1-2NL late-night Thursday game at the Mirage. 8 players.

Villain is UTG with about $225.
Hero is BB with about $250.

I've been at the table about 30 minutes. No big action and no solid reads so far. I'm first on the table change list. Villian in this hand is mid- to late-20s drinking bottled water. Has remained relatively quiet so far. Hero is drinking a Red Bull and is friends with a player across the table with whom there has been some conversation, but not much. Hero has not shown down any hands.

Hero is BB with 5 3

Preflop:
UTG calls, 1 fold, MP1 calls, MP2 raises to $7, 1 fold, Button calls, 1 fold, Hero calls, UTG calls, MP1 calls.

Flop ($30): 4 6 7
Hero checks, UTG bets $15, MP1 folds, MP2 folds, Button calls, Hero raises to $50, UTG calls, Button folds.

Turn: ($145): A
Hero ... ?

(Effective stacks on turn are about $165)

1. Go back in time and fold pre

2. I would just donk the flop for 30, there's no guarantee anyone bets that since it misses the range of a fair amount of people. As played I would raise to a little more OTF (60 ish) to set up a turn shove

3. Turn shove be an open shove, there's basically no other bet size that makes sense. Giving a free card here would be awful if he has Ks or Qs.

folding pre is always an option.

agree with 60 if you go with the c/r to set up a turn shove. ap, shoving or betting a little less and leaving an lol size behind are both fine, as long as all the money goes in. only advantage to the smaller bet size is that you can keep a wider range interested that is still not getting the price to draw, but may fold to a shove.

i'd probably lead for pot or even more otf on such a drawy board. i like a b/b/shove line if your calling this from the blinds unless you have a spewtastic opponent in the field.

preflop call isn't too terrible, I'd call it "meh" or marginal. the beauty of playing 53s is you know that you need to flop gin otherwise, its usually fairly easy to get away from.

As played, c/r is fine because most players will regard a c/r as a flush draw so you can get a crap load of value from all pockets and pairs on a brick turn.

Unfortunately, turn isn't a brick

But good news is, its an Ace

Bad news is, the original preflop raiser folded to your c/r and ANOTHER player called the check raise so I doubt that UTG was floating with AQ/AJ type hands hoping to hit an Ace

So, UTG's range should be overpairs (which will hate the ace), sets (which we crush), and flush draws (which crush us)

Adding everything up, I think we check turn to pot control and then b/f river. That is the line that prevents us from getting stacked by an overflush (which will be a significant portion of V's range) and likewise we still extract value from 2p, sets, and straights. Obviously another spade kills our action but I'm not too worried about that. 80% of the time that's not going to happen.

V isn't going to turn his made hands into bluffs here since we can easily be going for another check raise. So if V bets turn I think we can c/f. I mean, V isn't going to be floating our flop c/r with AK type hands so he isn't going to show up here with big ace flush draw hands. It should be exclusively sets, 2p, straights, and flushes.

So, check turn, b/f river

pot controlling the turn seems impossible. we barely have a psb left and just turned a flush. we would need to be up against a very specific opponent to start heading down this territory.

if you really felt you had to c/f the turn after c/r the flop, then a much better line is to lead flop and turn, with the intention of b/f turn. this keeps the pot smaller and won't as easily commit us. at this point in the hand, i just feel that pot controlling is not the way to go.

i see where your coming from that V won't be turning his made hands into bluffs here, but i think a c/r and a check ott when the flush comes in could easily induce some sort of bet. so even if checking turn can be a decent option, i wouldn't check with a plan of c/f after turning a flush. that is extremely weak.

If we bet turn, I agree that pot controlling is 100% impossible. However, if we check turn we can bet/fold 1/3 pot on the river and be extremely confident that if V raises we are beat and we save $100-ish dollars. ...

Agreed, I would have preferred us betting out and if we bet out and lead turn we could control the pot better

I guess the question is, are we resided to get overflushed? I think we are right on the line between V's range being split down the middle from flushes vs everything else. I'm in a rush and can't do the combinatorics now, but I would guess there are probably 1/3 as many flush combos as there are set, straight, and two pair combos??? Maybe optimal line is to just bet-shove???

I want to focus on this. One of the things I feel I do very well is to depend on the exploitable nature of the majority of LLSNL players. Yes, a thinking player or decent TAG can easily turn his hand into a bluff and bet if we check turn. However, that isn't the majority of LLSNL players. The vast majority of LLSNL players will check back turn with everything EXCEPT a flush. So, if the turn checks through, we can bet/fold river with an extremely high degree of confidence.

Yes, our line would be "weak" but thankfully, the vast majority of LLSNL players in this spot are not going to exploit our weak line with a hand we beat. Which is one of the things I love about LLSNL. If we check turn and V bets, I would be extremely confident we are beat by a better flush because our flop c/r has cleared out all potential big floats. AKo, KQo, AJo, KJo type hands are no where in V's range on turn right? And V just is never betting his 2p or even straights or sets on the turn after we c/r flop because everyone knows a c/r on this flop is a flush draw...

Thus, I think this is the way to go. It is a weaker line but lucky for us, majority of LLSNL players are never going to exploit it in this spot.