Been at the table about 45 minutes and it's every SSHE-reader's dream.

4 limpers and I'm on the button with J9s and raise. I prefer to do this with JTs or T9s, but 4 people have just told me they either don't have a premium hand or they have one but don't know how to play it, so I'm clearly not folding, and raising seems better than calling because I have position. So I raise. SB folds, BB calls, all limpers call.

Flop - 12.5SB - J46 with one of my suit.

Checks around to the HJ who bets. CO calls. I decide to raise. HJ is your prototypical LP so he probably has a better hand than I do. I'm not folding for one bet in this huge pot, and I feel raising is better than calling to charge the other 3 players 2 bets to draw at whatever they're drawing at. If HJ has anything less than 2 pair or a set he's probably going to call and check to me because he's very passive. So I raise. Only HJ and CO call.

Turn - 9BB - J462 giving me 4 to a flush.

Villains check to me. In the heat of battle I bet. I can't decide if checking or betting is better - I think they're about the same TBH. If I had AJs or KJs this is a clear bet. With a weak kicker I'm probably just building a pot for the HJ. But if betting was a mistake, I think it was a small one at worst because I have plenty of equity when called.

River - 12BB - J4628 completing my flush.

HJ checks, CO bets. CO is too passive to bet there without a flush, and quite honestly I question whether or not he'd bet out with a worse flush than mine. But I'm not folding a jack-high flush in a 12BB pot so I call. HJ calls and the action is closed.

Thoughts?

If the hand itself is not very interesting:

1. If I do not pick up a fourflush on the turn I think it becomes a trivial checkbehind - true?
2. If the river doesn't complete my flush and CO bets, it's a put-your-cards-on-a-rocketshihp-and-launch-them-into-outer-space fold IMHO. I'm not even sure I'd call one bet closing the action after HJ bets and CO calls.

I play it the same on all streets.

How confident are you of the bolded claims? I agree that you should probably raise and knock out players, and that you're likely behind. But this sets you up with the following questions:

1) Are you trying to get to showdown with top pair?
2) If so, how do you hope to get there? Bet turn, check behind river? Check turn, and call/check river?

It's probably worth thinking about your range here. What are you raising on this flop? What would you do with TT? If TT is an insta-muck, you're at the bottom of your range. If you think you might call/raise TT here, then you've got more hands in your range heading to the turn.

My inclination is to check the turn here. You're towards the bottom of your range, and while you picked up some equity from your backdoor draw, your equity is still mostly dependent upon your hitting your flush. So it's not awesome.

This goes back to question 2 above. What was your flop plan? I'd still play according to that plan.

Raise pre-, raise the flop, bet the turn, raise-call the river. Easy game.

CO wouldn't lead with a straight? If true that would make me rethink, but I'm inclined to raise pre raise flop bet turn raise river.

+1

One argument to calling is that HJ is still in the pot and there's a good chance he'll just call his whatever, so we get 2 bets anyway.

This being said, it's way too early in your history to conclude this player's donking range. Some are "omg I have the nuts and this better not check so I bet". Some are "I'm scared of being 3 bet so I'm just gonna donk my 86". If he's the former, calling is defensible since there's more flush combos beating us than we beat, while calling is a disaster if he's the latter because we miss easy value.

I think the flop raise is a combination of charging the 3 people to my left I'm probably ahead of *and* a free card play, and typically when I do a free card play, my plan is to check the turn if my hand doesn't improve. My hand did improve somewhat on the turn.

Not sure if that contributed anything to the discussion, but thought I'd answer the question nonetheless.

It doesn't do you as much good to knock out players if you've only got a second-best hand. I'm not saying that it does *no* good, but the value is diminished.

So I would look back at where you think you stand relative to the original bettor. How confident are you that he has you beat? If you're pretty confident, then the real value to your raise is to take the free card. If you're less confident that you're beat, then it makes more sense to raise to make it expensive for players with lesser hands.

On the turn, the flush draw adds about 20% equity to your hand. So if you were about 80% sure you were beat on the flop, you actually do have some equity, but that's only because the third player is in the hand and is likely to call. (If he folds, that's probably a good result as well, though it's not clear how helpful it really is if you're behind.) If it's heads up, betting the turn loses money. That's something to keep in mind in this spot.

