Came across this situation today (and come across it pretty often) and not sure which is better: leading out flop or c/c flop?

1/3, table full of passive recreational players

EP limps, MP limps, CO limps, BTN limps, H completes AT in SB, BB checks

Flop (18): 8 5 3
H checks, CO bets 15, H calls

Turn (48): 3:diamond
H checks, CO bets 25, H ? (CO has 125-150 behind)


Preflop: Is it best to just fold anything but PPs in the SB?

Flop: Confused between leading out and c/c. A merit to c/c imo is keeping pot small OOP and avoiding getting raised. Leading out would kind of force us to barrel 1 or 2 more streets when we miss in a limped pot. WWYD?

Turn: It's kind of obvious the passive-rec CO has 8x when he bets turn again, or he may already have turned a boat. So I assume it's a fold AP?

fold

Pretty good flop to check/raise in my opinion. If someone shoves on us, we can easily get it in with plenty of equity.

As played, villain can't have many strong hands. As you said, a single 8 is his most likely holding. I bet/fold the turn $40. If he just calls, I'm probably gonna shove before the dealer can put the river card up.

Raise pre-flop. There is > 5BB in the pot waiting for you to take it.

Folding pre-flop would be insanity.

As played, lead the flop.

If you check, check/raise the flop and don't fold.

As played, check/call the turn. You're getting like 3:1 with 2 overs and the nut flush draw, and while the board is paired, it's hard to have a boat/quads and much easier to have 8x, 76, 99, worse spades, etc.

I'm not sure a random passive V is ever folding an 8 on the turn.

I'm not sure that I'm folding an 8 on the turn (we block sets and quads and the board is draw-city with no pre aggression).

With the line as played, I don't think we have fold equity.

But yeah, with a read that V isn't a station, I could see leading turn with plan to bet a ton of rivers.

I'm not entirely sure I want him to fold an 8 on the turn. I'd rather he call turn a huge percentage of the time and then fold river a huge percentage of the time. OP didn't include original stack sizes, and looking now, we may be a little too shallow for this. But with 100BB stacks, I'm probably making the overbet on all rivers, expecting to get called only by a 3, a FH, or weaker spades that gets there on the river.

EDIT: let me see if I got this math down. If we bet $40 on the turn, and get called by an 8, it's still profitable, even with just the immediate express odds

Betting 40 to win 88 (pot + v's call) is 2.2 to 1, we need to be good 31.25% of the time. With 15 outs against an 8, we're there already.

As played if our overs are good some of the time it's actually a pretty good spot to call. You just need to make up about 50 dollars on the river. Most players make crying calls for small bets on the river even if the draw is obvious. Sometimes you bunk TP and you can value bet that as well.

Just remember you have lots of options depending on your image, villans tendencies etc. All your options are decent except for folding.

I added some comments in the quotes

I think this hand is played differently depending on the type of table.

Your image is key.

Passive rec table with a bunch of limpers, it's an easy raise to $12-17 to pick up 5BB. I woukd do this if you have a TAG image or even a little loose image.

Unfortunately with this table you won't win many big pots so in order to make money you will have to win many small one and picking up 5BB is something you can't pass on.

If you get a caller or two, now you have $45 or so pot, with a good flop that you can bet on. Here a $15-20 bet should take it down and if not you still have to streets of betting to take the pot.

The turn is a good card as you are still able to rep a bigger pocket pair than OP who limped pre.

No aggression on the flop is incredibly bad. You have 15 outs to top pair or better. Your opponents figure to have mediocre hands or no hands at all. You HAVE to try and take this pot away. Check/calling this flop is tantamount to signing up for the fish style of play where you just call some bets, see if you made a big hand, then call some more bets if you did. Talking about pot odds and implied odds on the turn or whatever is basically just trying to get better at Fish Poker so you can eke out a little win rate against the other fish.

You probably should raise preflop, but I'll give you a pass on that. Once you flop this huge hand though, your plan for the hand has to revolve around how you are going to force your opponents to fold. Against 4 opponents, I think c/r the flop and shove the turn is a good play. If they are extremely passive or there are fewer of them, you should just lead. Check/calling would only be good as a balancing play because your opponents could never conceive that you would only call the flop with a hand as monstrously powerful as this.

I like leading these flops. You will usually get called by An 8 or a FD. If someone has better they are going to raise you. So once you just get called, you just keep going. You lead, so Vs want to believe you have a good hand. They are hoping you stop betting and let them either see the flush for cheap or get to a cheap showdown with an 8.

I lead this flop, pot the turn and if he calls, I shove the river unless an 8 shows up.

Agree with this. If you can expect to get action on the river when you hit, then V's turn bet was small enough to justify seeing the river. I like folding weaker flush draws in this spot, but NFD is a bit too good. You might be able to get it on the river when you hit. This is all assuming V has your stack covered, which is important. Wish you were deeper, though.

If you aren't raising pre, I think how you played it on the flop is OK.

That shove on any river but an 8 could be ~$100 into ~$150 pot though, and V has just called two streets. I don't think anything that got to the river other than another FD would fold. $1-$3 has a lot of calling stations. I guess if a brink-paint comes a bad player could fold an 8, however.

Isn't the turn a terrible barreling card?

V is never folding 8x and our hand looks exactly like 8x/FD because we never raised pre, bet flop and are now repping 3x OTT with a huge bet which nobody is going to believe.

I agree which is why we should raise flop so that we can rep 99-AA

I'd also just see a cheap flop here.

Not sure how much FE we have to steal the pot on the flop, but a bet will perhaps disguise our hand here a bit if we hit. I don't mind a super small donk (no more than 1/2 PSB) or a check.

We're only getting 2:1 on the call and will be OOP, so not a great spot. But shortish stacks have a difficult time folding even when the bad card comes in. I also call but it's not a slam dunk, especially since we have RIO on our overs (which might not be good).

I would fold the turn. We're getting good immediate odds but it's just not worth the RIO chasing draws on paired boards.

ETA: I'm in disagreement with most of the suggestions. With this many limpers, it is going to be hard to thin the field, which will leave us OOP in a bloated pot with one of the suckiest Ax hands there is (especially at tables where people are limp/calling bigger Ax); at the very least, if I'm raising I'm typically waiting for position. I also don't like getting too aggro in a limped pot where the reward (the small pot) is so small; if the pot was big and worth winning, an aggro play would be much more worthwhile. Plus if the pot were bigger we wouldn't be in no mans land so much on the turn. FWIW, if someone wants to get in stacks against us in a limped pot on the flop, we're typically a huge dog here (most likely just drawing to non-dirty flush outs). IMO.

GcluelessNLnoobG