5/5 e750
8 max
UTG limps.
UTG+1 TAG limps.
LJ fish limps.
HJ whale limps.
Hero BTN AKsh to 40.
UTG folds.
UTG+1 shakes his head and calls?
LJ calls.
HJ calls.
4 ways
(175) flop KJ5dsd
X x x hero bets 55. UTG+1 XR to 150. Fold fold.
Hero calls.
(475) turn 7s
UTG+1 bets 250. (With e310 back) hero?

(Villains bet leaves him 500 back to bet on the riv, but I’m the effective stack)

A best, if you're ahead right now, you're up against a draw that has 12-15 outs (QsTs, QdJd, etc)

At worst, if you're behind you're dead vs a set or drawing to 5 outs vs 2pair.

It's one of those spots that sucks because it's ahead of so much random spew, but people don't commit their stacks like this that lightly that often. Judging by the ranges people show up with when they take this line, I think it's a fold on the turn.

What was your reasoning for betting less than 1/3 pot on the flop?

I was under the impression that cbetting small with a wide range is the best way to take advantage of multi-way spots, since each guy has to worry about the players left to act behind him.

Also it lets us stay wide and uncapped with a large % of our continues and makes lots of nice turn spots.

Betting small also makes life more difficult for bingo players since they both have to fold equity more incorrectly and win less when they do flop bingo.

I think the question is more about the size than the fact that you made a under 1/2 PSB.

Your bet give direct pot odds for SD and FD to call. They can call correctly even if nobody else calls. Yes this small a bet widens your range, but most of that widening is in the air portion of your range. I would have gone 70-75.

Yikes, not a great spot to be in. If villain is truly a TAG he is probably raising pf with most if not all of the suited broadways that make up combo draws ... I could see the overlimp with 55 though. Have you played with this guy before? Seen what he's opening and/or limping with pre?

Nice job by UTG1 to lock the fish out and iso himself vs the best player in the game. I also can't help but notice you added his head-shake call as if a little tilted.

You have a lot of bet continues on this board, many as calls, some shoves, but overall it all gets tricky around 750eff. As for the AK portion of that range, prob some bet folds? (because what else bet folds?) - but I also don't doubt some solutions have AK always continuing? As you can see from my comment, it's just all around marginal... LOVE pre and flop sizing.

AP I think it has to be a fold

It doesn't really matter because that's only part of what might continue 'correctly' versus this sizing. If 2 players call and check an Ax turn, H isn't betting and can play rivers IP -- There are lot's of other reasons to bet "small" here too.

keep in mind that this cuts both ways - once one player has called, it offers a really good price to the other players to continue with weak draws, meaning we will often be in multiway turn/river spots with bad visibility (which practically means we will value bet less and put money in bad/fold the best hand more). also, having players behind can actually lead to players calling wider sometimes, as they assume the players behind will call wide and effectively price them in retroactively (this is similar to spots where a pfr will call a squeeze assuming players behind will call, whereas they would have folded if the players behind had folded out of turn).

how the different factors shake out will obv vary a lot in different multiway spots, but imo in spots like this where most of our good hands are vulnerable and the board is wet, we should be more concerned about giving too good a price and size up a bit.

Of course, that also cuts both ways since they're calling wider now which might just neutralize everything anyway, bigger pot to win, but of course more ranges to contend with on turns.

I mean we're like always checking flop OOP, so maybe AK is a check OTB more than we think? I just don't think so when ranges have been limp called, just too much edge IP on this board against all that trash.

Multiway remains difficult.

yes, bigger pot, but if overcallers are being priced in to call correctly then they are (likely) taking some pot share from us. our hand is also not that strong multiway, we will often have <50% equity vs the field if we get more than 1 caller - its just not very attractive to invite additional players into the pot.

im advocating a larger bet size here, not a check. i do think its fine to play some of our Kx as checks though.

Yea I mean AK is the only 1p Kx I'm considering using as a bet. Perhaps it is a spot to bet a little more ... Now that I think about it, there really aren't that many bets 4 ways and we should have a lot of hands here. Liking 3 greens a lot now.

So maybe AKo becomes our best mostly, fold once ckr goes in?

Folding turn without a read. Flop cbet size is perfect. Multi way spots use a lot of small sizing (tho that doesn't mean we're betting a large % of our range like in hu pots) only reason to bet bigger is as an exploit and I don't think our hand is strong enough for that

2 more thoughts,

1) some live players react very unpredictably to the small cbet and spazz out. It can create some weird spots.

2) it’s possible that villain didn’t realize that his turn bet committed him since he had 500 more left to bet on the river (even tho I only had 300 he might not have realized the implications of “effective stack”)

Just a small derail. Give me a range that is calling a bet at 55 but folding 70-75. Especially with a read that the villain is unaware of the effective stack size.