V1: $300 Sitting in the CO. Competent Asian TAG in his late 20s. Likely a winning player. Plays pretty solid ABC poker

V2: $245. On the button. Another pretty good player for $1/$2 NL. Middle-Eastern guy with glasses that looks like Antonio Esfandiari. Sees a lot of flops. Shuts down pretty quickly when he misses a flop. He plays A LOT of his buttons.....probably 30% in raised pots.....probably 75% in unraised pots.

Hero: $280. UTG+2. Been raising a lot of pots PF. Showed down AA on a button raise last orbit. Probably perceived by villains as a competent TAG.


Hand:

Pre-flop: Hero raises with AQ. V1+ V2 both call.

Flop: KT2 rainbow.

My instinct is just to shut it down and give up on the pot rather than play a pot against two competent villains OOP. I ran into similar situations 3 or 4 times yesterday and I want to make sure that giving up on this pot isn't a leak. Do you ever fire on the flop here?

I would take a stab.

You said that one guy will typically only play if he hits. Being OTB he could have a wide range of hands. As far as the TAG Asian goes you just need to hope he misses.

You can't raise pre-flop OOP and fold every flop you miss. You will be easy to read. Even if you get two callers and c/f if the turn is a blank, you will show the taxable you are willing to fire off a continuation bet with air.

Fire that continuation bet most of the time.

Edit: I would cont bet at least 65-70% of the time.

What did you raise to preflop? Makes a big difference here because if the pot is small then a small c-bet is fine but if the pot is bloated you need to just shut it down. It is exactly situations like this that make preflop sizing such a key skill in the long run. You want to keep the preflop raise as small as possible and still get the pot heads up so your flop c-bets can be small and still have the desired effect.

If you raised to $10 preflop and the pot is $32 then a bet of $18 is fine. I wouldn't do it all the time OOP against two villains because this is a bad flop but I would take a stab some of the time. You will take it down sometimes and you will get the turn cheaply when you don't. Anything over $10 and I generally just give up. If you made it $15 preflop and the pot is $48 then a c-bet of $28 is too much. At that point your committing too much of your stack on a c-bet that won't work that often.

The PF raise was to $12. So, $33 in the pot. People were calling $10 raises or less like they were limps. $15 pf raises were more likely to get the pot heads up. Great point though. I need to think more about how pf raise size affects flop play. I'm going to give pre-flop raise sizes (mine and villains) extra attention tonight.

Cons
- out of position
- two villains
- board hits their calling range pretty hard

Pros
- your EP raise implies strength
- villains sound tight and unimaginative
- you have some equity. But maybe not much in the way of implied odds. (Would they shut down if a J falls?)

Unknown
- whether either of these guys is capable of a bluff raise or a float
- whether they think you are capable of a check-raise

I would not personally try to mix things up from oop against two competent players. It's just too easy to call a cbet here. I would check hoping for a free card. Would consider c/r depending on reads

Arguments for and against c-betting on this board are valid. I'm not going to crunch the numbers, but I would suggest that you:

• Identify the preflop LP calling ranges of both Villains;
• Identify what segments of their LP ranges hit this board;
• Identify what segments, if any, of these ranges Villains will turn into bluffs;
• Calculate your own equity against both Villains' continuation ranges;
• Consider your perceived range;
• Consider what turn cards you can barrel either for value or as a semi-bluff.

In addition to the above, you should also be thinking about game flow, that is, how often you've been c-betting at this table and how often you've shown strong holdings when doing so.Without crunching these numbers myself, my instinct would be to c-bet this board, given your equity and image. The extent to which you can barrel various turns, particularly those cards which improve neither your nor villains' perceived range, would probably be the deciding factor.

Uh I hate x/f. I prefer a bet fold or x/c. This is a decent flop for AQ

First, ccan we please stop using "abc poker" as a read. It doesn't mean anything.

Second, this is a completely reasonable spot to bet, there are a lot of turn cards we can reasonably continue on, especially if our AQ is suited and one of the suits is on the board. I think I bet somewhere around 1/2 pot is reasonable

I'm continuing most of the time here as well, mixing in checks mostly during those times I've been very active on the flop in recent hands. Checking here almost always betrays that you've missed, I would expect to get a free card infrequently with decent players behind, and the pot is worth contesting.

I would probably bet the least amount that will fold out small pps that missed or any Tx combos that have mid pair. These are the better hands we have the best chance of folding out. It shouldn't take a huge bet to scare them off, something like 15-20 sounds about right. You also give yourself decent odds to draw to the J or even an A.

Since I expect to get at least one caller a majority of the time, we need a plan for the turn. Obviously we are betting any J that falls. I'm also barreling on Ks and Ts at least some of the time. I don't know how much an A helps us OTT and I will probably slow down on one, hoping to keep their ranges weaker and manage the pot so we don't get all in. I'm giving up on almost all other cards (including Qs), and I'm giving up the overwhelming majority of the time when both call and I don't improve.

