Game dynamic is fairly loose/passive, full ring with 1 half solid player.
Only decent player is SB, is a reg at higher limits but seems fairly tilty tonight.
Two limps from EP/MP, SB raises and I complete the BB with 65cc, the limpers call.
Flop is J67r (1 club)
SB bets, I call, limpers call.
Turn 10c
SB checks and I bet, limpers call and he raises.
In my head he's got KQ / AXcc here a lot and I call planning to bluff a non face card (or 9) river assuming he barrels.
So I call, both limpers call as well and that's an issue.
River 3d.
SB bets.
Follow through ? Line check?
Is it normal to have to raise with what is effectively a bluff catcher here? Fancy play syndrome?

I'd check the turn.

I’d raise the flop and check the turn

I'd raise the flop, check the turn, and not turn my hand into a bluff.

Why on God's great earth would you raise this flop w/ this hand?

You have a decent hand, the SB is tilted, the limpers were in ep/mp so the flop doesn't necessarily crush their range, you can clean up outs etc etc, limiting the number of opponents will greatly increase your chance of winning.

I think the decision is close between call and raise. You're response is a bit over dramatic.

Absent SB reads I would probably just call.

Because I’d prefer the two players behind me to fold

Also, I thought the saying was god’s green earth. Looking it up

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/God%27s_green_earth

Fold what exactly? You have bottom pair. Why not make them fold when you have jack **** and try not spewing into a stronger range when you actually have something?

Turn bet is spew
I don't like raising flop either

Check/call and check/fold unimproved seems better.
I've been semi bluffing in spots where I'm pretty sure I've never taken the pot down without improving. I'm gonna stop doing that.

Make an estimate of the frequency with which hero is behind on this flop. Now look at the pot size. Raising the flop is probably good here when all the factors are taken into consideration (tilty preflop raise, texture not likely to hit as many hands, optimal relative position).

Why do you think this?

I thought his SB raise range looked like TT+, KQs+, A2-5s, A9s+, AQo+. Also slightly important that the jack on the flop was a club.

That is a weird SB raising range. Why did you pick this range?

Edit: Did you mean that this was his turn check-raising range? If so, let's take a step back and look at ranges before this point.

But my real question (in all cases) is why did you decide that this was his range?

He's a thinking player and I thought he would only raise his SB with good multiway hands, knowing the pot would be 5 handed. I thought the majority of those holdings would be suited, so when he c/r the turn I think he has a good semi bluffing hand which doesn't contain a pair.

Even with all these considerations (and I expect we flopped the best hand ~ 30% of the time), raising is still pretty bad. People behind us are getting 10:1 on a call, so if they want to peel their A4 or whatever, they can feel free. What's more important is that even a 100% cbettor here is going to be in front of us a lot, and there's not a lot of value in "protecting" the second best hand.

Why not raise this flop w/ QT if we want to raise with 65? Then we can actually make them fold better. We can't just say he's barreling a range that makes 65 a good hand to raise with against him, but then flip the script and say we don't have the fold equity with QT to raise against him.

And yes, while this flop doesn't hit a ton w/r/t pairs, it does hit a ton w/r/t marginal draws. And those aren't folding, because you think the dude that shows up to limp T8o from MP is folding when he flops a gutterball?

Yes this is at least not raising to "see where we're at", but this raise really doesn't accomplish much. Yes it's great when SB is barreling his AT and the other two fold behind us and he calls once and we get value, but is that really happening all that often? And when they do fold to a raise behind, how often are they folding for just villain's original bet?

We're overthinking this spot. We have an okay hand, so we call.

A2s-A5s are not what are normally considered "good multiway hands." Also, it's a 4-way pot, not 5-way.

This implication doesn't really follow. Just because he starts with a lot of suited hands does not imply that his check-raise means anything in particular.

Why do you think he check-raise semi-bluffs those instead of leading?

But let's just say his turn check-raising range is this: TT+, KQs+, A9s+

The board is Jx 6x 7x Tc with one more club, which we'll make the 7 to maximize the number of hands in his range.

KQs = 4 hands
AcKc = 1 hand
AcQc = 1 hand
AcJc = 1 hand
Ac9c = 1 hand

AA = 6 hands
KK = 6 hands
QQ = 6 hands
JJ = 3 hands
TT = 3 hands

In this case, the range is 3:1 against drawing.

The best you can hope for is that he's doing this will only sets and *all* draws. In that case, there are 8 drawing hands and 6 sets. But even that is just *barely* favoring draws.

With regards to the rest of your line, it's ill-conceived.

