Hero $350 UTG: Has hardly played any hands in a long, long time

Villain $400 UTG+1: Middle-aged regular, I don't really know about his tendencies because I haven't played with him much, the only hand I have some history against him is when I led A7dd on a T67dd board and he check-minraised me with TPTK (ATo) in the SB, led out 1/2ish pot on turn and river, I missed my flush and folded river.

Coming back to the hand in question, I make it 15 with KK UTG, V calls, one other MP guy calls, everyone else folds.

Flop: Kh 9c 8c
I lead out for 30, V makes it 70, MP folds, Hero ???

3bet

To?

Since he loves to check min/raise TP to "find out where he's at" I'd min raise it back to $140.

Scared of the draw, I made it $215 like an idiot and he folded and said he had AK. Lies?

First hand is probably a flop 3-bet.

Second hand is a 3-bet 100% of the time.

$215 is awful.

But min3betting to 140 looks so so strong + gives him great odds at chasing flush draws...doesn't it?

All in is definitely better than $215. $215 looks super super nutted to anyone even half competent. $140 is probably best though most villians will just feel trapped into calling, and with the smaller sizing you could at least plausibly have bluffs.

Aren't we giving villain odds to hit the club flush by making it 140 oop?

What do we do if we had AK here instead of KK?

Also don't worry about him chasing flush draws, you're trying to get value rather than price out draws that only make up a relatively small part of his range (especially given his play in first hand, he will a lot more top pair type hands than flush draws)

Don't think position matters, we're just going to shove any turn anyway.

If we swap positions here, do we still make it 140 or just flat the flop?

Flatting is definitely more appealing in position. It's probably close between raising and flatting in this case. (Obviously the difference is villain can't check back turn when he's oop)

Why are we giving him a range of fds only?

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We're not.. but he COULD have that as well.. right?

Right

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We managed to get things 3way preflop, so ok.

I'd pot the flop. The board is extremely drawy. We're up against 2 villains. There is absolutely no difference between a villain calling $30 vs $45 in a $45 pot, so when we have monsters, bet towards the bigger end.

I think I would just shove at this point. The board is very drawy and there are a bunch of turn cards that could kill action/hand. Also, people so very rarely raise/fold at this level.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I would just like to point out that $140 is not a min raise

What is your sizing here sabr?

I like $170ish

$215 probably folds out too many Kx hands

$170 will get value from everything. I think if he's calling $140, he's calling $170 for the most part.

I like raise to 160 ish and shove 190 on the turn in hand 2.

Unless you have some history where he minraises draws also, the bet sizing tell is indicating he has a top pair type hand. Not many players minraise draws (they either call or make a raise that has some fold equity), but I guess it's possible this is a misguided "free card" raise.

We have the disadvantage of being out of position, so a call/cr turn line is less likely to work. You could smooth call and lead turn, which is potentially tough for villain to get away from, or just 3-bet now. Don't be paranoid about draws; try to play optimally against his entire range.

It seems like there is a disease in this forum where the suggestions are to make small bets whenever we have a big hand. What do we do when we have a smaller hand, or a draw? Is the big bet ever optimal?

I like a small raise because we think his most likely hand is some type of top pair hand. If we make a big raise over the top then his min-raise does exactly what it was meant to do, find out where he's at.

Conversely, we can make big over-the-top raises as bluffs and semi-bluffs when we think someone is raising to see where they're at. Of course this is exploitable and unbalanced but against most low stakes players being exploitable and unbalanced nets the most profit.