Stack sizes

BB: 20
UTG: 200
MP1: 275
MP2: 250
BTN: 190 (Hero)

Hero dealt KJ on BTN.

UTG raises to 7, MP1 calls, MP2 calls, BTN calls, BB calls.

Pot 36

Flop J 8 4

BB bets 12, UTG calls, MP1 calls, MP2 calls, Hero ??

So basically the UTG raiser most likely raised with a drawy hand as he raised larger when he had good holdings. When he just calls the shortstack's bet I don't figure him to have much (or he has a monster and is slow playing it) as there are tons of draws out there. MP1 and MP2 can't have too much as they are only calling the initial bet.

It seems to make sense that I should raise here as everyone seems weak, however, with the stack sizes if I don't raise enough I am likely to get everyone calling me, if I raise too much I am committed to the hand with only TPGK.

How should I proceed?

Shove. The three calls mean nothing, they have draws or very marginal hands, they're calling because the BB is (sm)all-in

If you shove it is unlikely you will get called by a worse hand IMO. Do u have any other info on the other players, would they flat with a monster here to try and trap someone else in to raising, what types of players are they? Without any other info I would probabaly raise to $65-75 and if someone calls they're probably drawing so look to get it in on a safe turn card.

Based on what I have seen before they pretty much play their hands straightforward. I didn't feel that anyone was slowplaying a big hand other than maybe UTG. however, his hand has to be massive as he is OOP with three players to act behind and so if he had a big hand he should raise it to avoid someone drawing to a straight or flush behind. So I figured all had marginal hands and/or draws.

shove seems good since a lot of turns are going to shut you down

Shove lays 171:97 (worse than 2:1) to call with draws

also lol at BB with $20 stack

or slowplayed monsters. Why can't one of these three callers have a monster here? Monsters usually love waiting until the turn to raise.

So we flop vulnerableTP2ndbestkicker on a drawy board and this is the time we say, yeah, fist pump, exactly what I was looking for all session to get all my chips into the middle?

I think one of my problems is I always seem to be getting totally distracted by the small-hand / small-pot idea, and right now we have a small hand so I'm not thrilled at playing for stacks.

What are the pros/cons to simply passively calling here? Obviously the pros are that we risk very little of our stack and are in position on the turn to see what happens before us. The cons are that we let others draw for cheap and give weak hands a chance at overcoming our vulnerable hand in a multiway pot that is becoming biggish; we also might face a tough turn decision on a brick if someone bets large into us and risk folding the best hand. But we've only got a small portion of our stack invested, is that a big concern?

GthinkingI'mfartoopassiveG

Shove might look like a draw to others as well.

Calling is terrible, every turn but a black duece sucks.

This is a silly line of thinking. If they have a monster, so be it. Sometimes we open the door and there's fire behind it, but not often. We can't avoid playing a big pot in situations like this simply because someone may have flopped huge. There is no logical two pair here and it's tough to imagine JJ making it $7 UTG (or calling $7 pre), then just calling this flop, when we already know we have one of the Jacks. If someone has 88 or 44, so be it. It's far more likely that they're taking advantage of the stupid all-in "shove" by the $12 guy by calling cheaply.

No don't shove. Either raise a bit under pot or call then re-eval on the turn.

Raising is more +ev but calling is -variance.

There's like half the deck that's not bad. Also you have position so calling could possibly mean them donking off more on the turn with an incomplete draw before you take it down by shoving the turn.

There are very few turn cards that we will like, and just calling the $12 makes it cheap for their hands to see these cards. A raise to "a bit under pot" will commit us to the hand, but leave us sick when we arrive at the turn and it's a bad card. A shove solves both problems.

I can b/f 60-70.

B/F'ing $70 would be pretty weak given our stack, the dead money in the pot, and the fact that we have a backdoor FD

It's silly to think we won't run into J8, JJ or any other set/overpair combo, including QQ from all those who flatted preflop, but a shove here is fine. You're probably getting paid off by a ton of draws, worse Js, etc, and calling just sucks.

UHHHH i hate these kind of spots. As bad as it may seem I think I may just call this and reevalutate on the turn. Dont forget there are cards that we can turn that help our hand. IMO we have posistion here and we are getting like 7 to 1ish on our money and by calling we are keeping ourselves out of some weird spots. I think raising here is bad just cause you will get yourself in some really gross pots where you will be almost committed to the pot. I thinking folding is bad too because alot of the time we have the best hand here.

What do we beat that calls our shove though? Are we shoving as a bluff then? Shoving just to push out draws is not a good line.

we stick it in here for sure if utg had a hand we would know about it by now and if one of the other 2 pf callers flopped a set or top 2 there raising to many scare cards to just call or the raise to like 65 shut it down now

Well there are three decisions here raise call or fold. Folding is out of the question and calling seems too weak. I think you are giving away too much by just calling. You need to charge the villians drawing on you. I say raise but thats just my opinion

having everyone call you is a good thing this is a super ez classic price-in, price-out spot

raise it up to about 34 or so to make it so you can jam a bunch of river esp ones that contain a heart...use your position to make money

you don't need to jam here u just want to raise it enough so worse hands call you OTF, there is about 60% of the deck you own on the turn....when it checks to you jam, if an ace hits or some other scary card, you still have your fold option, but you should be comfortably ahead on this flop and you have position so don't call or jam raise for vallue

oh and 3bet pre

raise to 34 on this flop after all those people call the 12 dollar bet?

call and see next street

I know we "can't" fold here, but I can't help but feeling we are behind more times than not when just calling here. Raising/Pushing all-in leaves me feeling queasy here, and I'm not sure I can do it. But at the same time just calling here leaves me feeling bad because there are so many hands I think are beating us.

Uh I don't know what 1/2 games you play in, but literally every two pair combo is in someone's range here. I guarantee at least one person would call 84s preflop so you can't just remove it from their range because you wouldn't play it that way. Everyone here could have all two pair and set combos so you HAVE to include these in the ranges. You can't just say "no one would play x hand this bad, therefore they can't have it" because it's a live 1/2 game and they clearly can and DO play them that badly.

If you assume that they are good enough not to slowplay sets/two pair or call with 84s preflop, then what makes you think they are bad enough to call a huge overbet shove in a multiway pot with just a bare flush draw or OESD?

Either everyone in OPs game is a fish and it's possible someone has a monster in this multiway flop, or they're all good and won't call that huge shove with anything worse than JK.

dude its live 1 2 if instead of jamming were raising for value we have to raise to at least 55 or 60 rights if they have a peice there coming along any way

Well you should've popped it preflop, you even assessed the situation correctly and still essentially limped on the button. As played, I'd raise to 60-70 and shove any non diamond on the turn.

I'm shoving here every time. Any other way is lol. We call and there are like 10 cards that don't suck.