$800 eff to start ($800 max game).

UTG - TAG reg player not much history but seems pretty straightforward
UTG1 - Fun loose-passive MAAG who has been in several pots in the short time he's been here. I recall his face from years past as a loose cannon.

UTG opens $25
UTG1 calls $25
Hero in MP flat $25 with 67
BB flats (loose passive)

Flop A54 Pot ~$100

BB check
UTG leads $40
UTG1 calls $40
Hero calls $40
BB fold

Turn 9 Pot ~$220

UTG leads $115
UTG1 calls $115
Hero calls $115

River T Pot ~$565

UTG check
UTG1 $225
Hero.....

Pre-flop is definitely a little loose by me. The table had been nitty and we just got a few new players that seem like action (including UTG1). I want to get in there with the bad players while I can. $25 utg from this young reggy type is pretty strong though. Probably wanna be in LP and deeper but whatever it's not a huge mistake imo.

Rest of the line I think is pretty straightforward? We can't really bluff UTG on this board since I don't imagine he's leading out with anything other than AJ+ . We should probably be raising sets on this wet board with the 3rd player in there. I think we need to just call down though (especially after the turn action). The lead on the river is not great but its less than half pot and he will have non-flushes and other BS often enough to just call here.

Thoughts all around appreciated.

I think that if we can’t find a raise either on the flop or turn, we should consider folding turn. Calling seems off to me somehow.

If we like the turn call because we’re still confident our outs are clean, then we probably have to call river. But yeah, something seems off about this line. I guess I might have folded preflop, or folded turn, or jammed turn.

Having gotten to river it's an obvious flat call. You want to give UTG a chance to make a crying call with straights/two pair/sets. Raising likely just folds out everything but the hands that beat you.

I would have raised flop, you have a great draw but it plays better heads up.

Pre is usually a mistake unless you know the players and game. In MP you have too many behind that might squeeze or actually pick up a hand. But as you said, unless you have very aggressive players behind you, not that costly.


I raise the flop...but I like to push draws, especially a straight flush draw. I don't want to just call and hope I hit my hand.

Has NL poker changed so much that putting pressure on other players with a semibluff no longer considered a winning strategy?

Little loose pre but not terrible for the reasoning you described.

You can raise flop some of the time but if I was V your hand looks exactly like what it is when you raise flop.

Call river and hope other guy calls too.

Raise/GII OTF. You should play your 15 outers aggressively.

The river is an obvious call

The interesting decision is on the flop…you are saying you always raise sets at this spr on the flop so how do you balance that?

I don’t think it’s a mistake either way but I would lean raise here knowing the caller’s range is weak. Im not sure how things would change at 200-300bb…

I think a good general principle is that when you play small or medium suited connectors versus stronger ranges (e.g. calling a 3-bet), you need to work in relatively frequent semi-bluffs with them when you hit something. Otherwise they're just -EV calls.

Not that that necessarily determines your action here, but something to remember.

$115 is a weak bet on a double flush draw board - so he's likely got 1 pair hand like AK or AQ and trying to find out where he is.

UTG1 looks like he has a draw


I'd just raise/jam turn this deep and jam a lot of rivers except an Ace or King if you only raised. You're gonna get a lot of respect and even if called you have good equity. I don't see how they ever have a straight or 2 pair (maybe A5?????) here so you're only worried about a set and it's unlikely they only charge $115. Flop raise is fine too. As played i'd just call expecting to lose a lot but for this price it's fine.

I fold pre, getting behind a call from BTN or CO.

Flop should be a raise I think, we raise 44/55 so we want some draws as well, if we can't raise this draw, what non-nutted hands are we raising?

Shoving river seems like an overplay, so I flat call.

Anyone have an opinion as to whether we should be shoving QJ here? I think 3 ways with another person calling down anything other than the nuts seems dangerous but maybe that's too weak.

Calling river as played but put me in the 'this is a near- mandatory flop raise vs 40%psb camp.'

Def raise flop and push your equity. Being multi-way should make us want to raise even more. Axdd works better as a flop call/turn call in this situation.

