9handed game, classic passive table, call heavy. One reg the rest largely fish.

UTG fold
Hero at UTG+1 raises to $18 with AJcc (been bumping raise size up more since so many callers)
1 fold, 6 callers, 7 to the flop (case and point)

Flop: A94 rainbow, with one club so we have backdoor

checks to Hero. Hero checks
Thoughts here?
checks through

Turn: 2 offsuit, not a club
checks to Hero.

Thoughts here? Do we x/f turn? do we x/f all 3 streets? There is no safer run-out so far (only lose to sets and aces up, as well as a nitty AQ/AK which is possible with these fish), and there is no safe river card besides a J because of all the 2pair combinations

You're playing in a game with 1 reg? Highly doubt it.

I'll assume $300 stacks.

I don't raise anything from EP (that's me), but especially AJs which I believe plays much better as a limp in high SPR pots (especially OOP, although more argument for raising it in position). Really don't see the point of raising it to a biggish amount if everyone is going to come along.

This is part of the problem with preflop (imo), as now we've created a super small SPR of lol 2.5 and yet TP with AJ will typically play horrible in these spots against a world of callers (we're almost losing to as many Ax hands as winning, and even moreso if anyone is being even somewhat selective of what Ax they are playing to a raise).

To me preflop just sets up such a good chance we make a massive mistake preflop, by either (a) getting in all our chips (which will be trivial in an SPR 2.5 pot) with by far the worst of it or (b) allowing free cards to the world in a huge pot when we actually have the best of it. I actually don't hate the flop check to see what happens, but when it checks thru there is a very good chance we've just made the latter mistake.

At this point I'd mostly bet very small on the turn, like 1/4 PSB and go from there.

GavoidingstoopidspotsG

Check call flop, as played bet the turn 1/3

You don't say anything about stack sizes, but assuming it's a variety of $200-300 then I strongly prefer to bet this flop against a table full of fish. For starters, there's $126 out there -- your hand rates to be best, even against a field here, and against a field your equity is probably something like 35%. If you bet, you get to thin the field and/or gain value, but either way, betting increases your equity in the $126 that's already out there, so I definitely want to do that.

I feel like this hand hearkens back to my limit days -- the pot's already big, you've got a pretty good hand, time to ride the variance train. I'd bet about $50-60.

The problem where NL really starts to begin to differ from Limit is that in Limit we ended up getting a fairly decent chunk of our overall stack in preflop. For example, think of a preflop case where we cap for 4 bets, then runs out 2bet, bet, bet; we got 40% of our bets in preflop when we likely had an equity advantage. But in this case in NL, we got in just lol 6% of our stacks preflop with a slight equity advantage and will now be able to be forced to play for the remaining 94% (where we may be at a huge disadvantage) trivially.

GcluelessNLversusLimitnoobG

I am betting the flop. As played, I'm definitely betting the turn. The only hands we should ever be behind now are A2 and 22. We need to get some value now and not give them another free card.

(Also assuming 100bb stacks for everyone.)

Sure, we could be, but against six holdings from fish, like if you say they can have basically any two suited, any connected or one gapper down to like 53, any ace, any pocket pair...your hand is way ahead of the field on average on this flop, but probably has only around a third of the equity -- just to check, I tossed AcJc on Ac9s4d against 77, Q6s, JT, 98h, 54s, 53d, and we have 33%. But each of those hands separately is a big dog against us, we're around 3 or 4:1 favorites against each.

We're behind AK/AQ/A9/A4/99/44 (and technically the case aces, but that seems super MUBSy to me). We're ahead of literally everything else, against people who play way too many hands. There's more than one third of our stack sitting in the middle that we can win for one bet here (or at least substantially clean-up our equity in), and I think that needs to be the prevailing consideration.

Bet flop and probably check turn.

TL;DR -- depending on how you range your opponents, bet seems super profitable to me.

To add some rigor here:

After card removal on the flop, there's 1,081 combinations (47*46/2) of starting hands your opponents could have. I boiled down the "fishy" strategy above to be about 611 of those combinations -- could maybe take out some of the worst suited crap, but that also takes out the 94s combos that win, so I just left it all in. TBH, I feel like ~57% is about right for a fishy lineup that sees seven way flops regularly.

Of those 611 combinations, 37 beat us and 6 tie us. So call the ties worth half, so:

Like I said, though, if we're ahead against a wide field, we probably only have around 32-33% of the equity. We can increase that drastically by limiting ourselves to 1-2 opponents, and when we put money in the pot with an equity advantage, we gain.

