Sometimes we are betting flop for value and turning into a bluff. It can't possibly be profitable to just 3 ball this as a pure bluff.

I mean in theory he could use it as a bluff if his AQ isn't profitable played any other way - then it would be a decent bluff selection i imagine.

but i just have to believe best play is checking for our hand and range.

still haven't heard a good reason why checking flop is better than betting. it seems like those advocating a flop check aren't giving the reasons why they want to check instead of betting. a lot of "ya its 5 ways we should check" or "i like a check" w/o any reasoning. also those advising a flop check seem to think that by betting the flop we are automatically going to continue barreling the turn which is just ridiculous thinking.

it seems pretty clear to me that flop is a bet against described guys (not saying were going to 3barrel here) but just given the info we have w/ our hand and position and described opponents in this stage of the hand it seems that right now flop is a bet and its not even close.

i think your going a bit too far here. your automatically assuming that someone has to have a K (more specifically a strong king) here for this reasoning to make sense.

the reality is that this is a 5 way multiway hand against a bunch of morons and WE ARE THE PRE FLOP RAISER that flopped very well w/ a hand that is likely the best hand now that has a very high chance of taking the pot with a flop bet or on later streets if we get called. our range here is just super strong w/ a flop bet that sets up additional bets (if we choose to) or turn check backs (if we choose to) depending on what the turn/river is.

i still don't understand how anyone can say checking flop > betting. literally boggles my mind.

More value in checking to induce then to get weak calls. Pot controlling is also a good idea.

Checking to induce from what? There are 5 people in the hand. ppl call flop bets on this type of flop w a lot of shyt. Pot controlling? this is a live multiway hand against a bunch of idiots who aren't going to exploit you. Just play the hand straight forward.

I think there is 1 non idiot in the hand? Also just because the players are bad doesn't mean they will call2-3 barrells with a hand we beat. Not c-betting is kind of the universal I didn't flop top pair and IMO will get all pairs to call at least 1 subsequent street. If I do bet flop, I'd check back turn and bet river for value. If we just barrell away too often weaker pairs will fold because they will put us on ak or just not want to call 3 streets. Of course maybe they are the type to just call whatever and never bet in which case you need to bet. So I suppose like almost every other hand posted on this forum, the hand is villian dependant (and also our perceived image). Vill might fold qj to you but not to me.

Also I take this line of checking back flop with SD hands a decent amount, but mostly when I don't think I can get 3 streets of value ever and the board is at least somewhat dry. I think this is an independently profitable way to play a lot of hands and also helps with my image.

+1 to everything cstevens has said.

your thinking too much here esp w/ bolded. how can you say "if you bet flop you would check back turn and bet river for value" WHEN WE DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT THE TURN AND RIVER IS??? also again I'm not saying if we bet flop we ALWAYS have to barrel turn and/or river i'm just saying right now given the info OP has posted that flop is a bet. the turn and river action depends on what the card is AND who calls our flop bet (if we get called at all).

the second bolded part is irrelevant to this specific hand. ya this advice of checking back flop w/ SD hands makes sense if the hand is hu but this hand is 5 ways. when a hand is 5 ways there is no room to be tricky.

I wouldn't bet any turn that doesn't improve my hand, which is almost all of them. There also aren't a lot of rivers I won't go for value, and yes I'd bet a river j/10/9 running FD. This is a pretty dry board your actions will predicated not on the rest of the board but who calls you. Also keep in mind that betting might not get the hand hu, although that's not necessarily a bad thing.

That's the part I don't understand when everyone is talking about betting this flop.

So let's say you bet this flop. You're trying to squeeze that bet through 4 other players. You're getting 1 or 2 callers 85% of the time and there aren't many turns that help you so what is your plan on the turn when 85% of the cards don't help you?

this is literally the absolute wrong way to think about this hand.

i think a lot of ppl are thinking too much about what is going to happen on later streets when we really don't even know who is going to be in the hand w/ us on these later streets if we bet flop (if there are any later streets at all).

our turn/river action on what card(s) come out (if we get called on flop) is much more complex and is truly the important discussion of this hand and is what we should be talking about (OP what is turn???). the flop discussion isn't remotely interesting i'm just really surprised we are stuck in this spot as a ton of ppl are in the check back flop camp which i don't understand.

No offense but this is "scared money" mindset.. We're betting flop for value/protection. Kinda like going for thin value plus you can easily punish everyone in the hand (keep in mind we have a great image if we need to bluff). Yea it's a 5 way pot, so depending on who calls, we can easily exploit there range..

soo maybe 3/4 pot cbet is best.. then we go on from there (which villian calls/whats the turn???)..

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So let's say we bet the flop. 70% of the pot.

My question is

What % do you think we rake the pot on the flop

What % do we get one caller

What % do we get 2 or more callers

And if so what are their ranges on a flop like this? I know this is rather villain dependant and also dependant on how the calls (if any) play out. But give your best shot.

OP here, interesting discussion. I don't think there's an absolute correct answer either cbetting or checking flop but I think it's incorrect to speak in absolute terms like "if we cbet here our hand looks very strong etc" or "if we check here we can induce because our hand looks like blah blah". Because while the good player in this hand will consider our perceived range, the limp/callers most likely will either not think about our range, or will put us on the wrong range(eg. "he raised pre, he cbets, he must have at least TP..")

But the other winning player in this hand has bad position against us, and bad relative position with limpers behind to act on the flop. So he's not going to get out of line, and if he continues his range should be strong(TP+much better) because he's more inclined to flat with some of his monsters to keep bad players in the hand.

So whether we barrel turn or not really depends on who called us if we cbet. Obviously if we get a bunch of callers we aren't betting turn unless our hand improved drastically. And if we cbet, because stacksizes aren't deep vs all players in the hand, IMO to leave room for the possibility of another barrel HU it's probably better to size the cbet on the smaller side(but not tooo small as to induce bluff-raises). Obviously that means that we should also cbet AK in this spot often with similar sizing. However if someone has an argument that bigger is better(eg. if they think it defines better the hand of whoever that chose to continue, etc) I'd like to hear it.

I think though, that cbetting in this spot at least 60% of the time(and checking some other times) does give us a little more unpredictability which is +EV in the long run and makes us harder to play against in the eyes of other good regulars. Remember - if this ever gets shown down then people will just conclude "this guy will cbet with midpairs" and ignore the context, and we can use that to our advantage in a variety of ways in future hands. If we by default check back anything less than TP in a 5-way pot when we have position vs all except one player then it opens the door for good, perceptive players to start taking down these pots all the time by leading the turn with a wide range which often will get a call before it gets to us on a lot of turns.. which means we did induce a bet and call from possibly worse hands due to our check back, but we still can't continue. So then he can barrel river and force a fold from a bad player and take down the pot without showdown, which I see quite often.

It's the classic case of a nitty reg giving up a multi-way pot for a good LAG to use aggression to claim vs a bad player with a weak range that has to fold to his aggression. But he wouldn't have used that aggression if we were the one applying it in the first place. I'm still not saying that we should always cbet here(probably 60:40 is a good ratio) but there are definite advantages to cbet in spots like this beyond the "get value/protect hand" reasons.

The day I'm trying to play GTO live NLHE is the day I find out whether my odds are better in the job market or Russian Roulette.

Maybe I am under the false assumption that checking back the flop gets fish to bet/call lighter then they would if you cbet. That assumption is why I believe checking is better then betting.