Sit down at 2/5 with $500. Game is $1,000 cap most buy in for max there's usually lots of action.
First hand of table opening: V in UTG+1 makes it 15 gets several callers, takes it down with cbet.

Second hand of table opening: V now in UTG Makes it 15, gets 4 callers. Hero in BB with AsJs. Makes it 105. V calls and whale who plays games as big as 10/25 also calls.
Flop is AK5 with 2 clubs. Hero bets 90. Both call. Turn offsuit 7. Hero bets all in. ~$300 V calls. Whale folds.

Yea I mean its a 1/2 PSB OTT. I think you're committed. A-K-5 tt is your board. 3-ways is a little sketchy but I think you're committed at this depth.

It's a mandatory 3bet preflop right with all the dead money, unless I'm going to call and try to hit broadway or the nut flush, top two OOP.

You bought in for 100 BBs .. only other thing you can do that I could see is fold pre and collect a bit of intel on the table and wait for a better spot to do the same thing. But I like AJs so maybe I have a bias. There's so much weaker AX and draws here. You'll own yourself occasionally I imagine. I'm not sure what V can be calling with next to act on that board. Especially when turn bricks and given action pre. I think its a lot of QJcc QTcc JTcc or depending on suits KXcc AXcc.

It's not mandatory, but 3! is ok. Post-flop is fine.

I think you are maybe undervaluing how well your hand plays as a call though.

You could definitely just call preflop with a hand that is decent multiway like this.

In live settings i go even bigger w my 3bet in these situations where you have an open and a bunch of flat calls bc you still get called by worse for huge sizing but give yourself a little more fold equity since we are happy to pick up the dead money. I like 2x all the money added up. So theres an open to 15 plus 4 more callers =75, so id make it $150. If called just jam good flops.

I think checking turn in order to check raise or jam river if it goes check check is probably better.

Played fine, but I think you will be facing AQ or better here sometimes. Since it is multiway I think you could potentially check flop or bet even smaller. But at this SPR, it is just going to be hard to not stack off no matter what.

With $360 in the pot pre-flop and $395 in your stack, this is an SPR of 1. You are always stacking off with top pair at this SPR, and it kind of doesn't matter how you do it. I think you played the hand perfectly fine.

In a table were we probably have very little fold equity preflop, and with 5 players already in the pot, I don't mind just calling from BB with AJs.

As played pre, postflop seems standard.

I don't mind just flat calling pre, if the table is playing loose. I might check raise flop if we were deeper. At this stack depth, I just take a check-call line on flop and turn, and evaluate river.

After 3B'ing pre, I would start with a check on the flop, and raise if either V bets. If UTG bets and whale raises, I fold. C-betting 1/4 pot on flop wouldn't seem to accomplish much.

As played, jamming the turn brick seems pretty standard, but I'm expecting to lose a lot when we get called.

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If it checks through and the turn is a club we are in pain town. We should only be behind AQ and occasionally AK, though there aren't many combos and that may 4 bet. I think betting is fine.

OP, I'm generally not a fan of buying in for 100 BBs in these games, especially if you are at a skill advantage vs these players. (And if you aren't, then why play?)

We'll be in even more pain if we bet, get called, and the turn is a club. Neither is likely to fold a flush draw or any AX, and not every KX to a normal sized c-bet. What are we planning to do if we c-bet, get called, and the turn is a club? Give up and check?

We're OOP against two opponents, with top pair, 2nd kicker. We don't need to c-bet with a great bluff-catcher on this board. If the flop checks through, we can actually make a delayed c-bet on any turn, including a club, since our opponents are likely to bet with their flush draws when we check as the PFR.

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I'm sorry but this is just not a thing. You have to bet when you are against draws to deny equity. If you are able to bet when you are ahead, then fold once the draw comes in and you are behind, you will always make money from people who chase draws with incorrect odds. (Technically a naked FD is 4-1 against per street so getting them to put in a half pot bet and you don't put in anything more when the draw comes in is printing).

