I'm shipping here. It's a weird spot but you got the best turn card you could have hoped for. The pot Is already huge, and there's a reasonable chance that you have the best hand, and also a reasonable chance that you will get called by worse given how huge the pot is.

Ship it, if you lose, reload and never leave that table.

Monday night? Really?

Haha, not anymore Buster. Graduated from UofL back in May of last year. Living in Norfolk, VA now. Closest casino is 3 hours which sucks terribly, but I'll make due. Where are you now?

Also tend to agree with your opinion on the hand.

Before I continue on, I'd like to share my thoughts and have some folks comment.

I had absolutely NO idea of what to do here on the turn, mostly because I had never been in a pot like this where it's $450 on the turn in a single raised pot pre.. And we're 7 ways. All remaining players had 200-250, so my concern about shoving was am I ever getting called by worst when I shove? Is QTs-Q7s, QXo, JXo really calling off 100bbs with just one pair? I have always paid attention to how a lot of live players pay attention to absolute bet sizing. Like a 200 bet here is HUGE cause "it's $200", even though here it's less than a half pot bet. Plus, I assumed it was likely that SOMEONE had 22, so I decided to check. Felt at the time that shoving was -EV and I was mostly getting called by worst, and folding out all straight draws, all jacks, and probably some weak queens too. AQ would be kind of surprising to run in to IMO, but I guess it's sometimes possible.

In retrospect (and pretty much after the hand was over) I'm still not quite so sure how I feel about it. I don't want draws to get a potential free card OTT, and there should be a LOT of worst hands out there. If there ever was a set, it'd be 22, but still this is a 7 WAY hand. Something just feels off about shoving in to 6 people with just one pair... Is this incorrect thinking? Maybe I'm a nit. Lol. I do think we can all agree this situation rarely ever comes up. I've been playing seriously for almost 3 years and I can't recall myself ever getting in this type of spot. Thus, I had to post with hopes of getting some serious posters thoughts, which I have so far.

And that's the quandary I'm having with myself, cause I really do agree with all of this, but my action here said otherwise. I'm pretty sure I misplayed the turn, with my thinking probably incorrect, but hey. That's why I posted this hand. You'll see what I did in the next post.

Fwiw, what worst hands are calling off here though? Is it pretty much exclusively QT and Q9? I would generally think KT and T9 would generally fold for 200+ here.

Yes? Maryland Live's room is usually 50%+ full on weekdays, always full on weekends?

Not sure if sarcastic. If so, GTFO. If not, yeah I agree.

Back to the hand!

Hero checks. It checks through. (FML, strongrad you f*cking nit f*ck!)

River ($450): 4

Checks to Hero. Hero's sizing? (Yes, I'm betting here. Not missing out on potential value again.)

Someone once told me that playing OOP in a bloated pot is hard.

Do you agree yet?

Hint: If you don't, you're not paying enough attention yet.

Bet/decide (usually folding, but I'm never finding my self in this spot) $100 here.

Agreed way before this hand occured. Assuming the $100 bet is on the flop?

Only reason I didn't bet $100 OTF is with just one caller, all of a sudden the pot is $300 going to the turn. Not sure if people call that light for 50bbs in and then just stack off. Feel like $50 gets more value from weaker holdings, no? Couldn't a $100 bet also bloat the pot, and could be OOP anyway if called from behind?

Starting to think there's not a perfect way to play this hand.

What are you doing differently to avoid this spot?

Strongrad, you're mentioning a lot about do you get called by worse by shoving, and it's great you're considering that, plenty of players don't understand that. But there's a wrinkle to it called protecting our equity. Usually it's in a small pot, like this:

V limps $2, Hero raises 88 to $12 in late position, V calls.

Flop (~$22) A 9 4

V checks, Hero checks

Turn ($22) A 9 4 - 9

V checks, Hero ?

So V is never checking an Ace to us twice, and since we shut down otf he isn't hitting trip 9s ott and checking it either. TT/JJ is raising preflop. So the only worse hands we might get called by is 66/77 pretty much. And the hands we get to fold by betting are KQ/KJ/KT/QJ/QT/JT but since there are only 12 combos of the smaller pp's and 96 combos of the unpaired broadway hands not including an Ace, we're protecting our equity against those broadway hands rivering a pair. Checking ott, letting them see the river for free and hitting a pair and taking the $22 pot is really bad. If this happens just once every 3 hours, we're foregoing this $22 pot, that's ~$7/hour off our winrate, which is huge.

There are rare time to bet knowing worse won't call, and it's usually in small pots ott, but your hand is an extreme example, we're MW and the pot is huge, but this is the reason I'd shove, even though I don't expect worse to call. There's a $450 pot out there to protect.

This is such an important point. If we assume that a few of these players called the flop with middle or bottom pair (figuring you might have AK, and also figuring the pot is huge and they might get lucky) then the turn is where they're gonna turn tail and run.

I'm actually not surprised that the turn checked all the way around (having played 1/2 in that casino a lot). And the problem on the river now is that there's a very real possibility that bottom pair just hit miracle trips.

As played, I think I bet small on this river (essentially a blocking bet) and fold to a raise.

River was also 4c? Must have been an absolute b**** to sort out the misdeal refunds for everyone.

I'm guessing you meant a different 4. Anyway, you can counterfeit some worse 2p hands here, but someone could have called you postflop with suited A4 and a backdoor flush draw with so much money in. I think a check/call or bet/fold could be effective here. I'm betting 120-130. Only a 30% pot bet, but if someone comes over the top at this table, it's a boat. This is true whether you bet 120 or 200, IMO.

