I had some early success at live casino 1/2 with playing pretty straight forward basic "give incorrect odds to call but odds not so bad that a player might still think it's worth it to call" when facing potentially 3-6 limpers left to act. Looking back on many of those big hands, it wasn;t so much that a semi-thinking or thinking player realized the odds offered to them in very late position got better and they noticed, it was simply that my hand held up and a flush draw or straight didn't complete. (I.E. a top set holding up against 2 callers with flush draws, another caller with a straight draw, and another caller with 2 pair).

Obviously that doesn't always happen and looking over some recent sessions and hands there were spots that I'd auto bet say 3/4 of the pot first to act when I hit say a set or 2 pair on a flush draw/straight draw board and then see 2 people call giving the last 1 or 2 people to act decent odds to call .

Then a flush becomes possible on the turn or river and I'm left having to fold or worse, getting fancy and not believing someone hit and I lose.

That said, I know a common move pre-flop is generally to bet 4-8x the BB (at live at least) and consider adding +1 BB for each assumed limper player who will call. But post flop does this basic concept still hold up? I see some of the players who appear to at least be semi-thinking players, bomb flops they hit with pot size and over pot size bets giving horrific odds to chase and still get 3 callers! Is this a valid play against most 1/2 players, to assume if you're in a multi-way pot on a drawing board against your flopped hand that most of the players will be in the hand.

If I'm not being clear I guess another way to look at it :

I'm on the SB with AA, I raise it up pre-flop and get 6 callers and we go to the flop with a $60ish dollar pot. The flop comes Ah10h9c and presents us with top set but also possible flush and straight draws. Against one or two callers I would be safe betting as little as 1/2 pot because even if both players call we're still giving just around 3:1 which is on the cusp of a good deal. If I bet 3/4 of a pot I'm giving even less odds.

But say we do go to this flop with 6 callers, should I be betting 3/4 pot ish size PLUS +1BB for each limper (i.e basically pot size bet) or should I be betting pot size PLUS +1BB for each limper. OR should I be bombing the flop with an over pot bet or depending on stacks even a shove?!

I think I'm losing to draws because at live 1/2 you get a mix of thinking players, semi-thinking players, and gamblers. Against the gamblers they'll chase regardless very often of odds. Against the other players, esp if they're last to act, if 4 people call my pot size $60 bet the pot, 5th person folds, and the 6th player realizes he now has basically 5:1 to call his flush draw and a good deal....is it really as simple as betting much larger in EP with multiple limpers? Basically just assuming half of them will probably call? I make an assumption that if we ID the late position players as understanding basic odds, they get a good deal if the others ahead of them stay in.

Sorry if this is wordy or all over the place:

The TL;DR I suppose is : What is generally a good bet size when we flop TPTK, set, or 2 pair on a draw heavy board in EP against +3 players yet to act?

Yes it's a problem but it isn't as bad as it seems at first glance. Yes that last guy with the flush draw is getting odds but your play is still +EV because there is so much money in the pot. Essentially you are splitting the profits from the bad calls with they guy with the good draw. If his draw is good enough there isn't much you can do about it. It ends up being variance that you just have to play through.

That said, if it's a wet board and you have a hand good enough to move all in on the flop then bombing it with a pot or larger bet can be good. On the flop don't think about BBs any more, it's about how much to call vs size of pot. If it was raised preflop then adding one more BB isn't enough.

If your hand isn't so good that you are willing to move all in then check/calling flop and evaluating on the turn may be better. With these 4+ opponent pots just giving up cheaply on the turn when a draw comes in is often better and you are automatically giving much worse odds when you do bet the turn.

First up, good for you for recognizing that even when your big hands hold up vs draws, it's still a form of run-good. Lots of players have the entitlement that when they're ahead when the money gets in, they're supposed to win, and it's unjust when they get run down. Your thinking is a good start to (hopefully) a reasonably long, reasonably mentally stable poker career.

As to a hand like you AA hand, top set on a super wet board, OOP vs half the table, you can consider a check/jam. It sounds like the mix of players at your table, someone will go ahead and bet for you, and you'll (sometimes) be able to give people incorrect odds to chase, which again, with the mix you described, someone will. (I say sometimes b/c depending on stack sizes and action, sometimes there's nothing we can do to incorrectly charge them, in which case the next best thing is to simply charge them the max.) You're turning your hand face up, but vs the gamblers it doesn't matter, they'll call anyway, while some of the other players just won't be able to get away from a worse hand like middle set or top 2 anyway.