I'm no good but plenty of the semipros on here can confirm this.

Actually, it's very much a thing.

We flop top pair, 2nd kicker, with no clubs in our hand, OOP against 2 V's, one of whom opened UTG, and a whale in MP/LP. Unless OP omitted it, we don't have a backdoor flush draw, so other than spiking a J on a later street, our hand isn't likely to improve, short of going runner-runner to put four to Broadway on board.

When we're OOP as the pre-flop aggressor, we should be checking a lot of flops, rather than c-betting. Checking some stronger hands protects our checking range, and gives us the flexibility of check-folding, check-calling, or check-raising if an opponent bets. It also allows to see if an opponent behind us shows any interest in the pot or signs of strength after we check.

We don't have to c-bet every flop with a potential draw on board. If we do, we'll be c-betting way too much. Not c-betting when we're OOP and multi-way with a marginal-strength hand is just good pot control. If we had AA, KK, 55, AK, or A5, maybe we could go for three streets of value, but we shouldn't do that with AJ here, when we're losing to all those hands, as well as AQ and K5s, and our opponents aren't likely to fold away any hand with decent equity here.

No folds = no equity denial. If V's fold to our c-bet here, we were way ahead, unless we bet large enough to fold out hands we were behind, which is basically turning our hand into a bluff. But what better hands are folding? Maybe just K5. Or are we betting huge just to take down the pot now?

Here, hero c-bet, and they both called. UTG was the original PFR, called hero's 3B, and then called hero's turn jam on a brick, so clearly he's wasn't going to fold flop, and it doesn't appear that he was on a flush draw. The whale double-flatted pre, but folded after UTG called hero's jam. We can infer that he MIGHT have been on a flush draw when he called flop - but he over-called behind the UTG. Clearly our c-bet did nothing to get him to fold.

Our c-bet did nothing to deny equity or define our opponent's ranges at all. We'd have learned more if we checked. It also deprived us of the opportunity to put in a check-raise, which actually might have gotten one or the other to fold, winning us the pot, or getting us heads-up. All it did was bloat the pot, multi-way, when we're OOP.

So let's say the turn was indeed another club. Now what? Do we slow down and check, after we bloated the pot on the flop, allowing our opponents who do NOT have a flush to bluff us off our equity, or do we barrel into opponents who made their hand and are happy to let us keep betting, or looking forward to raising? Do we turn our hand into a bluff, to fold out AK, AQ, etc?

Say we check turn, UTG bets, and LP calls. What do we do? Fold? What if UTG bets and LP folds? We fold, or call? Say UTG checks behind, and the whale bets. Now what do we do, with UTG still in the hand?

Alternatively, if we check flop, we keep our range wide, to include flush draws, allowing us to make a delayed c-bet on the turn. We can more credibly rep a flush with this line, and protect our equity.

Or, we can go into check-call mode, in a smaller pot, when we think we're behind, but with a well-disguised bluff-catcher. If we check-call turn, our opponents won't know if we're weak or trapping.

If we were IP, sure, go ahead and c-bet when action checks to us. But we don't want to c-bet from OOP here.

squeeze size is way too small

Call or 3! Pre is fine, and youre basically always going bet/bet, just a matter of sizing, theres an argument to be made to do geometric sizing here, like 130 ott 170 otr or whatever. It hurts you against FD, helps you against everything else, and is also better sizing for your bluffing hands. Could go either way.

No, it's actually horrible IMO (but of course that's just me) to 3bet here. First of all you only have $500, and you're 3betting over a 5th of your stack which makes the SPR very low post flop so you're basically committing yourself otf whereas if stacks were deeper you'd have a lot more room to maneuver post flop. With a big suited ace I'm calling pre because we have a hand that can play multiway vs an unknown who we're playing the 2nd hand with who should be at the top of his preflop raising range when he raises from UTG. Plus you're OOP in a table with a "lot of action".

