Hey folks. This situation happened a few days ago and suspect our play is super-standard-obvious, but I need a double-check.

Hero, $450. Losing image; has had all overpairs cracked, all overcards whiff, all c-bets called, all draws brick, and all villain's draws get there. Should be down to 0 but I got it all in with jacks against a flush and flopped set and spiked a J on the river. Won that $600 pot and been hemorrhaging chips at a reasonable pace ever since.

V1, $500. Cool Vietnamese guy who also deals at this casino. Can play very weak tight ABC or very spewy depending on his mood, which can change in a session. Playing straightforward at the moment. Calls big raises preflop with anything suited or connected (J4s, 53o). Loose-passive.

V2, $80. Total spewy maniac who gets it in with any draw or any pair at any stack size.

V3, $550. Pretty aggressive player who donk bets like 90% of flops when OOP. Very gambly; called a big preflop raise of mine with Q5s and rivered a straight against my TT. He plays bad fundamentally but beyond that can actually play decent poker, making the correct laydowns and reads and thin value bets.

V4, ??. I don't remember this villain, but I do remember that the pot on the flop was $80 so there had to be another caller.

All villains have position on me.

The Hand:

Hero is UTG with KK. Raises to $18 -- my standard raise from this position. I usually raise 5x but UTG I raise 6x. Most people don't notice because I'm usually raising over limpers from other positions, but my range here is super strong: 99+/AQs/AK exclusively. Sometimes at this table this bet will get me heads up or 3-way; sometimes this bet will create a multiway pot, and on rare occasions I will just get the blinds. (I'm opening bigger than anyone at the table, but this is also a pretty loose table.)

All 4 villains call. Blinds fold. 5 to the flop.

Flop ($80): 89T

Hero: ???

I'm not really looking for fancy ranging analyses and whatnot, just...what's your standard play here? C-bet or check/fold? If I c-bet, I estimate that my chances of TID against these players on this board to be about 2%, so what would be our plan on turn cards?

I'd raise to $25 pre if you think your image and an $18 raise gets you a lot of callers pre. It's between check call or bet fold. If villains don't raise draws or make a lot of moves, I'd bet fold $55 on flop. Probably check folding Club turns and straight turns. On blank turns, heads up I'd bet fold about $125 into $190. You want to get called by worse but at the same time charge draws and you risk getting bluffed on a lot of rivers so don't bet too small

Another line is to check but most likely to check fold. Check folding is a small mistake at worst because even if you have the best hand, there are lots of hands with lots of equity and you often won't have the best hand. And of course when you're behind you're crushed. Against straightforward players who won't bluff scare cards especially if they raise two pairs+ all day, then bet fold all day.

Check fold??? Cheer up,man. It'll get better.

Bet pot. Screw those guys. Except for V1, if its who I'm thinking about, he's a great guy. Kind of a sad fellow. I like him. Screw the rest of them.

I'd probably bet about 65 on the flop.

Bet fold for like $60. Or just check fold.

The fact that you have a crap image will allow you to get looked up lighter here. Which is good.

I wouldn't be surprised to see you get looked up with Like K9s/85s type hands.

Either of these seem fine. Anyone who missed this flop will fold. You'll likely get 1 or 2 callers max. If you get a raise behind, fold.

I take it we don't have the king of clubs? Another thing to consider is V3 capable of raising drawing hands here, since you said in the descriptions that he was pretty aggressive? If V3 is capable of doing this, I like a check/call since he will most likely bet this flop if he has any piece/draw. Otherwise, bet/fold for $60-70 like most people has advocated.

Given that V2 will GII with any piece, if we're betting here, we should bet $40, so that if/when he shoves, we can 3-bet to isolate.

However, given the V descriptions, I'm going to suggest a high variance FPS line here. That is, a check, with the intention to either check-raise or check-fold. I'll outline the exact details and ranges of this below.


If V1 bets:
This is highly dependent upon bet-sizing tells, and if you have any, live tells.

If V1 bets a relatively large amount, I'm happy to c/f to a bet from him, since I'd imagine a large bet from him would be 2P+ in this situation if he's straight forwards and loose-passive.

