I'm not saying what we're supposed to do wiht a set, I was saying what the average reg would do so I think you're giving everyone too much credit assuming they all play great when the reality is players with sets will bet either to take it down so no one draws out on them or to charge the ace for his draw so sets are very much in the guy's range who just bet about pot on a monotone flop 4 ways (it's not only a flush).

Respectfully, I feel like we're going in circles here, or talking past each other.

You asked what 2P / sets are supposed to do on a monotone flop when action is checked to them. They should check, not bet flop, and look to either bet, or call a bet on the turn.

That's what they SHOULD do. What they actually do varies, but, yes, very often, bad players will bet their 2P and sets, primarily out of fear, but also some degree of greed. What we've been debating isn't what they should do, but what hero should do in response to V2's bet.

I would agree that when V2 bets 80% pot here, sets and 2P are in his range. In fact, I'd say that when he takes that sizing, his hand is almost certainly somewhat strong yet vulnerable to being outdrawn, so I would give him a range of 2P+ on the flop.

But given the cards on board, and the cards in our hand, it's hard for him to have many worse flushes.

So, just looking at V2, we're either way ahead, or way behind, and raising doesn't really accomplish anything other than bloating the pot OOP, or getting him to fold a worse hand that may have continued betting on a brick run-out. Big pairs with a flush draw aren't folding here. We're only folding out hands we're crushing.

To prove that, all we need to do is consider what we'd fold here, facing V2's bet, or facing a raise if we were to bet. When V2 bets, would we fold a big pair with the flush draw, or 2P+? Probably not. Are we calling with anything less than 2P? Probably not. But if we bet, and get raised, what are we continuing with? Probably just better flushes, and hands that can improve to a boat, primarily sets.

The problem is we're not heads up with V2 on the flop. We still have V1, the PFR behind us. When V2 bets 80% pot, regardless of whether we flat call or raise, V1 isn't going to continue without a better flush, or a hand that can improve to beat ours. We should just call to pot-control. If we raise, V1 isn't very likely to continue without a hand that crushes ours.

The thing about monotone boards is that the weaker our hand, the more hands there are in our opponents' continue range that have equity against ours, and the more equity those hands have. More than 40% of our opponents' continue range will have significant equity against our 8-high flush.

Good article discussing this exact scenario (playing a flopped flush vs a c-bet from the PFR) on Upswing - https://upswingpoker.com/vs-cbet-monotone-flops/

Scroll about halfway down the page to get to the practical tips for how to play these situations. We should be flat calling here around 80% of the time, only check-raising 20% of the time, and our check-raises should primarily be the middling suited aces we didn't raise pre, like A9s, or high-low combos, like K2s, or Q2s, especially high-low combos with the possibility of making a straight flush. So here that would be something like Q8s, not 86s.

Yes I was referring to the average losing reg player, not what the best way for him to play the hand would be with a set, which is probably what caused the confusion.

That's a good article, thanks for posting that

Sho' 'nuff.

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