even mix of grinders and rec players 9 handed

buy in for the room is 2500, which is about what i have in front, most have me covered or close to covered, the small blind is on the short stack with 1000 as he just got stacked and this is his preferred bi, he is a mark in the room

Hero UTG KK

raises to 35

Cutoff, HJ, BTN, SB, BB all flat

6 players (210)

QT2

checks to hero

How are you perceived?

Regardless, Bet for value 135 in this spot. Can't give a free card and still can get called by lots worse.

$135 sounds good.

How often are your $35 opens getting called by 5 players preflop? It sounds like you may need to increase your open size and tighten your ranges a bit if they're playing loose/passive pre.

this isn't usual but it happens, if you think about ranges the first player can call with stuff like low pairs which is often going to show up here, the small blind is a preflop calling station big whale, so his range to flat can't be given much credit, the BB is priced in ATC and probably will not fold many hands

i honestly don't think my image is relevant here because i'm forced to play ABC in a 6way pot but if you want to know, I'm known as both loose and good, I'm not the best hold em player at the table but I'm sure I'm the best overall player if you include all forms of the game, i'm often seen at the high stakes PLO and limit hold em games but I've decided to stick with hold em because it's the most sustainable form. You need a constant supply of new bad players at PLO and limit

None of the players in the hand are what i consider dangerous or ones who can outplay me, the two best players are to my left and have folded

This is a pretty interesting flop imo, when i'm betting it has to be for value but what hands to charge? AQ is our only target, I'm blocking every draw so they should not have any, I'm targeting a lot of tens for value but doubt they ever continue

seems like we also have to fold to any raise since, like i said, i'm blocking everything

with this many players in the pot it's just going to be hard for anyone to get out of line

Your image is almost always relevant in almost every hand.

The ABC way to play this spot is to bet. From your post, it sounds like you didn't, but I'm not entirely sure. What'd you do?

AQ is not your only target.

You are not even close to blocking every draw. Here are draws they could have:

Every single nut flush draw that isn't AK which should be unlikely anyway without a preflop 3 bet.

Every combo of J9

Every 98 gutshot.

Just because you have KK doesn't meant that KQ or KJ isn't out there with 6 players.

QJ is a "target" as you say.

gotta stop here. Folding to "any" raise is really bad poker.

You aren't blocking everything.

Actually, what are you talking about?

QJ can be targeted but that value can be had later in the hand, and if QJ is in the deck it is a small leap to QT, there is a small number of hands that beat me but they all raise and my blockers remove most of the value from calling ranges

obv the blinds could have queens but i'm under the gun and even the bad players will respect my range to bet into 5 players from UTG

I suppose i could have semi bluffs but they don't make much sense for UTG

Seems like a super interesting flop, if i had AQ I could bet for value

hero checks and it checks around

turn 2d

I now have the effective nuts

SB donk leads 55, BB calls

I possibly could have gotten more value here from betting since it appears the whale is interested in the hand so he probably does flat the flop for a value bet but i thought it was a super interesting flop. I actually have the deck pretty crushed on this flop and don't expect to be raised very often. Only sets raise, so i believe bet/fold flop is fine. check is interesting because even aces OTT give me back up equity, I'm not afraid of many cards, if a 9 comes i block the straights

You don't really know what you are doing or talking about.

I'm sorry if that sounds harsh.

Hopefully someone else chimes in about the hand.

In a single raised pot it’s really really really bad to check the flop here. This is not a scary flop for KK, and there’s tons of cards on the turn that takes away a lot of your equity. You need to bet here 10000000% of the time.

i guess this is a trivial hand then. sorry for posting another mistake

KT, it sounds like you're competent overall but you're taking some fancy check lines in spots that you shouldn't be and overplaying in spots when things should be kept simple. Just like we don't have to find a way to win every pot, we also don't have to invent crazy new lines to extract value. People make mistakes all the time and call when they shouldn't be. We need to bet here for value and deny the combined equity of 5 people seeing a free turn card against you which is an awful scenario on a wet flop.

If you wanted to check your hand here after you 3b an UTG open playing heads up, then that's a completely different scenario than what you're describing here.

It sounds like you're falling into the fancy play syndrome trap a bit lately. I'd break out of it before it really got me in trouble. Taking unconventional lines is a way to improve your poker game but you need to make sure you aren't taking those lines in really bad spots.

trying to post hands where i thought i made a mistake to improve my game and i'm just a random internet guy so i get it but i like posting it's fun so i'll try n ignore the trolling

maybe i'm overanalyzing this spot but it's actually hard for anyone to continue here, you don't see many J9 type hands flatted here behind me, they are never playing J9o...this is a hand i could crush for value but suited connectors like that are rare and more commonly people have low cards as their calling ranges in this game and have more bluffs than usual, and are always going to bet their Qx's on future streets while folding them some of the time to a strong betting range OTF, such as UTG into 5 callers, which is just super strong to anyone at this level

i like the check still, but admit it might be a trivial bet

ended up raising the turn and they both snap folded so it might be trivial after all and not threadworthy

The thing is, if you're playing aggressive enough with both your value hands and your bluffs, someone is going to call your flop bet with a hand like JTs or AJ or QJ almost 100% of the time. The likelihood that all 5 of them are going to fold to a flop bet is pretty small. You're basically saying none of the 5 have Qx, Jx, 98, or XXss which is pretty unlikely. They aren't likely to all have 55-99 or AXs. You gotta get your value when you can, but almost as importantly, you can't give a free card on such a wet board to so many players. That's just variance suicide.

Your hand is not invulnerable. What turn card are you going to be really happy with? If an A, K, Q, J, T, 9, 8 or a spade roll off after it goes 6-ways to the turn, do you really feel good about any of those cards? Not even that K feels great. Them checking through on the flop was a terrible result, but luckily you got the brick of all bricks and it kept you ahead.

yeah i think you're right dave, probably lost value not betting and if i had, say AK with the K of spades that probably is enough to cbet

I think you’re thinking their range is narrower than it is. You bet into 8 players prelfop and 4 of them called. Probably not THAT unusual for the table and the range of the last players in probably include a lot of drawing hands. There are 3 possible combos of QQ on that board and a lot of these guys would have raised it preflop.

The more players are in the hand, the more face up you want to play. You have a very clear value bet on the flop, and if you face major aggression, you can decide, but to check this is pretty bad.

I don't know how to play the turn becuase I don't think I ever check this flop, but you need to raise the turn for value. You can easily fold to any more aggression faced, but you have underrepped your hand, time to get some value from a Q or from draws.

I'd check the flop with my range in a 6 way pot. With as tight a range as we should have preflop, we mostly have over pairs and sets here. If we bet our strong hands on the flop, we just set our checking range out to dry and let ourselves get bluffed away by flush draws and straight draws.

versus the 5 other ranges combined, villains could just call with QQ/TT/22/QTss and high equity draws and fold EVERYTHING else vs our bet

Exploitively, sure we can bet vs a bunch of face up recreationals, but we aren't trying to always get max value with mediocre hands, especially when we are so deep that we have to use the stronger parts of our range to protect the mediocre parts of our range

There is also a case to be made for bet really small on the flop like 1/3 pot exclusively to deny the free equity to a hand like 88. This still guts our checking range, but allows our betting range to be much wider

yeah it does feel like check is best for a bunch of reasons but mostly because we block calling hands with the Ks, and the Qs on board and it's actually so hard to bet into the crowd OOP I just don't think we have many, if any c-bets here to begin with, maybe a small bet is ok too, but i think delaying the action is best here, we are actually WA/WB on the flop and could use a card to better define the texture of the board imo