In this hand I made my turn and river decisions almost on a whim. After the hand was played through I couldn't decide on which were the optimal plays, even after giving it some thought.

V1 (BB) (~177) - unknown player, this was the first time I ever saw this guy in a poker room. He is apparently a close friend with a known tight player. He is also, the only guy drinking at the table, maybe had 3 or 4 beers so far.

V2 (MP) (~1000) - creative regular, plays okeyish, but makes extremely wacky plays from time to time.

Hero (SB) 8c2c (~400)- several hours in, has a tight image, played on average 1 hand per orbit during the last 3 or so hours. Had only a few showdowns and has shown solid values in those instances.

Action: 6 people limp, Hero completes, BB checks.

Flop (16$) : 2d 3h 5c
all check

Turn (16$) : 6c
Hero bets 10, V1 calls, V2 calls, one more guy calls

River (56$) : 4c

Hero Bets 20, V1 calls, V2 raises to 70, other guy folds, Hero reluctantly calls, V1 instantly re-raises all-in to 165 total, V2 calls, Hero?

I prefer folding preflop (reverse implied odds etc...), but I understand a lot of people are going to complete here after 6 limps.

Checking flop is good.

Turn lead is good (hero can get credit for a flush and its hard for them to call without 2 pair or better).

On the river you can bet/fold 35 into 56 and hope to get called by a straight or a hero call. If they raise that size bet, you can be reasonably confident you're beat.

As played, I'm inclined to call the initial raise to 70. We could have induced a raise with our bet of only 20 into 56 which looks like a blocker bet. Villain could have a straight trying to push us off a chop or maybe he decided to turn something like Ac4x into a bluff.

Once V1 reraises allin and V2 calls, we should just fold. We have the lowest flush possible (7c3c makes a straight-flush) and both villains are saying they have a flush.

Could villains have picked up that hero looked noticably reluctant when he called?

Fold preflop. I know you're getting a good price, but it's 8 high, and not even connected. If you had a hand like 8c6c, or even 8c5c, sure. But calling with 8c2c is too loose.

As played, I think x/c on turn is better, but I don't mind betting. On river, call. You're more likely to shown Ax, or 7x than better flushes, although it is possible.

Not sure if shoving on river is too thin or not, but I wouldn't get there in the first place.

gotta fold. your hand is a little bit underrepped, but with three callers on the turn, at least one of them has a bigger flush draw.

I think I'm on record like a week ago as saying you can play anything suited in the SB in this spot, but I stand corrected. This hand is just too bad, muck it.

River is pretty gross. Given the player descriptions, I can't find a fold anywhere, the pot odds are just too good at every point. Toss the money in and hope for the best. Would definitely be folding to V1's raise to 165 if the board didn't allow that top one card straight.

This is a super easy call, and probably I would come over the top all-in. Flush is back-doored. Board is a 5 card straight. Looks like a steal and any 7 will snap call. May even get called to chop. Shove all day baby.

This was possible, since I might have revealed that I am reluctantly calling with my face expression

I hear you all for pre-flop fold. I usually don't complete as liberally as here, but this was more a meta game call, since I was folding a lot of my SB hands in similar spots, so i wanted to make my image a tad bit less nitty.

On the river, when I got re-re-raised, I quickly assumed that my opponent was playing his nut flush in an advanced way. I thought that he figured that maybe someone else got there and would raise. So, I folded. In the end it turned out that I have just leveled myself,. They both tabled the exact same hand, 7 4 with random suits, for a straight.

What bothered me after the hand is that I didn't check the pot odds before deciding to fold. My intuition was telling me that at least one of them had a flush, but had I checked the pot odds, I would have probably found a call.

Amazing.... i’m at a loss for how every person here doesn’t jam every time.

Flush being backdoored isn't really relevant though, because nobody had to put any money in on the flop. I agree it's a call but it's not super easy at all.

I think it is a pretty easy call (for me at least). Just way too much chance of someone overplaying 87 or 7x because of the str8 on the board. This isn't 5/10.

I don't think it's an easy call at all, and if you start making it often you will lose in the long run. Much more likely for players to gii at low stakes with the nuts -- or at least higher flushes. If you have great reads on them, fine, but against an unknown and a reg, even if he makes whacky plays sometimes, this is a fold.

As you know, OP, just fold pre. This is not a meta-game hand. Turn is OK, I guess, but I probably check/call. Ditto on river.

How is it not relevant? Way more likely to get paid off light coming in the back door rather than the front. With a straighted board 90% of the players are fully blind to it. Shove all day, try to sneak more chips on the table and shove again.

In my 1/1 game literally zero of the regs (even the bad ones) are going to town on the river in a multiway limped pot without the flush. Literally not one. I wish I played in the games some of you guys obviously do because I have to wait a long time before anyone this dumb shows up in mine.

Do you raise, literally every time the board straightens like this? Seems like you play in a super-exploitable game.

How does that follow? He didn't say people will fold a 7 if you raise, just that they won't raise themselves without a flush ("going to town" meaning raising, in this context).

In the game I play in, a river raise here will be a flush somewhere up around 80-90% of the time. I advocated calling in this hand because the pot odds are good and OP had reads on the villains that they might play a bit erratically, but I wasn't super happy about it. You play in unusually loose-aggressive games if people are not just routinely raising river bets with a 7 here but paying off reraises.

We do play in super-exploitable games btw, it's just that the exploit in question is to usually fold when people raise and you don't have the nuts.

My point was that if the flop gets bet, backdoor flushes are unlikely to be beaten because most BDFD can't call the flop. What you're talking about, which is whether people are going to pay off a reraise with a 7, is definitely a concern I have with reraising. But it's down the list from my #1 concern, which is that I think we're straight up losing to the raiser's range. When there's a flush draw on the turn, I bet and get three callers, and then one of them raises the river when the flush comes in, I tend to think "hey, that guy probably has a flush". Pretty much 100% of suited in clubs hands which saw a flop are going to have played like this.