Like I said in my post, I'm not gonna give him a free card on the turn. Dude, I would bet the flop to protect the best hand, not to get value. I am not about to let a A or K come off on the turn without him paying for it. Why can't he have an underpair, and your gonna check and possibly let him snag a card that beats u without making him pay. Check usually does mean weakness, and I did say USUALLY, and V checked the flop. If he wants to call my flop bet and has 88 or a smaller pair, and calls, well then I get value. Bottom line is, I'm betting the flop to protect the best hand, if I do in fact have the best hand. Gl, and I also think with the amount he has invested after betting $400 on river he might also be capable of calling, or folding, if u shove.

Yea I'm not putting too many small to mid pairs in his range here. Maybe some, but not many. I also agree he is capable of calling or folding to a shove.

He'll call with any pair and some ace highs. He'll call with AK roughly always.

I completely disagree that Villain will always fold worse. I think that you are dramatically overestimating the likelihood of a c/r bluff is remote.

Against good LAGs, I rarely check flops with medium holdings in this spot unless I am willing (or eager) to call down light. If pot control is your goal, check the turn, not the flop.

Never really thinking of pot control, just my image and whether or not I can get value/bluff him off the best hand.

You missed a bet otf. You asked what are you getting value from, possibly AK.

When he delay cbets, its often a hand like Jacks, possibly KQs. Would he really check that flop with KQ?

Otr the king is like the worse card. I don't think you would check flop with AK.

Idk what you can rep if you shove. I say fold.

Yea I suppose AK is one of the few hands I can get peeled with. Obv hated K, cause he can use it as barrel card and vbet AK/KQ

TBH his hand really looks like KJs. The question now is, would you play AK like you did?

Prob some of the time. But I'm not shoving AK for value on the river, if that's what you're suggesting repping.

think I like betting the flop for a number of reasons....Id just fold river - im sure hes vbing and if he thinks your good/aggro/whatever I doubt hes folding

Missed a bet on the flop? I could see us betting for protection but we're rarely getting value from worse (maybe like 7x or 88/99 every once in a while). And villain would have to be pretty terrible to c/c with AK given our clean image and the fact that we called a 32bb 3-bet pf (thus our range should be viewed as pretty strong in his eyes)

So you believe that AK should be value-shoving the river? I disagree with that sentiment strongly as against any sane opponent you're rarely ever getting called by worse. I think the main question is do we show up with 99/QQ/KK/JTs enough and can we be value shoving KQ. If the answer is yes then I feel that he will definitely fold all of his one pair hands.

I just want to add that this whole delayed cbetting read probably doesn't even apply in this situation. As played I would either fold or shove if I think he can fold AK. This is a great hand to do it with since you block the straight although it's hard for him to ever have JT given his line anyways.

It's a dry flop so he's likely to bet most of his air, so when he checks he's likely to call a bet and we're likely to be ahead of what calls. Betting like 150 is pretty much harmless, we can easily fold to a raise and it denies him the information about our range that checking would give. Also it denies him a free card. I think you are wrong about AK always folding, I think he's quite likely to c/c a small bet with AK if he didn't choose to cbet with it.

In short, betting can't really be minus ev and it makes us harder to play against.

betting this flop when checked to is just a bad idea. Without any dynamic, you're basically turning your hand into a bluff here and it's basically impossible to get 3 streets of value without that dynamic.

i think shoving is fine even with the delay cbet read. although the flop is a bit dry, i wouldnt worry too much about that since basically no one live will pick up on the fact that soem of the hands you rep for value on the river should be betting flop a good % of the time.

What so we should never bet the flop for value with hands that cannot bet all three streets? How about Q9? How about KQ?

If you are only betting AQ+ and bluffs and checking everything else then he can call AK all day and make a huge profit doing so.

I made a long post about betting flops like this in 3b pots in the low content thread but I'll try to rehash the main points here:

The decision of whether or not to bet this flop depends on two main factors. The first is obviously whether or not the villain will c/c us with a worse hand (i.e. can we value bet the hand). On a Q7xr flop we might be able to get some value from 7x and 88/99 and every once in a while AK might peel a street depending on how bad the villain is.

The second factor has to do with how villain will react to a flop check-back by us and how much equity his range has vs our hand (TT). If the villain will barrel the turn/river with a worse hand after we check back flop enough of the time to outweigh the equity that his range has versus our hand then checking back becomes better than betting. Additionally, if villain is more likely to c/c the turn (and possibly river) with a worse hand with a higher frequency after we check back flop to a degree that outweighs the equity his range gains by seeing a free card then again checking back would be better.

However, if the villain is not going to bluff turn/river or c/c with worse on turn/river enough to outweigh the equity we lose by letting his range see a free card then betting the flop becomes a much better option as checking in this situation is a bit of a negative freeroll for us.

So to answer the question "why aren't we betting flop?" or "why aren't we checking the flop?" necessitates that we consider the villain's range, his bluffing tendencies, his c/c tendencies, and how these tendencies change when faced with a flop bet vs a flop check-back.

To those that advocate betting flop, what is our plan for when:

1. villain c/raises us
2. villain flats and checks the Q turn

Seems like we get lost on the turn a lot of the time when he decides to peel flop and we will be uncertain which cards are better for our range vs his.

1. This would be a really weird line and tbh I doubt I'd fold as it makes no sense for a value hand.

2. Turn was a 9 in the actual hand. Are you confused or are you asking hypothetically what we should do on a Q turn? On a Q turn I'd probably v-bet again and check behind non-T rivers.

Everyone has brought up some excellent points. I'd like to point out that Villain is a regular, is certainly competent, and I would even say in all fairness that he is better/more experience than I am. But he also knows that I am a reg. So this is not some situation where I can bet the flop for value against a fish who will peel me with any two. Carry on

Also, there is no dynamic to speak of, except that we both know that we're regs and we are at a fishy 5/10 table. Regs will usually play more straightforwardly against eachother at a fishy table because there are so many better spots. However, I'm not sure the last is too much of a factor for this villain (or for me).

This makes a shove better if his read on you is you're fairly tight like the average rec player. Hard for him to call with Kx.

Makes sense. What do you think his 3b range is? Cuz if we had some idea of that then we could see what hands will c/c flop and which will prob c/f. Does he have any 7x hands or 88/99 in his 3b range? I'm guessing he'll never c/c with AK? If he's only 3-betting a strong, depolarized range then the only reason to bet would be to protect our equity from hands like AK, but as I said that's only a good idea if he doesn't bluff turn/river enough with those kind of hands.

His 3/4b range from what I've seen is obv JJ+/AK, then some Ax/Kx blocker type hands, I'm gonna assume he would also 3b some KQ/J and QJ maybe.

He's 3b pretty wide there I think especially cause he knows I'm a reg and I'm iso ing two fishy limps.

Yea considering he's a known delay cbetter, he def has bluffs turn/river.