On the other hand, if he bets a smaller amount, it's more likely to be a TP-type hand. If the action is raised behind him by V3 or V4, it's an easy fold. If V2 raises AI, and V3 or V4 call behind him, it's a raise, since their ranges will contain a LOT of pair+draw type hands. They will also sometimes contain 2P, but we're far from dead against 2P. Even if V2 folds, provided V3 and V4 don't raise, we're check-raising a weak bet from V1.


If V1 checks, and V2 bets

Given player descriptions, this is the most likely scenario.

If V1 checks, V2 is probably going to shove his remaining stack with any pair and any draw. On this sort of board, he's probably going to have a pair or draw more than half the time (any 7x, 8x, 9x, Tx, Jx, Qx, XcXc, maybe 6x, maybe naked overcards or underpairs). As such, we're more than happy to GII against V2's shoving/betting range here. If V3 or V4 raise behind V2, it's a fold as before. If they flat V2's bet, we check-raise, since V3 and V4 have a lot of combo draws/pairs here still.

If V1 and V2 check, and V3 bets

Given your description of V3, he's probably betting any piece here when checked to, as such we can still c/r a bet from him since his range contains a tonne of draws. Given that he called a large bet PF w/Q5s, I'd imagine he has too much gamble in him to fold something like a pair + GSSD. Additionally, a c/r from you will look FOS to him since he would expect you to bet over-pairs here, and I'd expect him to pile it in with most pairs/draws whilst claiming he puts you on AKcc exactly. If V4 calls it's the same case, but if V4 raises it's a fold.


Comparison to b/f line:
If we bet, V1 is likely raising with T9+, possibly only sets and straights. Definitely calling with pairs/draws. It's an easy b/f against him.

Against V2, we obviously have no room to b/f against him, so regardless of whether we b/f or c/r, V2 is getting his money in regardless. Given that V2 is probably shoving this flop, and V1 is probably going to play his hand face-up, by going for a c/r over V2, we end up with relative position in the hand, since V1 is never going to c/r over V2 from his description.

Against V3 again it's a b/f, but he could very well just fold 9x and Tx to a bet from us, whereas he's going to bet those when checked to. As such, c/r gets more value from V3.

I'm assuming V4 folds given your lack of a description.

Although c/r is technically over-playing our hand, given our detailed reads, and the fact that all 3 Vs are probably going to

a) Play their hands face-up
and
b) Be unwilling to fold draws/pairs

A c/r maximises value, whilst allowing us to c/f if there is too much action behind us.

Grunch
OP, it obvious that you're playing a $3 blind game since you talk about your normal raise sizing, but you should state the game you're playing at the beginning of the post.
A half pot Cbet here seems fine.

+1 to this entire post. And a big :thumbup: and to the italicized piece.

There are four villains behind us, we've gotten one of the worst flops imaginable for our hand, and OP has told us we have zero fold equity. IMO the "standard" c-bet here is just lighting money on fire.

Given V descriptions, this flop hit the hell out of their ranges. It's hard to imagine that this flop didn't squarely hit at least one V. I think it matters if we have the K

I would check the flop and see what happens.

I would check/fold and save the extra cash unless it gets checked around and your hand improves OTT. It always sucks when you get a monster hand and get it all in after you lose a significant amount from your stack on a previous poorly played hand. "Turning the night around may only be one hand away."

Your thoughts have merit. I probably shoulda read the "Relative Position" COTM before I posted, because this crew is quite a bit more aggressive than your average low-limit crowd.

I like a big bet OTF because he's getting money in good. And I like setting up a huge turn bet in absolute terms; about the only way to get anybody to drop at these limits is to shove them outside their comfort zone. (Also, it removes V2 as a factor, because this is a perfectly polarizing bet for him. )

The merits of this approach are debatable. But I think everyone can agree that OP -- like Godfather Actual -- shall dictate the tempo.

It's an open question, though, what OP has to do, in order to set this tempo.

