace or heart. Do we check/fold, check/call. Thats really the question?

By making the bet on the turn you have pot committed yourself to calling the river. That's one of the reasons I will tend to make a larger bet on the turn. Think about your river action prior to choosing the bet size of the turn bet.

Also, this board is pretty scary and I don't think a turn check is bad either (albeit based on your read, you would obv bet here).

I'm just going to pot it OTT. The board should smack your range and there is no reason to get all tricky here with potential FD's out there. This hand is pretty straight up and easy to play... bet bet bet.

I'd definitely raise smaller pre. I kinda like the idea of pot control here. I'm not saying you have to give up on the hand but this might even be a situation where I check the flop and then bet the turn to under rep AK. I dunno. I just hate this board for AK and think it's a mistake to play it too aggressively. Agree that more villain info would be a big help. I.e. have you seen him call big raises KJ QT type hands, etc.?

I agree with Fold, this is a dangerous board where you can easily be beat. It's also risky to make it 12xBB OOP preflop since you're going to whiff the flop two-thirds of the time.

I love threads about small stakes home games, I've made a number myself, I often find the decisions more difficult and more interesting than hands from 1/2 and 2/5, because of the deep stacks and very wide ranges.

So then are we giving OP no credit for his reads? Or are we just so used to obv bad beat threads that we mix all the threads together? Not sure why we want to play this so passively if we think we have the best hand a good number of the time.

OK, so i don't think the pre-flop raise is bad, some might agree that it could be a little smaller but I like to punish these limpers in a game where you will likely be getting called by a very wide range of hands. In other words ending the hand right here is a good result from OOP. I think what fold4once has a point about checking the flop. I wouldnt say i always do it but as Harrington says the best way to play a small pot is to check the flop. But i think caution on the super coordianted board is a good line.

I don't mind pot controlling if we were deeper but I don't think you can check this flop as the preflop raiser. What do you do when you check and they bet, do you just call. Now you're playing a guessing game. I think you should bet a lot of your range. Especially with all the draws out there you'd be missing value by checking. If you're raised well most of there range would be strong made hands and less draws. When they call most of there range is medium made hands and draws. I think I like betting better.

I would use the word carefully in place of passively. I think we're beat often enough that it's a mistake to be nearly all in by the turn.

I think the preflop raise size made the rest of the hand really difficult to play correctly depending on villain (who I still don't know a lot about other than he is passive sometimes tricky and bets made hands). Effective stacks are ~120BB, right? You almost don't have a choice other than bet bet bet. So the hand plays itself. With a smaller pot, I think it's easier for you to check one street (which you want to do, whether it's flop or turn). The question is, is this guy the type of person who is going to give you 3 streets of value when you have TPTK? If the answer is no, then you make a mistake if you don't slow down somewhere, and it all starts with planning your hand from the PFR.