5/10 live game, 1500 max buy-in. We are 8 handed and have been playing for a couple of hours. The game is about half decent/good regs and half terrible fish. I have been pretty tight this session, and am probably viewed as such by the fish, but the regs have played with me a bunch and know I am actually much looser than I have been playing.

CO in the hand is probably the best player at the table, plays a ton of MSNL online 6max and is a solid winner. BTN is pretty bad; knows enough to get away from hands in some marginal spots, but waaaay too loose pre, chases crappy draws a ton, and is generally a fit or fold type. SB is terribad, same as BTN basically, just 5x worse.

I have been pretty inactive the last couple of orbits.

Stacks:

Hero (utg): 2500
CO: 1700
BTN: 1100
SB: 1400

Preflop: Hero is utg with 44
Hero raises to 35, CO calls 35, BTN calls 35, SB calls 35

Flop (150) 24K
SB checks, Hero bets 125, CO calls 125, BTN calls 125, SB tanks for 2 mins and folds

Turn (525) 9
Hero ???????

When SB tank folded the flop, I really thought he had a small/medium diamond draw and somehow found a fold with all the action in front of him. Does this affect our turn play at all??

I feel waaaay more comfortable going heads up to the turn, but once both CO and BTN called I kinda got lost. I think the most likely scenario is CO has diamonds and BTN has a weak king?? Is anyone ever looking for a C/R by trying to induce the donkey on the BTN to make a bet if checked to?? Or is a big bet here just super standard? The smaller stack size of the BTN was also a factor in any betsizing. I don't know, I really wanted to protect my hand vs diamonds and backdoor hearts, but value seemed really hard to extract at this point. Which should win value or protection?

Comments/suggestions appreciated

400, shove any river.

CO prolly wont give u chance to C/R him..except FD board aint that heavy. and fish u say is kinda passive so why induce when u have the best hand.

i just bet. if u think 400-500 will scare i think 350 is pretty alright.

I never bet to "protect my hand" in NLHE. Instead, I always bet with the idea that I'm extracting value from hands looking to outdraw me. Subtle difference, but important. Switching your mental thought process from the former to the latter leads to better decisions. Betting to protect tends to make one's bet sizes and patterns based on fear, and betting to extract value tends to make your bet sizes and patterns more based on correct principles of odds, reverse implied odds, hand ranges, etc.

On this board, I'm leading turn for about $400 to extract value from diamond draws and worse made hands. The only way I'm going for a check raise is if I'm pretty damned sure that an aggressive player behind me will almost always bet if checked to.

SB is terribad, same as BTN basically, just 5x worse.

I don't think you have to worry about this one bit. This guy ain't never foldin a flush draw as nobody in their right minds would, closing the action and getting a huge overlay on their hand.

Why can't you get value from protecting? I don't see why a K would automatically fold to a turn bet. And if it does then you checking will most likely result in a scenario where you only get action on a river when you're beat (letting a PP set up or allowing a flush to bury you). With the BTN being a fit or fold type and then calling the flop, I don't think you have to worry about not getting action on the turn with a bet. You do however have to worry about them taking a free card.

this

... and this

I don't think this is the type of situation where you need to get fancy. You have middle set on a fairly wet board and want to extract the maximum from kings and flush draws. Also, stacks are shallow enough where you don't need to squeeze 3 bets into two streets to get all their chips in the middle, just bet 400 and shove a non-diamond river.

You are absolutely right. I got so focused on "protecting" I kinda let all the other stuff go by the wayside. I should have slowed down a little and let all that go through my head, but instead I panicked a little. I went into monkey-mode and ended up just smashing the pot button and led for 500, and watched as they both turbo-mucked.

Trying not to be results-oriented, I went back over the hand and tried to find out where my thought process sucked, and my mistakes were pretty much exactly as you and Jloc described.

Thx for the repsonses, much appreciated...

Pretty decent chance that one of the 2 of them have a King. Once you (the aggressor in the pot) checked I think that it's pretty unlikely that the one that has a king is going to let this get checked through and see a free river now that it seems pretty clear that they have the best hand. As played they're probably going to think that aside from a raise pf and a c-bet you can't be TOO strong to not bet this turn. Couple that with the fact that one of them may take a shot at the pot with their FD I really like a c/r. It allows us to end up getting in ALL the money on the turn instead of possibly leaving ourselves with a lame decision when a diamond peels on the river.

Also if the turn gets checked through assuming no diamond on the river we have 2 pretty good scenarios

(a) we bet and our line looks fairly bluffy and should def get paid off by the fish if he has a King and perhaps the CO if he has a King.
(b) we check and have a relatively good shot at one of them bluffing their busted draw.

Both of those options should get us pretty close to the 300-400 of value that were looking at by betting the turn. And at the same time gives us the upside of possibly getting the money in on the turn. Seems like a crai would be a nice line here.

450 on turn

this is a very easy bet

fold out of turn.... someones gotta have you beat

ha i mean seriously, this is the most standard bet I've seen

Am I the only one who dislikes raising 4-4 UTG in the described 8 handed game?

I don't really like it either. This hand seems pretty hard to screw up. Betting here would be more conventional but like I said earlier checking is a good option IMO as well.

Preflop,

I auto limp here