1/3 game
Hero: aggressive reg, known to two of three villains in hand as good but tricky, potential for spew. Covers

V1: reg Asian who can be gambly and bum hunted hero to table. $1200
V2: young black guy, tourist and unknown. $500
V3: reg MABG, generally plays solid and straightforward but is not a clear winner in this game. $350

Hero has red aces and opens $20 utg (have opened for this amount a couple of times thus far). V1 calls utg+1, V2 calls MP, V3 calls button.

Flop 7c5c3c. ($84)
Hero checks, V1 and 2 check, V3 bets $125. Hero folds.

Is it too weak to c/f here? Should I be leading to get value from draws? At the time I wanted to evaluate the action behind me before putting money in the pot. The over bet from V3 scared me because I didn't want to commit 100+ BBs on a bad flop.

I don't like building bloated multiway pots OOP against potentially tricky players with hands that are likely to remain as just one pair. So I do something different preflop.

Think I'm pretty cool with a check/evaluate/fold in this case. We could obviously lead but we could get ourselves into just as tricky spots but with a bigger pot. This guy looks to perhaps just be protecting a big hand (although he could be doing this with 88+ too), but we also have the other two to still react behind us, and we'll be playing for stacks on the turn.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Im pretty cool with Check Folding here as well. V3 just put half his stack in. I seriously doubt hes folding anyway, so bluffing him off goes out the door. If we just flat we'll be out of position and we have two more players behind. If we shove, we could be well behind V1 and V2.

I don't mind folding. I think its a good play.

I hate folding AA w/ three undercards. But, as much as I hate it, that is the best play here.

Each player as a 50% chance of having at least one club. Therefore, the chances of no one having any clubs is less than 1 out of 8. That is bad news for us, playing out of position.

And any observant V that happens to hold the Ac has us in a bad spot (he knows we didn't hit a set, knows that we don't have the nut back door draw, ext).

Check ... Puke... Fold

Math here is wrong. If there weren't 3 clubs on the board, each random hand would be a bit less than to have at least one club. However, three clubs are on the board. I put it at about 20% that none of the other players have a club in their hand given the fact that three are on the board and we don't have any in our hand. Don't think it really changes the results here, but important to remember card removal when ranging opponents.

One of your goals should be to play in a way that makes your decisions easy, and your opponents decisions difficult. That opportunity is now gone for this hand. He either has a made hand that is nevertheless scared of another club (sets, non-nut flush), or the nut flush draw. Against the made hands (only include 2-pair +), your equity ranges from very low to drawing virtually dead. Against the nut FD's, his equity is over 30%.

Easy fold.

Isn't it nice to lose only 7 BB's when your aces get cracked? They will get cracked sometimes, so be thankful to have done without need for anesthesia.

I usually would bet/Fold this and much of my range here on a monotone flop like this. AcXx hands aren't folding and we can get value from them as well as some overpairs. And with no club we don't hate folds either.

Think about this for a second. If a semi decent opponent has the Ac here, he has position on us. And, more importantly, he knows that we do not have AxAc! And with the low cards, he has a damn good idea we don't have a set! He can crush us here when the bets get big, potentially forcing us to call down three streets!

Ac is sorta the nuts when he has position, we opened UTG, board is a bunch of low cards, and we are deep.

Most villains at this level aren't good thinking (aggressive opponents) they call with AcXx way more than make a stiff A semibluff. There are multiple players and only 1 (if any) have the Ac. Read the op and tell me which of these guys you expect to bluff raise our flop bet. Maybe the guy first to act after us.

Checking invites all sorts of bets from the position player almost regardless of his skill level. I mean if your plan for monotone flops is to check to induce and you can work with that ok but I really don't see how checking to the same guy with AcXx is somehow more EV than betting for value.

By betting You are risking one bet to a) take the pot, b) get value from AcX possibly KcXx and some overpairs (including those with a club) and c) require villain to make a raise in order to bluff. And I really don't get fearing a player or even better multiple players having 1 club. I hope every body has 1 club if they aren't in the muck.

The advantage of checking is to lose the minimum with a high frequency but we lose more often than when we bet because we a)invite the bluff and b) give the free card to the overpairs, straight draws and flush draws.

I agree against very tough lineups we might reconsider (which is why I said "usually") but that's simply not a big concern here.

Edit: I did say bet/fold so I don't understand what you mean about calling down 3 streets.

cAfloppingflushesishardImissthemallthetimeAm

The math is pretty easy as long as we ignore that villain's ranges are not random. Against random ranges the total number of combinations for the six unknown cards is 47C6. The total number of combinations containing no clubs is 37C6. The probability of at least one club being out there among six unknown cards is 1-(37C6)/(47C6) = 78%

The probability of a particular hand containing at least one club is 1-37C2/47C2 = 38%

I probably would c/r to $350 but don't hate folding.

^ I think OP is trying to win.



b/f and c/f are both okay.

Prob ahead of Vs range. It's hard to beat a pair of aces. Vs range should be overpair heavy.

Vs a range of only 55-QQ, 33, 53s, 64o, 64s, 57s, 57o, 67s, 67o, red AA has 44.6%. If we add in AcX hands we get to 50-55% depending on how wide you want to go. If we then add in all of the reasonable flush combos he can have (assuming he doesnt' overbet flop with the nuts), we still have 42%. It's also very rare for any player to overbet the flop with a flopped flush. So yeah....c/r to $350 sounds cool to me.

I never really considered c/r the flop and I don't think that makes much sense. We are drawing dead a lot of the time and flipping when we are not drawing dead.

I think there's a lot of merit to a lead on the flop and frankly I think that would probably have been a better play now that I've thought about it. At the time I was worried about having to fold to a raise but I think that is better than check/calling which was my original intent before the over bet.

Depends on the state I guess. If that happened at Aria and the guy didn't have a set or flush I'd be shocked. He bet 150% PSB.

OP doesn't have the Ac so there are like 20 combos of set/flush, it's a matter of how many worse hands are willing to do this. There's no way/reason to eliminate better hands.

Bet/fold $50 on the flop. You're pretty deep against most villains and can easily get away from the hand if the action gets heavy. You should thin out the field and get value from high-single club hands. You'll have to check most turns to keep the pot small.

I don't think c/f is bad. It'll be hard to make money on this flop oop multiway.

C/f is painful, but it's more often than not the right move in this spot. Now if you had the A....

Also, switch seats to have position on Asian bum hunting reg, and value own the **** outta him.

....You can't get value from AcXx and a raise is less less likely to be a semibluff since the NFD is blocked.

I did think about this, but my pride wouldn't let me. I feel like I can beat him even out of position and don't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that I feel I need position on him.

"That's pride ****in' wit you... **** PRIDE! Pride only hurts."