Playing at this table for about 1 hour now, I came from another table up a good amount with $750 in front of me.

I've been playing pretty TAG and showing winners.

I raise to $12 UTG with TT

I get 6 callers pretty quickly including a guy in the small blind who is a pretty straightforward thinking player (never really open limps, raises to $15 when he has a real hand) with about $500 in front of him.

Flop ($72): 842

V1 (small blind) leads out for $35. I consider what to do here and am pretty confused. I'm pretty sure I played this hand badly and thought I should have raised here to rep KK+. I just flat, and there is only 1 other caller 2 to the left of me.

Turn ($177): 3

V1 bets $50. I call, V2 folds.

River ($277): Q

V1 checks, Hero?

I don't hate folding the flop since 7 people saw the flop, and the villain is a straightforward TAG.

Yeah but I see so many players at 1/2 in the casino donk out with TPTK or top pair weak kicker that I really thought he had like A8 the whole time. Would it ever make sense to raise and then check/fold down the rest of the hand if he calls the raise?

Try not to put results in OP.

Why do you want to rep KK+ when you hold TT? That really doesn't make a lick of sense. That means you want to turn your hand into a bluff...

So I'm not digging that thought process.

Otherwise, I think you played the hand quite well.

Pre is fine.

Nothing confusing on the flop. Call. You're often ahead, you really don't want to raise and build a large pot. Villains' range that sticks around to a raise is strong.

Call again on the turn is fine. You have one pair in position facing a pretty weak bet and you don't really want to stack off here.

I mean, based on your posts, it sounds like you lost the hand. So that's going to skew responses here a ton. Anyway, I won't let that affect me - after villain checks the river, I think you could check behind or consider a small thin value bet. I'd say bet $60/fold. Villain can call with worse hands like A8 and 99, which are squarely in his range.

Just read results. Makes sense. Yeah, definitely bet ~60/fold river.

How's that for (not) being results oriented.

The fact you lost the hand has nothing to do with your optimal line here. You played it fine. Just go for thin value on the river next time. And it's not actually that thin.

Is it a raise for value?

Is it a raise as a bluff?

No. It's neither. Raising makes no sense, don't do that. Your bets need to accomplish one of the above - otherwise, they have no purpose.

Not being results oriented....after he checks river, I'm still betting here for value around $60-$75. See plenty of LLNL players bet out flop and turn with A8, 78, 89, 8T, 99. Big bet is only getting called by better or someone desperately wanting to make a hero call. I think that JJ or QQ are the only two hands that seem rational that may beat you on the river after he checks (in hindsight, we find out that it's actually JJ but oh well.)

No that'd be bad especially deep

Flop is pretty close, you need more info/ a previous hand on his post-flop tendencies. A good player in the sb in this spot would be check/raising his sets to get some dead money in the pot due to the fact that there are many players behind that may your c-bet, therefore getting his hand max value (instead of him donk betting and getting called by everyone). I'm assuming it's a loose 1/2 table so check/raising the top of his range against your likely c-bet on this board is definitely the optimal play.

When he donk bets there we can assume it is mostly top pairs (89s, A8s) or 99,JJ which didn't wanna 3bet your raise pre because his setmining/binking odds with those type of hands against your UTG opening range (99+, AJs+, AQ+). Flatting is totally ok otf even with multiple players behind, even better ott as it is 3-way and the boards still dry. As for the river... I would value bet because his turn sizing is so weak and small. Luckily you posted the results too early and checking ended up being the right play but as someone else said only JJ beats you really unless we find out otherwise.

Tl;dr - Maybe raise to $15-$18 pre if you're getting multiple callers pre but you played the hand totally fine and my long winded post is the reason why.

I wouldn't worry too much about this hand - he had the one hand that beat you (QQ+ usually 3bet preflop, so you figure he's got 99, JJ, or something like A8 as you suspect).

Ya I think the open size needed to be bigger especially if you got that many callers maybe 17$. The flop call seems totally fine really dry board so no need to raise to charge draws. Again on the turn is fine as u still have an over pair to the board. On the river I am thrilled to take the cheap show down as his range is super wide. And now time to check the results.

When I read the hand history, I was thinking "what's the question? this looks standard."
We could argue for a river value bet, as you're only losing to JJ, but does he call with worse?
I'm not a fan of (bluff)raising the flop. You want to let the weaker hands keep betting, and the stronger hands are less likely to go away. It's hard to rep KK+.
The other argument: it is multiway so you don't want to give callers behind you a good price. But they'd be getting 4:1 as is; not much can call profitably at that price, against what appears to be two strong hands in early position.

Probably folding flop given read on SB since I don't think he should be leading here with 8x too often and has way more 22/44/88 in his range than 8x (since there are only a few 8xs hands he'd call with in the SB and since you have 2 red tens and a black 8 on the board, there is only 1 combo of T8s. I would say he maybe calls out of small blind with 86s/87s/98s/T8s) and really unsure if he leads the flop with any of these hands (even though he should a bunch of times if he was any good).