Under no circumstances am I bluffing the river if we get there unimproved. About the only thing we can beat at that point that would've been calling from the flop is the unimproved OESD, QJ. If we've improved to one pair by the river we may have a decision if an opponent bets, but mostly I'll be folding to serious action.

I'm cBetting here about 75% of the time. But it's really dependent on how wide I think V's can call pre flop. And if I think they can fold a PP here.

If they are folding anything more than 30% of their calling range pre flop to a cBet then it's def profitable to barrel here. I'd go right around half the pot. I don't really expect sizing to make a big difference in their folding %.

So, if the pot has $33 (post rake, as that's all we care about, as that's all we can win, big pet peeve of mine when people talk about the pot as if the rake is still in there) I'd go $18 or so.

One thing that hasn't been said yet: this board is great for c-betting. One high card and no draws. I say definitely c-bet this against people who aren't calling stations. If the ABC guy likes to float, double barrel it.

If he doesn't float, or you don't know, and one of them calls, I recommend shutting down after 1 barrel. Being out of position here just sucks too much.

Your instinct not to c-bet isn't all bad, what with good players having position on you, but I think this is one of those cases where what feels like a solid instinct may just be timidity. Your raising range beats their calling range hard on this flop.

If there were 4 players or one of them was a calling station then definitely don't c-bet this flop.

Against competent or semi decent Vs I think this is fine to cbet most of the time. Against stations this is almost always x/f with a few cbets mixed in. Also I think it's best that if we are cbet this we need to be double barreling. With competent Vs you could get a float or a Kx or 10x trying to hold on and get to a cheap showdown.

How much did you raise pf?
It can help us range the TAG players hand.
I actually dont mind giving up there unless you raised to something like 7-8 then you are facing a wider range and can try to take it down. If your raise is big enough and the TAG player is calling with the top 15-20% of his calling range, then i might check fold to him, and hopefully spike a free good card ott.

I prefer C/R flop to buttons bet and barreling turns to betting into 2 good villains here. If we bet, one or both of them can float. If we C/R we take back initiative and greatly reduce their ability to float us. We can rep KK/AA/1010. They both are good enough to stab/fold. Checking allows us to see what they both do before we act. If the V in the middle bets I'm much more likely to C/F. Especially if button stays in.

Usually this is a C/F, but usually I'm not in a hand with 2 competent Vs.

One-and-done'ing this flop is a mistake.

You can make an argument for checking or barreling. But it's very likely that someone has a piece of this flop and isn't folding to one bet.

What I'd do depends on reads. If villains are never calling my double barrels, I do that. If villains are, I don't.

I don't feel this is an awesome board texture.

If you run this through flopzilla you might be surprised how often this board produces a straight draw against a nitty range.

You hold a blocker. It follows then that if a Q falls you lose a lot of value.

You gotta figure AK,JJ+ raise pre. There's a lot if AJ,KJ sorta hands out there. Probably some JT or 9T hands also.

As villain I would call with JT all day long and bluff raise a certain % of the time if I observed a lot of bet/folds on the flop, scared money, inexperience, not paying attention, etc.

Don't u have a gut shot?

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Why would you ever not cbet an over and a gut shot? This is a great board to cbet, plus you have a draw to the nuts.

You said you are viewed as a competent TAG player and you're up against an ABC TAG player and a guy that folds quickly when he misses a flop..pretty much all you need to know, I'm firing against these two on most flops and probably barreling most blank turns

All very insightful! Tks. Here's a few things I've learned so far in this thread (for my own reinforcement+learning):

*Think about flop play when sizing your pre-flop raises.
*Get more specific about Vs ranges + interpret how those ranges play OTF
*You look strong to competent Vs when you raise in EP and can continue to represent that strength either by leading or C/R a flop that Vs might think you hit. You don't have to bet big to get out small pps and gutshots.


For this particular hand in this situation, I probably should have just cbet. I'm fascinated by the idea of c/r this flop and the reasons given by Mr.Horton. Also, it seems if you c/r occasionally on flops like this, people might be worried about getting c/r'd in the future. '

My only concern is that with a c/r, it seems hard to represent a set. It seems like sets are almost always going to bet out on this flop? I guess you could occasionally play sets to c/r this flop to balance out our range, but it seems like you could lose a lot of value (and maybe a few pots) if you don't lead out on the flop with a bet with a set. I guess that most $1/$2 Vs don't even notice stuff like that either.

I'm barreling half pot on flop and turn. Likely somebody has a piece, but this flop also smashes your TAG raising range. You also have equity with an overcard and a gutshot to the nuts.

Pretend you have AK/AA/KK.