Here's a pretty common type of situation. I'm somewhat curious how people here approach it. Basically, we get to a turn OOP on a draw heavy board with a hand like TPTK or an overpair and a low-ish SPR. At what point do we change our strategy from shoving turn to betting turn/shoving (safe looking) river? At what point are we specifically trying not to stack off?

Here's an example hand I played:
UTG straddles for $10 (everybody is straddling). Hero raises AhQs to $35. Villain calls in HJ. BB calls. Straddle calls.

Flop ($140):
Qc7c5d
Checks to hero. Hero bets $75. Villain calls. Others fold.

Turn ($290):
Jh
Villain has X$ and hero covers. Hero?

Notes:
In the hand I played, villain had $560 going to turn, and I had like $1600. I felt that villain's stack was too big to ship, but I probably would just shove up to close to $400 or so. At $400 effective, I don't want to check and don't really see a point in betting $150-$215 or whatever and leaving only $185-$250 behind.

Villain in this hand was somewhat fishy, likely to call too much, a little spewy.. but I'm not trusting his spewiness enough to check/raise here.

Anyway, the exact hand I played isn't so much of a concern... This post/thread is really about playing hands like TPTK to maximize value while minimizing your opponent's implied odds. I'm curious how people approach this turn for different effective stack sizes (going to turn) from like $300 to $900.

Basically never overbetting turns against non-maniacs. I often make a bet that denies POs/IOs to FDs even if we always GII OTR, because we leave so little behind, but it just gets way more calls than overbets would.

Yeah the issue I have with this is all the 14-15 out draws... If we bet pot or less and leave just a little bit behind planning to always GII otr, we're likely giving those hands good odds.... Not that it makes it wrong overall EV-wise

Planning your entire betting strategy to target a few combos is very silly

Seems like it's more than just a few if compared relative to number of worse Qx hands that are likely to call another bet/GII.

Including 12 out draws...

Jamming isn't terrible but I think often you might just fold out his weaker Qx

All the 14-15 out draws? There are exactly two 15 out draws available, and the chances he l/C AcKc and also c/c the flop with it are almost nil. Even 67cc will often c/r flop, so you're basically facing maybe .75 of a combo of 15 outers. How many pair +FD (14 outers in theory, though often his 2 pair outs are no good) do you think he has?

We can add a 12 outer with AcTc I guess, but even that's kind of a reach. Most of his draw range will be 8-9 outers

Just bet a reasonable size that will still allow you to get stacks in on river

As the board gets wetter villain's hand picks up more equity. We don't want to blast a JTcc 89cc J9cc type hand (or any queen obv) out of the pot by overshoving

Huh? More than two 15 out draws...
KTcc (though I block an out), 9Tcc, 89cc, 68cc, 46cc... I wouldn't be surprised if they're all in his range... But really, as I followed up in a later post, I'm thinking 12+ out draws. 25% equity. If he gets 2 to 1 on the turn, he only needs to get another same sized bet on the river to get up to 3 to 1.

Then bet a different size and don't pay him off when he hits

It's kinda hard for those (drawing) hands not to be profitable as calls on V's part. If we bet half pot or even 2/3 pot, V has correct direct odds to call. If we pot it, then V is close to having correct direct odds to call. Against a hand like J9cc, if we pot it then plan on shoving all non-club rivers, then V's 5 non-flush outs (also the times we just stick it in on Ac rivers) might very well be enough to give him correct odds with implied odds. If V is getting good odds on a smaller bet, then obviously we're happy/fine with those hands folding on the turn.

I'm rarely worried that I've made a mistake by blasting out 12 out+ draws when we're OOP. And anyway, I have had these types of hands call overbet shoves on turns. Maybe villains were just gambly, or maybe they don't understand the math enough when they rationalize, "I could never get away from that hand."

This isn't quite what you were asking, but there are imo only six 9-out FD (A9 8 6 4 3 2). And we still have to account for the 6 non-club OESD (86s, 64s). Most every other reasonable FD is 11+ outs, and I counted 15 possibilities: AK AJ AT A5; KJ KT K9; JT J9 T9 98 86 65 64 54. (There's also stuff like 76hh that made a light call otf with backdoors and now picked up some equity, but with 2 players left to act behind him otf we can discount this.)

So it seems like his drawing hands are pretty even between the standard 8-9 out draw vs combo draws. If you want to increase the price ott since he can have a big draw, go for it, but mathematically I'm not sure we need to make a huge overbet.

Regarding SPR, it is always hard to know what our flop bet will set up in MW pots, but with the flop bet, why are you only going half pot on a wet board vs 3 opponents? That's where the mistake was (and I think it's a big one).

