MP is bad, loose and only a little aggressive (69/13/1.4 after 64 hands). CO is 50/8/0.8 after only 12 hands.

Merge - $0.25/$0.50 (6 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

UTG: $21.35
MP: $19.97
CO: $9.75
BTN: $11.40
SB: $14.97
Hero (BB): $20.61

SB posts SB $0.10, Hero posts BB $0.25

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero has 2 6

UTG calls $0.25, MP calls $0.25, CO raises to $0.50, fold, fold, Hero calls $0.25, UTG calls $0.25, MP calls $0.25

(I'm not closing the action, but no one here is likely to backraise, and there are surely enough players in the pot to call with any two suited.)

Flop: ($2.10, 4 players) T 5 6
Hero checks, UTG checks, MP checks, CO bets $0.25, Hero raises to $0.50, fold, MP calls $0.50, CO raises to $0.75, Hero raises to $1.00, MP calls $0.50, CO calls $0.25

(With 14 outs to improve, I am surely getting an overlay for every bet I get into the pot multiway; and even if I wind up headup versus CO I am not in a bad situation at all.)

Turn: ($5.10, 3 players) 3
Hero bets $0.50, MP calls $0.50, CO calls $0.50

River: ($6.60, 3 players) 2
Hero bets $0.50

nice hand.

*G*

nh

Thanks.

Here's why I think this is a hand for discussion rather than simply one for the checkup thread:

• In the mid-stakes B&M games I play for my bread and butter, the preflop call is a no-brainer; but I am wondering about the high-rake environment of microstakes games on Merge: is this a good call? How much should I tighten up here because of the rake?
  
  
• In my commentary on the flop play I said that I had "14 outs to improve," but improvement isn't necessarily enough to win the pot. If one or both players is drawing to a flush I only have five good outs at most. In particular, MP is a calling station, but faced with two bets to call there are some hands in their range they are going to fold, and none of those hands are flush draws. If I should be discounting my flush outs a priori, shouldn't I be discounting them more once MP calls? What's left of their range is proportionately richer in flush draws once they do call.
  
  
• The turn card gives me three more outs to improve, but it taints deuces at least somewhat. Especially if I should be deeply discounting spades as outs, am I better off check/calling?

donk the flop

and depending on stakes/location live games can have nasty rake too obv

I'd donk the flop given that the board is drawy, misses CO's range and that it's 4-way. Rest is fine.

Good point.

In general I don't have a handle on recognizing situations where donking is a good move. Thanks for the illumination.

I would bet the flop for these exact reasons. And also what Rooksx said. I think you'll end up getting more money in the pot overall. If CO raises you can 3!, which has the same affect as your c/r but with a larger pot. You'll probably get a few more passengers to come along.

What's the rake in this game? I haven't played online in a long time. I am used to playing live 3/6 with a $5 drop, so I always have to remove 2SB from the pot on the flop. Is the online rake bigger than that?

Oh, yeah, I missed this. There's definitely a good reason to bet out the flop.

Your position relative to the most-likely bettor isn't good for a value-c/r, either. Players can find folds easier faced with two cold.

If I knew that CO would c-bet his entire range, then I probably would checkraise the flop. I wouldn't mind driving people out in that case since the pot is pretty big already and my MPNK hand, if currently ahead, is quite vulnerable UI.

But since we don't know that CO will auto-c-bet 4-way, and since we'd probably prefer, if we're drawing against CO, for UTG and MP to stay in with any hand they would fold to two cold, I prefer a flop donkbet, like others have been suggesting.

I ran a Stove based on the preflop stats you gave. (Obviously this provides just a rough approximation of ranges, but it's what we have to work with. Oh, and FWIW, I made UTG a 40/10 guy.) I was surprised to discover you have about 48% equity against the ranges I entered. I thought it would be lower since the hands that you're drawing to are so far from the nuts, and also any improvement that you make on the turn will have some vulnerability to becoming weaker on the river due to counterfeiting. But then it occurred to me that part of that 48% equity -- maybe not a lot of it, but part of it -- comes from those times when your pair of 6's was best on the flop and your hand holds up.

Anyway, here's the Stove:

49,347,775 games 32.223 secs 1,531,445 games/sec

Board: Ts 5s 6c
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 47.836% 47.56% 00.28% 23468082 138172.67 { 6s2s }
Hand 1: 14.062% 13.85% 00.22% 6832701 106486.83 { 66-22, A8s-A2s, K9s-K2s, Q9s-Q4s, J7s+, T7s+, 97s+, 87s, ATo-A3o, KJo-K7o, Q8o+, J8o+, T9o }
Hand 2: 14.522% 14.10% 00.43% 6956393 210005.83 { 66-22, A7s-A2s, K9s-K2s, Q9s-Q2s, J9s-J2s, T2s+, 93s+, 84s+, 74s+, 64s+, 53s+, A9o-A2o, KTo-K2o, Q3o+, J5o+, T6o+, 96o+, 86o+, 76o }
Hand 3: 23.580% 23.53% 00.05% 11612852 23487.17 { 88+, ATs+, KTs+, QJs, AJo+ }

Then for a truer representation of how good your draw is, I kept the same ranges for UTG and MP but gave CO pocket aces. In that case (when you're definitely drawing against CO's overpair, which may or may not contain the ace of spades), your equity dropped to 42 percent:


19,590,249 games 12.830 secs 1,526,909 games/sec

Board: Ts 5s 6c
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 42.190% 42.08% 00.11% 8244113 21028.50 { 6s2s }
Hand 1: 08.594% 08.47% 00.12% 1659806 23836.00 { 66-22, A8s-A2s, K9s-K2s, Q9s-Q4s, J7s+, T7s+, 97s+, 87s, ATo-A3o, KJo-K7o, Q8o+, J8o+, T9o }
Hand 2: 10.034% 09.84% 00.19% 1927991 37797.50 { 66-22, A7s-A2s, K9s-K2s, Q9s-Q2s, J9s-J2s, T2s+, 93s+, 84s+, 74s+, 64s+, 53s+, A9o-A2o, KTo-K2o, Q3o+, J5o+, T6o+, 96o+, 86o+, 76o }
Hand 3: 39.182% 39.18% 00.00% 7676080 0.00 { AA }

Thinking about this some more, it is yet another argument for donking, even donk/3-betting. If we donk, we get calls from more of the optimist's non-FD hands, possibly even multiple calls on the installment plan. Our money is going in better, on average, if we donk than if we checkraise.

This is what I was thinking. With our relative to position to the preflop raiser our best chance to build a big pot is to try to b/3!.

other than that nh