Otherwise, hand looks standard.

You're folding an overpair to a < 1/2 PSB on the flop?

Your read on the SB is wrong because good solid tag players do not donkbet save for very rare occasions. Donkbetting is almost always a weak hand trying to "bet for information". They are betting because they have some kind of pair, and they have no idea what you have, so they are hoping to induce some sort of action. They want to see if you raise them so they know if their pair is any good or not.

Given that, I would put him on 66+ since that represents a good chunk of all the "scared pairs" on a dry low flop like this. Your best option is to just call when you have something and bluff when you dont. By calling they will keep trying to "bet for information" which just means money in your pocket. Remember, they are looking for you to raise so they can fold, so obviously dont raise TT here. They'll probably shut down if a nasty overcard like A/K hits since every fish puts you on AK high.

Now, if he 3 barrels I would probably actually fold the river and put him on a flopped set or AA since people take unusual lines with the nuts on occasion.

The fact that he showed down JJ just shows how clueless he is and that you need to immediately strike your read on him that he is good in any way. If anything he might be considered a little tight, but this is not how you play JJ.

Given read of SB? I wouldn't say yes, but I wouldn't say no. The problem with calling on the flop is: How many more streets are we going to call and for how much? And if SB knows what we have (it's kind of obvious to any non-drooler), he's just going to value-own us.

This is one of the worse things I have read in the past 7 days. I hope you're not even close to serious with this line of thinking. Just a complete LOL if you think SB has AA.

Unsure why you think his play here with JJ is "bad". What would you prefer him do? 3-bet? That's kind of ridiculous IMO.

Ya all non-setted low pairs are in his range too (refer to my post where I said 89s.. etc)

This is generally correct. In this spot however OTF with air it would be very hard OOP to bluff raise multiple runners. OTT our line wouldnt make sense as if we were to have AA/KK we would be calling his turn bet if we called the flop. The river is the only spot we could really but it would have to be pretty big (4/5's pot +) in no instance should we be turning our TT into a bluff there though. We'd be deep enough to make that kind of move at least and it could probably work for us against his range.

If you cant 3bet JJ from the SB then you have no business donk betting into the field. What did JJ suddenly turn into quads on this flop? If he thought he was behind pre then he should still be behind post. Check/call is his only option at this point.

Anyway if you're going to raise someone's donkbet I usually only do it once. If they call they're basically saying "I'm stubborn and refuse to fold regardless of the story you're telling me". If they call I give up.

Are preflop raises to $12 often getting 6 callers at this table? If so, raise more pre.

Flop donks at this level are almost always something between tpwk and a weak (to them) overpair. You definitely want to raise flop without more information.

As played, turn and river are fine. Your decision to play it passively on the flop makes it so you'd be turning your hand into a bluff if you raised later.

lol why would you try to raise flop to rep KK when you have TT?

Flatting and checking down is the correct line so you played well.

Flatting is terrible. You shouldn't raise to rep KK, you should raise for value.

Uhhh, why would we raise? Our hand plays very well with a flat, multiway and with a range. Even if he always 3bets QQ, his range of sets and 99 TT JJ still beats us. Villain does not have many 8x but if he does we're not getting value from him.

Villain's range is mostly 8x. Almost no one at 1/2 donks sets on any board, let alone a dry board. His range is more like A8o, K8s, T8s, 98o, 87o, 86s, JJ, TT, 99, 77, 66, 55. Considering the fact that this hand saw 5 cold callers before villain, even Q8s, J8s and 85s are possible.

The fact that villain is aware and has bet exactly half pot indicates that he is much more likely to donk a set than most 1/2 players, but it's still not likely. More likely to be betting 35s , A3s, A5s or A4s IMO.

Your range analysis is absurdly nitty. This is a game where 6 people just called a 6BB UTG raise! Thinking that his range is anything like that strong means you're giving him free cards with a lot of those hands I listed a lot of the time, and giving other players who are playing hands like I listed a cheap call for the turn. This flop is very clearly a raise. Anything else is terrible.

This is really terrible logic. You can't just oversimplify the situation like this. Yes, I will agree that in the grand scheme of things you will not very often fold overpairs to half pot bets on flops, but the factors to consider are so dynamic that if you think in black and white like this you are just inviting yourself to make costly mistakes.

The value of an overpair is relative. We are getting led into here by a tight player after raising under the gun and have FIVE players left to act behind us. (Any one of whom could have slowplayed a larger overpair, hit or set, hit a pair + overcard, straight draw, etc.) Even if by some chance we are "good" right now, our equity will never be that high. Not to mention the cluster-f of misinformation and guessing that will happen on the turn/river. Calling on this flop is throwing money away.