"Well, I raised with AK/AQ/AJ to catch top pair... am I really going to fold my top pair to one or two bets???"

3 limpers
Hero ($400) on the button raises to $30 with AQ
3 calls
Flop ($120) K94
3 checks
Hero checks
Turn A
V1 bets $75
2 folds
Hero calls
River ($270) 2
V1 bets $150
Hero calls
V1 shows set of 9's

So he misses his set and I get $30 from him but he hits and wins $255... when you add other players, possible two pairs, or the possibility I miss the board entirely... It starts to feel raising Ax here is simply a losing proposition. Good players aren't calling off value bets with less than TP anyway.

Should I just make larger preflop to cut down on multiway pots?

Figure out a range that he is limp/calling with and betting the turn and river that loses to your top pair hand. People are generally not playing back at you. If he's betting into you for two streets on a dry board that hits your raising range he's got one pair beat.

I would have played the hand exactly the same way.

There are enough hands that you beat on the river. AJ/xcxc can play this way.

You didn't give any reads on the players, though. If he is a passive old guy who never bluffs rivers, go ahead and make a tight fold, I guess.

If a good player isn't calling your value bets with less than TP it's either because he's not really a good player or you aren't bluffing enough and he knows he can exploitably fold all of his medium strength hands when you bet.

Similar to what browni3141 said, I think it becomes player dependent whether or not the call is correct on the river or not. Regardless of reads, I'm not folding the turn as I think there are several Ax combos in his range. But on the river, if the player is a super tight player incapable of bluffing 2 streets, then I'd lay it down.

The biggest thing for me here is that V1 lead out OTT for $75 into $120, first to act, with three players behind, despite the fact that the Ace hits our range as the PFR who checked back flop.

Calling is obviously correct, but I would be on high alert. This is never a pure bluff given the turn card, his position and his sizing. I'd guess that the worst possible hand he could have is the K-FD, but more than likely it's a decent Ace or 2P+.

When he bets $150 OTR, I'm willing to let it go. Now I'm probably biased because I know the results, but I just don't think people value bet hands like A5 OTR in this spot...especially after we PFR, checked flop and called turn. Note that we could easily have KK here, or even AK. Weak aces tend to want to see a cheap SD.

If we combine the above with the fact that we can remove all bluffs from his range after he lead out on the Ace turn into three players, then we're looking at a pretty strong value range...unless he's a complete drooler.

Against a decent player I'd fold. Against a fish, I could find a call.

But why are we not cbetting the flop?

It's worth noting villain is betting into the field on a turn that hits Heros range pretty hard.

I think raising to 30 after 3 limpers is probably too small. I think 40 is probably better.

Also, as played your raise to 30 is still slightly ahead of the money he gets when he flops a set and makes the money he did over the long run. Going off of rough 8:1. If you add in that 10 extra, it swings it more in your favor.

That's for when he flops a set and you flop TP. Start factoring in times he misses and you miss but bluff him off the best hand with good cbets and barrels. Or when you extract an extra bet on a A26 board and check back the flop but bet the 8 turn and he calls one time hoping his 9's are good. Now you are really starting to make money off his mid pk pairs.

So even if the amount he wins off of you is slightly more than what you win off of his preflop calls then folds to your cbets when you hit TP, you can really start to swing it your way by those little examples. Not to mention really swinging it in your favor by making good folds when he hits his sets.

Masta--

Being that we are at an SPR rite around 3:1 in a bloated pot, checking here is fine against 3 opponents. You're not getting a K to fold. Prob not QJ J10 either. Poss not a 9. You'll get A10 AJ to fold. Which is bad for you.

So unless you plan on calling off if someone shoves into you, checking back is a pretty good play. If the pot was smaller and SPR larger and less opponents, this isn't the worst pot to cbet. Although I'd prefer K8x (what ever the low card was) as it would take away all the broadway straight draws letting a huge chunk of hands that have good equity against you fold.

Also you should be playing more straight forwards in regard to cbets against 3 or more opponents than 2 or less.

Masta--

Also you'll save money by checking back in position on the flop when you hit your A on the turn when an opponent flopped a set. Compared to if you cbet bluffed the flop, got called by a set and hit your A on the turn. You're getting stacked here often, when you're never stacking him if he doesn't hit his set.

Masta--

How are we getting stacked? After cbetting $75 on flop, we can safely bet/fold $150 on turn or check back river. Same amounts we lost this way.

I thought the hand was played decently.

I'd like to think that I could have gotten away from that river bet - but idk. A couple of posters make the good point that a savvy Villain would rarely bet twice with a worse hand than yours (what are you calling turn on?). But clearly the trouble(blessing?) of playing low limit is that you can never really take V's minimum skill level for granted. If fact - we probably make most of our $ with Villains over-playing hands.

Unless V1 is a complete nit, I think you played the hand fine. I'd bet a little bit more preflop to get heads-up or 3-way in position. I'd would call down the turn and flop, especially against a villain who overvalues top pair. Tons of worse Ax in his range.

