That is the key thing here. With that many people interested in the pot the chance that somebody is on a draw starts climbing because every other hand is already taken. Plus, after the shove, button call and you flat call even fish are going to realize random weak KX and middle pairs are no good.

It's time to shove.

I'm fine with our small flop donk.

On this dry a board with this small of stacks behind, I probably just lean to a call at this point to attempt to bring in others behind me. My plan is to then simply donk the rest in on the turn, and even though that can never be a bluff in a protected pot, it's highly unlikely anyone who calls the flop will be able to fold for the price they'll be getting.

ETA: I can certainly see the arguments for shoving at this point, and it is definitely what I would lean to on a more drawy board (heck, perhaps even one with 2 cards in a row for more OESD combos, such as K54). But I don't think flatting on this board with these small stacks behind (really lessens our RIO in the worst case scenario of someone hitting and us not boating up) is horrible, so I'm more in the camp of so long as you don't fold you'll probably be ok.

GcluelessNLnoobG

We’re not trying to maximize the chance we win the pot. We’re trying to maximize the chance we win the pot times the size of the pot (minus the amount of future bets we plan to put in). Namely we’re trying to maximize EV.

Gutshots aren’t calling the extra 65. (If they do, that’s awesome for us, because those players are making a mistake by calling.)

We’re just worried about open-Enders for V1-V3 (75,53).
If they call 65 and hit their 18% draw on the turn, we lose the pot plus an additional turn bet of 120, so that’s -415 (-285-130) -120 = -535. That’s .18*-535 = -$96 in EV when they hit.
If they call the 65 and miss their draw, which will happen 82% of the time, we pick up an extra 65*.82=$53.
So our net EV loss for when one of V1-V3 has an open ended draw, and they call rather than fold flop, is -$43.
Now, how often does one of V1-V3 have an open ended draw that will call flop? Who knows. Maybe half the time, collectively, just as a guess? Probably much less frequently than that, but let’s say half to be safe.

So by just calling and not jamming all in (for “protection”), we might give up .5*$43~-$20 in EV loss (corresponding to the EV gained by V1-V3).

But if V6 is always going to fold to a flop jam (if he’s a “good lag”, he should fold AA/AK to our rejam), we miss out on a ton of value from an extra bet on the turn/river. We easily lose out on $60-$80 just by missing a turn bet against V6.

Seems to me like flop call is best, followed by lead turn small (1/4 pot) assuming that V1-V3 fold flop. Unless you are pretty certain that V6 will call off against a jam with AA/AK. Then I guess flop jam would be okay.

I think a lot of weaker players still automatically go into a call/trap mode when they have monster hands and would rather flat to appear weaker to disguise their hand, rather than think about all the action killing cards that can come otr, not to mention if someone had a draw ott and missed we don't get their money otr either.

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V6 called cold with 4 players still to act. He is calling a jam a significant percentage of the time. So we can’t assume he will fold and further assume that the rest of his stack is lost EV.

I'll add something here.

Recall that V1-V3 smooth called the $15. Their range of hands is very wide and about all you can say is that they didn't hate the flop. However, given their type (weak/passive) 75, 53, backdoor flush, mid pairs Kx and God know what are still possible. However, 75 & 53 are the most likely. This type of player seems to love that type of hand when playing a shorter stack.

If I just flat the $65, they will be getting immediate odds of over 5:1 and implied odds in the 11:1 (or more) range. Do we really want them in anymore?

Edit: Thinking about it, a larger flop bet would have improved their odds after the raise and changed things quite a bit. Gonna chew on that for a while.

Putting myself in V6s position, given the information from the betting {15 dollar lead, 3 flats, tilting player shoves}, I would call on the BTN with KQ+ and would treat KJ as marginal cusp hand (call/fold depending on how loose the table is playing). Facing a reshove from an astute player like JayKon, a hand as strong as AA is an instant muck if I were V6. The issue is that the pot is protected by the tilting LAG who is all in, so JayKon can never have a bluff. Jamming into a protected pot is STRONG.

Now if V6 isn’t thinking about poker on this level, and he’s just looking at his hole cards, then feel free to jam away. We get a small amount of protection the times that V1-V3 have 75, 53, which has a small bit of value (less than $20 by my estimation, but that’s something)

That’s right, but what is missing from the equation is how often do they have 75 and 53. Even if we give them 75o and just suited combos of 53, that’s 20 combos. Their ranges include all sorts of Ace highs, any 6x, any Kx, any gutshot. Probably {75,53} makes up less than 10% of their ranges each (after they flat the 15 postflop). So by flatting V4s raise we’re giving a free card to those draws, but those draws are still incredibly rare.

