Haven't posted a hand in a while, but a combination of playing terrible and running bad has me motivated to seek advice. Game is 8 handed 25/25 at a casino. Villain has about 2.7k and I cover.

Preflop: Very good, solid pro opens utg to $100, villain, who seems to be a pretty passive fish, calls utg+1. I call with JJQQ UTG+2. A case could be made for 3 betting, but UTGs raise is very strong, and with several players behind me, I definitely don't want to get 3 bet. I also have only about 3k, so someone with even a bad AA won't hesitate to 4 bet, since it's not deep at all. 2 players behind me call.

5 people to the flop of 634 pot $525, it checks around

Turn: Q. PFR again checks, now the fish to my right pots it. I've been really struggling with these spots lately. I seem to be doing the wrong thing every time. When I have the best hand but not the nuts, I'm calling and letting people realize their equity, and when I have the worst hand, I'm shoving and they have the nuts. Obviously some of that is luck, but it's definitely me making bad reads as well. I really want to deny equity, especially from people behind me, considering there are now 2 flush draws, and they'd be getting 3:1 in position on a call with plenty of money left to bet. On the other hand, the better's range seems fairly strong. It's strange that he would check the straight otf, especially after the pfr checked, but people do strange things. Thoughts?

UTG and UTG+1 ranges doesen't connect well at this board (75,52 are a superslim portion of their ranges) and their ranges are heavily weighted towards flushdraws, possible double flushdraws here.

You have disguised top set on a super draw heavy board, it's unlikely they have you beat... but you have very poor visibility/river play-ability, time to raise. It's trivial to me at this stack depth, protecting your hand far outweighs the risk of putting in more money when behind. Not sure what I think when we get deeper, that would be an interesting hand as there are certainly sweet spots/reverse sweet spots in stack depth, I consider this a near sweet spot for a pot raise for you with this action. It would be ideal if you had a little less, but it's really close to perfect.

not 3 betting is criminal

UTG sure, but with UTG+1 the effect will be significantly less so

True, but still their ranges will mostly be 90% flushdraws so easy raise OTT and even if he manages to have 75 we still got plenty of outs

Is getting 4 bet that bad? You may even have company, which is more than likely good. Double suited two high pair, I'm 3 betting.

If UTG+1, is passive and a fish, two thoughts come to mind:

1.) He could be limping with hands in your range that take away your straight outs or even has you beaten. (Some combo of KK).

Because of this and your respect for the original raiser, it's imperative to put in the isolation bet , to keep the first two honest and make sure that whomever is thinking about limping after doesn't get the chance.

2.) With 5 of you in there, some straight draws probably exist, if not are made( in addition to the aforementioned flush draws) by the time your queen peels off. Therefore on the flop when it checks to you, I'm betting our 3/4 pot, and seeing where you stand.

By not 3 betting pre, and checking flop, even when your card comes you are still frozen.

That is much worse than being blown out for a few hundred on the streets before.

He could have 3 bet pre, of course. But he absolutely can not bet black qqjj into four people on 634ddh. I literally can't think of a worse candidate within his entire range. Also 3/4 of the pot is massive. you will get absolutely shredded betting even qq with a flush draw let alone black qqjj

The problem is that without betting out on either street, he doesn't have any clue where he is on turn.

Passive play in this hand is what created a situation where he is stuck facing a pot size bet when the best card in the deck hits for him .

If UTG is solid, and UTG +1 is so passive, that leaves the other two possibly being in the straight range. Betting out on flop will tell him exactly where he is going into the turn ... Plus he has fold equity there as well, since the board is so wet, why can't he be the one with the connection to it, ESPECIALLY since he flatted behind two players pre. Let the passive preflop action pay off on flop.

lol @ betting flop
I jam turn since flop checked around. If he checked straight on flop, so be it, but we're very likely to be ahead and sometimes crushing.

We know exactly where we are at, way behind any reasonable range, hell damn near 2-1 dog to a random hand... but there are 4 other non random hands out. I promise you betting this flop is losing more money than nearly any single play one can make in PLO on any random given play in a session.

I check fold this hand in heads up pots, I'd pay to not have to put any money in when its 5 ways, a bunch too. Its really one of the absolute worst hands we can have for board/action... id rather have TT nothing nothing atleast then ppl would have some black qq/jj they could fold

The problem is that the HERO is even thinking of what to do here. It's clearly an unenviable position. My thinking on the flop bet is now playing itself out on the turn.

He bets out on flop and one of the other 4 jam him he releases his hand and loses 450 or so...by hitting his card and facing a raise, what does he do??? (I let go here btw) If he considers calling here which he is, then being the aggressor the street before is the more opportune and cost effective play. He either wins, possibly gets free card on turn, or knows to fold immediately. All for less than the bet he is now facing.

I disagree with this analysis of him being ahead vs. 4 others. You know, as do most on this board, that getting in with hands in that range for $100 with 3 or 4 players already in, is a phenomenal value.

