€10 Progressive Bounty - 15.00/30.00

8 players
U8 (3865 - €4.50 bounty)
U7 Hero (4435 - €4.50 bounty)
LJ (3565 - €4.50 bounty)
HJ (3760 - €4.50 bounty)
CO (3955 - €4.50 bounty)
BTN (5395 - €4.50 bounty)
SB (3025 - €4.50 bounty)
BB (4000 - €4.50 bounty)

Dealt to Hero

Preflop (45)
1 fold, Hero raises to 90, 1 fold, HJ calls 90 CO calls 90 BTN calls 90 SB calls 75 BB folds

Flop (480) [3s Kh Ad]
SB checks, Hero ????

How good do we have to be to value c-bet here? What about sizing?

It seems that posting a poll stops people commenting in the thread.

Just for additional info I did c-bet here and everyone folded but later wondered if I had been strong enough.

Ok, my hand was AJ I bet 240 and everyone folded.

I started to wonder what I was expecting people to call with so I posted here

I just typed the same response twice and each time I tried to post it, it failed because I was "not logged in", but I was actually logged in.

wierd.

I really like how you presented this hand for discussion. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it earlier. I will make sure to visit the forum more often, so these kinds of posts don’t get left high and dry.

You open 3xbb in EP, why not 2.5xbb? Is the size based mainly on position, mainly on your holdings, or a combination of both? I am still inexperienced and trying to better understand bet sizing.

Are you cbetting half pot here for value as one or more opponents in this hand are calling stations? I ask because I think the only hand to worry about is 33. Depending on the opponents, I would expect reraises pre flop from AA, KK and AQ+, and that would mean you are probably way ahead with this flop. So a half pot sized bet would not get as much value.

3x is my standard size from here, it definitely isn't related to strength of holding - you don't want to give away clues as to your holding with bet sizing. 3x because We are pretty deep and will get called by drawing hands. No need to give them better odds than we need to.

Again with flop bet sizing I tend not to base it on hand strength - I generally size to get it in with all hands - obviously some of them I pull the brakes on later in the hand but I don't give away which ones on the flop. 240 is a bit low against one opponent but still doable if with pot on turn and river. If we get called 2-ways then the pot size would be just right to it in with maybe 3/4 pot bets.

It's true that the hands that beat us will mostly have raised - I could definitely see calls with AQ though and they can have A3s, but we're going to get stacked by those hands anyway.

The problem is that the hands we don't beat will mostly fold - I think my AJ bet is a bit of a "microstakes bet", we just bet with a decent hand and see what particular trash some of the villains are going to refuse to fold.

We have lots of strong hands but thinking about it more - given it's hard for villains to have hands that can call 3 streets against our range, maybe we should trap more. I selected "two pair or better" but maybe we should always just check and see who wants to take a stab - some buttons autobet when folded to on flop.

But probably my overall conclusion is we should have both a betting and checking range, and probably the two-pair + set hands should be in the checking range as they are not afraid of giving a free card to someone drawing near dead who isn't calling 3 streets anyway and block more of the weaker calling hands, but AJ should get on with value betting and if that means someone folding K4s that might have turned or rivered trips or two pair on us then it's no big loss.