About one or two hours at the table.

Hero ($600) has been card dead and has not played a lot since he sat at the table.

UTG+2 ($450) is a guy in his 30s or 40s. He's a small fish.

MP2 ($1000) is a loose reg in his mid 20s. Pre he limps, overlimps, raises and flat calls raises from any position. Post he's a bit of a station: he called my cbet IP on a K high dry board and quickly folded to a 2nd barrel while saying he had nothing. He also somehow stacked off OOP with 22 on J74r vs a fish for a full stack but I dont remember the action exactly.


Hero has K9 on the bb and we see the flop 5 way.

Flop ($25) T45 Hero checks, UTG+2 bets $15, MP2 calls, hero calls.

Should we x/r here?
What about leading?

Turn ($70) 9 Hero checks, UTG+2 bets $45, MP2 calls, hero calls.

Again anyone prefer x/r? We fold out all pairs, might get called by draws we likely beat and get raised by sets.

River ($205) 6 Hero checks, UTG+2 checks, MP takes his time a bets $180, Hero?

I dont know if UTG+2 would check Tx on the river, but a call from hero might scare his bad kickers.

I think flop is fine.

Turn if you c/r what are you trying to rep? 10-9 is only hand that would c/r here but not flop IMO. If you had a set or 2 pair you probably would have c/r flop so I don't see the point in doing it now because you don't rep much.

Do you think you're getting paid if you hit the flush?

Probably fold river unless you think he is bluffing a missed flush draw.

c/r flop to $70

i mean, ask yourself how often does utg+2 have a strong range when he bets $15 into $25 on a ten hi, drawy flop multiway? how strong could mp2 possibly be?

then ask yourself how likely are you to be paid off if you take a c/c approach being OOP then lead out or c/r when you hit?

i don't like leading out (obv lack of fold equity 5way to a cbet) or c/f'ing otf, so that leaves us with c/r.

embrace the variance

I dont rep much with a turn c/r actually. I might c/c flop and c/r turn if the flop was rainbow.

Utg's range could be wide indeed. But he a passive player and the pot is 5 way so I dont really expect him to have too many bluffs. If we c/r flop, what turn cards are we barreling vs utg? I think his calling range otf would be mostly consisted of Tx as he would 3b anything better. He might flat 67 since he's a small fish and Ax as well. What would be good turn cards to bet then?

"small fish" isnt the best description. i'm not even sure what that means.

does he call too much? would he fold a weak ten here?

if you think your opponent can fold top pair to your check/raise, which will look pretty strong to a fish, then c/r is good. if you don't think you have enough fold equity, then c/c is fine.

if you c/r, you can barrel when you hit your flush.

Lead the flop and price yourself in at your price to the river. Dont think about trying to make him fold a Tx top pair hand.

Lead/Lead at a reasonable price seems better than c/r.

Why not?

How much are you betting?

[QUOTE=stackmemaybe;40898074]Why not?


Because trying to make routine villains fold top pair Tx+ is normally a losing prop.

I would bet slight less than half pot.

Betting the flop as a semi-bluff is the best play on the flop for the following reasons:

1. The flop texture is good for you and somewhat bad for the limpers. Your range for checking the BB smashes this flop harder than the UTG+2 and MP2 limping ranges do. Therefore, your flop semi-bluff bet would have a good chance of succeeding.

2. You have the second nut flush draw with one overcard. Therefore, you have a lot of equity against TP and even more equity against middle pair and bottom pair. Finally, you dominated a lot of worse draws, so you do want to build a pot against dominated draws by leading the flop.

3. This board is very good for running a double barrel bluff. Why? Any J/Q/A is both an overcard to the board and also gives you a backdoor gutshot draw to go with your frontdoor K-high flush draw. Therefore, you can often double barrel bluff the turn successfully even if you get called on the flop. Also, you could have easily flopped 2pair when you checked your option in BB, so Villains will often fold Tx to a big double barrel on a J/Q/A turn overcard because they will often put you on a flopped 2pair that isn't scared of a turn overcard.

Cliff Notes: You are giving up a very good semi-bluffing opportunity here by checking flop. Bet flop here because you have a good flop texture for checking out of the BB, your K-high FD has plenty of equity against Tx/5x/4x and dominates lots of draws, and there are plenty of double barrel opportunities on many turn cards.

As played, your line of c/c'ing down is fine. I would never c/r the describe villains because fish and stations don't fold.

I think the optimal line here though is to set your own price by leading out 1/2 pot on flop and 1/3-ish pot on turn.

Since villains are stations they aren't likely to raise and we get to set our own price and keep our implied odds high. Then, when we hit these same villains are not likely to put us on the draw and pay us off huge on river when we bink a K or 9.

If we are raised we call as long as we are getting the right odds but based on the description of villains, I don't expect them to raise often in this spot if we are leading out.

Lastly, again, I'm never trying to bluff these villains off of TPWK since as described they are never folding.

So the c/c line you took isn't bad, but I prefer leading out and setting our own price which will win in these spots 40% - 50% of the time when both our villains whiff flop. This sort of aggression mixes in well with our overall game... that is, we don't simply bet when we got it, we bet in other spots where we technically don't got it. This makes us much harder to exploit and play against even if our villains don't pay attention... We win when we have it and when X% of the time when we don't have it...

Lead flop but as played check/call and check/fold river.

No disrespect to you, dgiharris, but your suggestion to lead 50% on flop to "set your own price" is really bad. Just like ******ed bets to "keep the initiative" or to "protect your hand" -- betting flop to "name your price" with a FD is a bad reason for betting.

