Typical SSHE table, 5-7 people seeing every flop and calling down with any piece of the board.

3 limpers, I'm in the CO with A9 and I raise, BTN, BB and all limpers call.

6 players, 12sb, flop 9 6 5

BB checks, UTG bets, one caller, I raise, BTN coldcalls, BB folds, UTG 3-bets, caller folds, I call, BTN calls

I have UTG on two pair or better and BTN on a flush draw, understanding that at an SSHE table anything could mean anything.

3 players, 17bb, turn 2

My plan here is to try to get to showdown as cheaply as possible. If UTG bets I'm probably calling but I'm going to be very unhappy if BTN raises. If UTG then 3-bets I can safely fold, but if UTG just calls I have to call getting 22 to 1.

There aren't very many rivers I'm going to be happy to see - one of the last two nines in the deck is about all I can hope for and even trips may be no good. If I hit a non-heart Ace it's probably no good, but the pot's going to be gigantic. Even if the river is an overcard to my 9 it's going to be hard to fold for one bet.


sidebar:
I raised the flop to try to buy the button and charge gutshots and second/bottom pair draws. Now that I look back on it, the villains were getting 8 to 1 with implied odds so my raise actually didn't protect my hand. Is this a situation where I should have waited for the turn to raise as long as the turn was a blank, like the 2 of clubs or something?

Now suppose I did just call the flop, BTN and BB just called, and UTG bet the turn. Would a turn raise have been correct there even though the turn put 3 hearts on the board?

Flop is close but I think I’m just calling the flop. I’m not even sure if we have great equity in this hand against the field. As played I would still call the 3bet but I’m not feeling great about it.

Turn I would call as played and fold if the button raises and the other player calls. He is playing his hand exactly like a flush draw would. However, if the other player folded I would probably call down since at that point we only have to beat one player and he might actually have some fsdr in his range.

If I got to the turn as just a call I wouldn’t raise, and I would probably still fold if the button raises off.

These are just my thoughts, definitely a tricky spot for sure. I think we have to play this defensively and try to see what the turn card brings on such a wet/dynamic board.

I think the flop is a must-raise given the pot size and the strength of your hand. Getting button or the BB to fold is a great outcome and well worth investing another SB.

As played, I would call turn and fold if the button raises. Assuming the turn action went bet-call-call, I would not raise any river card but would value bet at least some blank river cards (a black ace; a black 9; potentially a non heart blank) if it’s checked to me.

I think you played the hand reasonably and your thought process is sound. The only part I don't like is your commentary about raising possibly being bad because it doesn't protect your hand. Protection is a fraught concept. The Sklansky/Miller book makes an argument similar to what you are considering here: that we should sometimes call the flop and raise the turn because it gives us the opportunity to make opponents face two big bets instead of two small bets, which is better for "protecting" our hand. We can probably create some hypothetical where we gain more from the equity we make a villain correctly fold than we do from our portion of the money they put into the pot from calling, but generally, when we are an equity favorite, we benefit more just from getting money shoveled into the pot. We could reduce variance by taking a line that is more likely to make villains fold their equity, but in a cash game, there isn't any real benefit to that.

hardinthepaint you kind of partially answered a question I was going to pose to asmitty.

In the SSHE book, the other reason they suggest waiting for the turn to raise is if you're in a situation where half of the deck could cripple your hand. Yes, I often have an equity advantage on the flop (I haven't taken the time to count the combos but UTG could be betting a lot of weaker nines and pair/draw combos we're ahead of - his betting range is not exclusively two pair or better). But any T or higher, 7, 8 or heart on the turn is likely to turn my hand into chicken chow mein if it isn't ALREADY that. A BLANK on the turn, like the 2 of clubs, increases whatever equity edge I may have on the flop.

Is waiting for the turn to raise when you suspect that raising the turn will allow to exploit a bigger edge than raising on the flop a valid reason to wait for the turn to raise?

If you think your opponents might call two big bets cold on the turn, there is certainly merit to waiting to put in a raise. In practice, I can't think of a lot of spots where we are going to feel confident that we can go for a max greed play and get people to do this.

I think your question is more along the lines of: is there merit to waiting until my edge is even bigger than it is now to start betting? And I think the answer in a multiway pot is generally no. As your edge gets bigger, their incentive to call gets smaller. If a good card for you comes, they may just fold. And sometimes you're still ahead when a scare card comes but now they won't call because they're scared too. A good example of this is when you have the nut flush with a suited hand, you decide to slowplay, and then another of the suit comes in. Now, the four-flush is obvious and a lot of hands that would call now just fold. And by building the pot on the flop, they're more likely to stick around when that good turn card comes. Get the money in while you are ahead.

Of course, there are exceptions. But as a general principle, your default mode should be get money in when you're winning. Also note that this way of thinking about your strategy isn't really sensitive to thinking about what your range looks like and how your hand fits into your range, or other game theory concepts. We may have other reasons to call rather than raise, but I don't think those reasons are driven by a concern for protection.