Live 1/3 game.

Villain (UTG) just sat down and I have no real reads. Effective stack is him with $375

Hero (UTG +2) is youngest at table in early 20s, is respected and made the mistake of getting into pretty technical poker conversation so now everyone knows I have an idea of what I'm doing.

Villain raises to $16, UTG +1 calls, hero calls with TdTs and 3 others call.

Flop ($96) 4c3s2c
Villain bets $30, fold, Hero Raises to $90, folds to villain who moves all in for $349 total, Hero folds.

My question is: can this be a profitable raise by me? My thought process is that he can have alot of draws that he'll call with, but in hindsight the only draws he can really have are nut flush draws with straight outs so he's actually a favourite. Should I just call on such a drawy board?

Whatcha ya got there buddy?

Sorry, fixed my post

I dont like the raise, mainly because you have 3 people behind you on a very wet board, and the original raiser who has a very strong range when he continues into 4 people. I prefer 3betting pre if you want to define UTGs range.

Not sure even calling flop is good here, your position is awful and there are so many bad turn cards. I would call because I cant lay down an overpair to one cbet, but I could see folding being the right play.

What was your plan when calling pre? Set mining? In that case, you missed and should stick to your plan and fold when UTG cbets into everyone.

Your raise can't be profitable. Think about the UTG's range. If he has AK, AQ or KQ, he's folding to your raise. All other pairs he's going to raise pf have you crushed and aren't folding.

One of the most profitable developments in poker in the last couple of years for me at least is that raising the flop with either TP or an OP has become "standard." Think about why you want to raise before you do it.

Pre is fine without reads.

Like Venice alluded to, what are we trying to accomplish by raising? Moreover, what kind of range are we assigning UTG? He opened, got called by the world, and is betting the flop. Yes, it's a weak lead but if we raise we are only getting called by better or folding worse.

AP this is a snap fold, our best case is we are up against an 18-out draw.

So what youre saying is that raising the flop with TP or an overpair has been one of the most profitable developments in poker for you....but it cant be profitable for him? What?

I think you can either fold or raise depending on your read of villain. I would never call here and give everyone behind you correct odds to outdraw you. If you raise and villain has you beat, he will let you know...which he just did.

^^^^ if you can't get away from TT when an obvious draw gets there on the turn and there's half the table left to act, your game needs work.

Think "Protect your stack", not "protect your hand".

i dont think it's terrible

Pretty sure Venice is referring to his opponents raise.

Not the point. He said raising the flop is his most profitable newer move in his arsenal but then tells hero raising the flop isnt profitable.

Not to mention that if he called and the turn was a 5 and he check/ folded and posted the hand people wouldve told him he shouldve raised the flop.

Think what Venice meant is that people as a default raising TP or OP has been profitable for him sitting across the table with a set/straight/bigger OP and exploit it, i.e. the position villain is in now.

So Venice10 is saying that the most profitable development for HIM is that OTHER people raise the flop with TP or an overpair? That may be the case when its heads up, but here the hero needs to raise or fold.

Not profitable at all. You're barely ahead of V1 if he has something like AK/AQ with a single club. You're crushed by better overpairs. Three players have yet to act on a super draw heavy board. The villains behind you all have sets/A5/65 in their ranges. The only hands you're well ahead of are 66-99.

This is an easy call and evaluate situation where you're folding to heavy action.

Totally fine and standard given villain's sizing. I would raise bigger with my whole range ($110-120 isn't even much more than the size of the original pot, so IP players aren't even facing that massive of a cold call), but this sizing is fine with this particular hand if you're not worried about telegraphing your hand strength.

Once he shoves, folding is also fine and standard. Our preflop range should be really tight facing a 5.3bb open with 6 players left to act, so the 13 combos of sets/A5s (and the fact that villain has a huge polarity disadvantage on this board) is plenty of protection for us, so there's no need to stackoff with a medium OP with no club. His sizing is also such that I would be raising with a wide range, including all nut and combo draws (and I would be flatting AQs and maybe even AKs preflop), which can also call off here before I'd consider calling TT.

3! Pre or be resigned to set mining with that many ppl seeing the flop.
That weak of a bet into that many people wants callers on the flop. That should tell you plenty.

Dislike the raise even more when there is that many people still to go behind you.

This is an argument for raising as opposed to calling. The value of protection is massive, and giving villain a price of <1/3psb to draw against us is bad.

There's 24 combos of overpairs, and those are pretty heavily discounted by villain making a pipsqueak bet into a slew of players (I actually like his sizing if he is going to go with a high cbet frequency on this flop, but that's besides the point because that's giving villain credit for being about 30 levels above where he likely is).

You say that this is a draw-heavy board, and yet the only hands you talk about are made hands. Hands like 54, clubs+overcards, and wheel draws+overcards are much more plentiful than the 17 combos of sets and straights, and it is very important to protect our hand against those.

