Reg is mid 50's, bought in full (150bb), stacked off with K9cc vs my AJhh in prev hand (eff stack $250):

EP raise $11, 5 callers I flat AJhh in BB.

Flop Kh Qh 8d ($66), I check, check, Reg leads $25, one caller in LP, I c/r to $125, Reg flats, all fold.

I ship ~$100 on Jc OTT, Reg calls, I bink a heart.

...so Reg is obv married to TPBK regardless of board texture...

The Hand:

Effective stack ~180bb ($360). Limp, limp, I limp A9hh UTG+2, Reg limps, limped 3 more ways to flop.

Flop: ($14) Th 9s 7h

SB ships for $13 (lol), UTG flats, I flat, Reg raises to $65. Folds to me, one left to act after me but they've visibly checked out so I know I'm closing the action.

What's my action?

Ship? Call? FE? Fold?

why would you flat?

weird

now I would raise to 150-190

you have ZERO fold equity. 3betting/shipping for 180bb is spew.

i'd flat and bomb it if I hit on the turn, otherwise c/f. he will never fold a set/2pr on turn and will peel it to the river with bad odds. if he's really bad he'll still call with a straight. (its funny because to anyone at all decent your hand is face up as a FD at that point, but live 1/2 players will still play horrible)

Calling the flop with second pair top kicker nut flush draw with the intention of folding ott to aggression vs a guy who just stacked off with tpbk doesn't seem very good to me. I'm raising while we still have lots of equity on the flop. I'd probably make it 180ish so that if he flats we can jam turn and have at least some hope that he folds with 180 behind

well, your logic does't seem very good to me.

villain will show up with 2pr+ here almost always, and he's not folding. getting it in here we essentially have a bare FD.

I tend to like calling over raising here for two reasons.

1. You've stated how the reg gets married to TP, so if its obvious he has at least TP why try to get all the money in when we only have MP? I hit and get his stack with hopefully two nice value bets since he can't fold.

2. The board could brink or run out really badly for us.
If he DOESN'T ship the turn (and likely if he has a good hand he will try to bet like 2/3rd pot and not scare you off in his mind) then we can see the board without committing 150bb with what is basically just a draw.

I know it seems like a super passive way to play the hand, and it kind of is, but against a player who has proven that he cannot get away from a hand even when a flush hits, it seems like nothing but spew to just ship this much on just a draw. Against a much better player I would ship, but here this seems like an easy call.

Just looked at the math again.

Call $52 to win $118, and probably $282 more.
VS
shoving/committing $347 more to win $118 + $282 more IF we hit OR...
Losing all $347 more when we brick out MOST OF THE TIME!!!

Seems like your action is call, no ship, no FE obviously and never folding.

This seems correct, as I get a little over 5:1 considering implied odds. And I've got at least 30% equity against his range.

+1 in that you're getting over 2:1 with what seems to be great implied odds according to villain description, but u have no FE. therefore calling is the best play. end of discussion. however, if villain is likely to raise here with JT, QT, KT, or T8, but is likely to slowplay a set, then it's not terrible to raise/call with our 14 outs making us a slight favorite. it's just that getting it in on flop in this specific case is too high variance for live 1/2 NL.

Raise/calling here is not "high variance" it's more like "-EV"

As a rule - you should always ask yourself if you have FE with a big draw to determine if aggression is warranted. Here, you don't. It is multiway and this flop smashed everyone's limping range. In addition, you may be only drawing to diamonds (i.e, it is likely not as BIG a draw as it looks). You have good IO if you bink given villain's sticky description and the fact that underflushes will always pay you off. Flat and r/e turn.

I'm with masaraksh - he is never folding. The FE you get from being able to pressure weaker hands with pf+FD is part of what makes the hand valuable. When V raises here, he's never going to dump the hand ergo, you have no fold equity. You have 8 outs at worst and 14 or so at best. You don't have odds to be drawing given the stacks involved, so I think this is a fold. Sticky top pair is still ahead of you and not sweating that bad.

