5-5 NL 300-500

SB: $500
BB (Hero): $400
UTG+2: $1200
UTG+3: $600
BTN: $500

Hero dealt 34
UTG+2 bet $25, UTG+3 call, BTN call, SB call, Hero call

Flop: 56A

SB check, Hero Check, UTG+2 bet $60, UTG+3 fold, BTN fold, SB fold, Hero?

My read on UTG+2 is he raises only solid hands. His range to raise is AK, AQ, AA-1010. When he leads out against with 4 others still in the pot, I know he has a solid Ace or set of Aces.

I am wondering what my most optimal play is here. Do I check and call all the way down and see if I hit? Or do I put in a huge raise right here and call if he shoves? Is that mathematically the best choice? I am guessing the latter, just wanted to hear other view points. Sorry, this is probably an easy choice. Will post results later.

min raise, jam any turn

I think a call here is good for one street.

Your definitely not folding here. Otherwise why did you call with 34s. This is the kind of board your looking for. I think your spot on though, if you decide to raise, you need to be ready to commit. I think the safe play is to call the flop and see what the next street brings.

Raise to $160 and never fold

You are a favorite against 1 pair of aces

No dont raise, call,

why?

Most the time we have the best hand equity-wise and even if he has a set of aces we are 45% to win outright.

We call because we our OOP, we do not want to play a big pot OOP and we have little FE on this board if villain is holding a strong ace. Im a firm believer in small pot OOP and big pot in position.

Who cares if we have little FE on that board. We have the best hand almost always since we are favorited.

I don't mind getting it in on the flop and c/raising gets the job done unless he finds a fold

175 in pot right now. Reraise or jam it in are plus ev, calling is also plus ev. Let's find out which is better:

If you call the 34c,
the times when he has a pocket pair or a weak ace and would fold to a shove, you lose the pot.
The times when he has a strong ace or set, you lose only what you call off and can save your stack.
The times when you hit your club or straightcard you can win whatever else he bets.

If you shove 34c, the times when he calls and you don't make your hand, you lose your stack.
But if you do hit you win his stack, and when he folds you win $175.

I say shoving is better.

You are getting 3:1 odds OTF. What does villain think of your play? Do you generally c/c or c/r in this spot or both? What about the rest of the table? What if the villain was in your place with your hand? What does he do?

The problem with c/c is that the pot is so big already relative to your stack. You are getting 3:1 OTF, but if you blank the turn now what? The pot will be $240 and you would have $315 behind. Does he normally make small bets on drawy boards? If so, c/c wouldn't be the worst play, esp if he has the A He would call a big lead on the turn, but check back to pot control.

I say get it in because of your SPR. You are the favorite OTF. And if you have just a little FE, this is really easy.

If he calls your c/r, his hand is face up as TP. Shoving any turn is your only play at this point.

I think I would be playing this one fast. Kinda sucks that you probably don't have much fold-equity if you put him on a range of only AK-AJ or AA. Any reasonable raise will commit you, so you might as well shove to maximize FE and hope he doesn't have AcXc.

My standard is to raise. You say he's a solid player, and you're check-raising him from the BB, your range looks strong here. Even if he decides to call, you have good equity against his hand.

I'd raise the same amount that I would if I had a set. If he calls, get it in on the turn.

Also, opening the hand with a bet is not a bad idea, as you have a strong hand, there's an ace out there (so you're likely to get raised) and you could 3-bet all-in. I actually prefer an open here, as I like to open with my two pair/set hands here as well. This would be differently than how you played the hand.

Edit, Added after reading comments:
I don't like a call. The reason is you still have 4-5 people behind you, and you want them to fold out their Q2s flush draws if they exist, or if they had 56o or a gutshot, you want their equity out of the pot. If on the other hand, you had the nut flush draw, or a nut flush draw with the straight draw, I'd be more inclined to call here and create multiway action to the turn.

I don't mind the all-in shove here either, but if you do that, be sure to do it at least once (if not all the time) with your two pair and set hands as well.

Otherwise every time you do it, your competent opponent can put you on a draw and call you if he has you crushed.

2 things we need to know in order to evaluate the benefit of c/r the flop:

1. Can he fold TPGK here (AJ without the A)
2. Would he give up if a 3rd came on the turn

If the answer to the above is yes it favors c/r since you maximize FE + get value for your hand while ahead since most of the time you imrpove you won't make anymore money.

