Game is playing pretty straightforward at the moment. No fancy plays being shown.

Villain 1 (cutoff and covers) is an older lady playing super straightforward. Fairly tight raising range.

Villain 2 (small blind $350) is an older gentleman also playing fairly straightforward. Chases with draws.

Hero (button $550) has a very tight image. Only shown good hands down.

Two limps to the lady in the cutoff who raises to $15. I call with J9 spades on the button. Both blinds and limpers call. 5 ways to the flop.

Flop ($75) is JT9 rainbow. Action is checked to hero on the button who bets $30. I went with a smaller size because my hand is kind of middling. Too strong to check. Too weak to bomb it. Small blind and cutoff call. What size would you go?

Turn ($165) is the 5 of diamonds to put a flush draw out there. Small blind checks. Original raiser lady now leads $50. Hero?

While I should have the lady beat almost always, the small blind can certainly have monsters in his range. Interesting turn decision here.

Meh calling 5x raises with J9s. Don't hate it, seems pretty good with our other guys calling.

As played on the flop, bad sizing, like terrible.

Raise turn. Could even shove and pray she calls with her overpair and other guy is just on a draw.

What sizing would you have bet on the flop?

What sizing would you have raised to with the small blind having about $300 and the lady having $450 more effective?

I would probably fold preflop. That might be too nitty because raiser's hand will probably be face-upish postflop and we can play fairly optimally against that in position postflop having only gotten in a very cheap 3% of our stack preflop. But we'll also be first to react after her postflop and might get sandwiched between the others (which could create problems). And if it goes multiway (which it most likely will) we do risk some RIO on some hands. I don't think calling is horrible but it wouldn't be my first reaction.

I'm fairly cool with the flop sizing / reasoning although I might go slightly larger inching towards 1/2 PSB (offering 3:1 where we know we can trivially fold if the four-to-a-straight comes in).

I probably call the turn. FWIW, I'm not nearly as convinced as you that we have the lady beat (slowplayed nuts or sets not wanting to stack off on obvious KQ board are easily in play here).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I'm betting a near pot sized flop sizing. Somebody has a draw here a large % of the time. We can easily get away facing a c/r vs some

Bigger Jx aint folding Qx aint folding some PPs aint folding like 88 and any overpair from V1 aint folding.

If we're going to call J9s and not get value when we hit our hands from weak opponents we should be folding pre-flop.

While I agree no one is getting away from a big PSB here with lottsa hands (which is why I PSB the flop with monsters), I think our hand is just slightly too weak to be wanting to do that on this board plus it would suck to have to fold our fullhouse equity.

Bottom two on this board is just a pip above AA, and I certainly wouldn't be going nuts with AA on this board.

ETA: With regards to folding J9s preflop (which I'm cool with), I think part of the reasoning for seeing a flop is to evaluate the board/action in position and decide when we are cool playing for stacks when we flop certain hands. ex. J9s is super strong on a J94r board against raiser cbetting but not nearly as strong on JT9ss versus a flop donk, etc.

GimoG

Fold pre. I don't like a suited one gapper against a tight raiser, even in position. I guess it's ok if you expected the blinds and limpers to come along.

Flop bet is fine, though I'd make it a little bigger. You can't let it go through and give one of the million draws a free shot. I'd be prepared to fold if the action blows up.

I don't raise the turn. We could very well be behind someone. We got some value with her bet and I don't want to open the action again. Call.

How does villain play when she misses with overs etc?

I like calling this IP provided you plan to run some bluffs as well post flop.

Flop sizing is really, really bad. You're offering hands with pairs + straight draws of which pretty much every possible combo is highly likely such as 89, T8, KT, QT, QJ etc etc great odds to call while simultaneously eliminating your strongest hands from your own range which is just going to put you in tough spots on the turn every time pretty much no matter what.

They're going to call your small bet with all of their draws that have decent enough equity and scare card bluff opportunity vs you so you're going to see a turn often, and now you have no choice but to continue giving them cheap cards even when they mainly have weak ranges because you can no longer have hands that can call a 3b if you raise or call a raise if you bet big, which means that you're going to get run over if you try anything.

The only ones winning when you bet the flop this size are your opponents because they now get to draw cheaply, bluff often when you're forced to slow down OTT, and are never really forced to pay off anything with any of their medium strength hands because you're going to be forced to play cautiously due to your own capped range.

As played OTT I would just call.

I think flop sizing is so tricky because we're trying to tow the line between getting value from hands that will absolutely pay (a lot of which have tremendous equity against our hand, FWIW) versus not building a hugenormous pot with a very mediocre hand (which this is).

ETA: A quick stove against 88+/AQ/KQ (fair enough raisers preflop raising range and flop continuing range?) has us as just a *slight* favourite. Haven't stoved a preflop limp/caller or coldcaller's continuing range on the flop, but I imagine we're in similar 50/50 territory.

Gshootingforsomewhereinthemiddleisn'tabadcompromis e,imoG

flop sizing is not even really close, it's just bad.