Sorry, misread board on my phone. 46cc and 68cc (flopped OESD and FD) is what I meant when I wrote 67cc, which is not actually a 15 out draw. Neither is KTcc. I didn't think of 89/9Tcc, but they are definitely more likely than the flopped 15 outers that would often have c/r flop. I might go so far as to say 4 combos, in that case (6 available, two usually play this way, and the others do maybe half the time). Still not my main concern. There's way more stuff in his range.

All that said, why are we c-betting so small on a wet board? I go 2/3-pot minimum, and prefer 3/4. The problem seems to stem more from that, imo. If we go $105 OTF, the pot is $350, and if we pot turn, even if we plan to GII on all non-flush rivers, V always has 15 outs, and V always folds unless he hits, he is still not getting the right price.

In that case V is about 30% to hit.
70% of the time, he loses $350 (-245)
16% of the time he hits a flush and you fold river, so he wins $700 (+112)
14% of the time he hits something else and gets our last $180 effective too (+123)
Total EV for V is -$10, even in this worst case scenario.

I rarely go much more than 2x my preflop bet on flops, and tend to make my flop bets smaller than what's generally thought to be standard here, and this strategy has worked out well for me.

Keep in mind that when I bet this flop, I'm going to have some flush draws, hands like 89s here, maybe KJdd/JTdd, 78s/67s/56s (especially with diamonds), possibly pocket pairs under the Q, maybe even some airballs like AJ/AT (especially with a ace-club or two diamonds), etc. It's really a game flow type of thing that determines how often I'm cbetting into multiple villains, but regardless I need to get a good price on my cbets/double barrels. And I really don't want people to pick up on it if I'm always betting more when I have top pair+ than when I don't.

Furthermore, I want to make it relatively cheap for myself to fold to some tight-passive's x/r, don't want sets to slowplay on me as I just go bombs away. Betting half pot here works well for me to possibly catch some reads while building up a pot, and maybe invite some weaker hands along like underpairs with two outs and second/third pair with five outs, plus maybe some things like A-high floats that have very little equity. I just generally don't try too hard to price out draws on the flop, and I think whatever value I lose is made up for in other ways.

If somebody can convincingly prove how betting significantly more on this flop is better for this particular hand against three opponents and for my range in general, then I'm all ears, but so far this style of play works out for me.

In general, my opinion has been that many regs/2+2ers often bet too much on flops and often not enough - or become too passive - on turns and rivers.

Whatever the case, I spend a lot of time thinking about bet-sizing and how to make the most of a range that's probably a bit wider than most 2+2ers.

I think from reading pz threads that he's likely betting 1/2 potting most of his range on most flops. He's playing a lot of hands.

Also we went 4 way to flop and don't know starting stacks so planning the hand around 1 villain's stack isn't really practical otf.

But op sizing relative to your preflop size is a leak. Need to size according to pot and texture.


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For sure, agreed that there's more to sizing than preflop size, but I also think there's more than just flop texture and pot size -- I.e., number of villains in hand (and their stack sizes as you pointed out -- I think the other two in this hand started with about 1K or so). As an extreme case, suppose we got to this flop with our hand and all 8 other players at the table calling. In this case, I feel like just going two thirds pot or whatever would be pretty bad. Even half pot would be too much IMO (depending on stack sizes). As the number of players seeing the flop grows, I tend to become more and more focused on thinning the field down for a turn (or getting away cheaply when i'm already beat).

Also, my position in the hand matters a lot. I'm usually a bit more pot-controllish OOP than when I have position.

All this being said, yes there are times where I would bet significantly more than half pot or 2x my preflop sizing. This just isn't one of them.

Well, that is why you're having trouble with this scenario, imo. What your PF sizing was is irrelevant. What is relevant is pot size and texture, and when boards are wet and mega-multi-way, the chance of someone having a draw you want to over-charge is very high.

Your problem doesn't spring full-formed from the forehead of Zeus on the turn, it is set up OTF.

Fwiw, results of this hand were good.
Hero bets $210 on turn (I felt I could reasonably find some folds on club rivers). Villain calls. River pairs the 7. Final board Q75J7 (ccdhs). Hero shoves for villain's remaining $350. Villain tank hero/tilt calls with 5xcc (said he flopped a pair and flush draw while he was tanking), and hero scoops.

Even though I won a big pot, I think I luck-boxed the river call and somewhat think that somebody who's willing to call off stacks with a pair of 5s on this river may have just said f it and called off their stack to a turn shove (he could put me on the same type of flush draw hands that led to his river call), and almost certainly could find some calls with KQ or QT. $560 is still too big I guess, but in general I think it's best not to underestimate our villains' willingness to call off large amounts of money on turns and rivers -- especially when you're a fairly aggro player like I am (I always get credit for having some bluffs in my range).

Do some EV calcs to find the more profitable play. In your specific example you'll find that betting a normal amount is way more profitable even if we always get stacked when he hits river.