Also, in terms of reducing combinations -- if our opponents would frequently/always 3-bet AQ+ and JJ+, it removes half the winning combinations for them while only taking out a little bit from the denominator:

I dunno, it's tough to boil the final results down to math, because I don't necessarily think we lose the rest of our stack beyond this flop bet when we're called -- live players are passive, we can probably safely c/f to a lot of them. Let's say that for whatever reason, we can simplify the potential results from here as follows:

• If we check, we'll realize 25% of the pot (accounting for times we get bluffed out, are behind, or are drawn out on as a result of checking).
  
  25% * $126 = $31.5.
  
  
• If we bet $63 and we're ahead (say 70% of the time as a hedge between the two numbers above), our bet will be called by two players with a combined 37% equity 1/3 of the time and by one player with 22% equity 2/3 of the time (there's better and worse outcomes for us being called when ahead, but I'd say this is fair, I tried 98+53, 98+54, 98+A7 and this is conservative regarding our edge). So the bet is worth:
  
  ((63*3*.63-63)*1/3)+((63*2*.78-63)*2/3) = $42.21, and our equity in the main pot goes from $31.5 to $91.98 (basically a blended equity of 73% out of $126).
  
  So 70% of the time we gain about $100.
  
  
• If we bet $63 and we're behind, our opponent who is ahead goes all-in and we fold. So 30% of the time we lose $63.

So combining the bullets together -- .7*100-.3*63 = $51.10 value in betting.

For completeness, two closing thoughts:

1. I tightened up the opponents' ranges to suited Kx, suited two gappers, unsuited one gappers, unsuited Ax, any broadway, and J9/Q9/K9. They're still playing 499/1081 combos, the field has now found two pair or better 40% of the time against us.
2. The breakeven point between checking and betting is with the field having two pair or better around 60% of the time assuming my simplified game is correct.

When you say check turn... I assume you mean check fold turn?

That's sort of the issue...

Same goes with turn bet

+1

Also raise smaller pre or l/rr. AJs isn’t a “value” hand when you’re playing 7-way OOP.

Curious, why raise smaller pre? Do you want to turn AJs into a hand like A5s? Just want to follow your logic. Agree with l/rr although I had already used that strategy the prior hand when I was UTG with A2s so couldn't do it again

This hand was relatively early into the session, about an hour. Started tightening my range and increasing raise size to $20-25. Still would get 3-4 callers

Oh yeah, I don't have any problem with a cbet for these reasons.

My point is that if the 94% of remaining stacks end up going in there is a decent chance we're behind having gotten in only 6% as the fave, which sets it way apart from Limit where we're only getting in like 60% of the money behind after being ahead for the first 40% (or whatever).

GcluelessLimitvsNLnoobG

AJs in EP is more of a drawing hand then value. I want to keep dominated hands involved, especially the suited variety, while giving you some flexibility postflop.

Even if you just l/rr I’d probably do it again just for the lulz if stacks are fairly shallow. There are arguments for raising smaller or larger but the chosen size is my least preferred option.

L/rr pre >> raise $10 >>>> raise $25 >>>>>>> raise $18

You can also raise smaller pre simply because you are OOP, so it's just not that valuable a spot.

Vs are rarely paying attention, and have a tiny sample. However, varying raise size by position mixes things up a bit if you want to vary raise sizes for other reasons. It just becomes too complicated for them to figure out and you can just do what you want.

C-betting always. The BDNFD is quite nice.

If people improve, it will usually be to a better hand than yours, rather than a worse one that can pay you. No slow playing merit.

It sounds like people are going to be in with any suited ace, and maybe most unsuited aces. Some people will call with even worse than an ace. Plenty of worse hands to call.

Is anyone really bluffing when checked to 7 ways? No money made by bluff catching.

Some worse hands that would call, might check. But few if any worse hands that would fold, now bet.

Seems very clear cut to me.

Bet/fold (with small sizing) is nearly always better at passive tables than check/fold.

On the flop there are 54 combos of worse hands to get value from (AT, A8-A5, A3,A2) and only 34 combos of hands that beat us (AK, AQ, A9, A4, 99, 44). Therefore we are absolutely justified in making a c-bet on this flop. The crucial point is to use small sizing to ensure that no Ace will fold. I like 1/4 pot. Notice that we derive additional value from C-betting in terms of protection. We fold out random hands which are never putting in additional money to the pot unless they outdraw us. Like, 9x that could hit a random two pair, PPs that can hit sets, etc.