Anyway, I think jam is fine. I’m just not so sure whether it’s worth it on such a dry board, given the risk that we might push out V6.

Hero can’t have a bluff, but from V6’s perspective he could have a hand that he expects to be ahead of V4 but is a bluff against V6–such as a king with a medium kicker.

So V6 could very well think that folding all of his pairs is exploitable and make the call with a strong Kx.

I disagree. In fact, I've seen very similar spots where the Hero had a one-pair hand and wanted to build a side pot, hoping to offset losing to the allin. Also, I've seen people raise here, hoping to blow the Villain (V6 here) off the hand on the river.

Now if you said: "It's unlikely that Hero has a bluff", I would agree with you.

I’m not sure how that’s disagreeing with me?

Also upon thinking about it further, why can’t Hero be bluffing? If Hero had 75 here, it might make sense to jam: if V6 folds we see 2 cards with massive dead money in the pot, and if V6 calls at least we see both cards.

Hero can have a “bluff” here with a one-pair hand like KJ that is certainly ahead of V4, but likely behind V6. Jamming with KJ requires knowledge that V6 has a fold button. That would be quite a sick move.

I don’t think Hero jam with 75 makes any sense unless we’re absolutely confident that V6 will fold AK. Otherwise, if V6 sometimes calls with AK we’re going to often build a huge side pot that we often lose, plus, even if we get V6 to fold, we’re only going to draw out on V4 like 34% of the time for the main pot. There’s dead money (we’re getting 3:1 odds on our 65 dollar call for the main pot), but it doesn’t offset the significant losses if V6 ever calls with AK in the side pot (side pot only offers 1:1 pot odds, whereas we’re 34% to win). Point is: the math doesn’t work in our favor unless we get like 80% fold equity against V6. That’s the power of protected pots and why it doesn’t usually make sense to bluff into a dry side pot with an 8-out draw.

How do you square your last paragraph with what you said earlier about V6 folding almost all the time and that’s part of why we shouldn’t jam with 44?

Well, thanks for the compliment. But please remember I'm in a 1/3 game, not even 2/5. I'm "astute" only compared to 90% of the field and routinely play against a few people better than me. But thanks anyway.

Also, there have been a couple of references to V6 having AA, which I never even considered for a moment. I've never met anyone who could be described as a LAG raising a table full of $3 limpers to just $10 from the button. That's just never going to happen.

I realize I am arguing two different sides. But my argument from before is we shouldn’t jam with 44 if it causes V6 to fold 20% more frequently. Let’s say we’re always able to get stacks in against V6s obvious Kx if we play the hand more passively. But if we jam flop, he will only call our jam 80% of the time. Then we lose 20% of his stack in EV, so 20% of 160 is -32 dollars lost in EV by jamming flop. That’s more lost than the gain by pushing V1-V3 out of the pot.

My argument about not jamming with 75, is that it is -EV to bluff into a dry side pot if V6 calls our jam at least 20% of the time.

IOW if V6 calls our jam once in a while it is -EV to bluff with 75.
Whereas if V6 folds to our jam once in a while, it may be more profitable to slow down (even if it lets V1-V3 catch up once in a while)

So for instance, if we know V6 calls our jam between 20% and 80% of the time with Kx, and if we know V6 will stack off 100% of the time with Kx if we slow down and bet turn/river for 1/4 pot, then it is simultaneously true that we should never jam with 75 and also we should never jam with 44.

You're never in this spot ... because? I'm assuming you always go for the check/raise. Since you don't put any faith in live reads, you always run the risk of it getting checked through. It seems like it would make it easier to put you on a set.

I say this because I know many 1/3 players that would see it this way and you play 2/5, which should have more people that could see it.

So, if you would. Please explain your position of always going for the check/raise more fully.

But this argument doesn't square with your math in your initial post arguing for a slowplay, for multiple reasons.

First, in your math above, you assume V6 calls 0% of the time. So you're claiming we gain $20 in EV from protection against the open-enders. In fact, what we actually gain, even given your assumptions about how often we're up against an open-ender (which I'm not sure I buy but let's go with it), is $20 plus $160 times the percentage of the time our jam gets called by V6. So if V6 calls us 20% of the time if we jam and knock out the open-enders, it's $52 in EV that we gain, not $20. That is a BIG difference. And that's at 20%. Your last claim was "between 20-80%". If we just make it 50%, now we're looking at $100 in EV that we pick up with a flop jam. This is nothing to sneeze at.