Sorry I wasn't clear. cAmmAndo has it correct. I'm not making the move. My opponents are doing it to narrow their range for me. I'm very appreciative of their efforts.

If the HH did have the 5 come on the turn, I'd tell the Hero nh. The villain got his money in bad most likely and you didn't pay him off.

In addition to Hero, there were 4 others callers pre.

The drawiness of this flop applies much more to those callers than it does to the main villain. V is UTG, so his big draws are really limited to AcKc or AcQc. Otherworldly see mostly bigger PPs in his range.

But the 3rd, 4th, and 5th callers pre can have all sorts of SCs, suited AcXc, 65, A5, 22-44 that either connect with this flop or make good drawing hands. Once these guys clear out of the way by folding, UTG V's range is much narrower and does not include 54, club+overcards and such.

So hero's raise CAN be profitable if it keeps a draw in (like 54, A4, Ac6c or whatever) AND gets UTG V to fold AK/AQ hands. But... That's asking quite a lot, and once UTG ships it is a clear fold. Also raising can be profitable if it drives out all of the draws and also drives out UTG with 2 overs. Both of these "can be profitable" scenarios require somewhat of a perfect storm 6-handed on this flop and I think a call-and-evaluate approach is a much better line.

This is the Conjunction Fallacy. It's not sufficient to list a lot of things that have to go right. For you to win any pot, you're also relying on the dealer not misreading your hand, gambling not being illegalized in the time it takes to ship the pot to you, and so forth. This argument only becomes meaningful once we assess the probability of each of those happening.

So there are 17 combos from each of the 4 left to act that we're most worried about. If they have 20% of all 1326 combos of hold em, then sets+ only represent 6% of each players' range, so there's a 76% chance that none of them have those hands.

24 combos out of an UTG opener's range is more substantial, but again, I'm relying on the population read that a bet this size is rarely a strong overpair.

Of course we still need either AcKx and so forth to either fold or to fade all their outs to the river, but this is more relevant when we're comparing raising versus folding. As compared to calling, it is clearly superior to force these hands to either invest more money as a slight dog or to forfeit their equity.

All factors considered, we're probably winning this pot <50% of the time, so a raise isn't for straight value, but the value in protection is massive here. I would even argue that investing $80 more on the flop with a raise rather than a call doesn't even mean we're investing much more with this hand than we would with a call, as the raise earns us initiative on the only player who's acted on the pot and forces the players in position to play more straightforward on the remaining streets.

There is no doubt in my mind that if Hero didnt say that Villain shoved overtop of his raise, the responses would be different. Hero has to raise or fold this flop. I wouldnt hate him if he folded, but calling is criminal in my mind.

Venice10, I partially agree with you about people raising the flop with an overpair or TP. Although I havent seen it happen as often as you seem to. Ive actuallly started raising the flop with middle pair occasionally and people have been folding TP and even showing me sometimes....to prove how good they are I guess.

Fold on the flop. Once the pot gets this big and we are OOP in a multiway pot we should purely be setmining only. Anything else is massive spew.

Additonally, hero doesn't include the stack sizes of the 3 remaining callers, which is a blunder. Once the pot gets this big and the board becomes this wet, you are going to see shoves from short stacks who have any piece of this board. So if you just call the c-bet, you may have to call an additional 100 or so from a short stack shove, which can lead to a cascade of other shoves. This means that you could be facing a 3 or 4 way all in, which our hand is doing terribly against.

I'm inclined to agree.

At least in my games, that UTG raise is most likely an over pair. AK is possible as well, and ultimately hero is behind that range. This is not even factoring the other players to act after hero would could have any manner of draws or low sets.

I wish op would have posted to the flop decision point only as this is a common seemingly mundane spot but worthy of discussion.

I tend to give utg raises a lot of credit until shown evidence to the contrary. Add to that "villain is new to table" and we should be assigning him a very strong range. Does it include AK/AQ? Sure. Does he bet small into this crowd on a ragged flop? Idk but given the number of callers I'm expecting him to check his Ax. Here quite a bit. So I tend see his range as heavier with overpairs.

This is a dynamic board with few turn cards we will like few turns with TT having multiple players behind. Calling is out of the question. Folding would require significant discipline. I'd be inclined to Raise/Fold for value/equity protection if v was betting weak in a 3 way pot. Here I hope to make a disciplined fold actually. I expect KK+ from utg.

Edit: we will like few turn cards

TT isn't worth protecting on this board 5-way. Looking over the hand again, hero should fold. It's possible TT is the best hand at the moment. However with no redraws and little chance for improvement, it's best to let it go. Over half the deck completes a draw or pairs the board. UTG makes a strong move cbetting into 4 opponents despite his weak sizing and JJ+ is in his range. Calling encourages more calls or a squeeze forcing hero to fold. Raising risks far too much of hero's stack for a relatively weak holding under the circumstances.