If we had bet flop I would then continue small on turn -- again, like 1/4 pot. We're against a passive table so we don't need to worry about being bluff raised off our hand.

As played, on the turn we can now eliminate most of the combos of hands that beat us (as those would have bet flop). There are now wayyyy more combos of hands that we beat that will call a bet than hands which beat us, so again we are justified to bet.

I think this situation is a very clear bet and a big one. You’d like to win the pot now and actually deny equity to the other 6 ranges - even though it’s dry Axx and there isn’t much equity to be had. You get a ton of visibility when you bet big and a passive player calls you bc you really rep AK+ so reliably. There are times when it goes 7 ways and you’d like to ck even AK, but this isn’t one of them. Bet 115 and just go from there. It’s not even a comfortable spot facing a large bet even for AQ from a passive type. Not that you’re looking to fold out AQ but it’s worth noting how hard it is for anyone to continue facing a blast. I really just don’t like checking here.

Meh flop bet could be better if table is exceptionally soft/passive but would be nice to know effective stacks first. AK/AQ seem like comfortable bets maybe even AJo if we opened it but AJs BDFD I kinda lean xc.

Interesting feedback overall

I ended up betting small on turn, around 1/4 pot, and felt like I totally botched the hand by doing this, but maybe not.

My issue is that once we're called and OOP, we have to x/f future streets, so we might as well get to showdown as cheaply as possible

Maybe that isn't a horrible result if we think we can get value from a significant # of hands and obviously we would be denying a lot of equity. I'm still not sure how much I could extract though, these players were very bad but prob good enough to know when a kicker is not good in a 7 way pot.

We are trying to get to showdown cheaply, for the most part. Or even win now.

We'll win the showdown less often by checking flop and less than that by checking turn, as the other players have tons of outs between them most of the time, but mostly could not call much of a bet individually. Bottom pair. Maybe middle. PPs. Back door draws.

I'm not very worried about being bluffed much at any point if we bet. The bluffs would have to be pretty fancy, like calling top pair, then deciding to turn it into a bluff against top pair higher kicker.

By letting others decide how the pot is played, I think we'll lose more when beat. If we C/C it's pretty easy to put us on an ace or MAYBE KK or something and try to get the max payout. As you said, we want a cheap showdown. So let's dictate that.

So, unlike Amanaplan, I would bet very small, 1/4-1/3. Clear out the trash. String along the weaker aces and occasional nine. Lose less when beat.

After that, we can decide if we want to keep targeting weak aces, or go on defense and start thinking about giving up.

There are a finite number of aces in the deck and you know where two of them are. Even with 7 players, you aren’t behind much on this flop. I’d bet here.

So if it were me... And I'm sitting at this table, and my raises are getting "so many callers." I would actually size down my raises with hands like AJo in EP. I may not even raise to begin with. Why would you bloat the pot oop with a less than stellar hand?
David Sklansky once said something like, "It is all peaches and cream when you bet enough that your opponents call incorrectly." Then he took a nice draw of his Juul, and played his pokemon go app. But this is preflop and they have position, which is negating a huge % of that mistake they make by calling your sized up raise. There are also reversed implied odds here vs (as you describe) 6-7 passive players behind you that would not 3bet with AQ, or AK.
Look here, you hit a great flop and are pressed to decide what the best line is.

Theres $126 in the pot as played. FYI, if you made it $12 preflop which seems like a terribly small raise right?? But lets say you made it $12... Now theres only $84 in the pot. You also made it more likely to be called with a hand like A5o preflop. You'd still get 6 callers but the hand is way easier to play imo.

So anyways as played, I bet the flop $55.
As played on turn I check because I just don't see you extracting more value from an ace that you beat. On the river your opponents will play straight forward due to the board texture and your action. They will bet into you with 2 pair, sets and check one pair hands. I'm still leery of somebody having AQ/AK in a passive game as well.
River you can decide to value bet it is up to you. I think it is thin but read dependent, sometimes it's really easy to sense you have the best hand here.

One of the benefits to checking the flop is that sometimes we can exit the pot without putting any money at all into it postflop. Ax will usually bet for us (so we're not missing any value by checking) and then we can simply see what happens after that before making a decision; we can then fold for free if someone raises, or a nit or two get involved. The drawback is that once and while we actually do have the best hand and the flop checks thru and we give the world a free card (which admittedly sucks, but whether that sucks more than checking/evaluating before putting in more money is debatable).

GcluelessNLnoobG

small bets are fine on flop&turn