I hate AA here, postflop, out of position, on a draw-heavy board with no Ac, but hands like these are why I love poker. There's so much outside information missing from this hand.

Are you c-betting often vs. two callers normally? If not, your hand is more transparent if you bet flop here. Also, if you bet flop, are we also betting turn? The fact that they limped originally makes this more dangerous, because 7 9 Q is like the perfect board for a limping range. You can't feel good about a 5,6,7,8,9,T,J,K or club hitting the turn.

If V1 is a 5/10 regular, then he's capable of floating flop and raising turn on any scare card. I think I like bet/folding the flop here, and re-evaluating on the turn if you're called. You're only getting raised by combo draws or hands you're already behind with these 2 villains.

I think there is a good chance one of them has 2 clubs. Seen it many times.
You can check raise here but it depends on what the other 2 are going to do.
I am just saying that if I check then V1 bets 60 or more he has something.
You raise to 120 or 180 will he fold? Not Likely. I am putting myself in his seat here to with a range of hands AK to A10
I know iIwould raise if I were him. Even if I hit trips
Plus V2 what if he calls also?
I know for some it's hard to lay the Bullets down but you may have to if another hits. on the turn.

This is what's running through my mind along with preserving my stack
If I check here and he raises 60 I am calling to see the turn. Then I will re evaluate. I think if you Cbet here you might get into some trouble.

$90 is pretty standard. Is there anything in this hand that would imply that we need to do anything more than standard. If 1-2 call, then we evaluate the turn based on their calling range. I think the check/raise is brilliant in a perfect world, but there is such a large number of things that could go wrong that it is a fairly risky play.... not that I wouldn't try it against very specific opponents.

I think c/r might be best if we had 400-500 to start the hand.

My sizing would be commiting. Especially if it goes bet call.

If I had $500 my sizing would be somewhere around $300...

What do you guys think?

Ugh. I hate check-call and check-raise lines. I'm in the bet-fold camp.

If you check, a decent percentage of the time it checks through here if the players are savvy enough with their pairs and draws. Not what you want to see with AA (esp since you have no redraw). Since V1 is not lag, we can't rely on him trying to barrel to steal the pot if we check.

When it does get bet, and you check-call, you're pretty lost in the hand since you are OOP. Are you check-calling all the way down, regardless of what turn/river cards come? Are you check-folding to a big bet on the turn? I think this line has the potential for you to call off a huge chunk of your stack to lose to a better hand or to fold to a worse hand that is putting "pressure" on your obvious AK or club draw (in their eyes).

Check-raising puts you in a world of hurt if you get called. I think a big C/R gets called by sets (yes they could have 77 or 99 in some cases), two pair, or big combo draws (JTcc, pair+FD) that have very good equity against your hand. It also folds out everything worse that might call a street or two.

I'd bet $70 and likely fold to a big raise - if you think villain might be overplaying hand with a raise OTF, you could call and re-evaluate turn.

Skinny - p.m. me the names of the villains for my own interest and mebbe I can give you better line/analysis (or just tell me next time u see me).

I think the risk in the c/r is in losing value. If it does work (and he actually bets), then your c/r forces the Villain to make a decision which is almost impossible for him to get wrong.

.

Grunch:

Besides a 27yo male talking about his description as "sick skate clothes", preflop is good This is a nice healthy raise size, I like it.

On the flop I make a $70 bet. I don't want to rep my hand strength too much, and I don't want to induce and get raised off. I allow there to be question that we only have a pair less than Q high/AK type hands for the occasional float from V1. We will evaluate the action as it goes forward.

I don't like V1's game.... Really, open limping without being UTG?

Overall c/call isnt awful given V1 takes stabs and I expect him to bet a lot, however... Bet>check>>>>craise. Please don't c/raise in this spot unless you have a good reason/rare dynamic imo.

