It's been awhile since I've made a HH, I apologize if this is a completely standard spot, just wanted to check if I could've/should've played it differently.

6-handed, late night, 500 max 2/5 game

straddle UTG, HJ limps, hero CO (500 effective) with AQhh raises to 40, villain BB (seems sticky but competent) calls, HJ calls

flop (130) KQ4r, checks through

turn Tdd, villain bets 60, HJ folds, hero calls

river (250) 6d, villain bets 120, hero calls

Do you have BDFD at flop? If yes a cbet of ~60% pot size sounds better?

AP I’ll probably fold river. What’s V’s bluff range here? Jx seems to be most likely holdings but KJ/QJ/JT all have some show down value hence less likely to bluff, in my opinion.

Really needs more information about villain. This is such a villain specific situation after you check flop. Depending on villain it could be fold turn, call turn/fold river when villain continues or call/call. In abstract I slightly favor fold turn when villain bets into 2 people.

In general I would bet flop and then get careful with a mix of bets/checks on turn.

Why is a cbet better than a check? Are you expecting worse to call? And if worse does call, are you checking behind turn and ready to call a river bet when draws brick out?

What is the purpose of betting flop?

This type of thinking is very detrimental to improving your poker ability. You should be basing your decisions off of a solid theoretical base point and then adjusting your play IF you have some exploitative reasons based on your specific villains. Also, if you want to make some exploitative plays you can do so based off of a population, such as the population of 2/5 players. But saying "oh I can't give advice because we need more information about villain" is really a dumb thing to say. What if this was our first hand vs villain?

So turn was 3 ways so his range is going to be stronger than if it was HU but given the sizing and HJ already folding I like calling.

I'd fold river. Even though the sizing is very small I feel like exploitatively 2/5 players are not going to have enough bluffs. Given that turn was 3 way a lot of his bluffs are going to be diamonds which now get there on the river. He doesn't have a lot of natural bluffs that aren't diamonds given he called out of the SB and he's have to be turning a hand like T9s/JTs/QJs/QTs into a bluff on the river. Hands like Ax no flush draw might be bluffs but that's pretty unlikely ime. Even theoretically though I feel like AQhh doesn't need to call this river, even for that small sizing, given turn was 3way. We would rather call AQ with a diamond, QJ with a diamond, Kx that checked the flop, and not to mention we have TT, some AJ/J9 and flushes as well.

We are probably supposed to call here sometimes, particularly AQ with Ad, but folding is reasonable and probably standard vs population. Close spot.

Yes there are quite some worse but decent equity hands could call a normal sized cbet: QJ/QT/Q9s/Q8s and maybe even worse given V limp called pre; JT/J9 are possible too; some tight passive v might have limped 99- as well.

Besides, if you don’t cbet this flop (which *should* be good for your range), what else do you cbet with? If you only cbet with TP+ and SD, do you check and give up all other missed hands? This way V can exploit you by calling wide pre and attack you easily whenever you check flop; If you do cbet with some missed hands but not AQ, you will have more bluff than value bet on flop, so you will need to construct some range that you can continue on T (otherwise v can exploit you by calling your flop bet wide and bluff on any turn), hence AQs with BDFD becomes a nice candidate to be added into cbet range.

I’d fold the river.

BB getting a good price, especially if they know the straddle is folding. Should have a good amount of KX hands in their calling range.

Leading turn on a KQ4T board into two opponents represents a strong range. We block hands like AK/KQ/QT. V could have picked up a combo pair/FD draw. Knowing the flop diamond is important, I might fold turn depending.

I like the way you played the hand. wp

I don’t mind your logic... I’m saying that this line puts us in a very dubious spot OTR when turn goes check check and they bet river...

Actually sorry. I would fold river. Everything else looks Gucci

Mostly clarifying the situation and keeping the initiative. There are worse hands that will call and there is a little value in not giving low pairs a free card but those are secondary in this case.

By betting hero has a much better idea where they stand. If hero gets 2 calls on the flop hero is usually beat. If hero gets 1 call they can evaluate villain's range and tendencies and see if hero wants to bet again.

I understand where you are coming from but this is a situation where any information hero has on villain is more valuable then poker theory.

Strategy theory tells hero nothing here except it's somewhat more likely villain has something better then air when they bet into 2 opponents. Knowing something about villain is far more valuable. There are a lot of opponents who always or almost always have hero beat when they bet into 2 opponents. There are also a lot of opponents who will bet JX/TX/other pairs that hero does beat. And some villains will take a stab with anything after the flop checks around. Knowing if villain will take a stab on the turn but give up on the river if they can't beat one pair or will barrel also makes a difference in how often hero wants to call turn.

Theory here wanders between make a tight turn fold and call turn/fold river if villain continues depending on exactly where you draw the line. But against specific villains this can vary from trivial fold to trivial call.

Is 40 standard open/iso in straddled pots here? I'd prolly go a little bigger, but if 40 works then that's fine as well.

- I'd cbet half pot, range advantage, initiative, maintain a wide range etc.
- Can argue a fold on the turn, but I think part of our checking flop back was to be able to keep the pot small, and get a cheap(er) show down, so gotta call turn.
- River is kinda close but I'm leaning fold. As someone mentioned above, most villains at 1-2/2-5 are not going to bluff river at the correct frequency. We can beat QJ, maybe JJ if V didn't 3b that pre, and maybe 99 but that's stretching V's range w/o further info. V can take this line with most Kx (6 KQ combos, however many AK combos you think he flats with pre, 12 KJ combos and whatever KT combos he may play), some back door diamond FD, 44 etc. I think too much of his range is better than our Q, w/o further read gotta fold river.

Well duh we should use exploitative reads if we have them but what if this is the first hand vs villain or you don't have those reads yet. Also people often overestimate and overuse their exploitative reads, especially in live poker.