How many BB's are we missing in this spot long term over the course of a year by betting small? I'd wager a ton.

Sizing seems like a cross between tournament and SNG play, but worse.

Construct a range of flop continuing hands and show me our equity against them to convince me, imo.

ETA: I just did one vs 88+,AQs,K9s+,Q8s+,J8s+,T8s+,98s,87s,AQo,K9o+,Q8o+, J8o+,T8o+,98o,87o (fair?) and we're a thin underdog.

GcluelessrangingnoobG

I really dislike the idea of creating a specific raise sizing for only medium strength hands because it's just going to force us to have to soul read our opponent to play because we're no longer playing a range.

Especially on a board like this, where there are an absolute ton of draws and they're all going to call given our sizing. Even if V checks now on turn, it's still going to be a somewhat uncomfortable spot after how we played the flop.

If you want to play pot control with your medium strength hands IMO it makes more sense to just do it OTT. Bet flop with a bigger size with all of the hands you would bet, then OTT V's will have a narrower range and you can now bet again with {straights, sets, some draws} and check with your remaining hands and draws. Then OTR this hand would make a very good bluffcatcher or value bet if checked to.

AK/AQ/AA/KK/QQ/JJ/TT/99/88/ some 77(most unlikely)

KQ/KJ/KT/K9/K8 maybe some more Kx (getting to the unlikely said of things now).

Most Qx.

Most Jx

AT/KT/QT/JT/T9/T8 some T7 and maybe others (getting towards unliekly(

98/97/87 ( I think you're getting raised by this a lot so you can easily start deducting a lot of hands after flop goes call)

FWIW if you don't raise turn, I don't hate that line, it's fine, but now you just allow a great price for our likely drawing SB. I also think our leader has a ton of overpairs and not a full range of KQ because they bet here quite often. I also don't think she has many if any sets because she didn't bet nor c/r flop and we block a lot.

While I concede I could have bet a little larger on the flop, like $40, no way I would go much higher. You act like we have the nuts. We can easily be beat right now.

You are suggesting putting a pile of money in on the flop when for sure at least one player is going to have a ton of equity against you at best.

Nothing wrong with waiting till the turn peels before betting large which I would have done.

@ Doc

And how does that range stove? I just stoved a very similar one above and we're a thin dog; your range is probably just a tad wider which I'm guessing moves us into thin fave by like literally a percentage point or two.

GtopandbottomtwopairisnotamonsteronthisboardG

I'm suggesting pile in money for value, you can evaluate how you play the hand from there. You got yourself in the situation calling pre-flop extract it nor or win a small squeeky pot where we are ahead.

I forgot to say AQ but lol pft

You guys also forget we can start cutting a lot of hands out of ranges after flop goes call. We're not going to get trapped a ton on this board.

Why so many offsuit hands, Q8o?

If we bet bigger here then a lot of the weaker hands here are going to have to fold, and getting them to forfeit their equity is a win for us. The only reason all these hands can call flop is because we're betting so small.

Yeah, I'm not giving nearly as many offsuit hands.

Q8o cuz lol live poker. Also, if I'm going to be including lottsa other loose hands that bring their equity down, I also have to include similar loose hands that bring their equity up.

Bottom line for me on this unless someone stoves differently: we can argue about the outliers of their range here, but that is only going to make percentage point differences in our overall flop equity, which is in and around 50/50 for continuing hands.

ETA: Regarding betting to fold out hands, no one is folding Qx / pair + draw / etc. on this flop based on bet size because lol live pokers. This is in fact why I think Doc wants to bet so much, which I woudl be in *total* agreement with *if* we actually had a monster (which stove tells us we don't).

Gotherwiseshowmearangewherewearedoingverywellagain stG

Fair enough. Stove your range; how are we doing against that?

GcluelessrangenoobG

I'm totally happy for you to remove most of those loose hands though, the point of betting bigger is that all those hands have equity and we're going to force a lot of them off it.

IDK what creating one range in stove here proves, this would actually be pretty time consuming to stove properly because we need to work out their preflop ranges, how much they fold and we win the pot instantly etc (almost never with the small sizing), and that's not to mention the fact that having a plan of bet big with strong value and bet small with medium-strength is just asking to get run over too.

I have J9 spades for top and bottom pair but it's still not a monster in that board.

I don't understand why you want to make less money.

If you're going to be $30 for value, why not near pot? I don't think their ranges changes too much.

We're uncomfortable playing a larger pot?? Seems weird.

Really can't fold pre, have to use these spots considering our image and her nitty tendencies to bluff when we don't make a hand and profit.

Definitely betting much larger on flop. As played I'm calling turn and calling most rivers.

I would agree at ~100BB effective stacks and hero can PSB/Shove. It's trickier closer to 200BB effective. I'd prefer a smaller flop to avoid commitment if people start check-raising. Top/bottom two pair is very much a medium strength hand here. Get some value from draws and evaluate the turn.