Hi all, long time since I've posted, good to be back. I played a hand last night that I would like some advice on. I'm very rusty and just getting back into the swing of things.

Hero just sits down at table after previous table broke, with about $250. Villan has opened a few hands and cbets his openings often. Keep in mind the same size is maybe 20 hands in total.

There are 5 limpers (all unknown or tight passive), and:
Hero (96cc) limps on BTN, Villain (BB) raises to $13, 3 limpers call, and Hero calls
Flop is Kc9h4d
Villain bets 20, folds to Hero who calls
Turn is 8c
Villain checks, hero __________


Analysis:
I think my PF BTN call is fine, I'm trying to play as many hands as possible, and closing the action to a 5 way pot I think this is totally standard. Would anybody advocate opening on BTN with 96cc?

On flop, I think my call is on the thin side but I expect villain to be playing loosely and I've seen him Cbet a few times now in a small sample size, albeit with no showdown. I figure I have some equity in the hand, a backdoor draw, and can steal the pot on a later street somewhat often.

On the turn, I pick up a flush draw with my pair, and Villain seems to be weak. I don't think he has a K, various non-pair high cards seem most likely. I can also see TT-QQ very often. Either way, he's weak and I can bluff here often and steal the pot (which is what I originally intended to do). But, is there more valuable in checking and hoping to hit the river and trying to get more value?


Thanks for the thoughts!

You're not closing the action PF, as you saw from blind raise. Fold Pf. Twice.

Flop float is OK, now fire turn with some equity to back us up if called.

I call here if I was a lot deeper and my opponents were a lot deeper. I don't think flatting double gappers this shallow can be that much better than breakeven.

Anyway, I am probably just giving up on that flop. I think were getting bloan off our hand here a lot on the turn especially when our villain leads into this many people.

As played though, I check back the turn; If we hit, we can get payed off from our repped weakness and if we miss we may be able to get to show down. Also when we barrel to the turn and wiff the river; it's hard to fire a confident river bluff.

when your checked to ip with hand with showdown value that is drawing to a stronger hand, the important things to consider before betting are how a bet will win the pot outright, the likelihood that you will get c/r, the value you will have otr if you miss, what percentage of the time your draw will come in, and your implied odds. (Sklansky)

In this situation, it doesn't look like the bb has a very strong hand. he bets 20 into 65 and then checks the turn. he could have a hand like AQ that took a small stab otf and then gave up, or a hand like TTs-QQs. Our implied odds are almost non-existent vs that range, and we can get a fold pretty frequently if we make a bet of anywhere btwn 70-80.

If he does decide to call with a marginal hand, we still have decent equity to draw out otr

Preflop: After 5 limpers, on the button, likely playing this hand vs 7 opponents cheaply, I definitely wanna call here with this marginal/speculative holding.

OP what would you say was the average stack size of the initial limpers? If there's a couple guys with $200+ I'm calling here all day or if say everyone had $100ish in front of them, I'm still calling. I honestly don't know if that's right though, but that's how I would approach the situation.

After the preflop raise: Youre getting a little over 5-1 expressed odds to call in position, and the villain's stack to your call ratio is a little over 20-1. I'm calling here given those numbers. Again, I don't know if that's right.

Flop: I'm really tempted to just raise it to $80 right now to fold out better (TT-QQ) given that this guy likes to cbet often and that flop bet looks pretty weak indicating that TT-QQ is even more likely. However I don't think our reads are solid enough to make that play yet. So I probably don't pull the trigger here. That said, getting 4-1 expressed odds, and a decent chance villain may be weak, I'm calling the flop to see what he does on the turn.

Turn: Even without a club, I'm going for it and betting 3/4 pot to attack his TT-QQ range. A weak flop bet + turn check gives us a pretty nice pouncing opportunity. Even with limited reads, we gotta go for it. With the FD it's not even close imo.

i think hes saying that calling the 13 raise he was closing the action.

^^ Well that's even worse than the first time though.

Well, we weren't told SB's action, so we may or may not have been closing the action that time, but still pretty aweful call, imo.

Folding a suited, double-gapper on the BTN after a gaggle of limpers is awful, unless either of the blinds is LAGgy and/or prone to squeezing. In fact, given that the Hero described all of the limpers as generally being tight-passive, I might even consider raising, depending on the effective stack sizes, unless Hero has reason to think that the Villain would believe we are raising light and he is aggressive enough to try a 3-bet squeeze.

Once the action comes back around, with it being $11 to call a pot that now appears to have approx. $45, I'm almost always calling, unless I have a feeling that the SB (if he even is still in the hand) is planning to raise, which generally will only happen if the SB is short-stacked or is a gambooler.

Dont call here preflop.

But you hit a great spot, someone cbetting so often, you hit middle pair then a backdoor flush. the flop bet was so weak. challenge villain a bit on the turn with a solid 1/2 to 2/3 psb bet.