At nitty tables the risk of giving a free card (or missing value from AK or 2p hands) is too great, just go ahead and PSB (or a bit more).

ETA: More on the "sometimes" part: When we bet big pre, get half the table to come along, flop big, and some of them had less than 100BB, the SPR is so low that we're almost always just going to have to/want to gii otf. At that point it's almost like PLO: against multiple V's we won't win 50% of the time, but our equity is much better than what we have to pay. (I should note that for less than 100BB I am willing to play a higher-variance style; YMMV.)

Thanks for the insight. I think this confirms some of my thoughts regarding 4+ people to act after me in situations like this, it's hard to predict necessarily whose going to fold or call my EP raise and of course that impacts the odds down the positions yet to act. The idea of check calling the flop in these spots is interesting, I can see how if the turn whiffs likely draws and someone did bet the flop, they did the work of eliminating some villains for you and give you a chance to better control odds to call the river for remaining villains. Also thank you for confirming the BB question, I didn't think it made sense to apply the +1 concept post flop in these spots and your response makes sense there.

Thanks for the compliment and the feedback. Ironically, I'm nearing completion of my coursework to become a clinical psychologist so I'd hope I've improved my mental game over the years in poker too! Not to say I don't get bummed or frustrated sometimes when luck goes the other way, but I've learned, as you said, to accept it and move on and instead of feeling like we deserve the hands to win...making sure we assess if we did all we could correctly to give us the best chance at winning the hand.

As for your insight on that hand example I gave, I think you nailed it regarding how to give incorrect odds to call and with so many limpers potentially we just can't get those odds lined up, so thank you for confirming that. I was sitting here before scratching my head how to better approach these kinds of spots. I generally feel I know my odds and how I want to size bets pretty good in a lot of spots to provide tempting but incorrect odds to call, but these looser limping tables with 4+ limpers in a pot esp when I'm in EP with a nice flopped hand are trouble sometimes.

Makes sense that gamblers will call literally any price to chase a big draw and I think my hesitancy sometimes to really fire out a bigger bet backfires on me when they're willing to chase the slightly under 3:1 when they might also be willing to chase a 5:1 or 6:1 lol. And I often ID the semi-thinking players live when they tell me my hand was so face up with a bet, but I mean the other player called me and lost so you're right why care if it's face up in spots where someone is going to call anyways! I also see what you mean about SPR and shorter stacks in these spots...I might be better off getting it all in on flop either if my stack would be too small to matter on turn anyways against villains stacks or if the villains stacks are so tiny it's best to make the decision easier and get them all in and let the cards fall where they may.

As for variance style and I know some might not fully agree here, I tend to have better success with a nittier lower variance style in part because I'm still in many ways building up rolls and improving my game. A good example is seeing so many people punting AKo all in pre flop against a rec player who suddenly is raising like crazy and then they're shocked that the see AA vs their AK. I'm more likely open AK pre flop but happy to flat a reasonable raise or 3-bet pre flop and reassess on the flop. Maybe that isn't always the best play but it reduces variance for me in those spots. But in the example of the flush draw, I'm often happy to jam it all in with top set on those draw boards esp if it ends up going down to 1 or 2 villains instead of 5 or 6 chasing.

Re-reading your comments again I see you are making a strong case for sometimes accepting you can't give incorrect odds no matter what you do and in that case jamming it in charging the max you can possible charge or letting someone bet for you and then doing the same and letting the cards fall where they may.

I posted a hand about 2 years ago, some of the advice was pedantic but some was great. "iraisetoomuch" gave me some of what I was passing on to you. If you're not familiar with the Fundamental Theorem of Poker, it's an old fogie idea about limit poker (mostly). Anyway, here's the thread:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...28/?highlight=

4x+1 per limper is some online or higher stakes stuff. at 1/2 id make it at least $11+$2 per limper, and it wont go 6 ways as often.

“not giving odds” isnt really how poker works, because 1) draws have implied odds, made hands have reverse implied odds. 2) you might be bluffing. So calling even a rather large flop bet heads up with a flush draw, ESPECIALLY in position is correct. I sure hope you arent folding your draws whenever you dont have direct odds to them.

Villans are going to call with OESDs and FDs OTF no matter what you bet pretty much, and the goal of poker isnt to flop the best hand and then make everyone fold. Yeah sometimes draws hit on the turn and you arent sure if they have the draw, thats poker. Post specific hands and get an analysis.