Second, in your math above, you assume that the open-enders that call behind us extract no value if they miss turn. But at the same time, you are advocating leading the turn so small that they can make a correct call! Maybe you're saying we size up if one or more of them call behind us? But still.

The differences between 1/3 and 2/5 are so small that I treat the median player more or less identical. Even if a lot of players see this line as a set, you'd be surprised at how many still call x-r with one pair hands. There's really no need to adjust or try and get fancy at these stakes. I do find it odd that you posed this though, because I assume you're very rarely leading flops, so if you're concerned about x-r yelling strength - what does a lead do?

Anyways, you are correct that I don't value live reads and that I'm always checking this flop. I did mention above that players won't adjust so there's no need to get fancy, but in this spot the SPR is also low enough that even if the flop does check through we're able to play for stacks. The board isn't scary at all either. I don't think leading is necessarily bad, and obviously every option on the flop will be +EV. The biggest problem unique to leading is that if we lead and no one caught a piece of the board, then less money will be put in the pot in the long run than if we check.

While I've played some 2/5's that played like a 1/3, it's generally not like that around here. We have a lot of very solid pros playing 2/5 & 5/10. That might be why the 1/3 has been so easy, for so long.

Anyway, a weak lead into passives, followed by LAGs was an attempt to get raised and generating a situation where I can then 3-bet and get a bunch of dead money in the pot. The thought occurred to me when leading small into a weak field with a 4:1 draw to generate odds and a bigger pot.

It's an experiment, which is why I posted the hand.

I do a lot of leading with sets at 1/3 and 2/5 in multi-way spots to good effect. YMMV. In this hand, the lead resulted in an extra 45 dollars in the pot.

Did we get to the next decision point of the hand? I assume you jammed? What happened?

Yeah, of course we size up on turn if one of V1-V3 calls.

$100 is nothing to sneeze at, of course any line is profitable with 44, but I’m claiming there’s another line that earns more (assuming that flop jam generates more than 20% fold equity from Kx relative to lead turn/lead river). That’s all. My assumption could be off, but the math is correct given the assumption.

RESULTS and comments

Pot $285
Board: Kh 6s 4d
Stacks:
V1-V3 ~$175
V4 Allin
V6 $160

Hero: At this point, I got what I wanted and though I expected V6 to raise, V4 was fine. Now, I wanted V1-V3 out and, if possible, V6 to call and commit. With the call amount, the pot was $350 and I chose a $100 3-bet to $165.

V1-V3 folded and V6 tanked, then folded.

The board ran out: Kh 6s 4d 8h 2h and my set stood up.

V6 never showed, or said anything. V2 commented "good raise, I had 75", which I believe and V4 folded with that "I'm just running bad" look and left the game - lol.

I found the comments very interesting. In particular, the differences to the "bet weak to get raised" line used, in favor of a "check/raise line. While, for me, it was a new idea, for others the donk bet was fairly standard, varying only in size. Even though several replies from people I've come to respect were against the lead (with solid reasoning), I still think it's a viable alternative when several people see the flop, Hero is OOP and a raise seems likely from late position. However, I agree that the 1/4 PSB was too small. The next time something like this happens, I'll go with 1/3 PSB ($20 in this case), as that small difference makes a big difference in the SPR.

A second point I'm conflicted on is driving V1-V3 out of the hand. The reason I wanted that was that multiple draws have a higher probability of someone hitting and then losing the pot. I wanted to reduce my variance. However, I'm wondering if that's right-think, or wrong-think. I suppose it depends on my tolerance for the variance at the time, even if it is -EV. At any rate, I should be considering it.

Thanks to all.

PS. While posting losing hands is helpful, posting winning hands, where you could have won more is sometimes more helpful.

Given his small 10 dollar preflop raise, and the postflop action, I guess V6 folded a hand like KJ/KQ. It’s not surprising he did given that you 3bet into 5 players with a protected main pot, which is the ultimate show of strength. What you need to figure out, with respect to this player, is whether there is any way to take a different line and squeeze a bit more value out of his KQ, which seems like his most likely holding. If there’s no way to squeeze more value then the protection 3bet is a good move. But only you can make that diagnosis cause only you know V6’s tendencies.