In this spot, the big pot leads me to raise the flop and the big draw with a weak made hand (relative to the bettor) leads me to check the turn. I would be happy getting to showdown unimproved for not more than one big bet after raising the flop, and I can pretty much get that by checking the turn. If it's checked to me on the river, I think it's a value bet. And I call a river bet because I'm getting 10:1 with top pair and I don't like folding top pair for one bet getting odds like that.

Great post Aaron - thanks.

If we're going to put at least one more bet in regardless of river why not bet the turn that way if you hit the flush you earn an extra bet? You can always check back the river.

1) You might get check-raised if you bet the turn.
2) One of the villains might donk the river.

Both of these screw up your plan. I'll agree it's also possible to get check-raised on the river, but that's a pretty rare circumstance in these games. (Less rare than turn check-raises or river donks.)

You're also confusing yourself with the idea of getting an "extra bet" in on the river when you hit your flush. On the turn, you're probably ahead 10-20% of the time. That means if you put in a bet now, you're losing 80-90% of it. I'd rather not be chasing that loss for the 20% chance of getting the "extra bet" on the river.

(There's also a difference between calling a bet and value betting on the river without a flush in terms of EV, but you admittedly won't know which situation you're in until you get there.)

Sure, if one of the opponents turns up KJ on the turn before you act, you should check, I just think ranges are much wider than OP does. Neither of these guys even needs to have top pair here.

Your table villains may vary.

The opponent can also turn up QJ and JT and still be ahead of hero. This flop is particularly dry, so I'm more inclined to believe OP's read here that it's likely a made hand, and it's likely better than his. Even if it's possible for villain to hold J7o, it's still correct to check behind if that's the worst hand in his range.

There's a bit of MUBS here. He can't have both a better hand than TPGK in the early stages and a better hand than a Jack high flush on the river. I think you want to try to get money in with this hand until your opponent gives you definitive indication that you might be beat.

Well it is two different villains. OP believes that HJ has him beat on the flop, and that CO has him beat on the river.

However imo CO can just as easily (or more easily) have 57.

I play the hand the same on all streets. I am actually pretty optimistic about your hand (and definitely think CO can have 57), but you lose just often enough that I'd rather go for an overcall from HJ. If HJ led and CO called I think this would be a slam dunk raise.

Is raising pf here really standard? I haven’t been playing as frequently over the last year, and my last few sessions I’ve felt I have been less aggressive than in the past, perhaps hands like these are where I’m being too passive. What’s the worst suited 1 gapper we should be raising in this spot, is this it?

I would not raise this preflop, but I would raise JTs, so I don't think raising is terrible.

This is actually an EXCELLENT question.

In my opinion, table conditions absolutely affect the answer. The more passive and straightforward the table is (or, more generally, the better you think you play postflop than everyone else) as a whole the more hands you can raise in position.

See my stove below - J9s BARELY has an equity advantage over those limping ranges. At a tricky table I think I just call.

It's pretty easy to set this up in stove and see what kind of equity hands like 76s+, T8s+, suited broadways, offsuit broadways, pocket pairs et al have. With position and a postflop skill advantage you can profitably raise hands with a small hot cold equity deficit that play well multiway.

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

10,967,126 games 10.360 secs 1,058,602 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 19.899% 18.57% 01.33% 2036946 145377.52 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 86s+, 75s, 65s, 54s, A2o+, K6o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o, 98o, 87o }
Hand 1: 19.890% 18.57% 01.32% 2036365 144987.05 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 86s+, 75s, 65s, 54s, A2o+, K6o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o, 98o, 87o }
Hand 2: 19.901% 18.58% 01.32% 2037449 145134.30 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 86s+, 75s, 65s, 54s, A2o+, K6o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o, 98o, 87o }
Hand 3: 19.885% 18.56% 01.32% 2035851 145089.17 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 86s+, 75s, 65s, 54s, A2o+, K6o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o, 98o, 87o }
Hand 4: 20.426% 19.31% 01.12% 2117633 122583.33 { J9s }


---

I think your ranges are not quite right.

Without a read on any specific players, the only info we have is that 4 out of 6 players have chosen to limp. If this is completely standard then the 4 limpers have a ~66% vpip. And of course the blinds currently have a 100% range.

Taking the extremely lazy route of typing in 66% for the limpers and 100% for the blinds, I come up with 18% for J9s.