Quote:
Originally Posted by Crispix
Thank you for the advice so far. Appreciate the thought process.
Just a question: isn’t it extremely weak if I were the preflop raiser and check behind this flop??? I think that as the preflop raiser, I should be cbetting most of my hands to find out where I am.
Yes, by checking you are capping your range as AA KK QQ AK KQ are all value bets on this flop.
The problem is that as the number of players who see the flop increases, the probability that someone connects with the board increases. 5 ways, we almost never have the best hand here, and even if we did there are very few hands we are ahead of that would call our bet (besides precisely JT, perhaps AJ AT from a looser player).
So, by choosing to bet 99 into 4 opponents, we are turning our hand into a bluff. The problem is 99 is a terrible hand to bluff with here; when you choose bluffs, you want to have a combination of good blockers and equity when called. Not that I'd advocate for betting AJ here, but if you did, you would have 4 outs to the nut straight (T), an overcard to the board (A), and blockers to AK AQ KJ QJ, making it less likely the opponents have those hands.
Compare that to 99, which when called has only 2 meager outs to improve, and unblocks the four strong pair hands I listed above, making it slightly more likely someone has those hands. Thus, the best option for us on the flop is simply to check, hope to improve on the turn or check it down and win the pot some % of the time with our pair.