I would probably bet close to the pot size on the flop with my entire betting range. We don't mind getting called for a pot sized bet because we are going to win the pot often and because we want the pot to be bigger if we are dominating someone else's inferior draw.

FWIW, dgiharris, you are probably a good player, but your recommendation to bet flop small to "name your own price" for your FD is very flawed thinking that is likely costing you hundreds if not thousands of dollars in EV every year.

Wouldnt a small bet be exploitable as we would most likely bet big with the top of our range? Especially that MP2 is a LAG reg. This argument also goes to everyone saying to price ourselves at our own price.

I've tried this line a few times vs loose passive players and I actually get folds on the turn some % of the time with a less than half pot bet which is funny. What I dislike though is that I feel that when we hit we need to bet big, right? And it scares villain away in my experience.

No its not. THere is a mathematically valid reason for doing so against the described villains. Villains are described as loose, fishy, passive, and stationy. thus, the mathematical reason is simple, when we are on a draw we want to keep our implied odds as high as possible vs villains that don't like to fold if they have "anything". So when we hit we can then charge them.

Similarly, villains like this will likely fold if they completely whiff which is fine as well. So basically, what is the upside of potting the flop? If they whiff they fold anyway right? And if they hit something they are never folding right? And if they hit and are never folding then we don't need to build the pot to maximize value vs a station that is never folding, we can just monkey shove or overbet offensively and they will still call.

I think you are making the common mistake of a one-size-fits-all approach to poker.

Against thinking players or aggros we should play this a different way. but against the villains as described, we should adjust to the description and exploit it. And against stations, when you are drawing, you want to keep your implied odds as high as possible by any means necessary. If c/c'ing will do it, then c/c. If blocking bets will do it, then you blocking bet. Potting flops and betting big on turns vs stations when you are drawing is just lighting money on fire as there is no need to do that for the reasons I gave above...

Again, you aren't thinking this through. If a station hits their inferior draw, they are never folding. Thus there is no need to inflate the pot to extract max value. We can monkey shove when we hit and they are never folding when their inferior draw hits because they are stations and stations don't fold.

Hope that makes sense....

This is absolutely correct. A small bet would be exploitable but lucky for us, the VAST majority of our villains at this level will not exploit it. Based on OP description, I don't feel to worried about taking an exploitable line since both V's are described as stationy post flop. This is a good situation for us to blocking bet and set our own price.

I think part of the tendency to avoid exploitable lines is because they are exploitable and we can't help but think that our villains think like us. The key to crushing this game is to understand the dynamics and know when you can take obvious lines that maximize value and exploits our villains' tendencies. I know, it always feels strange to me when I take lines like this because a part of me is screaming, "come on, villains can see what you are doing its so obvious...." but the reality is that for the most part, they don't and we subconsciously let our own biases interfere with truly understanding and exploiting our villains.

In this case, against fishy and stationy villains, I'm fine "setting my own price" with blocking bets. Against thinking or aggro players, I'd take a different line.

Next time, read the OP descriptions. The Villains are described as "small fish" and "a bit of a call station."

All of your clownish characterizations of these guys as idiots who will never fold anything is wrong. You just mischaraceterized in that way just so you could type out a wall of text defending your misguided "name your own price" reason for betting small.

The truth is that we have fold equity across multiple streets especially if we have a good turn over card scare card. We also would prefer to build up the pot now with 1 over + second nut flush draw against inferior draws.

Contrary to your mischaracterization, I doubt these Villains will arbitrarily stack off with baby flushes unless we build up the pot immediately.

1. Villain is polarized, not raising on a wet board, is not scared money, and is bombing it after draws bricked.

If you call the straightforward guy will ditch his tx and probably bets all better otr. If you were villain would you be betting KTo for 180?

I'd call pretty confidently, wait for the guy in the middle to fold and expect to ship the pot pretty often.



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I lol'd but that is a great point!

After looking at the river action I feel that a check raise would be called by villain OTT. Just for the future, I would spoiler that action. Anyways I would be hesitant to check raise in this situation as he might only be calling with 2p plus and probably wouldn't call with an inferior draw OTT, which turns your hand into a bluff with some equity. Just seems a odd line. I prefer lead/lead or c/c c/c over c/r.

Is V1 an agro fish or passive fish?

OTF: I don’t mind leading here as a semi-bluff.

OTT: I’d again lead for 60ish here given we’ve picked up a P+FD with 1 over and I’m willing to play a bigger pot with V2. C/R folds out nothing that’s in either’s calling range and we bloat the pot OOP against at least one player who will pay us off when we hit – most notably V1.
Whereas, we get shoved by 444, 555, 999, TTT and possibly T9 and called by FD, Tx, 54 and possibly 76. We’re only ahead of the bottom villains’ calling range. Given they’re never folding descent hands here, I agree that we have very little FE against these villains. So, I’d think lead the turn or c/c is the more optimal line.

OTR: The 6 is a total brick as I don’t see V1 double barreling 64, 65, 66 – unless he’s an agro fish. So, the only hands I can reasonable put in V1’s range are As5s, Tx and possibly 67s but given that he’s now given up, As5s is his most likely holding. As for V2’s river bet, what can he realistically be representing here…66, 65, 64, Tx? I’d fully expect him to raise the turn with two pair or better to give his hand some protection multi-way. Especially, given the board texture. So, I’d discount that heavily and put him on a busted draw or a hand that we currently beat.

If we were heads-up, I’d think we can reasonably call V2’s bet but with the fear of V1 overcalling, because of his aggression, makes this a fold as he very well may show-up with Tx.

I’m assuming you folded and V1 showed up with As5s and V2 insta-mucked when V1 called.