WOAH. HUGE mistake. The flop had the 2. 4 was still the river. That's why I was talking about 22 earlier ITT. I'm shre a lot of posters were curious as to why the f*ck I was talking about that, lol.

Essentially doesn't change anything, but still. Whoops.

Thanks for the detailed response. I've learned a fair amount of equity protection, I remember reading about it in BalugaWhale's Book. However, I wasn't remotely thinking of it in this spot because, like you said, it's an extreme example and completely out of the ordinary.

Definitely agree with you though. Makes sense. It might have just seemed riskier at the time because it's a lot more in absolute dollars than usual equity protection spots, but the more I think about it now, you're right. It's the same.

....Plus 6 people and 400 more dollars, lol. Makes an interesting story.

Indianapolis, which is not as much fun as it sounds. Closer to Hammond, but essentially nearest casino is 2 hours away for me, blehh.

There is a casino 20 mins away, but no live dealers, they use the computerized tables. I don't really like those.

If this hand occurred recently (in the past 2 weeks), OP is forgetting/ignoring a really important point. Flop promo is going on, which pays for FLOPPED quads, str8 flush, royal flush. Any pocket pair--suited three gapper is calling a lot wider pre.

I would say it changes a lot, as we have an unpaired board without any straight or flush combinations realistically possible. Yes, 2, 4, and 5 are out there, but nobody is calling $50 on the flop to chase a runner-runner wheel/6 high straight.

As played, with nobody else showing aggression, and a couple dream bricks on the turn and river, I'm betting 150 and praying for calls from JT, AJ, and weaker Qx hands, chasing the bloated pot. If someone is slow-playing 22, oh well. Only 3 combinations of that out there, not many realistic 2 pair combos, and plenty of 1 pair hands worse than us. I would fold to most raises though.

Well right now if I am pretending to be the hero I have been at the table for 3 hours and I know nothing about my villains.

I don't know if $14 pre is generally getting folds, calls, raises or gasps of surprise at the huge sizing (lol omc in the morning).

I also don't know if $50 is generally getting called by worse hands otf, if $100 is, if $150 is.

I realize that it is tedious to type out a detailed description (or even basic) for 8 players, but without that I cannot give you a better attack plan.
So no, I generally don't find my self in this spot. Because at all times, I have more information. And information is what we use to make better decision than our villains. And *then* decide how we can avoid spots like this.

Sometimes this stuff just happens. I don't know why IRTM is intent on calling the OP out for not having enough information. There are plenty of 1/2 tables where you can make a $14 raise and usually get heads up, but this one time it just so happens that the first two people have a calling hand and then everyone else is "priced in." It's a reality of the 1/2 game, not necessarily OP's fault (especially considering the big raise size).

I'll gladly share more information for you. But when I include all of this, add that up with the OP AND the player descriptions, and everyone will soon be asking for cliffs on the hand history.

$12 is generally thinning the field. This is about the average raise size at most 1/2s I've played at in my life, didn't think much about it. I don't know how many 1/2's you play because I assume you play higher than this, but $12-14 is probably about average for anywhere you go. It was about the average sizing preflop in this game too. There were two limpers in front of me, so I added $1 per limper and made it $14. This isn't an absurdly large opening size pf for Live 1/2 NL.

I do appreciate your response with the limited information given. I didn't say I knew nothing about the villains in the hand as if I wasn't paying attention for 3 hours. I gave a description of them as best as I could in a nutshell for people to read. It was way too tedious to type that all out. It's also tedious for someone to read and constantly having to refer back to 7 different players. I usually do type out a detailed description of my opponents when I post, but figured it was not necessarily needed.

Seeing how I said they all played relatively the same. I'll add that I had not seen anyone slowplay a big pair, I had seen slowplayed sets, and a lot of limp/calling and then avoiding any postflop play without a piece of the board. The game was fairly loose passive and fairly stationy. Figured that was good enough to go on without having someone wanting to gouge their eyes out with that many player descriptions.

Information I don't have that you brought up above:

I had not seen a larger absolute size, like $100, be bet on the flop in a single raised pot, but yet again, I've never been in a spot really like this. Most cbets in single raised pots were roughly $20-40. Everyone folded to anything more than $30 except maybe once with top pair.

It's no big deal.

Happened January 31st, right before the promo.

Agree. Btw, there was a typo OTF, it was the 2, not the 4. Don't know how I got that mixed up. Copied and pasted from my notes app for part of the OP.

Yeah y'all have those live pro tables with screens in Indy, right? A friend of mine who I used to play with at HSI told me about that place.

When I lived in Atlanta, the closest casino was Harrah's Cherokee, and their 1/2 had those since live cards were illegal. Just legalized it a couple years ago, and their 2/5 uses live cards. 1/2 and daily tournaments are all on those screens.

I'm with you man. I HATED those.

I like how all the players had 200 preflop then have 200-250 still on the turn. Turn is an easy shove. I assume you changed their stack sizes to try to make your check look more reasonable.

No, just a mistake.. Why post a hand w/ intentional misinformation if I'm trying to learn anything from how I played the hand? I could receive wrong info. Posted this straight from my notes, so I probably just had had another typo. Which, in turn could result in the same thing as above... It was tough to keep track of all the stack sizes so this was my best attempt at the time. 200 was about the average for 6 people.

Thank you for your input though. I could see why you could think that.