Both hands at live 20-40:

Hand 1:

Recreational player who plays a lot of hands open limps. I raise QJhh. Both blinds are bad and call and limper calls.

Flop 853hhx.

Big blind bets, limper raises, I 3 bet, sb folds, both call.

Turn 4x.

They check and I want to check back.

I raised flop because I felt like I had great equity 3 or 4 ways with a flush draw and 2 overcards. I would play my made hands the same way. I don't feel like I have a cold calling range on this flop.

When the turn card comes a 4 I feel like I can never bet either of them off a pair and it's almost certain someone has a pair at this point. I feel like I can successfully barrel off an ace or king or maybe even a ten turn sometimes but not this card.

At the same time I feel like I'm now doing the free card play that is considered to be fishy.

Hand 2: Similar idea.

Utg raises, 3 people cold call, I call from bb with 57hh.

Flop J46 with 2 hearts. I check utg bets, all call, I raise because I have ridic equity, all call.

Turn is Tx.

Am I really supposed to barrel off this hand into 4 players? I want to check even though this basically defines my hand as a draw.

First hand, I probably take the freebie against a rec player.

Second hand I still bet. We can get called in all four spots and our bet serves as value.

I play hand one the same. Our hand is quite obvious but I'm not concerned about balance vs bad players in a multi way pot.

Hand two I bet the turn because our equity is still excellent and that also probably means I'm barreling the river too. I think there is a pretty good chance that pairs fold on this board.

Well played.

Big difference between the 2 hands is someone bet and another raise while in hand 2 only 1 raise and its yours so you continu on turn and river if HU and even 3 way but not 4 .

Most important read is how often villain will fold value hands.

IME most bad/rec players never fold after they have raised. They like their hand and are gonna go to showdown with it. (They also only ever raise with value)

--why do you think free carding is fishy? OOP you may turn your hand face up as a FD. But bad fishy players will still pay you off if flush hits river. They will stil pay you off with one pair if the flush hits the turn, even if your flop x/r range is FD and 2p+.

If somehow they all fold river when the FD hits, it still doesn't mean the free card play is fishy -- it just means you need to balance it with a bunch of other x/r bluffs on the flip.

Nice hands

Hand 1 is a fine check back. The 4 may help and certainly didn't hurt their ranges.

Hand 2 I'd be more inclined to check if utg is a "wait for the turn to raise" type of player. If you've seen him 3bet tptk+ on the flop, then a bet in this situation doesn't hurt (you have a lot of equity and won't often get iso-raised) and helps you in future hands when you want your sets and tptk+ type hands to get paid off.

How would you play AK with the K of flush and TT no flush card on both of these boards, out of curiosity.

Great post.

In my experience, a lot of players don't want to free card the obvious situations (call on the button with a suited hand, flop a flush draw, SB bets and 3 people call, we raise, everyone calls, turn brick) and want to free card in stupid situations (raise pre-flop with AK, get check-raised for clear value by a nitty player with at least a pair on the flop, 3-bet to hopefully buy two cards).

If you don't have fold equity against a multi-way field and a free card is offered to you with a significant draw, take it! Don't reject a play just because it may "seem fishy"; think the hand through and see if any other play is superior.

First board I think I'd fold the AK on flop and 3 bet the TT, planning to continue value betting the whole way on most runouts.

2nd hand I'd 3 bet both preflop although I think TT is close. I'd probably just call with 99. If I did decide to just call TT preflop I'd call flop also.