1/2nl

Hero on BTN (275) prob perceived as tight, but table is gradually figuring out I can open raise light on the button.
SB (97) 40wm, limpy cally rec player. Peels flop light for up to $20. Any more than that scares him away.
MP1 (200) 50wm, as above but a little more likely to out out feeler bets.
MP2 (37) 40hf. Initially I thought she was weak tight, but previously she limp-raised me all in with KJo. I was opening light otb with K9s, called because it was only a few bucks to see her hand.

Hand:

Bunch o' limpers
Hero on BTN raises 12 with KJ
SB, MP1 and MP2 call

Flop (~50) QT6

Woman in MP2 donks out 25, putting her all in.

Hero, who believes the simple answer is never the best, starts cooking up a fancy scheme.

Next move?

Call.

Hey,

That may be obvious (or I may be wrong...), but for the money that's already in the pot at that point you'll have to necessarily catch one of your outs to take it.
So, once you call the donk bet, the situation is like if there's 0 in a side pot against the 2 remaining players.
Now, is there an interest in semi bluffing an empty pot. Answer: no. All the point of semi-bluffing is to grab the dead money.

If they have any made hand they'll correctly call, if they have air they'll fold correctly, even if they fold the best hand you won 0 more. There is absolutely no point in raising.

The "Call/Maybe call if they raise you and you have the odds" mode is a no-brainer.

Call is a bad idea, since I'm not closing the action. So I see this as a bet/fold.

Smart thing is probably to fold. But I'm not that smart, soooo

1. I think most of MP2's range is Qx. Likelihood she bet a flush draw is very very low. I think I have 11 outs against her. For 25 bucks, I'm in.
2. But I have to deal with those other two dopes. Proposed: to bet enough to put SB all in.
a. I think this will put everybody outside their comfort zone.
b. if everybody calls, I think I am still priced in.

But, I'm in trouble if
a. Only one of these guys call, or
b. If anybody is on a flush draw, and they call.
In trouble, but not dead.

Issue is, fold equity vs likelihood of getting myself into trouble.

Sorry, not following your logic at all. If you had a value hand then raising would be appropriate. However, you have King high. If you call the most likely course of action will be that the other players will also call if they want to play and you will often see 2 additional streets without putting another dollar in and then when you get the best hand you can value-town your opponents.

Goodness gracious.

I don't care for KJo much, so I'm likely to fold or limp, but I guess you get points for erring on the side of aggression.

However, assuming a "bunch" of limpers suggests more than three, a raise to 12 is not large enough.

As played, I like a reraise to 65 in the hopes of isolating with a bunch of dead money in there. If SB shoves and MP1 folds, obviously call. If SB folds and MP1 continues, I'd proceed with caution.

Dead money? There is no dead money. We have King high. We should expect to have the worst hand here most of the time. The only way we get more money is if we hit our draw. We aren't going to fold out a flush draw. We want the other players to come along as well to give us more $s if we hit our draw and the opportunity to build a side pot if we hit.

I was talking about the $12 each from the two other preflop callers. I'm not sure whether that qualifies since it was on a previous street.

I see your point, but I'm not sure whether MP1 is cold calling 1/3 of his stack with just a flush draw.

Yeah, I guess we may win the hand against MP2 with just a pair of kings, but even that's not certain and we'd probably need to hit the draw to win against three or four them.

After further review, I suppose I'll just call and hope like hell not to get raised.

Think you're overthinking this given your reads. Clearly getting odds to call against MP2. You say other two players are limpy/cally players. So, hope is that both come along and we get great odds for our nutted straight draw (though have to be careful of the A or 9 of diamonds). Are either of these players every bluff x/r the flop? Assume not based on your reads. So, if you call and one of them reraises, you can safely fold and save yourself some money as compared to reraising.

Real point here is that we want this to go multi-way. Only hand we want to fold is the flush draw, and decent chance that someone calls with a good flush draw anyway. We want the other two villains to stick around with Qx, Tx, 99, etc.

It seems to me that there is absolutely no point in raising here since MP2 is already All-in and we can't make her fold.

So raising is exactly like semi-bluffing an empty pot which is totally pointless.

The only question is calling or folding.
For now, you're getting the correct odds for calling (25-to-75, you need to be good 25% of the time and you'll be good about 40% with your OESD and overcard).

So, the next question is will Hero be pushed out of the pot often?

3 possible scenarios:

1) Both SB and MP1 call or fold (neither push). Great.
Potentially very EV+, if they call you have more immediate odds as well as more implied odds in case you catch an out. Moreover you're IP and it will be easier to get a free card OTT as well as maximizing value if you hit.

2) SB push, then MP1 folds.
You're getting the correct odds to make the call, it's the second EV+ decision you make OTF and it's therefore better than folding to the donk bet (EV 0).

3) SB calls, push or fold, then MP1 push.
You're not getting the right odds to call, you must fold.

Thus, the only question is now : "Is the scenario 3 likely, so much likely that you should'nt make the $25 call in the first place?"

For the same reason that you didn't raise the donk bet at your turn, the SB shouldn't be very prone to bluff because he can't make the MP3 fold anyway. So if he bluffs it's only for stealing your $25, which gives him a very bad risk-to reward ratio.

Conclusion :
No, the risk of being raised by MP2 is not threatening enough so that you should fold to the $25 donk bet, when it's immediatly EV+ and you can potentially win a much bigger pot if one or both of the remaining players call and you catch an out.

Yeah I was trying to boss the table around, and I think you're right, shoulda bet more pre.

I try to find the right pfr for a given table and stick to it, was kind of frustrated because earlier i was betting 15 and wound up folding everybody out when I drew kings. In part I think the table was adjusting, and I did have to tighten up eventually.

I raised to 75, SB shoved, MP1 folded, which was the least optimal outcome I think. SB was on some crappy suited 1-gapper. Guess he wasn't as uncomfortable as I had hoped.

Interesting analysis, although I don't like my odds if SB pushes and MP1 folds. Among other things I think I would have to discount some of my outs.

I'd say either raise more pre or overlimp and speculate. Your raise is too small.

As played, call. There's like no point in raising, your outs are usually all clean, let everybody station you and then value own them when you hit.