OK, let's take a closer look at this.

There are, given your assumptions, 3 ways this breaks down. If you think my premises are off somewhere or not in line with your original assumptions, let me know.

Scenario 1: We jam flop (or do what JayKon did, which is essentially equivalent). All open-enders fold, and V6 calls with probability X. Let's assume that when this happens, we always win the current pot of $285, plus V6's stack anytime he calls it off.

In this scenario, our EV is 285 + 160X.

Scenario 2A: We call flop, and everyone else folds because no one had an open-ender. Your assumption is that when this happens, we always get V6's stack by breaking up the bets so that each is too small to fold to.

In this scenario, our EV is 285 + 160 = 445.

Scenario 2B: We call flop, and one open-ender calls behind us, putting an extra $65 in the pot. We then jam all turns (let's simplify the math by ignoring board pairs, which I think doesn't matter much because some of those board pair outs are blocked by some of the Vs who called already). If the open-ender misses, let's assume we isolate V6, who stacks off to us with probability X (I think this is reasonable because it's the same bet size as in Scenario 1).

Let's put the probability of the open-ender hitting at 8/42, or 4/21. I'm using 42 because we can remove the flop (3), our cards (2), V6's cards (2), the open-ender itself (2), and one but maybe not both of V4's cards (1).

So 17 times out of 21, we win 285 + 65 + 160X = 350 + 160X.

4 times out of 21, we lose our flop call, plus a turn bet of 110, to the open-ender, so -175.

Overall, the (simplified) EV of Scenario 2B is (17/21)(350 + 160X) - (4/21)(175) ~ 250 + 129.52X.

Now, your assumption is that 2A and 2B both happen half the time, so the overall EV of calling, under these assumptions, is

(.5)(445) + (.5)(250 + 129.52X) = 347.50 + 64.76X.

From here we can consider

285 + 160X = 347.5 + 64.76X
95.24X = 62.5

X = 62.5/95.24 ~ 65.62%

So this is higher than I would have guessed (even though it is quite a bit lower than your claimed 80%), but it does appear that under your assumptions, slowplaying is likely better. Also, the simplifications we made are all biased against slowplaying--the board will pair sometimes, leaving the straight draws drawing dead.

There are, however, multiple issues that have not been raised yet:

1. If we jam, anyone with an open-ender is looking at calling 175 to win 285+175 = 460 (and that assumes V6 always folds after the cold call). With those odds, shouldn't open-enders be calling!? Does that in fact mean that if an open-ender will fold to a jam, that is extremely good for us? Doesn't that also mean that we would rather jam now in case the board does pair on the turn?

2. The above computations carried the assumption that if we get heads-up with V6 for the side pot, he'll call off 2 pieces. Maybe V6 is smart enough to know that if we make a tiny bet on the turn, he'll be faced with a decision for his stack on the river. That means it's possible that V6 stacks off with probability X no matter how we play it. If that is true, then that is a big point in favor of jamming, since now slowplaying when no one will call behind us has zero advantage.

3. The assumption that we are only ever up against one open-ender is faulty. Each player's hand is roughly independent of the other ones. So if we are assuming that 50% of the time there will not be an open-ender, we're implicitly assuming that each player's (V1-V3) chances of NOT having one is approximately 2^(-1/3), or about 79.37%. Let's simplify and say that about 20% of each player's range is open-enders. That means there's a 64/125 chance (about half) of no open-ender, a 48/125 chance that there's exactly one, but a 12/125 chance--just under 10%--that there is more than one. And in that case (assuming they have different open-enders, which I guess happens about 5% of the time under these assumptions), EACH open-ender steals EV from us with a call, and we have to dodge 14 outs on the turn when we slowplay instead of 8. That does somewhat drag down the EV of slowplaying--though probably not enough to really matter.

4. It's also possible that an open-ender that we invite into the pot will turn a flush draw--and with the pot as big as it is, giving that hand a +EV call on the turn, dragging down the EV of slowplaying even more. (EDIT: Maybe an open-ender already has a +EV call on the turn as long as the board doesn't pair!?)

So overall, I guess this spot is a shining example of the old adage that the most heated debate takes place over the closest spots that probably don't have much impact on our winrate.

One additional point to consider here is what V6 is more likely to call. Depending on how good V6 is and how they perceive your play they may consider a $100 raise more dangerous then a shove. Hero making a raise other then a shove looks like hero is trying to draw V6 into the hand, a shove may be a hand trying to get V6 out.