I've been away from the casino for a couple years; lately I've been knocking off some of the rust a few hours at a time.

I've ran into this kind of situation several times and I feel like I'm not sure what the right play is.

It's 9:58 and I've set 10:00 as my exit time. I'm up a couple hundred dollars, so I've got about $400 in front of me after buying in for $200. 1-3 NLH.

I'm in the small blind with 98o and about five players limp in. I raise to 21 -- not the best play! It's my last hand and I'm tired. Otherwise I would have raised it more or just limped.

Four players call. A motley crew, none of whom are good. The sorts of people who limp-call with K9o. There's almost $100 in the pot already.

Flop comes 5 6 9 rainbow. I've got top pair and gutshot. I bet a weak $25. There's a chance it gets through -- let's say a 20% chance. And if it doesn't get through, I'm building the pot in case I hit the straight and charging any 6-7 type hands. So I think this is an OK bet.

Fold, fold, Villain raises to $60, fold, back to me. Villain has about the same size stack as I do, maybe a little less. African American, kind of slovenly, extremely long fingernails (whatever that means), wearing a disposable mask. Tall. A little overweight. Maybe 50 years old. I've tangled with him twice where I have a middle pocket pair; I raise pre and he calls or vice versa; flop has one high card, either an Ace or a King; he bets and I call; then we check it down and I win. He's not a terrible player. I've seen him make a good fold. Based on how he's handling himself he's played a lot of poker in his life.

In short he's one of the more active players at the table but he knows how to take a stab at a pot and then give up. But that would be more of an orphan pot ... in this case, I raised pre and bet the flop before his raise, so it's pretty clear he has something based on the action (and also to the extent I have a read on him).

So there's about $180 in the pot; if I call there's $210ish and my stack is $320ish. But I can't call with the vague hope of hitting a gutter and making a straight ... which might just lead to a chop anyway. I'm way behind any set or two pair.

But can I fold top pair + gutter? What should I do?

Your pf raise is :O. At least play your button next hand..

You bet 5 ways and got raised, that’s pretty strong. I think you have enough equity to take a turn but I usually fold here as an exploit. This isn’t a frequent one and done spot from villain

Raising pre here seems very loose even if you were OTB, from the sb its surely just a limp or a fold.
I would check the flop. 5 handed, weak hand which can improve, just check and call a reasonable bet.
After the almost min-raise from V I think you can call and check/fold the turn unimproved.

FWIW, when I play to a time limit (which I almost always do), I typically leave after playing UTG (i.e. playing all my free hands and not paying the blinds just before I leave). I also play super tight in EP in general, which means that even though I'm likely tired at this point at least I won't be spewing preflop when not at my best.

Anyhoo, I just complete preflop. Still trying to figure out if I'm completing too loosely here since my SB range seems to be far too close to my Button range, but I'm hoping it isn't a big mistake (which I don't think it can be with a bunch of droolers in the pot in spite of being OOP).

I'm ok with a small cbet. Our hand could be best but it is vulnerable to overcards, so we're just trying to protect against those. We don't have a great draw (especially since our two pair hand brings in a gutshot), so I'm ok with having to fold if raised. We're getting decent 5+:1 odds facing this small raise after our small bet, but OOP, our main gutshot outs bringing in low IO four-to-a-straight, our other "outs" perhaps having RIO, dude still having another guy behind him when he raised (less chance of getting out-of-line), in spite of our sizing our action overall is still extremely strong (raising preflop and continuing into 4 opponents), etc., so I just fold here.

GcluelessNLnoobG

After villain raises to $60 I reraise to $160. He ponders and folds pocket 10s.

I think to myself, "Well, that worked out, but I can't possibly have played that correctly, right?"

Then I take my chips and leave.

I was in a very similar spot in my previous session with a flush draw and top pair after the turn after being the initiator preflop. Facing a strong raise on the turn I shoved all-in and got called by the nut flush draw (which I was beating, since I had a pair already) and folded out an overpair (which had me beat). The result worked out very well but ... again, that thought, "I can't possibly have played that correctly, right?"

Still, folding top pair + draw to a non-tight player feels just wrong. I guess I have to study it more!