Turn aggression is where draws have to give up sometimes.

As far as bet sizing is concerned, really OTF youre trying to extract max value from the various hands you beat. For example, if you flop a monster on a dry board (99 on 955 board) you would bet very small snce no one can have much. If you flopped a big hand on a wet board (TT on an AT9 two tone board) you bet big to charge the draws and various made hands heavily)

I personally think juggling several postflop bet sizes is one of the trickiest things to do in your game, and is sort of a micro managemet aspect which is not necessary to being a winning player. So always betting 2/3rds to 3/4ths pot is great training wheels while working on other aspects of your game. I bet nothing but 2/3rds pot until about 9 months ago, and i was a pretty big winner. Now i have several betsizes, its one of two or three things ive been tinkering with this year.

On the flip side, preflop bet sizing is critical, and lettin* it get 6 ways with AA is a recipe for disaster.

I think this article will be of tremendous help to you, https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1...2-5-nl-369739/ it is found in the Best of LLSNL under Cleaning House at Live 1/2 and 2/5 NL

If you go 6-ways to the flop with your super-premium hands from SB, then your sizing was incorrect (or you have a maniac image, which is much less likely)

Let's backtrack a bit:
For this to be possible, there had to be at least 4 limpers (SB and BB excluded). A $60 flop means 6-ways with a $10 preflop raise. However, given 4 limpers, there will be at least $11 in the pot before it gets to you ($3 from SB and BB, $8 from limpers).
The rule I use is to double the amount of money in the pot and round up or down ($2-3 of rounding isn't really critical), depending on the typical table preflop raise.

So when it gets to us, the absolute minimum we should be making it is $20. I would probably make it $22-25.

Now you should be getting 1-2 callers. We have arrived to the flop with the same pot size, but with fewer opponents, which is always good for premium overpairs.

This is actually incredibly helpful. Along with setintostraight 's comment, you both made an excellent point and I think just helped me realize a leak in my live 1/2 game! In terms of bet sizes I don't think I was adjusting sizing up often enough in late position with premium hands. I mean in early position it's harder to tell how many callers/limpers are coming along so seems like a more standard PFR bet size is ok to keep consistent but in late position we can have a good idea how many limpers at least. And that's where the leak might be, I'm not scaling up the bet sizes often enough with premium hands in late position. I guess part of it was probably trying to keep a consistent bet size so harder to read but in hindsight that's silly for 1/2 live. Sure a few players might notice but many won't. Now that I think about it, in the games I play in, most of the PFR's are like $6-10 regardless of position and the times I've made it $12-$15 regardless of position have led to less callers and thus less chaos on the flop in knowing where I'm at. But you and setintostraight point out the importance of raising up the PFR more when we have more limpers/callers and logistically it makes sense that in later positions we have more info on the # of those limpers anyways to make a bigger bet size work. The thinking players will figure it out sometimes but the rec gamblers might not care and call anyways.

And I agree with flop bets depending on board texture. That's something I've done for a while, and it's often amusing when a player chases me down live with a really bad draw (I've had people call 1/3-1/2 pot size bets with a literal two outer then tell me when the catch that "if you'd bet more I might have folded") but that's what we want.

I think so, highlighting the online piece is helpful too. Once I started using the "pot" size bet button online more often to bet more from later position or with premium hands in any position knowing there will be some limpers my game changed for the better. So why was I not applying this to live poker within a reasonable range of different bet sizes? I guess the real challenge is ensuring the sizing is consistent so it doesn't become a tell (i.e. that nit is raising $20 when he's been raising $10 all night he must have AA!) so working hard on position awareness and making bets larger when I can see more limpers/callers left to act if that makes sense?

Thank you so much for this. As I said in replying to Tomark, you both made some really great points in helping me identify what it a big leak in my live 1/2 game...not adjusting bet sizing often enough and having a range of sizes for position when I have more info on number of potential limpers/callers. I think I was overthinking the concern that others might pick up on me raising $20-$25 when for hours I'm folding and/or raising $10-$12 even though as you're saying it's correct to bet more into the pot when it comes to us if there's multiple limpers. And as I said in my response to Tomark, I made this adjustment online with some success, so why was I missing it so much live?

I'm definitely going to try and tinker with these variable bet sizes next time i play live and see what happens.

Thanks for this, I can already see just glancing at it some of the errors I've been making in live play so I think it will be best for me to really dive into that post and really identify donk moves I'm making and also how to counter/best exploit others' donk moves.