Hi all,

I just played an interesting hand with multiple decision points I would like to hear people's thoughts on. I will post the whole hand here for a good old-fashioned linecheck.

V1 MAWG, unknown, giving off action (?) rec vibes FWIW, €1700 SB
(HH from two hands earlier: V 15 utg, H 60 MP with QQ, call -> flop T22rb, ch, H 40, call. Turn T22 2, V donkbets 70 into 210, H 200, V calls. River T222 6, ch, H all-in 530, V tank calls and MHIG)

V2: Young Middle-Eastern unknown, giving off rec vibes FWIW, €1200 BTN

H: €1600 UTG

OTTH

H opens KJdd from UTG to 20, three callers, including V1 and V2.

Flop (85) AQTrb -> V1 checks, H bets 30, third caller folds, V2 calls, V1 raises to 130, H...?
H elects to just call and V2 calls as well. My thoughts were, in no particular order: I want to avoid a paired board on the turn before I raise; I want to let this guy continue to blast off; I don't want to raise them off two pair, because I'm guesssing any set would probably have 3bet pre-flop.

Turn (475) AQT Khh -> V1 continues for 200, H...?
Hmm, how to eke out as much value possible on this bad turn 3way... H again elects to just call, V2 calls as well

River (1075) AQTKhh 5c -> V1 checks, H...?
The third decision I'm struggling with in this hand. In my opinion any substantial bet screams nuts, so I decide to cheekily bet 100 and they both shrugcall pretty quickly and obviously muck after I show. In hindsight I still like the idea of a tiny riverbet, but less than 1/10 of the pot may have been too tiny?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

I think the flop is a big mistake.

The difference between flopping the nuts with KJ on an AQT board Vs flopping it with AA on an A94 board is that the straight does NOT block their continuing range. When you have AA on A94, it’s really hard for your opponent to have (eg) top two, because you have two Aces in your hand. But when you have KJ, there are no such limitations: AQ, AT, QT, TT (and AJ, KQ, KT, JT, etc) are all possible here—and they’re all gonna call BIG bets.

So our flop bet should be BIG, and I would not even be constrained by the size of the pot. Go $120 into $85–go nuts!

As played: I would be re-raising this for raise for sure, for the same reason. V is raising into two people who’ve shown a ton of interest in the pot and you don’t have any pair—time to hope he has what he’s repping ( AQ/AT/TT) and make the max. When you have a straight, raises are MUCH more likely to be value hands—these are NOT hands you should be trapping with.

As played, Turn and Beyond: yeah this seems fine. But the mistakes early on were costly.

I think there's more EV to be gained by building the pot now rather than waiting for a turn card.

Your line of bet/call and check/raise on the turn looks very strong. All OMC will fold everything except a royal flush.

Raise on the flop and make them feel that their QT or AT can still be good enough to call and build the pot.

To be fair, I'm not 100% sure I would have raised a blank turn with V2 still in there. I want to say it also depends on V1’s sizing on a blank, which may very well be entirely different from his 200 bet on this turn, but I guess I should probably raise a small size and shove a big one anyway and not care about possibly losing V2? Having one of them fold two pair at least costs them four outs worth of equity, I guess. But if they block each other's outs, that's even less of a factor.

I would agree if it's a single raise scenario, but in this case I kind of disagree. There's a poker series going on this week, so the setting is kind of different than normal, but in my regular game a flop 3bet would scream that I have at least a set or maybe even more likely KJ. I know I unblock their two pairs, but that doesn't particularly matter to me, because I put V1 on two pair anyway when he raises this flop (either that or we're chopping), since like I said a set seems unlikely (maybe TT a bit more likely). 3bets post-flop without the nuts on boards like this are hardly ever a thing (anymore?) in my experience, at least not in my games. But I'm willing to admit I might be overestimating their ability and/or willingness to fold two pair, either on the flop or on a safe turn.

This guy just stationed you with top pair in the hand history and he’s probably gunning for you. You should reraise flop and reraise big. Just calling feels like a big mistake this deep. We also knock out the third guy and get position.

As played I think turn and river are fine, hard to extract and have to assume you’re chopping or maybe getting free rolled by one of them.

Grunch - if they're both action players, I could see taking a bigger size on the flop. If V1 is sticky based on the prior hand history, I could see putting in a 3B right there. It's only an over play against good opponents who over-fold, and a lot of players will level themselves into thinking we wouldn't over-play the flopped nuts.

It's a terrible turn card, but if we're putting them on 2P, I think the combination of the BDFD appearing and his small bet size opens up the opportunity to raise, as we can now rep some 1P + flush draw type hands that might play this way, and trigger V to 3B to protect his hand from being outdrawn.

It sucks to risk them folding, but a raise gets more money into the pot before a scare card on the river, and folds out some hands that might catch up to chop or scoop. As you correctly figured, even if the river is a brick, they're unlikely to call a big bet, so we need to get more value on the turn.

As played, on the river, I think I'd just jam, and hope it looks like we're bluffing. I think you have 1250 left, V1 has you covered, and V2 has 850. Our line wouldn't make a ton if sense, so it may get calls more often. And we don't need to get called very often for our jam to be higher EV than getting another 200 here. Many bad players just can't fold a flopped 2P.

Even if they both fold, there's some future EV in taking the pot down without having to show our hand. It wouldn't be the worst thing for them to wonder if we had a straight, a set, 2P, or whatever wild bluff they might imagine. We can take this smaller sizing in future pots when we want to look weak on drier boards, and possibly begin to work in some bluffs once they believe our big bets are nutted and we notice they're finding the fold button more.

The main factor here seems to be that they're both loose pre and sticky post. No reason to play as if they're tight.

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think its whatever but v1 description and history hand make me think he will over value / overplay stuff. im also not really sure what flatting the turn does for you if you think he always has 2p+ and never bluffs, especially if the best u can do is bet <1/10 pot on a brick river

Good point, but on the turn I hadn't decided on 1/10 pot yet, that was more a spur of the moment thing after V2 overcalled the turn and V1 checked the river. I wasn't thinking ahead yet, I admit, especially since I had no idea what V2 was gonna do. All I thought was: if I raise now, he'll just fold anything that isn't a chop.

Yeah, I mean the concept of "not care about possibly losing V2" is pretty overestimated. Unless you have the absolute nuts and your opponents likely have nothing, then you can justify slow play. Otherwise, fast play gains more benefits.