Villain (MP): MAWG, seems a little loose but not too many reads ($600)
Hero (EP): mid 20s Asian, TAG image (covers)

Hero opens $15 with 98. Villain calls BB calls.

Flop: 643 ($42)

Checked to hero who bets $25. Both call.

Turn: 4 ($116)

Checked to hero who bets $70. Villain calls BB folds. Probably coulda bet a bit smaller. Don't need to be balanced here.

River: 4 ($256)

Zeebo's Theorem says people almost never fold boats. He's not folding a hand like 88 ever. But he will probably fold a missed draw. Fire a small bet? Doesn't have to be big. Maybe like $105 - $120.

If all he has is a 5 or a missed FD, you can bet $50 and he will fold. I wouldve checked turn though.

Agree with Mike. The turn card changes nothing from V's perspective, other than the fact that this board is terrible for an EP TAG opener's range.

Given the fact that a loose-passive MAWG is a) likely to give you a free card with all of his medium pairs and combo draws, b) pay you off when the spade gets there and c) call your turn bet with everything he called the flop with. It seems like checking the turn is best.

I would check/fold the river being that I am OOP and at a serious information disadvantage. MAWG can easily be slow-playing a boat. He could easily call with all his overpairs and sixes. Hell, he could even turn his hand into a bluff if you make a make a smallish, non-stack-committing bet.

Raising this PF is questionable. Was the table super nitty? Is balancing your range necessary at this specific 1-3 table? If not, then this a questionable open from EP.

I disagree with this in so many ways. This board is GREAT for my range. A flatter has a few boat combos, arguably no straights (75s isn't calling an EP open unless they're loose; this guy is a LITTLE loose; and it's 2017 even fish are aware of position to some extent), a few pair + draw type hands, weak overpairs and medium strength overpairs like TT and JJ. Not to mention a ton of air. In addition to boats I have all the strong overpairs they likely don't have (QQ+).

There's no way any fish checks back a hand like 77 given this action. Fish love to bet to protect. They LOVE to. I do agree that he's not folding too much on the turn but I have a ton of outs. A 9 or 8 is live a lot of the time. Also if I check and he bets I basically have to fold. And he will probably bet most of the time I check.

Can villain be easily slowplaying a boat? Of course. But out of the 200 something combos he got to the flop with, nine of them flopped a set. With the board pairing the turn there's only seven of those combos left. Yes I expect him to call most if not all overpairs but there is still SOME fold equity against the weakest ones and very good fold equity against even busted ace high flush draws.

You said he's loose passive. By that assumption, he won't be turning a pair (boat on river) into a bluff. And I've seen almost no one shove ace high over a triple barrel at 1/3. A small bluff needs to work less than 1/3 of the time. After sleeping on this I am 100% OK with a triple barrel here.

Why do I open 98s from EP? First of all it's 1/3. There's very little light 3 betting going on. And this is a hand I can call 3 bets with sometimes cause it's usually deep and sometimes they size it ******edly giving me 3 to 1 on a call. It's not for balance. It's because I firmly believe it's +EV. Given my skill advantage over the average 1/3 player, I think it's critical that I get into as many pots as possible. Especially with hands like 98s which have much better potential of stacking someone as opposed to a hand like AQo.

^ Why not play exploitatively and raise $10 with these kind of hands if you want to raise them?

Because if he raises $10 with "these kinds of hands" and raises $15 with premium hands, he will be the one being exploited by good players.

Because if I raise $10 instead of $15 from EP, I'll get four callers and be out of position against multiple villains.

Preflop looks good.

Flop I'd bet a bit bigger mainly to discourage random backdoor overcalls in the BB like KhTx, with 9 high I don't mind taking it down immediately.

Turn I think we should bet much bigger. We want to apply pressure to the BTN who will have the stronger range here, I expect the BB to just fold a lot really OTT who'll be calling with A4, Kh9x OTF and giving up a lot. If there weren't so many overs+flush draws I would be overbetting but I think a lot of these draws are inelastic to sizing.

River As played I like betting small as you suggested! :3

My immediate reaction was to check turn as typically I don't want to be bluffing turns against two opponents, but having thought about it I like the bet. It's going to be pretty safe to fire a third barrel on the river if it blanks because they're not going to play a strong hand as call turn, check river. And obviously bet-bet-bet reps an overpair very credibly. I like the bet size, don't want to bet smaller because I don't really want two callers.

And yeah, that's not the ideal river of course but it's good enough and has the advantage that you can size small. 100ish, 105 if you think it looks scarier.

Edit: Also agree with acidhauss that flop bet should be bigger. The board is wet, so I bet $30 with my whole range there.

Pre is whatever - depends on the table if I'm opening this or not.

Absolutely triple barrel this run-out w/ this hand

That's another reason, although Id rather have 1 caller or 5-6 callers with 98s than 3.

I fold preflop. We're going to be OOP and we have zero clue if a raise is narrowing the field.

I'm cool with the cbet. We have little hand equity so we're pretty cool just turning it into a bluff and getting Ax/possiblysmallpairs/etc. to fold.

When both call I'm done with the hand. I'm just looking to get to the river for cheap and hopefully hit. Also note the 4x is the least scariest card on the board for our opponents (and much likelier to hit them than us), so I doubt we're shaking anyone at this point.

By the river, yeah, he'll definitely fold a missed draw, as 5x/flushdraw can't call any bet. Since they can't call any bet, we really don't have to go very big here at all. We could do a "same bet" of $70 to fold these hands (and small fullhouses might even manage a hero fold some of the time).

GcluelessNLnoobG

Like most players, I think you're *way* overestimating your advantage at a raked table, especially with a weak speculative hand OOP.

Also, being that we're EP, we have zero clue whether $10 or $15 or even $35 will thin the field. People didn't come to the casino to fold, they either have a hand worth seeing a flop with or they don't, the cost isn't going to make much difference. We simply got lucky that 4 other players didn't have a hand they wanted to see a flop with. *If* we're going to get tricky preflop by raising speculative hands, then at least do it in position where (a) we'll have a far better idea of what preflop raise size we'll need to thin the field and (b) we'll be in position postflop.

GimoG

And you don't want to be going multiway with 98 suited because?

I don't mind going multiway with 98s in certain spots. Mostly (a) with position (which we don't have) and (b) in limped pots (where hopefully our position combined with our big SPR will tell us all the information we need to know to make good postflop decisions, unlike here where being OOP and with a lower SPR will often handcuff us).

GimoG