I dont see us b/folding flop either. 77, 99, QQ should raise at least 85% of the time preflop, leaving just 2 pair hands and a boatload of large combo draws/top pair hands.

Bet flop. You are rarely getting raised, but if you do get the money in quick.

****, not sure of his name. He is in his 30's or early 40's. Balding a little bit. Has a tattoo on his right forarm. He is talkative at the table. He may be armenian or something of that nature...

sorry, $ick $k@te cl0the$.

Alright, a lot of good discussion. When I was talking about c/r flop as on option it was only if I started the hand with $400 to $500 not $800.

With that said here we go!

Game: 3/5 NL @ Lucky Chances Casino

Effective stacks $800.

Hero: 27 years old and dressed in sick skate clothes. Playing TAG and have a good image.

Villain One: UTG+2. I have seen him play 5/10 the mast couple months but today he is playing 3/5. He knows me as a good 3/5 player and has told me to take shots at 5/10. He does not make a lot of moves preflop. Likes to see flops. I have not seen him make any big bluffs yet only take a stab or two. He is up 1k or so at this point. He is not LAG. He is not putting a ton of pressure on people from what I have seen but he is a little tricky.

Villain Two HJ: Kid in his late 20's. Seems to play straightforward. Nothing special.

Preflop: Folds to Villain one UTG+2 who limps, folds to villain two in HJ who limps, folds to Hero in BB who makes it $40 with AA, Villain one calls and Villain two calls.

Flop: $115. Q79. Hero bets $75, Villain one calls after 3 seconds, villain two calls 3-4 seconds after that.

Both calls were pretty quick (but not snap calls).

Turn $340. Q79K. Hero? (We have $685).

Same as flop imo. Bet 175-200/fold. Villains can't be sure that you didn't raise with QQ or KK, and if you're a hyper c-better then AK got there, so I don't think you're getting raised on a semibluff.

yuck, turn is not my favorite, but its better than a club after 2 calls. I'm torn seeing that JT has to be an area of concern. I suppose b/fold of $180 is the best play, I dont expect semibluffs to jam on us. Whatever raises turn has us beat imo.

Flop bet was perfect

Check/fold turn. JT is everyone's favorite hand. Also losing to KQ now.

I realize I'm disagreeing with a person that (until now) has 1,000 x my post count, but I think donating $200 to someone with KQ or JT is better than giving all the flush draws a free card. I say this while also admitting that JT suited is my favorite hand.

Not only is my post rate greater than your 1 post/year, I am a Verified Dumbass.

Yes, Ks on turn is not great, but I'm still betting this turn with a plan to fold to a raise. V1 & V2's ranges are still pretty wide at this point and no point giving a free card. Plus, the K hits our range pretty well (since the raiser always has AK, ldo), so the villains shouldn't be playing back at us if we bet.

In theory, we should be betting$225+ to adequately charge draws, but I think a smaller bet is in order b.c. most villains aren't paying attention to bet sizing anyway and it allows us to preserve our stack if we get raised. I'm betting $125-140 and easily folding to a raise by either player, since we're "at the top of our range" and a raise OTT by them represents massive strength.

If we get called in two spots, I'm probably check-folding most rivers, unless it pairs bottom pair or something. If we get called in one spot, I'm not sure what I'm doing - depends on how "showdowny" the villain is - i.e. would they only bet 2pr+ type hands, never bluff missed draws, and always check behind 1-pair type hands, etc.

c/f is my line here, u look too strong and no one will bluff u off ur hand

This is very good and a long my line of thinking (after the hand not so much in the moment).

My only other thought was how often betting something small like $125 induces a turn call river bluff from a thinking player? If he has a straight draw like 68 or 810 or a flush draw he almost has to call with the intention of bluffing a ton of rivers right?

My thought was that betting small makes our hand look like AQ or AK in the villains eyes where $180 puts thoughts of sets more in his head?

Either way I think we have to bet for all the reasons stated above. My only question was sizing...