Agree hand is played fine. Flop is dry and hits your perceived range well, but you have three other players in the hand and you missed. You could certainly cbet this, but it's hardly ideal. I'd probably cbet around 25% of the time. Reads on V's could change that dramatically of course.

We're not loving the bet on the river. V calling one street and leading the next is very often a strong hand. As indicated above, against a nit you could find a fold here. You're probably behind, but you're getting odds and there are some conceivable bluffs. BTW, one trick I sometimes use in situations like this is a small raise on the turn (say 175 or 200). If V comes back over the top, it's an easy fold. If V leads the river large, it's an easy fold. Otherwise I get a cheap showdown. Obviously not for use against V's that will figure out what you're doing.

I think your concerns about raising a hand like AQo may come from conflating two different issues. Yes, the person with pocket nines had a profitable call against you, but that's not the same thing as AQo not being profitable. Sometimes when you raise AQo, you're going to run into a losing situation (PP flops set, someone smooth calls AK over you, you get limp/reraised, etc.) but on average you have a better hand than the opponents and you're in position. Putting more money in the pot with those advantages is a good idea.

Sometimes good players will call value bets with less than top pair. A stereotypical example would be you raise pre, cbet the flop, check the turn back, and put out a moderate bet on the river. Good V's will have to look this up sometimes. Or perhaps you raise pre, cbet flop, check back turn and snap off a bluff from a good V. And in any case, sometimes they'll have AJ or worse and your top pair is better than theirs.

You can and should be determining the appropriate raise size for conditions at your table. The appropriate size will depend on why you're raising (e.g. value, isolation, semi-bluff, blind steal, sweetener, or deception) and V's tendencies. If you're getting 3 callers with 30, you could try a little more when you're raising for value. Be aware of V's calling range and manipulate your raise size (in comparison to stacks) to keep V's ranges fairly wide without getting callers from other tables. Don't auto-raise the same amount all the time. Figure out what size best accomplishes what you want. (But don't vary your raise based only on your actual hand, LDO.)

yeah right. keep folding.
so much results oriented bs it´s not funny anymore.
nh, wp, unlucky, next hand.

With SPR of 3, what are you going to do if you get raised on the turn. Mostly the answer relies on live reads. But I'm going for max value. Sometimes I'll stack off here this short. Not blindly, player dependent. But I don't honestly don't give a f*ck about making safe bet, or checking back the river. I'm a 100% believer in thin value. If I feel I'm good, I bet when in position. When OOP I either bet or check if I think they will bluff. So there will be times I get stacked, but I will come out way way ahead by betting thinly and aggressively. Even if it's $30 on the river to get a weak curious call. It adds up. And if they fold they get tilted thinking they made the wrong decision in a big pot and they call big bets later.

I've put in a lot of work in the very marginal situations because I feel that's where the money is, so I feel pretty comfortable here.

Masta--

^^^I forgot this hand went 4 way to the flop, was gonna mod it to fit the actual hand a little better, but I think there's a valid theme in there that still needs to be considered, even if not best for this specific spot. The general idea of aggressive thin value betting. Value betting the **** out of everyone. If you think you are good, bet. Bet a value you are aiming to be called by a certain hand. Aggressive value betting. One for the extra value. And two, the tilt that ensues when they call incorrectly or think they folded incorrectly.

Masta--

be careful when someone leads into 3 other players on that board. More reads on him are obv needed but I would already think we're behind. He would need to do it with AJ or worse. If you think he's stronger than AJ, fold. The Ace hits your range.

i'm betting flop for $50 but what ever - it was fine how it was played

don't like calling turn, but i guess you have to
river is a fold

you can snap fold this river vs a lot of players

poker is hard and it's long term, you need to start thinking about your long term ev rather than short term. If I raise you to $30 when you have 99 and you fold every time you don't hit a set on the flop, I will have made $240 on average before you hit one. That means I have to give you less than $240 when you make a set in order to realize a long term profit on this hand.

Your hand has reverse implied odds as all big Ace hands do because we are transparent. That means you had better have some pure bluffs in your range OTT, i.e., this would be a bet by you regardless of the 2 cards you are currently holding when checked to twice as the pf aggroessor.

In fact, that's why I often bet this flop.

the river is another story. on every river, one person has the best hand and one person has the worst hand and the person who folds/calls correctly on the river is the best player in the hand. You need to consider everything that has happened, use all your info including reads and tells to make the right decision, which would have been to fold this river. It's very hard to be bluffing as villain in that spot and he's repping a better hand than AQ

Yeah.

OP played the hand perfectly.

Flop could go either way, but checking is fine.

I would consider folding river if villain potted river.

Trivial call as played.

johnny, you're really folding the river as played?

Against a passive player who never bluffs and never bets on the come, folding the turn is a legitimate option.

I agree. Sometimes it can be frustrating to have TP or a big pocket pair, but if the passive player begins making plays at your and is consistent you're usually beat.