Situation: Fairly typical mix of loose passive and tight passive players on a Saturday afternoon. I'll set this up as a PAHWM but start post-flop when it gets interesting.

Villain ($275): 70ish OMCish guy but to be fair I call him "OMC light" because he is a just a bit looser and more aggressive than the true hardcore OMCs but nothing dramatic.

Hero ($500): 30ish WG. Seen by V as true TAG and he knows I can bet when I have it and as a semi-bluff.

OTTH... 4 limps, including V in CO. I limp A9 in SB. BB checks.

Flop ($10): A95. Checks to V, who bets $15, BU folds. Hero??

His bet seemed very large for him and he never bets as a semi-bluff. I would be shocked if he has something besides AK, AQ, A9, A5, 55 or 99, though I'm not sure if he would bet his sets this large. If I raise and he pushes are we comfortable getting it all in here?

Also do folks prefer a lead out here?

Joey: what AK/AQ is V failing to raise pre from CO? We block 9x and his Ax. I suppose 55 is most likely and accounts for his fast play on a somewhat wet board. Perhaps he has A5s.

I guess we have to call and x c turn. I don’t want to bloat pot against even “decaf” OMC oop.

And yes I’m leading this flop at 1/2.

I need a real strong read on someone before I'm giving a 1/2 player a range this tight. An average player has way more aces in his range, including the bigger ones that often get limped behind.

Whether to lead or check depends a lot on who is in the pot with me. Generally I prefer a lead, but when I flop a blind special hand like this, I usually look at who will be last to act, and if they are likely to stab or let it check through. There are certainly people that will overly stab at small pots when checked to, and if there's one of them in LP, then I'm fine checking this.

The $15 bet is big but at this point I'm still going for fat value. Given that we are targeting Ax, I'm looking to make a series of callable bets. Raise to $40. Pot on the turn will be $90. Go $65. OTR it's $220 and you can go $100. It's not quite a double up, but it gets fat value from all his Ax hands.

@Koss: absolutely V could have anything. I’m trying to ascertain the mode of his range to figure out whether we want to bloat the pot.

I would have led this pot against most Vs at 1/2. Hero has checked. V has overbet, suggesting a hand that doesn’t want to see another card. I’d rather keep SPR low and get to showdown cheaply on most runouts. Are you prepared to raise/fold on this flop? You’re assuming we’re going to get to a turn when V has 275 pre. If you x r flop it’s likely all going in on the turn.

X/R to $40. If AdXd can be included in his 3b/shove range, as well as AdKx/AdQx, I call.

I'd lead $18 on flop.

How do you keep SPR low and get to showdown cheaply? If we aren't trying to bloat a pot when we flop top 2, granted in a 6 way pot, but top 2!, then when are we? Especially given the flush and straight draws that the OMC may not have, but certainly someone in the field could that makes a lot of turns look scary and could kill your action if not lose you the pot. Yeah, if we raise here we get stacked every time the villain has 55, or 88% of the time or whatever, but if we just call how much EV are we losing when he has Ax and gets spooked by a diamond or a straightening card on the turn or when someone who tags along with a 76o binks? With top two we should be playing to maximize our win, not minimize in case of loss so go ahead and raise here to 45 with the intention of calling it off. Bet 80-100 on any non-diamond turn. x/c x/f if turn is a diamond. If river is a diamond, x/probably fold?

All that said, I would have led too.

I'll move this along. Thanks for the thoughts and confirms I really butchered the flop. Because I've probably played 100 - 150 hours with V, I knew his betting more than pot was way out of ordinary and I got a little MUBSY and just flatted, as I thought the 3 combos of 55 and the 1 combo of 99 were very much in play, but it's still atrocious because he could have had AK/AQ/A5 and probably some other hands I don't expect.

Hero flats.

Turn ($40): A958 ... Hero??

Knowing V, I am very confident he is never raising if I lead here because he never has 67, but is planning to check-raise or check-call better?