Saturday night at the Wynn. Table is nine handed and action has been good.

Villain 1 is in his late twenties and has been fairly aggressive (VPIP/PFR of 25/12). I have seen him bluff $100 in position OTR into a $250 pot when he missed his draw and a third card to a straight came off (called by opponent). Only hand between myself and villain occurred when he raised in HJ, I 3bet OTB and take down the pot with a 1/2 psb OTF when it came A high. He starts the hand with roughly $400.

Villain 2 is in his fourties and has been playing 50/1 at this point. I have observed him overcall with KK. He has generally played pretty passively postflop.

Hero has been playing 15/11 at this point. I start with a stack of $650.

On to the hand:

V1 opens to $12 in MP. Hero calls from CO with T 8. V2 calls from BTN. Flop comes K 6 2. V1 checks, hero bet $25, V2 folds, V1 raises to $65. Hero ???

The main reason I am starting this thread is because I wanted to get everyone's opinion on the flop continuation check/raise as a tactic when OOP. I had not seen this move used before, but it seemed like a useful weapon to use in a 3way pot when a) we think one of our opponents is aggressive enough to bet with a mediocre hand when we check, and b) we hold either a very strong made hand or a very strong draw/combo draw. I tended to see V1's range including a lot of hands like KK, AA, A K, and A J. Am I giving him too much credit? How often has anyone else seen the continuation check/raise used by an OOP preflop raiser?

Check raises from passive players are Big hands... /

To clarify: It was V1, the young fairly aggro player and preflop raiser who check/raises, not V2.

This is frequently a FD, but it does you no good. It is a better FD than you have. The only question is whether you can push him off his hand. You need to deny him 2:1 odds. The pot is 126. A pot sized bet is pops it to 232. That gives him 2:1. You're going to need to raise it to about $300 and hope he recognizes that he doesn't have odds. Sticking 2/3 of you stack in on a bluff isn't winning poker.

Fold and move on.

This continuation c/r is an interesting move, but you need to ask yourself what is the value that he is getting here?

He might have a great hand, in which case he risks losing value when it checks through, although he might pick up value when you bet and he c/c all the way down, of course in that case, why blow you off your hand with a c/r? Of course, he also might have seen you call a c/r previously and call down, but when he doesn't know the strength of your hand, a bet/bet/bet line is likely going to get the most value most of the time.

He could be stone cold bluffing, in which case he is making a riskier play to get you to fold. Odds are, on a board like that, you would fold to a regular c-bet, and although a c/r bluff has the benefit of putting more money in the pot, it also has the disadvantage of forcing him to commit more money to get the fold, therefore, he has to be much more certain that you both will fold. It is a riskier play which requires knowing a lot about your Vs for the benefits to outweigh the disadvantages, imo.

He could be semibluffing, as you pointed out, with the AX. This is the most interesting situation and I'm sure he would be happy to take it down right then, but unfortunately for him, this is the exact outcome that would lose him the most value. If the club flush comes in, he would get at least some value from you (might stack ya) in the flush over flush scenario.

This board is so dry, imo, that he is targeting too small a range for a value c/r, and is risking too much for a bluff/semibluff c/r. The board would have to be a lot wetter for a c/r as the PFR to have any merit.

The check/raise on the flop is rarely a total bluff, most low stakes villains never have a total bluff here and even the bluffy ones usually have some draw. Without some reason to believe villain is really bluffy, you can assume he has at least KX and possibly better, or he has a flush draw, which will almost always be better then your flush draw. You might be able to shove him off a flush draw, but for most villains that makes up only a small part of their range.

This really isn't a good flop for the check raise because there is only one draw and it is patently obvious. A lot of villains do this too often though and will do it with any fairly decent hand here to shut out the flush draw. They don't need a monster hand but generally you need to fold because villain thinks your drawing and won't fold to a raise. They won't be happy about it but they will generally get their stacks in here. You can't flat either because they won't pay off if the flush does come in. This is a situation where you needed to be set mining, because it is a great situation to get paid off with a set.