If he's the type who will stack off here with TP on this board on the flop but at the same time also call down if a comes it may be more EV to call and stack him when you hit.

If you don't think he will fold if you raise or shove, then just call. Lead a club turn big, like $180+ and probably lead if you make your straight too. If you are sure he would bet a non-club turn though, you can check/jam your straights, but since you really only have 1.3 SPR, it's probably better to make sure he doesn't check back a 7/2 turn for pot control and then get scared on a club river. Even though it makes stack sizes really awkward betting $180 with only $135 behind, it probably gets him to call more than jamming the turn outright. If you miss, check and call unless he jams since you are getting immediate odds to call anything less than pot on the turn.

Shoving is certainly a profitable play, and if he would fold his one pair hands a lot of the time, I would like it better, but it sounds like that's not the case. If you can draw here for $60 on flop and $100 on turn, you most likely still get him to call the last $155 when you hit since he'll bet getting 4-1. Also, if he has one pair he might pot control the turn anyway, letting you draw both turn and river for $60.

edit: If I did raise flop, I'd probably make it something silly like $260, just cuz it might look less like a draw to him.

Grunch

Probably raise to 175 and call if he ships it. All in on the turn.
Although, the more i think about it, the more i like the All-in raise. That move would most likely make him fold any AQ-AJ and making it really hard for him to call with TPTK given the size of your raise. Yeah...I like the overbet here i think...Ship it.

*grunch
He's giving u 3-1 to peel which is more than enough but who knows if he shuts down on scare cards if u get there. I'm c/r AI here. Embrace the variance since u didn't fold pre.

Great responses guys. This is exactly what I was looking for. I actually ended up playing it as bad as you can by check calling the flop and turn. I hit my flush on the river and led out for the rest of my stack and he folded flashing AK. I really got the least value out of that hand as I could have.

My thought process at the time was that I didnt want to have to commit my entire stack on a hand where I am not a huge favorite. I didnt think I had much FE since my stack was small and he had a larger stack. I also hated my position. At best I was 58% favorite, but I should have realized that this is still pretty good value. I also didn't realize how transparent my hand was by simply check calling all the way down.

My question, many of you say I could have jammed on any street. If a brick comes out on the turn, I am no longer a favorite. If I decide to check call the flop, wouldn't the best strategy be to check call the turn since my odds have drastically decreased? I think my only spot to c/r is the flop.

I don't like c/raising the turn unless we are deep (baluga theorem)
He's priced in at that point and is a favorite with AK

Grunch

When I play a hand like 34s and this type of flop comes out, this is obv one of the best flops we can see because we can c/r all in every time and never be making a bad play. He has AK/AQ and we can get him to fold enough to just TID, and call enough to be profitable (in the long run) because we are a slight favorite.

Raise to 200 then shove any turn.

fold preflop w/ your stack not deep enough to play this OOP.

as played c/r AI the flop raising any other amount is ******ed, max FE and max value when you hit as c/c the flop than bombing flush turn or river is super obvious and your not getting paid off by better players.

take the same line with a set here too.

Grunch

I don't like calling OTF because if we hit the flush hits on the turn and he is the type of player you described I don't think he is going to pay us of even with TPTK. Therefore, since we are about even money oTF(unless he has two clubs) I was considering a reraise to about 250. If he folds we win 185$, if he pushes we call being mathematically correct, and if he just calls, we push any turn for the remaining 175 into 625 pot, getting 4:1 if he calls on a 3:1 chances to win.

But, after writing this down I realized that most of our profit comes from fold equity on the flop, therefore now I am advising all in push OTF to increase the FE.

The only thing that murks things is that we don't know if he has two clubs. But I don't see how we would extract that info (apart from betting if 3rd club hits, but that would bring us no benefit, cause he will fold if he doesn't have it or call if he has it or even reraise us when we might fold the best hand if he has let's say just an Ace of clubs)

After aLL this I go with All in on the flop

As nitty as it sounds you have to fold this hand preflop with your stack size and this tiny buy-in structure. Even with the whole world calling pre and you closing the action. Just shrug and pretend you had 72o

Villain can have AcXc. I'm flatting and eval turn, this is not a spot where I want to raise and stack off w/4 high when I may be only drawing to 8 clean outs.