I am fine with the call pre-flop.

It's close, real close, but $11 more dollars for a chance to win $52.00 and you having the button.

I am seeing a flop here.

We're on the button and we should be confident enough that we'll be able to outplay all villians if the opportunity has presented itself.

Put in a 3/4 pot size bet on turn.

Pre - easy call both times. As long as ppl aren't short.

Flop - flat is fine. It's a weak bet, u have position and decent equity.

Turn - u have to bet this. Villain likely has a weak hand so u won't get paid if u hit. U should take it down when he gives up iniative.

Thanks for the replies all.

I'm shocked there are people advocating open folding this PF (not even limping). Couldn't disagree more. Also disagree that I should fold after the raise, but that's a bit closer. Most people seem to agree that my PF limp/call is perfectly fine.


After reading the comments and thinking more, I like betting the turn instead of checking. By checking, if I miss the river I cannot bet without getting looked up a lot by TT-QQ. May as well try and scoop up the pot now, when hitting the flush isn't expected to pay me off a ton.


To those with questions I didn't address in the OP:
the other limpers were average stacks around 200+. There were no shortstacks, I would have noticed that.
The SB folded preflop, sorry for not mentioning that.

The biggest reason I advocate folding here to the preflop raise, with so many limp calls out there. Theres a decent chance that there are higher clubs out there.

There is also a pretty good chance that your 9 is no good. So many people limp/call with hands like j9 or 109.

Just dont think this hand is very valuable. The only real valuable thing about this hand is the fact that you have the button and a lot of limp.callers.

Folding preflop is to tight IMO, floating flop is fine (the more info you have the better a float is). When he checks the turn I bet 100% of the time, if he somehow calls (I expect a fold) I play the river aggressively too.

I'd rather raise pre or fold, especially vs a tight table tht are basically mever going to 3bet without a hand.
I feel like as played you often get in spots where you have 2nd best flush/2 pair etc. that are much more difficult to play bc limp pot. As played I check back and hope to get to showdown if miss and obv bet if hit river.

Grunch.

I am fine with the pre-flop call. If you can evaluate board textures and read your opponents hands, then taking off with this is fine. There is also little chance of you having a reverse implied odds type hand here.

The one thing that I would caution about the flop is that you should remember that if your opponent is c-betting a large percentage of the time, then your implied odds of course go down if you are peeling lightly.

But it sounds like you had a plan to float and take away the pot on the turn, which is fine as well. So don't deviate from that plan and go ahead and bet the turn.

I think you can only make this play with position though. Trying something like this out of position is going to be much tougher.

One thing to consider is that if you check back the turn and the club misses, you are going to get looked up a lot lighter on the river. I think that is fine if you have a hand like Kx, but not with just a middle pair.

I like just checking back the turn as usually not much better will
Pass

Preflop call isn't too terrible depending on stack size but I actually think raising big here is better than flat-calling, because limping in this spot is very floptimistic. What I would rather do is make it 14-16 to seize the initiative, which we really need with a hand as weak as a suited two-gapper.

As played on the flop I would generally just fold on the flop. Yes we have flopped a pair but we don't play hands like 96cc to hit pairs, we play them to hit combo draws, disguised two pair hands or trips. Yes, villain cbets often, but when our anonymous tight passive villain bets into four people we can assume he at least has a little bit of something, possibly a K or even if not a hand that we cannot beat like TT-QQ.

Having called the flop on the turn I would seriously advocate shutting down here. Why are we putting in a bet on the turn - for value, or as a bluff? We are certainly not doing this for value - it would be for very thin value unless we think our villain can't lay down AQ or 77 in this spot. Can we legitimately bluff out TT-QQ in this situation - I doubt it; if we fire the turn we have to bomb the river to fold those hands and we'll probably get looked up by the upper portion of villains' range (kings) anyway. Tight-passive villains often play TPGK like this - bet flop check turn - to 'pot control'. Don't make the mistake of being emotionally attracted to the idea of 'winning the pot' - we have showdown value here, so check back and check river unless we improve, folding to any bet; our villain is simply not bluffing enough OTR for us to make a call.

+1. Have to barrel turn for this reason at the very least, among others.

I really don't agree with most of this, maybe I'm just more optimistic that our aggression can take the pot in situations like this. It's not that often we get great conditions to "bluff" at 1/2 .
Why can't we bluff out 1010-qq? We can even bluff out something as strong as kq at this point IMO depending on villain. (Not often) Even if he calls us we can still make a better hand or have the opportunity to bluff the river, which is what I'm doing as long as I haven't seen this villain look up ppl ligh and my image seems reasonably tight. I don't think there is one optimal way to play this hand an it really depends on villain and image at this point. I don't think our 9 is ahead of anything btw. I'm turning this hand into a semi-bluff on turn and bluffing river if missed. Granted I would of probably just folded flop..