Effective stacks are around 300

Newer to the table to real reads

Random V opens to 10 3 calls including the SB I call bb with 8h6h

(50) flop 8s3h4h

I thought about just leading here into the field but decide on checking with plans on check raising.

Thoughts on best play here and why?

Checks around

Turn 9d

SB leads 20 we call others fold

(90) river 2d

He bets 25

I think he has a 9 so often here I make it 100

He tanks

Thoughts overall?

I hate calling. Folding is probably the best play here but idk

Turn is a raise I think. Flop donk is okay too.

So, or FDFD isn't that big and we went to flop 5 handed. We know we won't be up against A8hh....so at least there's that.

But, when we start c/r and going nuts with 86hh.....we are at best against an overpair when they want to call or get stacks in here. Then there's better flush draws and sets. Sometimes bottom 2p.



So, this really isn't a board we want to just go nuts on because we have a pair + FD. Heads up.....different story. 5 handed.....nope.

In multiway pots, especially 4+ ways......we can just about throw balance/range out the window and play our exact hand at face value. As our equity share is far less and the risk of being exploited is exponentially lower.


Turn call is standard.


River, I'd either bluff catch or fold. Missed FDFD boards with the FDFD in our hand are bad bluff candidates. We block a *huge* amount of hands we want V to have here. And in multiway pots, blocker/unblockers have a much bigger role than HU pots.

Any decent player will look you up with a 9 a lot here. You're basically saying you have 65 or a slow played set.

You'd be surprised how many will either have straight up air here or 77, 66, 55 and sometimes even a 3 or 4 here and are betting into multiway pots when they shouldn't. You actually don't have a bad hand here to bluff catch cheap with.

FWIW, I'd only donk this flop in a HU pot when I'm in BB. And the earlier the position of the RFI, the better.


For example, vs a UTG open, I'd be donking this flop like 80% of the time. Vs a BTN open, I'd donk 20% or maybe never.



Multiway though.......nah.

Leading on this flop has a lot of merit since with so many people in the pot the initial raiser will probably just freeze with everything but JJ+ which you get value from anyway. Sure it's great to x/r and scoop a bunch of dead money while getting it in vs AA but thats a rarity and what will often happen is the damn pot gets checked all the way around because everyone is expecting the x/r. You can still opt to x/r here, nothing wrong with it, just be prepared to stack off. Essentially the x/r will pot commit you while a lead wont, hence the reason you can play the hand 2 different ways against the same range. Conversely with a lead, if you get raise/jammed on you can actually fold because you're up against NFD at minimum.

As played im raising the turn lead. You still have the vast nut advantage here and nobody is betting 1/2 pot with anything good, and on occasion you actually get a better hand to fold like A8 or maybe on occasion even a 9. But essentially if someone has JT or other random overcards we arent letting them see the river this cheap.


As played..... on the river just call. We dont need to bluff with 2nd pair and nothing better is folding anyway.

What nut hands are you giving Hero that SB doesn't also have here? V opens, 2 callers.........SB is going to call about as wide as we are.


SB has all sets and bottom two. SB has TT as well. We only block 88 and 98.

Obviously hero has all of these as well.


I wouldn't give any nut or range advantage to anyone between the SB and BB here.

Donk flop. Not sure if it's balanced strategy but I like a flop donk when a) I hate to see it check thru, and b) I have an easy decision if raised. In this case you have a vulnerable top pair with lots of equity and would gladly pile it in vs most villains in the hand (spr 6) (+yeah, can muck vs 2 vils raise + shove)

Ap, call call is prob fine (sb could have lower pair) but interested in the idea of raising turn.

Even though we're getting a good price preflop, I probably just fold. Hand has big RIO, especially OOP, especially in small SPR pots (where we often won't have the streets to figure out what is going on).

At higher SPRs very multiway, this showdownable hand probably wants to keep the pot small until it does improve, imo. However, at this smaller SPR of 6, you could argue we could fight over the pot with more aggression. Still, I probably just check/call.

I also just call the turn. He could have been attempting to check/raise the flop with a monster so lets just see if we bink / get to showdown.

Bluffs just don't work as much when the front door flush draw busts. Although we can certainly rep the OESD that got there. And yeah, his weak sizing certainly does suggest a weak TP. For this price, you could almost argue for a call, but I guess no one bets this much as a bluff. I think I just fold mostly.

GcluelessNLnoobG

If you have a read, you have a read. Does he really fold a 9 though?

I wouldn't be too surprised if he block bets and 8 or less on the river. Not sure what our threshold for value should be here and what our bluffs should be (if any).

Obviously 65 and A5. I don't think we would have a lot of sets here. A9 maybe? Not sure we would call as low as a 4 on turn thay we could turn into a bluff when it is so multiway. Kind of hard to turn something into a bluff that isn't missed hearts. Maybe 7h6h, 7h5h. JT? Maybe you can even have non-heart JT since you have position on SB, 2 overs + open ended.

When there isn't a ton of money going in the pot, I don't know if we need to turn hands as strong as second pair into a bluff. Again, he might block worse and there are plenty of bluffs he could have. Other missed hearts, 76, JT. But if he is folding 9x here, it's probably good. You block 98 and 65, but he's not really reprinting a hand that strong anyways.

Flop: @100bb I'm willing to gamble gii. We're roughly 50% against range of hands that will gii (overpairs, bottom 2pr, top pair, bigger FDs). Against sets we're about 32%. Would rather leverage this equity through aggression. I like the idea of donking to set our own price. If we get raised, we can 3! and look super strong and possibly get a hero fold. If we go the c/r route, we don't really get that chance.

Turn: AP, a raise here to $75 is a nice merge bet. We could get weak 9x to fold but keep in draws that we beat. Also, the SB's 40% bet does not scream strong value, even though he is betting into the field. But if we're up against 9hXh, we are toast. Don't mind just call either.

River: Our hand is strong enough to bluff catch and has mixed properties for a good bluff raise candidate. Bad that we have hearts. Good that we have an 8 and 6. In the end, our raise for value range is too narrow and I'd rather bluff catch with this hand. I doubt a 9 is ever folding to a raise. Even a better 8 should be looking us up.