How do you have him raising here when he is sandwiched on both sides?

Hand is only a mandatory 3bet OOP.

Just call turn and play a river. That's the whole point of being in position - getting to play more streets acting last.

We have the nuts so rarely here that I think we should call with whole range which will cover us across all runouts. Protection is a reasonable goal but I think we have to forego that when we just never have the nuts.

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Can you restate what you mean? I really don't follow. I just know you can absolutely not bet this flop. I promise you that you are costing yourself a ton of money in a ton of different spots if you think black qqjj can be profitably bet 5 ways to the flop on 6d3d4h. I wouldn't even bet it 3 ways, and I would not be happy about betting it heads up.

As far as turn peoples ranges are relatively capped and don't hit this board hardly ever as far as having a hand better than QQ, so I'd raise, really hard for somebody to slowplay 57 here from the person betting into us, Hero certainly can't fold, could argue to just call pending the 57/52 read... I don't rly feel like running a sim or anything because it doesn't seem very close to me.

As far as czech rays post, I dunno, we rly only have to fade 57 and our hand loves protectiong having no diamonds/hearts/visibility on any straight completing river. I think balance wise we will be fine, we don't need to have the nuts to be able to be protected on rivers on this board/action... our bluffs will have board coverage on most rivers qq/jj doesn't and raising qq provides coverage for them. I also think we are the MOST likely person to have 57 or set+nfd, and even our 57 hands might have more diamonds than ppl would expect, allowing us to check, so I think our line makes sense and we have the nuts more often than ppl think I certainly want some top boats on board pair rivers, qqjj no diamonds no hearts seems like a good start, hell I think ppl can even fold 52 behind us vs a bet+raise very rare actual merge play. It's a slam dunk raise to me vs someone described as a fish, I'm fully behind calling vs a reg.

turn is definitely closer to a fold than a raise

I wrote a really long post after that, basically I ran a sim because some things czech rays said rang true for me.

We can only raise turn here if we are CERTAIN the fish never has 57/52(or atleast goes all the way with it), it's not the craziest "read" to know but just call is the very clear default play unless ur 95% confident in your read. It's not because of river playability or being capped tho really, it's just straights have us so cooked we can't see too many of them no matter how loose I make a reasonable stack off/call range.

I greatly underestimated how rarely they have to slowplay 57/52 for us to be in trouble.

There are so many moving parts in it, that if he has a realistic utg+1 range he really almost never has 57/52 when he bets but u described him as a fish and a fishes range will make way more straights on this board than a GTO range, and I assume the guys behind us likely in reality almost never have it, but if we are wrong we are really sticking our neck out.

I'm not sure what exact number is, but it's something like if ppl decide to slowplay 57 25% of the time each we are in trouble raising. For raise to be better than call we need them to be slowplaying closer to like 10% each, maybe even less, or folding 52 etc.

All that being said I doubt I can be convinced its -EV, just not optimal unless u got the laser live reads.

It's a super complicated spot to look at exploitatively but I did some more math, seems like 25% is around the threshold where I think it could be better to raise vs, meaning if people slowplay less than 25% of the time with all their possible straights, and this guy is really a large fish, I think raising is optimal. Would help if you could give more insight into what you think his preflop range is and turn betting range is though.

Some perspective: slowplaying all 57 hands with DD (the hand that needs the least protection out of 57s) would only be 10% of all possible straights.

I feel a bit better about wanting to snap raise, but I'm probably being over zealous in my belief that people can never have 57, could certainly get u in trouble if ur reads are off here.

I'm not that worried about 75, it will be balanced by all the times he has 66/44/33 and stacks off drawing very slim

And he was OOP. We don't know what the others were going to do pre, or any street thereafter. Therefore, the assumption that a call gets two folds behind, and therefore acts last on river, is not one I feel good about making.

Sorry if my thoughts came across without clarity. My point is that I abhor this spot going into river, if now even one of the two acting behind follow the a bet, and call.

If you put any of them on the low sets, what else is in their ranges to go with it?? Some combo of made straight or straight draw cards have to be consider.

So now we are acting in the middle on the river, and if a FH doesn't come out way...and any flush card or straight connector does, we are back to a similar spot as the turn.

Once again reiterating why we want to know where we are on the earlier streets by betting out.

Flat turn, you get to use your positional advantage on river. You don't get the fish to make many mistakes when you re-pot his turn pot bet.

Also not crazy that he would check flop utg1, he could've missed a check raise. That flop favors callers in late position. CR gets most of his stack in on flop.

I also think this is a 3b pre.

I'm convinced its just a call to current action (utg+1 betting pot into us with all these ppl behind).

You really need to be convinced it's not a bet on the flop, I promise u that is really really bad. qqjj is like the 94th/100th hand to bet on this flop into 5 people. It's losing a bunnnnch of money.