We do have guaranteed implied odds, right? We're calling $52 to win $105, so 2:1 immediate is not correct, but if Reg has $295 behind, we're calling $52 to win $400, almost 8:1!

I see where you're going, but you can't every have guaranteed implied odds. V has shown the willingness to stack off when the most obvious of draws gets there, but that doesn't mean he'll do it all the time. There's also the fact that we need to hit our hand.

I would structure it the other way around. Since V has raised $65 and we're agreeing that he's never going to fold and since he's taken the driver's seat, you can look at it as we're going to have to call $295 (or at the very least, another big bet) to see the turn and river.

I know my reasoning is a little fuzzy here, but looking at it as calling $52 to win $400 assumes 1) you're going to bink the flush on the turn and 2) he's going to call it off. #1 is only 19% to happen (assuming the 7 doesn't boat him) and #2 is villain dependent, but IME V's who just stacked off to a flush don't do it in back to back hands with weak holdings. YMMV.

I don't see the point in evaluating the hand options after a mistake. If you raise the flop, the dynamic of the hand changes dramatically. Since you should be raising the flop, there's no point in evaluating the dynamic you created by flatting the flop.

My personal opinion is to play pair+fd on 2suit flops as I would a set.

If we raise the flop here, V is certainly 4bet-shoving. Raise-folding the NFD in this spot is hugely -EV, as is raise-calling. DUCY raising is the worst option?

If we flat in this spot, we're calling based on the maths of making the flush and banking on V being unable to fold a made hand OTF...so we end up c/f most turns (65% or so).

I think the previous post shows that we can be certain of IO in this spot, once this type of V makes a $65 raise OTF, he's never folding. He'll spite-call even if the heart hits OTT

Also, I think binking the turn is more like 32-26%, amirite?

Yeah, the history with the villain makes it look like he's just the right type of donkey to pay it off if the comes on the turn, but counting that as a SCLPL is fallacy. Our hand is going to look exactly like what it is when we flat the ship and the raise. Obviously there are fish out there that will pay us off in exactly this 2 hand situation, but I think they're rare.

(13 s total) - (2 on the board + 2 in my hand) = 9 left in the deck
9/(47 unseen cards) = ~19.15% to hit the flush OTT assuming V doesn't also have a FD and that the 7 doesn't send him yachting. I think that's right.

I'm not counting the A or the 9 as a viable out just to make the math easier. I still don't think the math is there to either call the raise or reship it. This just looks like a fold to me.

You are advocating folding vs this V??? WHAAAAT???
We cannot fold here, period!

If we bink the heart on the turn, I value bet like half our stack and he calls, which makes the odds to call the $52 more on the flop correct since we KNOW he isn't getting away from this hand on the turn, or the river if we price our bets correctly. Shoving the turn if we hit is just LOL bad, and if the board is a gross T on the turn we can get away from this hand for $52!

I can never fold for this much more with this much behind vs a V who is this sticky!

Results oriented thinking. You can say this now because you know villain raises after hero flats, but before hero acts you do not know this.

What some people advocating calling seem to be ignoring is what happens the 80% of the time we miss the turn. We then check and face a huge bet or shove? Doesn't seem like an ideal spot. I'm really not sure what the best play is but I think flatting here puts us in a real bad spot on most turns.

Let's ignore that we know V raises. Raising will fold out weaker FD, which is also suboptimal.

We miss turn its an easy CHECK/FOLD.


I know this seems CRAZY to not "see 2 cards" with this draw, but given we have literally ZERO FE on flop and also our 9 and A outa might not even be good. Getting it in here we often will have just a bare FD and that is spew. We see the turn and if we get there this villain is PRECISELY the type of donk to pay us off

i agree with this ^ 100%

I would call.

If he had 100 BB or less I would ship it in.