Checking would be a disaster if everyone checked through. Is that likely to happen here? Probably not. Mook does a great job of going over the type of information you get by leveraging relative position; the problem is, there are TWO aggromonkeys in this hand, and you can't have relative position over both of them. I can see things getting out of hand: V1 bets, V2 shoves, V3 raises.... and of course you KNOW that's how it's going down. OP is right; in this world, there is no check/call.

Putting out a small bet to induce a raise is worse, much more likely to get called around IMO. KK can't stand up to all these jokers.

Putting out a humungous bet is gonna put V1 in a pickle, because he's gotta worry what V3 is gonna do. V2 is either gonna shove or not; I hope he does. V3 can't bluff shove, he's gotta figure you love your hand and will probably have someone on his right pot-committed as well.

So I don't THINK you're leaving a lot of room for monkey business. If V1 or V3 shoves, they probably mean business, and hero can fold.

To be clear, I expect V1 and V3 to call.

The key to this whole hand is the turn. Assuming the turn bricks, hero bets $200. I think V1 will likely see that as a lot of money in absolute terms, and is only likely to call with a set or better. We thereby get our wish; to be heads up with V3.

Now, if it's true that hero's $200 turn bet is the key to the whole thing, I think he needs to set that up with aggression on the flop. I just worry that a flop check is going to cause just enough cognitive dissonance to get hero in trouble. We don't want V1 or V3 thinking too much. V1 faces a difficult decision ott; V3, otr. We want them to react, not think.

So I still like betting the crap out of this pot. But I do see your point.

Good discussion.

I don't remember if I had the K or not unfortunately. I don't think that it matter as much as if we had AA though. If the flush comes in, we won't be too happy here with a non-nut draw on the river. I guess it would give us a little more equity in the hand but being OOP I wouldn't want to be in this hand with just the K.

Interesting discussion so far guys. I guess my question is this: against 4 villains, two who are aggressive, what is the real chance that we are either already beat or will be pushed off our hand OOP when someone semibluffs us? If the chance of both of those is >50%, is cbetting here a negative value bet?

Agree with all of this.

You're allowed to look past your own two cards and look at the board and at your position against aggressive Villains. If you don't think it's a profitable spot then check-fold. It's certainly a far better choice than those who are saying, "I have no idea where I am in this hand so I'll pot it (or even worse check-raise)".

Hero knows where he is at; he has the best hand otf, by a wide margin.

What Corto said. I'm never c-betting this, and I will call/fold depending on player and bet size and what others do.

That's probably true, and also largely irrelevant to the question of c-betting this flop.

In fact, I could have someone walk around the table, look at everyone's hole cards, come back, and whisper in my ear, "You have the best hand right now," and it still wouldn't convince me to bet 100% of the time here.

Are you serious? Even against 4 random hands we only have 29% equity.

What range of hands do you assign to Villain's?

Ditto. I'm not sure we have the best hand, and I don't want to get bet off the best hand by a draw, so not c-betting.

"Dealt to the river."

Pre, and almost certainly on the flop, hero has the best hand. I mean, it's possible somebody might have flopped the nuts already, but I doubt it.

His prospects moving forward depend on the number of villains, ranging from excellent (heads up) to abysmal (if everybody hangs around). Go back and stove it with different numbers of villains and you will see what I'm talking about.

Mook, I love your analysis. In fact I like it more than I like mine. Question though: what, other than QQ+, takes this line?

Whoops, forgot about this one. Results:

Hero backs $60

V1 folds

V2 shoves $80

V3 raises to $180

V4 folds

Hero folds

V2 shows a combo draw and V3 flopped a set.

So yeah, this thread was pretty results motivated. It just felt so obvious that this was going to happen most of the time, and that I should've been content with winning preflop and check/fold on this board against these players when this OOP.

My main concern here would be whether or not certain Vs will play draws fast because this is a very wet board.

Standard c-bet here. I'd bet on the larger size. And would stack off vs certain Vs, not too sure if any of these are the ones based on reads. Hoping they are playing pretty straightward and probably laying the hand down if I face any aggression