I still think that hero's hand is good here because there are not many KQ in villains limp call unless he's super passive. Definitely bet this out to charge for draws. Only hand that crushes you is JT, which is easily in the lc range, so this is a bf imo.

edit: lol nvm

If he's a really good 5/10 player, then, yes he could make this play and take it away from you on the river. Most 3/5 players are not capable of this, and a lot of 5/10 players aren't either. That's why I made the comment about "showdowniness" of the villain determining my river action. If he does take it away from you, so be it - he outplayed you b.c. he has position. It happens sometimes. Or you can just soul read him.

AQ/AK/AA are practically the same hand here - (all 1 pair hands, all ahead of top pair and FD's OTF, all way behind any other value hand.) Us betting large to rep a set (turn our hand into a bluff) will make no difference to the standard 3/5 villain (and most 5/10 villains). If they have a set/straight/2pr, they're gonna raise OTT, regardless of whether our bet size is repping top/middle set - that's why valuetown with strong hands is the best way to make money at Mid-stakes.

This is why I favored the smallish bet - it's bigger than our flop bet, so it looks like we have enough of something, but most villain's won't realize that we're actually betting on the small side to protect our stack. Most people would either check turn or bomb away on turn, but I'm okay with making a moderate bet on the turn. This accomplishes several objectives: to get crying calls from worse 1-pair hands, to "charge" the FD's something, and to minimize the cost to ourselves if we get raised (and fold). No bet size is going to achieve all objectives equally well - I just think the $125-$150 bet is best in terms of balancing these objectives.

grunch; not betting here is a huge leak, imo.
depending on your image, and history w/ villians, i can see check raising flop, and putting in 1/2 of your stack, and not folding. check calling is pretty bad because its muti-way, imo.
if it was HU, and villian was a known spazz, then i could see check calling down, but in this case, the risk of loosing value, and giving free cards, and infinite implied odds to villians is pretty bad.
this is a good flop for AA. youre going to have not been outflopped here the majority of the time, by far, and you have no reason to believe that you have been.
if you are betting your big draws on flops like this, and villians know it, then not bombing it w/ AA here is ridiculously bad.
If they view you as a total rock, then i could see an argument for checking, but this just demonstrates the reasons for not being a rock, if you fail to get max value from hands like this.
you should be able to bet 2-3 streets and get called by a Q

AP, on the turn c/f. Turn wasn't the worst card for you, but it was pretty bad. Most hands caught up to you at this point, therefore dumping it here to a turn bet would be ok.

read turn play now;

called in 2 spots... I like my hand less...
turn K, I like my hand way less.

betting turn now becomes pretty 'protection-ey' (which we know is weak), and extracting value from worse, besides draws, becomes more remote a possibility. AQ, QJ are folding now, and you are obv getting action from KQ, and JT. If we are looking to get value from draws only on the turn here, we are pretty much turning our hand into 22.
at this point, i would just hope for a free/ cheap showdown, and fold what is starting to amount to a bluff catching hand to any significant action.
there were enough decent turn cards for you that the flop bet was profitable vs. their ranges.
just try to make the next decision as profitable, even if it now means folding what was a pretty nutted hand OTF.

Problem is that there aren't nearly enough semibluffs in our range when we bomb $40 on the blinds PF and the c-bet this board compared to our AQ+/QQ+ range to compensate "getting max value" when we have aces. Just open flopzilla and enter our c-betting range and the board to see that we flop a flushdraw only 2.33% of the time.

Besides that, and given the fact that no-brainer monkey wasn't in the description of any villain, how on earth are we gonna get 3 streets of value out of a Q? And what Q worth paying us off is in villain's limp/call range?

I reaaaally don't like the K OTT because TJ is in almost everyone limp/calling range... vs two opponents then, I think I'm check/folding this flop. As said before by others, our range is too strong for us to get bluffed here often.

That makes me think that c/c the flop may not be the worst option after all...