I usually try not to post more than one hand a day, but I've been trying to math out this spot for a while and want to make sure my head's on straight.

5NLz on Ignition, so no reads/stats.

Ignition No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (6 handed)

CO ($5.87)
BTN ($2.53)
SB ($12.26)
BB ($2.50)
UTG ($8.27)
Hero (MP) ($5.30)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A Q
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.15, 2 folds, SB calls $0.13, BB calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.43) 6, 8, 3 (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $0.22, SB calls $0.22, 1 fold

Turn: ($0.85) A (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($0.85) 5 (2 players)
SB bets $2.00, Hero...?

Thoughts
PF: Don't think there's much to talk about here. BB's range is wide because he's more likely to be a fish. SB probably shouldn't be calling that much, but he's probably not wrong to have some hands in his range in this spot with a shortstacked probably-fishy player in the BB.

Flop: Maybe we can check this behind sometimes, but my plan here is to bet about half-pot and see what happens.
1) If both players fold, then obviously we're happy, and I imagine it happens enough for a c-bet to be profitable
2) If both players call, I check behind turn UI
3) If the unknown SB folds and the fishy BB calls, I stop trying to bluff the fish and check behind most turns
4) If the unknown SB calls and the fishy BB folds, I use my range advantage / positional advantage to double barrel most turn cards and get him to fold underpairs, loose flop floats, etc.

Turn: I debate betting but decide against it. This card is great for my range and really bad for his range -- I think a large majority of hands that I want to call the turn bet now fold, and I suddenly feel like not much worse is going to call me when I bet. My logic is that most of his hands now have 0-2 outs, so giving a free card isn't much of a concern. Maybe he'll turn some of his loose floats into bluffs on the river or feel more inclined to c/c some hands that he would otherwise fold to a turn bet.

The downside of this is that I cap my range because I'm probably still betting my nutted sets on the turn (admittedly, I'm not sure what I do with A8s / A6s here). But my range is largely stuff like 99-KK, and most of my Ax hands when I check the turn.

River: And I... guess I get what I wanted?

Villain's value range doesn't make too much sense. 33, 55, 66, 88, I guess? But 33 probably doesn't call PF all the time, 88 sometimes 3-bets PF, 33, 66, 88 c/r or donk flop occasionally, 55 doesn't always call the flop c-bet, etc., so I feel like I have to discount the nutted part of his range somewhat.

Or we can look at MDF -- if villain is betting $2.00 into a $0.85 pot, then my MDF is $0.85 / ($0.85 + $2.00) or just about 30%, and AQ is near the top of my capped range. It feels pretty disgusting to call here, but if I'm folding all of my one-pair hands to the overbet, then what exactly am I calling? Are overbets at micros bluffs enough of the time for me to care about MDF?

I would bet the turn. You would barrel this card with your bluffs as the preflop raiser so it's possible to get looked up light. Your hand is really under repped here but big bets like this in Zone are usually beating one pair hands. I say that solely on experience against the pool.

You can pretty much bet TP good kicker like it's the nuts in 5nl Zone. Bet flop, turn and fold to the 2x+ PSB on the river.

imo vs blinders i don't cbet this flop because it took blinds range.
& after i bet turn to pot size
& if i haven't got read especially to guy, so i fold automaticly vs his overbet
he is polarised & without info you hope to other spot ev+ ...

GL

Do you give credit to 5NL player to exploit capped ranges? Its cool to know about MDF and GTO but I would use that more as guide and not as rule in making decisions.

Turn bet is a must.Youll be bluffing this turn a lot so you need to value bet it.
Call river as you said you are on top of your range,but it you really want to fold that is ok as well given that 5 makes 79s 45s a str8

Barrel turn for sure. It's a great turn for our range and villain will find it difficult to continue, so use a large sizing with lots of bluffs too.

I've been looking at villain overbets recently. If you actually do the maths, I've found villains are way underbluffing with overbets therefore I've come to the conclusion we should overfold a large part of our range unless we beat some of villains value range, which I doubt we do here.

That is not doing math but adjusting based on the tendencies of the players in your specific games/ stakes within your specific sample.

Or do you think this is true for all games/ stakes?

To adjust to the tendencies of your player pool you have to do the math to figure out where equilibrium is.

Over a couple sites, I don't see anywhere near enough bluffs w overbets to even consider calling. Obviously, I can't say if this is true for all sites or stakes.

As played - fold river.

Flop is a clear check, turn is a clear bet imo.

Then you are assuming that all players play the exact same non GTO style which may work in theory but is pretty much useless in practice.

In practice you can make those calls based on player specific stats in your HUD.

Problem is you don't get enough hands on specific players to make these reads so I make assumptions based on the player pool I am in, as that will be more profitable than calling down vs everyones overbets until I get a hundred hands on a specific players overbet tendencies. vs specific players I'll do the opposite, where I call down until I know otherwise. In general, I've found players at micros are pretty bad at balancing with bluffs.

Ahh, missed it was multiway. Agreed on both.

Why flop is clear check?

Appreciate all the responses.

So if everyone is saying bet the turn, then the answer is probably to bet the turn.

Just out of curiosity, if the logic is something like "we have all of our bluffs in our turn c-bet range" -> "villain should c/c turn light" -> "we should value bet light", then is there any part of our range that we're checking behind on the turn?

No draw, no pair, we get called somewhat frequently, and we benefit from realising equity by turning good pairs.

There's some hands you'll have that want to check turn, mostly 8x, 99 kind of hands, but if you're going to check then check some hands that aren't such strong value bets.

River is a fold, people generally don't overbet bluff on these kinds of boards. Wouldn't be surprised if he has 65 or 55.

That is true but we dont get call that often given that board is pretty low and its good to fold J9 TJ KJ ect and we are in weird spot if one of them leads ott.How betting dose not allow us to realise equity?

When you get raised sometimes, but betting is more expensive than checking for free. At 5nl when you get two flats like this I expect a fair bit of middling connected hands, particularly from BB.

I just think most things are a better c-bet than this combo.

Gotcha. I guess at the time I reasoned that 99-KK, Ax were all more or less the same strength here, and so if I checked any part of that range I should check every part of that range; i.e. betting AQ gets the same outcome that betting 99 does.

I think in general I don't c-bet turn enough, and spots like this certainly don't help. I guess I'm assuming too tight ranges at 5NLz? Like, maybe he does have 99-TT in this spot sometimes, maybe he makes a loose float with some of his Ax's, etc., so that our strong Ax's really are just clear value bets?

edit: I'm still concerned about him folding some of those hands to a turn bet, but since we can have so many bluffs here I imagine it puts him in a tough spot with that part of his range.

In theory you could construct a range in which you bet A4 but check AQ, but when you do these things on the fly what can happen in reality is that if you check AQ then you end up checking all (or far too much) of your Ax. And then if you barrel this turn with your bluffs you're way out of line.

In spots where you want to protect part of your range then choose the weaker hands that can call a river bet. A4 is still going to beat all his 9Ts bluffs on the, but is less of a clear value bet on the river and can't bet three streets as often as AQ can. It doesn't really make sense to value bet weaker hands than you're checking in general.

what does v call flop with that he now thinks he needs to bluff when pfr basically says he doesn't have an ace