Of course the players that have already called once are going to call the raise. That was completely predictable.

It's not terrible with players behind you if you are pretty certain that you can make them fold a lot of hands and you're pretty certain that the SB has a lot in his bluffing range. I wouldn't really call your hand a bluff-catcher in this spot.

And I really think your mistake is betting the turn. I'm not sure what you really think you're accomplishing there.

What do you think his raising range is? J-high doesn't exactly hit his range. We should be thrilled that he's 100% c-betting because that maximizes the chances we're ahead of him.

Also, the 10:1 is if you just call. If you raise, it's worse than that with the threat of more action to come.

If he has A-high, there's a LOT of value in getting the players behind us to fold. You're not heads up. You want it to be heads up.

The parlay of villain calling with a weak draw and being ahead of SB is one that I'm willing to take. That's now counting as value.

I think so.

Given the pot size, I think getting them to face two significantly increases the chances they're folding.

I disagree. I don't think you've raised a strong enough objection. We don't have an okay hand. We have a weak hand. I'm not planning to just call down with bottom pair in a 4 way pot.

I mean if we want to use OP's range for villain, then sure we have a slam dunk raise and it's straight up value. But if we want to use a sane range, we're basically flipping against a 100% cbet. And OP has given us 0 indication that he's c-betting 100%, just that he's "tilty". Tilty can mean a lot of things, including "F*** I HAVE AK AND MISSED AGAIN".

But sure, let's do math (and I'm calculating these on my own end, you can make your own assumptions as well. I'd rather not bicker about tiny points). Let's assume we're flipping against SB when we raise and he calls and we're HU.

So our pot equity is 12 small bets * 0.5 = 6, and we invested 2, so our EV of the play is 4 small bets.

Now let's say we're 25% 4 ways if we call. Our EV is a quarter of that (3) and we invested 1, so the EV of the play is 2 small bets.

So raising is clearly better, right? Well, no, because we're getting continues behind a ton, and when it happens, we'd probably have something like 28% equity. So 14 bets * .28 - 2 = 1.92 bets. So still not too terrible.

But what if we raise and the limpers both call? Well we blew out the weakest parts of their ranges, so our equity may now be 22% equity 4 ways. 16 * .22 - 2 = 1.52. This is clearly worse than calling.

And wait, what if villain 3 bets us? This could happen. And in fact, it could happen a good deal (25%+). When that happens, we now could have 22.5% equity three ways approximately. 17 * .225 - 3 = 0.825. If it's HU and he three bets, it may be more like 14 * .329 - 3 = 1.606 bets.

So yes, raising is clearly better when we present the binary case of "well it'll be 4 ways or HU". But that's not how poker works.

Moreover, if OP's goal is to move up, I can tell you right now that the dudes who raise bottom pair on this board open themselves up to get the hell exploited out of them (I cannot tell you how many times I've 3 bet and barreled hands like 88 in a similar spot for value here). So just like the argument of "hey it's profitable to limp 22 UTG in a passive 4-8 game" is dumb because it won't be as you move up, the same goes for this. Even if it's best in a vacuum, it plays terrible in the long run.

That's fine. I never claimed it was binary. There's a LOT that can happen in between, and nothing you've presented makes a strong argument that one is clearly better or worse than the other.

Equity is not the only number that matters. If you raise and you're coldcalled behind you, you're no worse off than if you called the flop bet and called a turn bet. In fact, you're *better* off because you're not going to bet bottom pair on the turn into 3 other players and will have put less money in the pot when you're behind.

There's more dynamic than the numbers that you've put forward, though at least solid numbers are things to build off of. I may disagree with this number or that, but I agree that it's quibbling and irrelevant to do so.

That's fine. OP is in the game he is in right now. He should be playing for the game that he is in, not the game that he wants to be in. Those adjustments will come in time.

This is where I'm going to draw a sharp disagreement with you. The argument is not dumb. It's absolutely true that limping 22 UTG in a loose passive 4-8 game is a good strategy. The fact that it's not a good strategy in other games is irrelevant. You play to the game that you're in, not some hypothetical higher level game. To do otherwise is really quite silly.

There is no "vacuum" to play in. You're always in some sort of context. And again, it doesn't matter if it plays terribly in higher level games because OP is playing in the game he's playing in, not some other game.

Not able to edit my original post but the on the turn, the board read JcTc6d7h. If the jack wasn't a club his range would have too many value hands for me to make this play imo. It might already though, so there's that.

I thought we had middle pair, but given that we are at least calling getting the top lumps to fold over adds is pretty big here.

Tomato Tomato!