Hello everyone. New here. Going to start posting hands from time to time, plus hopefully gain the confidence to start commenting on other hands. This is a hand I played earlier tonight.

The hand directly before this the player who is later described as the hijack (hj) mini raised my big blind. I called with Q8 and flopped and rivered a queen. Ended up winning a pot of about 700. Here's the hand directly after.

6 handed 30/15 blinds. Stack 1730

Hand is 6c5c in the small blind. mp2 (1500) limps, hj (1300) miniraises to 60. button (900) calls, hero in sb (1730) calls, bb (900) calls, mp2 calls (250 in pot)

Flop comes Ac 4s 7c. I check, bb checks, mp2 bets 160, hj calls, button folds, I call, bb folds. (730 in pot)

Turn comes 10s. I lead out and bet 400. mp2 calls, hj folds (1530 in pot)

Flop comes Jh. I check, mp2 goes all in, I fold

Fold at end is obvious, but I feel like I should have played it different earlier in hand. Before I explained why I played it the way I did, any thoughts?

- Fold pre.

- With 60bb I x/shove this flop because that's when we have most equity. Happy to take it down, happy to get it in.

Hand history is pretty good, you could add reads if you have any.

Disagree with fold pre, this hand plays really easy and we're getting a decent price, nobody's shown any real aggression. Yeah, check/jam the flop, this is basically the perfect flop and we don't really mind if we're called or not

I am going to agree with WereBeer Fold pre.
action went limp, raise, action on you with a person behind you.
The way I see it the BB could try a squeeze play and if you do end up going to the flop
you are out of position for the next three streets with some Very Meh cards.
I fold without question.

Fold pre. But they were suited, right? Fold pre. You’re out of position, calling a min raise against 4 callers with 6 high.

Or you are getting 4-1 with an easily playable hand that invites multi way action and still has good implied odds. I guess it depends how you want to play poker, personally I don't want to wait for aces

I'm assuming this is an MTT though, if it's an STT then fine, muck it

Don’t fold pre. Check raising the flop to try and get it in is a possibility. Depends on the villain whether that or check calling is best. Don’t lead the turn. That card doesn’t help us and betting it doesn’t rep anything that makes him want to fold an A.

How did you come up with 250 in the pot on the flop? If both SB and BB are in the hand and nobody limp/folded, you should be able to divide the potsize by 60 with the number of players in the hand as result of that division.

If you don’t think BB will ship his 30BB stack without the nuts and MP2 isn’t the kind of player who limp/3bets, the call is defensible. If there’s a good chance that you pay 45 chips without being able to see the flop, you should fold.

Betting the turn really small to block villain from betting big might be an option. Betting >50% pot yourself against somebody who bet the flop 5way and therefore probably has Ax+ isn’t a good idea.

I usually fold pre. I hate the turn lead. Your equity just got cut in half and two other players have shown interest in the pot. Why are you bloating the pot with no fold equity?

23o is also very easy to play. You never have top pair and you can safely fold it like 95% of the time.

Fold pre, there are two players left to act who can still raise again, you have the worst relative and absolute position, and your cards are too small.

How do you know that you had 15 outs? Someone could have a bigger flush draw and someone else could have 65dd, which would cut down the chance of a scoop to zero.

I’d call preflop but maybe you should fold if you’re very inexperienced.

I’d play abc postflop hoping that we’re heads up by the turn or river. If we’re still multiway on the river then I check fold.

I’d check shove the turn if I’m closing the action heads up facing a normal size bet that leaves enough chips behind to offer me some fold equity on my raise.

Thanks for all the responses! Here was my reasoning on the hand.

The guy who had mini raised had been mini raising all game with random crap. He had just paid me off the hand before when I got trip queens after he miniraised my big blind. The rest of the table had played really passive and I figured I could semibluff an open straight or flush draw, take it down on the spot, give up if someone showed resistance, or get paid off if I hit later.

For the person that was asking why it was 250, it was 300. Bad math on my part, my fault.

Also true that someone could have a higher draw. So instead of 15 outs I should have counted them as like 13. Even still I like my chances when that flop comes out.

I could have jammed it, but turning a 150 bet into a 1700 all in, when as mentioned I had just pushed my stack from 1000 to 1700 becoming one of the leaders at the table so I felt hesitant to jam right there. Maybe knowing a check-raise all in wasn't what I wanted to do at that time, I should have just led out.

Once I decided not to go all in, I made up my mind to lead out on the turn hit or miss. This is because with my odds I wanted to see that river card, so I figured that was the best way to do it without passively check calling.

I normally do really well with suited connectors when I have a good price on them. They pay off for me far more than I lose anything of consequence. But this hand just played out strange for me and left me scratching my head a bit.

If you don't have fold equity though, there's no difference between betting or calling. You're putting money into the pot either way. However, by betting, you're allowing worse things to happen. For one, they could raise you. Also, if you don't bet, there's a chance they could check and allow you to see a free river. By betting, you're not giving yourself that opportunity. And of course, they might bet smaller than you would.

In this case, I have my doubts about whether you're going to get everyone to fold to your turn bet. So checking would be a much better play.

If you really want to see the river card, you should check. If you don't want your opponents to see a river card, you should bet (or check-raise the flop).

There's no point in paying for something if you might be able to do it for free.

The same concept applies pre-flop. If you really want to see the flop, you don't 3-bet, do you? With weak hands, you should usually play passively. It's only with the monster hands that are favourites to win at showdown that you should be bloating the pot.

Considering that you have to put in some serious action to ever win immediately on the flop, and also that it would take serious action to get the straight flush draw out, I think that the only question is should I have a bluff range here? If yes, then this hand is the obvious choice of bluff.

What if you feel relatively sure that you won't see the river card if you check, that someone will bet behind you. In that case, is it ever better to lead out semi bluff so you can set your own price?

If there is a high probability that villain will bet big on the turn if you check to him, then you can try making a so-called "blocker bet" for a smaller size to "set your own price".
If there is a decent chance that villain will check the turn and give you a free river, that would generally be even better for you. It's just a maths problem. Estimate villain's bet-size and betting frequency, multiply them and compare to the block-betting size you're planning to use.

e.g. Suppose there are three possibilities, you lead small, or you check and villain either bets bigger or checks.
1. You lead the turn for 400 100% of the time. The price of seeing a river is 400 when you take this line.
2. You check the turn and villain bets 600 60% of the time and checks back 40% of the time. The average price of seeing a river is (60%*600) + (40%*0)= 360.

With the above numbers, you'd see a river more cheaply on average by checking (360) than by betting (400). If villain's bet-size or betting frequency increased, the price would go up. e.g. If he bet 700 at the same 60% frequency, the price would average at 420, and if he bet 600 at 80% frequency it would be .8*600 = 480. Block-betting for 400 would be "cheaper" than checking in those cases.

If your block bet would actually take down the pot sometimes, you can factor that in too. I don't think you have much/any fold equity in this particular example though. You had more hand equity and fold equity on the flop, and a check-shove there puts much more pressure on your opponents.

I think most would fold pre. The ones who made it to the flop would either shove the flop, or check. Making 200-400 chip bets isnt recommended here because a) You're making it easier for your opponent to call an Ace-Rag b) If your club ends up not hitting, you're SOL without enough chips to even bluff your way out of the hand.

Not saying a shove is the smartest move on the flop, but its to be considered over value betting into the flush. You'll get some weak aces off the hand, draws off the hand, and if someone does call, you still have a hail-mary shot of hitting (in this case you wouldn't have, of course).

Checking as long as you can get away with it would have been nice, but with that amount of players in the hand, you're probably not gonna see too many free cards.