The board blocks Axdd…

The confounding factor here that makes me unsure about a flop raise is the range of UTG+1. I think that in theory, a flop raise is supposed to push him (or the original raiser) off of better diamond draws. But in this case I doubt that it will.

So while I would be happy getting it in against any one of these Villains with my draw, I likely don’t want to get it in against both, and I don’t want to get called in 1 or 2 spots and have a turn dilemma.

This is why I prefer a turn jam if I’m going to semi-bluff my hand. I think when we jam turn we maximize our fold equity, the shove is for so much that we have a chance to push out better diamond draws, and if one person calls we still have 12 outs or more unless we’re up against exactly 9dXd. It just looks so strong, and if we want to have hands that do this that aren’t nutted (or close), this seems like a prime candidate.

+1 more for raise flop: even if your immediate fold equity against Pfr is not great (AJ+) you are still a favorite against one pair hands. Further, it's a bonus if you get the in between player to fold a higher FD. The issue is that the turn could be awkward to play if called by both.

You missed your only draw to win the pot, but given description of UTG1 I suppose you have to cry call. Against real players, I fold river.

Flop raise is ridiculous to me. 3 ways never w AA and no NFD, calling is fantastic IP.

Flop seems like a clear raise to me, and then jamming turn basically always. Don’t really follow why we shouldn’t raise here, this hand is one of our top non-value raises and benefits a lot from folding out higher fds (most likely on the turn)

Ap, turn is kind of a weird spot bc this hand really wants to raise but hero is incentivized to raise value otf quite often so idk how many raises we really have ott. It’s still probably our top non-value raise though so jamming seems fine.

Ap, call and lose often otr

Axxs facing a bet and call from EP guys, there is just no way we have any business raising at this depth. 6 clean outs, and opponent continuing ranges here likely have us dead to those outs, let alone the times we get shipped/back shipped on, calling? It's horrible.
AA and higher FDs make up the majority of continuing ranges anyway, so 'benefits a lot' to me really doesn't apply unless ALL FDs fold which seems quite unlikely. It's also a spot where facing a raise AK will be overplayed by the genpop.

Call flop, decide turn IP, I don't even see how it's close - this is not our board whatsoever, no Kd in hand, AA in ranges, I don't have any raises here frankly, there are plenty of other SF boards where a raise might fit, not Axx though 800 deep. Messy.

If the majority of their continuation ranges is a total of maybe 12-15 combos, we’re talking about max 25ish hands that continue against a raise between 3 players. Two of them described as loose-passive which means comparatively wide ranges.

Too lazy to do the math right now but if that assumption is true we would probably have a +EV raise with any two.

As madlex said, if AA+fds are the majority of cont ranges (which also is not consistent with the statement on AK) then our raise is printing. As far as fds folding, bb will prob fold most of them otf facing bet/call/raise, and both other players would likely fold them to a turn jam. If we get shipped on we have an easy call, we’re only in bad shape all in vs 2 players which is not that likely. Our ev with this hand is just so much better with fewer players (and we have 7 hi!).

Also it just isn’t the case that we can’t/shouldn’t ever raise on boards that are better range vs range for the other player. Strong hands often want to raise even when it leaves the rest of your range in a tough spot, which is not really even the case here where we don’t have that many middling-weak hands we want to try to get to sd 4 ways. I actually think having no raises here is a significant mistake tbh (esp if utg is not frequently sizing turn/river to be all in)

You guys are right, I also messed up a little bc I meant continuing ranges that do so as a raise, gii now/never folding variety. For sure one of them has at least an ace, and if that ace is betting (utg) it’s unlikely folding. Utg1 ain’t folding tp for a thousand as described.

I think we have minimal FE and they have little that bets and calls in the first place that isn’t going to continue.

"800 deep" is really not deep at all when $100 went in preflop with just a single raise. It seems to me we should have a relatively high raising % on the flop, just from a theory POV.

It's actually a nuttier flop for us than for UTG. Yes he has AA but we have 44/55/a5s/a4s. Another interesting thing about this flop, it's effectively impossible for a reasonable player to have a combo draw with a higher flush draw than us. They'd have to be playing K4s/Q4s or K2s/Q2s.


ETA - posted this before I saw the above.