Game is 3-5 NL

Villain 1 (bb) (Covers all), young, observant, has played pretty snug, a little loose pre-flop but has generally shown down strong hands. I previously folded 2 pair to a flop 3 bet and he showed me bottom set on a drawy board.

Villain 2 (UTG) (750) loose, pretty aggressive, will play atc and gamble.

Villain 3 (BTN) (400) Standard passive calling station

Hero's image is probably a little aggro. I am more active pre than almost all at the table but I haven't shown any bluffs yet. I start the hand with 950.



Hero has QQ in the SB

UTG limps, BTN calls, hero raises to 40 BB calls, UTG calls, BTN calls.

pot-160.


Flop J92

Hero overbets pot for 180; pot is massive, I am OOP, there are a million draws out, people will call with worse a lot often here, their ranges are all over the place, so I bet larger. Actually I have no clue, multiway with lots of ranges I am a little torn. Pot control seems out of the question here but at the same time I am a little afraid of committing myself against multiple opponents.

BB calls, UTG calls.


Pot ~700.
Turn 9

Hero has ~ 700 left, there is ~700 in the pot. I don't like any of my options here. Betting AI, betting small, check/fold, check/call, check/raise almost all even seem like viable options. If I bet I am pretty much committed; if it's AI I am not sure AJ will call, but the strong sets and 2pr hands that have me beat seem like they would have raised that drawy flop, especially multiway.
If I check and it checks around and the K falls on the river I'll feel really dumb as well. I have blockers to the str draw but the action screams draws to me. I feel I must charge the draws out there but at the same time I am worried about putting in another 140bb OOP with an overpair.

Comments on all streets are welcome. And appreciated actually.

When in doubt, fall back on SPR theory. Pf, the raise size is giving you problems. You have 910 behind and the pot is 160, giving you a SPR of about 6. That's a gross place to be with an over pair against three villains. You want to manipulate the pot such that you have a SPR over 13 or under 4. Even if you had 1 caller, the SPR is going to be ugly for your hand. This deep, use the raise as pot sweetener or really stomp on the pot so that you don't put yourself in a rough position since you are the SB.

As played, you have to make a commitment decision on the flop, not the turn. If you are going to bet, you need to make a near PSB which commits you. Your putting in a little over 20% of your stack, but even with 1 caller, the pot is going to approach a single PSB left.

Therefore, you're stuck on the turn as played. It is unlikely you got called with 9x on the flop, so the 9 is really a blank. Just jam it in.

shove...

I don't think the 8x raise pre-flop is that bad. It's unexpected that BB would call - leaving the other two (one has short-stack, other is relatively deep). Anything over 8x is too much and misses out on value and it's nearly impossible to get an SPR over 13 without making a complete bitch-raise pre-flop(even 20 gets more than SPR of 13). Just because SPRs or >13 and <4 are easier to play, it doesn't mean we have to butcher our bet-sizing pre-flop.

Anyways -
Pre-flop is ok. I would say 30 to 35 more optimal but thats a bit nit-picking.

Flop - I don't agree with your over bet. Sure, the board has draws, but there are few hands we are actually worried about - sets, J9, and the combo draw. The two limpers can have J9,99,33, or some T8cc or QTcc (combo draw) but never JJ. BB can have 33, 99, JJ, but unlikely has J9 given your description of him. Plus, we are deep enough that we can get away if a scare card comes or if we're shown pressure. No one is over playing AJ here imo. So, make a normal bet - 110. This gives you room to get away on the turn or river - go for pot control or make a big bet on the turn/small value bet on the river depending on cards.

Turn - Since you overbet and the pot = your stack, shove. If someone called you with a draw on the flop - you just gave him free cards and justified what should be a terrible call on the flop. This is where betting smaller makes sense. You can go for some value here rather than making a huge bet on the turn/or checking. Your stack is too deep for 2 streets of value against your respective opponents.

River - That's a crappy card. I would c/f this river. But if you had bet normally on the flop, made 3/4 to 4/5 PSB on the turn, this card wouldn't be so bad since it's highly unlikely that your two opponents are drawing (and if they are - so bet it - they made huge mistakes by calling your turn bet.)

Shove river? lol

nice subject line

we don't know what the river is

Pot control and non commitment are not mutually exclusive.

Also, pot control has no business being apart of your direct flop plan. However if you wish to institute pot control later in the hand, it must begin there...

The flop overbet led to a bloat. I suspect that you thought you might get one caller, which would leave you with $700 behind and a $540 pot, with a few more options. But, the risk of the overbet is what happened: now you have a PSB, and need, I think, to stick it in.

If you are going to overbet the flop, did you think of $200/$250? That is, if someone comes over the top on the flop, given the draws, you probably have to call?

I dunno, it's a hard spot, but only 99, T9, J9, JJ make any sense for the Villains for hands that beat you, and their ranges are significantly larger than that.

Preflop would have liked 30-35 but 40 is fine. You were unfortunate to have your big overbet called in two spots but because of this I think you have to ship the turn

PM sent. Basically, look out for what's really a drawy board and what isn't; flop was J 9 2 with turn of 9. Don't need to overbet flop on a rainbow board.

you don't NEED to but if they're calling then you should.

I am somewhat sure that the flop contained 2 clubs; I would have played it nearly opposite if it was rainbow on the flop.


As for everyone else, in spots such as these sitting 200bbish deep OOP, manipulating pot size is always a tough estimate for me when there are multiple opponents.

Say we raised to 3bb just as a sweetener and to keep the SPR high and got 3 callers, pot is ~ 10bb and we have ~ 195 left, so SPR is a nice high 19 then.

Or if we want the opposite direction, raise to 15bb, and maybe get one caller, pot is 30bb and we have ~ 185 left, which is still a little high, ~6. Should we just bomb it to something higher like 20bb to make sure it's a solid SPR for an overpair to stack off with?


And people don't seem to like the flop overbet? I figured with people who would often call, i.e. btn and UTG (was not expecting BB to call), an overbet is better because they will often put in money with a range that is often far weaker than our own holdings.

Thanks for all the replies so far btw, something to think about in my approach.

definitely...i avoided reading this thread coz of the title which i suppose is my main criticism

couple of things at work here which all are going to relate to the value of your hand in a multiway pot

i'm not going to go into a full length explanation coz venice and jlocdog beat me to the key points but the value of our hand is severely compromised by being OOP and having limpers in EP who have all the implied odds

so we want to tailor out bet sizing to worse hands that call and there really aren't many worse hands on a lot of flops that are continuing post flop that we beat regardless of what flops

for example if they had called with T9s and the flop comes out 942r we still don't expect to be paid off very much unless we've done some massive laggy stuff and they can put us on a wide range...but we can't assume these guys are stupid they know our range is strong raising from sb

therefore our raise size pre is key it can't be in between...it should be enough to isolate to one caller or juice the pot to get a multiway flop going

when it goes to multiway we have reverse implied odds and our direct odds are lower so as played i really really like a check on the flop...control the action...the value of hands that call have you beat or are flipping...if they check behind cool, if they bet you have c/r or c/c or c/f options, and just remember that folding the best hand is a smaller mistake than stacking off with the worst...position is everything in poker, total junk IP can be better than monster pairs oop

edit: only got to jcdogs post but -- OK, i see the flop was rainbow that makes a HUGE difference...i bet this flop but bet it a lot smaller and when you are called in two places you are basically in trouble so the main sticking point is trying to bet the amount that is called by worse hands, in this hand our bet is only called by better, most TP hands are folding or shoud be folding so you are giving away money with taht bet size