We thin the field preflop so our c-bets work more often or our TPTK hands or overpairs can get more value without having to pot control so much. Also people will make the mistake of calling preflop for too much with marginal holdings, we make money off of this immediately. People tend to be so sticky postflop (example of this being the guy with KQ in your hand). It's not about facing tough decisions, it's simply more profitable. We often have a larger equity share of each pot, and can make our opponents fold their equity share much easier. You can raise better hands preflop and take it multiway, but c-betting with no-pair is just spew more often than not. You should make money by playing a tighter range preflop multiway but you make more money thinning the field.

Also FYI, choosing to raise this flop isn't a difficult decision. It's a spew decision. You're folding out all worse hands and only getting action from better hands and big combo draws. Best action is to call then most likely fold turn.

I also feel like what you are saying is somewhat preachy without proper thought or discipline behind it. Kinda like you're vomiting up wording from poker books you've read without doing what you should be doing. Be humble about it. If you want to improve you have to go to your thought process in each street and question it. These forums help because you get other players (often more experienced) to give you advice; don't ignore it.

Preflop- You aren't making the game bigger with your raise if no one folds. You are making the game shorter. It would be bigger if you increased their stacks. Do you want to play a short game with JTo 5 way? If so kudos but I don't think that makes a ton of sense -including negating some of the value of your position. And no way you are anywhere above their ranges...how many 9x hands do you think called you? Not trying to be results oriented but probably 4 people had better starting hand than you. And two obviously did.

Post flop: fold. Board texture sucks. Maybe peel small and reevaluate but not committing any size here.

(I tried to avoid replying again in this thread... but I just couldn't resist. )

This is an excellent post, Cxy. Very well stated.

What you say here is in fact true (or at least I believe it to be true), however, the two threads that you have posted here run contrary.

Generally speaking, our goal is to choose the action that has the highest EV, the most +EV choice should be taken.

The glaring problem is that since poker is a game of incomplete information, successfully choosing the action which results in the most +EV can sometimes be difficult, and sometimes damn near impossible.

When I want to narrow the number of opponents to 2-4, it is not because I am afraid to face a difficult decision, but rather that I believe the answer to the decision may not only be difficult, but perhaps unknowable.

In fact, the "tough decision" you're commenting on isn't the decision on the flop or turn, but rather the decision preflop to setup a good situation for Hero's hand relative to our villain's ranges. Make a terrible decision preflop, and it doesn't really matter if you can soul read your opponents on the turn, in most cases.

~~

There is also a very simple concept that can be applied here. Suppose you successfully see the flop 6-ways with JTo, and you flop the nuts, Q98r. Since you have blockers to the nuts, and nut redraws, it becomes less likely that any one of your 5 opponents will have a strong enough hand that they'd want to commit to the pot with. So in reality, the stronger Hero's (made) hand is, the less likely he will be able to stack more then 1 opponent.

So what have you gained?

The net result is, you've taken on all the risk of seeing a flop multi-way, but you're not going to realistically reap the rewards commensurate of the amount of risk you've taken on.

Simply stated, the risk/reward analysis is the driving factor behind the desire to reduce the number of opponents from 9 to 3 (or less) before the flop.

It (risk/reward analysis) is also the driving factor behind the nature of deep stack play. You are likely to play many more hands, in position, when deep stacked because the amount of risk you take on is acceptable in comparison to the reward you stand to reap when you, e.g., can setmine, or flop a 15+ out draw against a nit with AA.

In the situation described in this thread, as Cxy stated, you're not making the game bigger, but rather you are making the stacks smaller. And you're causing the risk/reward analysis to work against you.

See also: Diminishing Returns

Since I think I see a lot of "big picture" problems with how you approach the game, I'm going to pick 1-2 meta- concept to focus on.

In general, opponents in LLSNL limp/call much too wide preflop. This is not debatable. As a general rule, we exploit this by choosing a better preflop range to tangle with than they do. JTo does not qualify (unless the entire game is playing 200+bb deep and not just 2-3 players). Other hands that don't qualify include Q7s, K8o, A6o, 74s, etc. These are just trashy, marginal to below-marginal hands that require finesse and deep stacks to play well (if they can be played well at all), and finesse is something we don't have the luxury of at your average 1/2NL table.

Post-flop, people generally fall into two camps. They either (A) keep calling too wide, or (B) they're actually too tight postflop (e.g. MUBSy or fit-fold type players).

For the former, we exploit them with a tighter/stronger, value-heavy range; in general, unless they're entirely clueless droolers (which, let's be fair, there are quite a few at this limit), we don't need to venture too far off the value-betting reservation to get their money. In your hand, if you thought your opponents were the type of people who would consistently call/get-it-in with trash like K2, AJ, QT, etc. on this board, then I have no problems with your postflop play. Somehow I don't think this is the case.

For the latter, we are generally looking to pick up lots and lots of small to medium sized pots that these players aren't interested in. This is fundamentally why we're supposed to open 30-40%+ or even more of our hands on the button when it's folded to us, and cbet a very high percentage of flops. Most people suck at playing in the blinds, and the way they suck is by defending too wide pre and folding too much post. Button vs blinds play is just one example, and I chose it cuz it was the handiest/easiest to understand. Other examples include 3betting light/squeezing preflop, or just general isolation raises vs tagfish. In this specific hand, not only are we NOT playing vs uninterested opponents, we're also playing against a LOT of them. We are not bluffing when we bet/raise here, and we are not really value-betting (remember we're talking about case (B) here... a value-betting hand would be AQ/Q9/TT/JJ/KK). So what the hell are we doing?

Oh, and in case you're wondering, what about a player who doesn't fall into case (A) or (B)? Well, the truth is, there probably isn't a whole lot we can exploit about this player, because I think the technical term for that is, he's a good player. :-)

i think folding flop might be best. better than hoping for a check-down after the flop.

1) no point in getting into awful spots like this @ 1/2, or live cash in general.
2) could be drawing almost dead
3) 17 turn cards kill us

More great posts here ... yeah ...

To give a little love to OP ... I do employ a concept of 'wanting' multiple players in the hand PF regardless of my position at the table IF they fall into Cat. B from above ... too tight post-Flop.

I open for 7 quite often in 1-2 early in my session and look for 4 to 5 callers ... If I get folds from 25% of my C-bets then I am in +EV heaven!! I do this to build up my stack a little and create a somwhat loose image early in a session (4 or 5 orbits). I gain a lot of knowledge about the table with very little risk before I change gears a bit and fall into a bit more conventional play.

What I mentioned earlier and OP is going 'to take to heart' is that you need to adjust to these hands post-Flop as the opponents offer information to you. With an already bloated pot and action in front of you its probably best to see where your price is and make an evaluation. The stack sizes here were key ...

OP .. are you playing poker or playing cards? Both are fun but in long sessions its best to try to play against fewer opponents and avoid showdowns as much as possible. This is tough to do at 1-2 (and make money) most of the time when you go 4+ to the Flop for 2 reasons.

1) You have to risk a larger portion of your stack to 'properly' bet/play the Flop (c-bet or call) .. and after 1 call, the others are generally priced in via implied odds.

2) Regardless of your holdings, even AA, your odds of winning the pot AT SHOWDOWN drop quite a bit the more hands that are still in play.

I want to win pots on the Flop and Turn as much as I can ... and the best way to do this is HU. This to an extreme is bad poker as well since you are missing value bets, but you need to recognize when you 'can' go to the River comfortably to get value ... just not all the time. GL