According to GTO it's a fold Pre - even more so with another caller. You can play around with it, but you should really respect an UTG open range. Even if UTG opens - CO calls, BTN calls - AJs isn't fairing that great. I just picked random spots - GTO does funny things, but it still doesn't really like AJs as a 3b or a call. It wouldn't let me put any more callers after 2 because they are all supposed to 3b or fold unless closing the action but you get the idea.




As played it seems fine, not really much else you can do.

It might be a fold pre in GTO, but the cold call range of the players in between is supposed to be extremely tight, especially after one cold caller. Like, supposed to include QQ and maybe KK at some frequency. And not supposed to include a bunch of random garbage like KJo like it will in a live setting. The squeeze is probably fine.

Don't like the raise to 105 pre, but as played we have to go with it. We probably have to spike a jack or spade to win.

Agreed. If you nodelocked a typical fish calling range preflop i guarantee you gto would mix 3 bet and call, even with the fish playing gto postflop.

I do like the idea of a check raise, but bad players will often check flush draws multiway, so it won't happen that often.

You are misunderstanding my point which is that the goal is not to get them to fold, but to get them to put in money with incorrect odds. Like if the odds of hitting a naked FD are around 4:1, and we are charging them 2:1, we are arbitraging the difference profitably. If we are good enough to throw away our hand when the flush comes in, we are printing money.

The problem with your idea is that it is very difficult to get value from flush draws as their equity decays. Easy on the flop, harder on the turn, even harder on the river, unless they bluff, which many poor players don't. By the time we get to the river, we can't get any more money out of them, so I prefer to charge on the flop and turn.

So, my baseline strat when I'm OOP as the PFR is to start with a check on the flop. I need a good reason to c-bet OOP, especially when we're multi-way, and charging draws because it's a wet board doesn't seem like a good enough reason, especially not when either of our opponents might bet when checked to, or might not, decreasing the likelihood either is on a draw.

It's a new table, with unknown players. We can't assume they're bad, and won't bet their flush draws, or worse hands for value, or even total air, when the PFR checks to them. It'll happen often enough to make checking from OOP a good start.

We have top pair, 2nd kicker. Our hand wouldn't seem strong enough to go for three streets of value. Unless and until we improve, we'll end up checking at some point. Being good enough to fold when the flush comes in assumes we're good enough to know our opponents are only calling with flush draws, rather than raising over our c-bet, or simply floating with devious plans to steal the pot if we check on a later street.

If we c-bet the flop, and get called, whether the turn is a card that completes a draw or not, we still won't have any more info than we have going to the flop, so I'd think we'd be checking turn, giving up the betting lead, and leaving us to guess what to do if either V bets turn, and what to do on the river.

From the sound of it, your plan is to continue betting on safe run-outs, or c-betting the flop with plans to fold on a bad run-out. I think a better plan would be to start by checking, seeing what our opponents do, and then proceeding from there.

We can check-raise if either opponent bets, or make a delayed c-bet on the turn if the flop checks through, with increased likelihood that neither had a good draw on the flop.

Our hand is basically just a bluff catcher, inasmuch as either opponent could already be ahead on the flop, and isn't likely to fold a good draw to a normal-sized 1/3 pot c-bet (and even less likely when hero bets 1/4 pot), but might be inclined to bet when we check, either with worse value, or as a semi-bluff with a good draw, or even with pure air.

I just don't see the added EV coming from c-betting as if we have the nuts here, when we don't. Our hand really isn't strong enough to call a big raise over our c-bet, much less bet three streets for value. If we're going to end up checking at some point, the flop seems like the best time to do it, not the turn or river.

This is a really thoughtful response. My strategy in 1/2 with this type of hand has generally been to bet flop and turn and check river with plans to call if the reasonable draws missed and fold if they came in. However, you are right that 2/5 players are generally trickier than 1/2 players.

Any of the pros on here want to weigh in? TL;DR: OOP holding top pair, what streets do we want to bet multiway vs presumed flush draws?