So after a ten year hiatus from the game, I've recently decided to return. I used to play and profit at 1/2 or 2/4 LHE online and had some success at $3/6 live. I'm still shaking out the rust and I certainly have a number of leaks that are bleeding away my winnings.

I was active on 2+2 back in the day under a different username and found the community to be a big part of the (limited) success I had at the game. I'm also re-reading SSHE and have ordered Winning in Tough Hold'Em Games to help with my re-education.

One issue I am having is playing out-of-position. It seems as though players have become stickier than they were when I was playing at these limits a decade ago... I'm finding it challenging to navigate how to play my middle pairs when many opponents seem content to call the flop and turn, leaving me with a decision come the river.

This hand is a good example of what I'm struggling with. Thanks in advance to any thoughts you may have.

PokerStars - $0.50/$1 (6 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 7.31 BB (VPIP: 14.29, PFR: 4.76, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 43)
CO: 18.22 BB (VPIP: 31.71, PFR: 5.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 43)
BTN: 10.75 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)
Hero (SB): 29.81 BB
BB: 12 BB (VPIP: 44.44, PFR: 38.89, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 37)

Hero posts SB 0.25 BB, BB posts BB 0.5 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 0.75 BB) Hero has 9 T

fold, CO calls 0.5 BB, BTN raises to 1 BB, Hero calls 0.75 BB, fold, CO calls 0.5 BB

Flop: (3.5 BB, 3 players) Q 7 T
Hero checks, CO checks, BTN bets 0.5 BB, Hero raises to 1 BB, fold, BTN calls 0.5 BB

Turn: (5.5 BB, 2 players) A
Hero bets 1 BB, BTN calls 1 BB

River: (7.5 BB, 2 players) J
Hero checks, BTN bets 1 BB

Hero...?

Why did you bet the turn?

Fold pre. At least until you're more comfortable, but this hand probably performs better as a 3 bet if you're going to enter at all (anyone care to refute this w/ data? I don't have a DB on me, and I never cold called the sb very much at all here anyway).

Check fold turn IMO, that card is a disaster and you've terrible equity against anything a generic villain bets here.

Check fold river. Now even his random K float hands got there. Plus, we further strengthened his range by having him call a bet on the turn.

I'm fine with the cc pre given the limper, but definitely c/f turn, you only beat 88, 66-

Turn bet is a bluff. I prefer a pre flop raise or fold, leaning towards raise. As played id check fold turn and river.

Everyone agree on the c/r flop good ?

I don't like any street as played.

I'd 3 bet preflop.

As played I'd check call the flop.

As played I'd check fold the turn.

As played I'd check fold the river.

Opening ranges are typically wider than they used to be. The effect is that opponents have more draws and low pairs with which to call you down.

I suggest a healthy dose of study with an equity calculator.

Ok, so let's play this back and say that I do 3 bet pre-flop and instead of raising the flop, action is checked to me and I bet. Same player folds, villain remains.

How do we play turn/river in that case?

For sure. Thanks.

Bet flop, c/f turn and river

I really don't like preflop. I can see an argument for raising, but I would be more likely to raise if there weren't a passive caller in ahead of the button raiser. I would lean towards folding preflop.

What's wrong with checkraising the flop? It makes the passenger face two bets rather than one, and makes it more expensive for a hand like KJ or J9 to continue.

The turn, though, is an action-killer. Lots of hands in either villain's range get there, from flushes to pair draws. I would check/fold here.

And, as played, the river isn't a tough decision at all. Check/fold.

People check back way more flops than they used to; cbet ranges are stronger; check raising middle pairs has gone way down in value.

I think folding pre flop here would be a significant mistake. The decision should be between 3betting and calling (I would personally 3bet). I think you can play a lot worse than T9s in this spot.

I would call the flop. Yes, there are some good things that can happen when we raise (like CO folding something like K9 or even JT/KT/AT), but I think our hand is a bit too weak to reopen the betting, especially without a diamond.

The problem with three betting this hand is that you have ten high out of position against two opponents, so you often have to hit to win. The problem with calling is that it caps your range, which isn't a huge problem if the pot is large, but here it isn't.

I think that's ok because T9s hits quite often. We'll flop a pair or better a little more than 48.5%* of the time, and we'll flop strong draws often.

*source: The Intelligent Guide to Texas Holdem Poker by Sam Braids, which I do not recommend for anything but some cool graphs and some decent probability scales. Amusingly, I thought I was buying a no limit holdem book but much to my surprise, there is such a game as limit holdem that some have written books about. So I tried it and loved it.

I think a decent flop checking strategy is quite important to playing this situation well. If you're gonna cbet 100%? Call pre imo.

Let's start from the beginning. Raising from the SB, whatever hand we hold, serves two purposes: it gives us initiative in the hand, and it gives an increased incentive to fold to the BB (who at this point has a random hand) and the CO (who is only in for one bet so far). If we can get one fold, there will be one bet of dead money in the pot and (assuming BTN doesn't 4!) the pot will have 10 bets in it. Break-even equity will be 25%. Give the opponents reasonable ranges; what range of ours contains hands with more than 25% equity against those ranges? Note that we are in worst absolute position, so it will be difficult to realize all of that equity.

If both BB and CO fold, we are in a much better situation: eight bets in the pot, and our break-even equity is 31% versus a single villain. (But against this lineup, I don't think this is likely, although it can happen from time to time.)

If everyone is in for the party, then the pot will contain twelve bets, and break-even equity is 20.83%.

And of course there is the nonzero likelihood that someone (possibly this LAGgy BB, possibly this unknown BTN, maybe even this loose-passive in the CO who suddenly decides that it is time to gamble) puts in a fourth bet. Three ways with one bet of dead money puts 13 bets in the pot to which we are choosing to put in 3.5 bets. Breakeven equity here is 26.9% -- but remember that the player putting in the fourth bet has narrowed their range considerably.

There are several possibilities here (I have left out a couple), and to nail down a SB raising range we would need to assign ranges to all the villains, sum over all the paths, and include some sort of margin of safety to account for the difficulty of playing out of position.

Not having done the work, but seeing the size of the equity numbers in the various possibilities, I think that:

(1) A profitable SB 3-betting range is rather wider than many people might think.

(2) It is probably wide enough that C-betting the flop 100% is a likely mistake, because we will have significant check-folding and check-calling ranges between our bluffing and value-betting ranges. (Multiway, our bluffing range ought to be pretty snug, I should think.)

Does T9s fall in the profitable 3-betting range? As I say, I haven't done the work of assigning ranges and stoving. But I think chances are good that it might very well.

If it does, than Bob148 is surely right; playing it well is going to involve having a decent flop checking strategy.