$1/2 NL vs. the mid-afternoon (we are all retired/unemployed and passive) crowd. Game has been running for 2 hours.

Hero: 30s, aggressive, very active IP and especially in straddled pots. Have a good winning image as I cover the table, and have not gone to any showdowns with any losing hands. Although I have won a few small pots with bluffs, the table does not know this as I am only showing down the winning hands. ($400)

V1: 50s, weak-tight and mostly fishy. Passive without a big hand, occasionally overly aggressive with strong hands. Very sticky with draws and TPGK, but does have a fold button if you show him enough aggression. ($300)

V2: 30s, TAG winning reg. The best PLO player in our small casino, decent NLHE player as well, but obviously waiting for PLO to open. ($180)

V3: 30s, TAG. Just sat down 15 minutes ago. ($200)

V4: 70s, loose passive and a huge fish. Huge donator in the PLO game. Haven't played NL with him in a while, but he's your typical " AK never wins it just looks pretty, I have TP so how could I possibly lose" type of guy. Gets very sticky with draws, stacks off pretty light, etc. ($95)

V5: 30s, irrelevant ($150).

PLO is getting set up, and this is essentially the last hand for all of these guys as they are all on the list; great news for us as the rest of the table is all the aforementioned TP crowd.

V5 posts UTG Straddle
Hero is UTG+1 and looks at AK and opens to $16
V1 is MP and calls
V2 is CO and calls
V3 is SB and calls
V4 is BB and calls
V5 folds

Flop ($59)

723

Checks to Hero.

I am kind of divided here. We love our hand, but not so much vs. 4 villains.

I elect to bet; I think that V1 & V4 will call light, while V2 & V3 will play very straight-forward as they are moving to PLO after this hand, and are actually good, thinking, winning players that see me as such as well.

Hero bets $30... thoughts?

V1 calls
V2 folds
V3 folds
V4 moves all in for $78

Hero....?

V4 is any combo of , 7x, 22/33/77, 45s, maybe 88/99, although I would expect a shove preflop certainly with 99+, possibly even 88 given his stack size.

V1 is mostly 7x/. A4, A5, 45, maybe 88-TT here, although I would expect a "see where I'm at" min raise with the small overpairs a lot of the time.

Better to shut V1 out, or to keep him in?

Shove.

It's time for hero to maximize his equity and jam. If hero flats, then he'll be playing a massively bloated pot OOP for the rest of the hand.

How bad is the rake in this joint if 5 people contribute $16 ($80 total) and the pot on the flop is $59?

The c-bet seems light.

As played, shove and isolate.

I think calling is out of the question. I think I make it 160 and shove all turns. I think this line does a better job of keeping the Q/J/T flush draws in.

I was going to say bet more on the Flop, but you 'almost' did good here for the way the hand played out. Knowing that a shorty is in the hand I would've made sure that my bet was less than half of his stack. So you 'could've' bet as much as $38 and been safe here.

Under other circumstances I would've said to bet 80% of pot to make it look like you were protecting an overpair.

Not sure why we need to shove here either. If V1 folds to aggression, then we don't really want him out of the hand at this point with 2 cards to go. I want to start a side pot with him OTT if I can. We might be crushed by V4 somehow. No need to scare off other potential customers. I am flatting this action after a little 'delay' to think and maybe draw in V1 so I can play my Ace and King against his calling range here.

To further this point ... We have no hand right now, just drawing to improve .. including a nut draw. We 'know' that V4 has a hand ... is Ace high good enough against V1? If he is drawing to clubs, then I'm ok giving him a 3 to 6 outer but I also like my equity even if he has a pair right now as well.

Are we really folding to a V1 shove on the Turn? ... NO NO NO, because we are going to continue betting like we have an over-pair regardless of the Turn, even if Ace, I assume. If V1 shoves over our 'value' bet then we are priced into our nut flush draw going to the River.

I am not shoving here without a made hand. GL

Yeah just raise here and shove most turns. Don't need to jam though I don't think its a big deal either way

Blame the device, not the user.

Sorry, typo. Rake is $5+1 for BBJ ($6). Pot is $79 OTF.

If you bet $30 with the intention of squeezing dead money into the pot with V1 - V3 before V4 shoved then excellent job. That's some good advanced thinking as they can often call with second pair type hands, weak draws, and other such crap that would not call a larger bet. They may even float you with just two overs.

If that was not your plan, or if you didn't expect the shorty to shove then I would bet more on the flop $40 - $50 depending on what people are typically calling at your table.
The thing to remember is that this is a value bet. We are a pretty big favorite over any range that includes even a few flush draws or straight draws. We are also in fine shape even against a set and can likely gii on the flop vs anyone and feel fine given the pot.

As plyed, raise for value ($145) and shove most turn cards.

I think you mean 'call' here and shove most Turns.

Shoving Turn is worse than shoving Flop since we are 'allowing' V1 to see a cheap Turn card. If your plan is to shove, then shove the Flop. I see your point .. You are 'betting' $200 into $300+, but it is a dry side pot at this point and I think you can get away with $100.

Our line as the PF raiser is over-pair, not draw.

I want to 'value' bet ($100) the Turn and then call any shove from V1. We can always check the River if we miss and decide what to do if V1 bets out. Doubt he is going to bluff the River with a missed flush draw so its a pretty easy fold at that point with 'only' an extra $100 invested on a really good draw. If we think that V1 is also on a draw based on our read, then you can bluff out on the River and hopefully he reads into our 'over-pair' story and folds out. Doubtfull since he is a PLO guy, but you never know!!

I think the assumption is we need to hit a card to pick up any chips here. Sure, our Ace might be dead, but we do have good equity as OP stated to continue. GL

Wait, what? In general, with the NFD in a raised pot, I'd gladly welcome action from 4 villains, the other 5 players at the table, the dealer, the floor, the cocktail waitress, and a couple of guys taking a smoke break outside the casino. In this spot, stacks aren't all that deep, so our overlay isn't as huge as it could be ... but I'd still rather be 5-handed on this flop than heads-up.

In multiway pots, I'm a big fan of c-betting NFD's on the flop when I'm the PFR and donking them when I'm not. Nothing screams "nut flush draw" at 1/2 louder than a PFR, x/c, x/c line, so it's tough to get paid off that way when you hit. C-betting has the added advantage of looking like an overpair trying to "protect his hand", thus enticing smaller FDs to get their stack in drawing dead if the flush hits later on.

So I'm betting out. How much? Well, in general, it's a function of (a) where the short stack is sitting and (b) how much he has left. Most times, we should expect V4, with just a PSB left, to shove with any piece of this flop ... so our primary concern becomes making sure we don't get squeezed off our significant equity in this hand. I only want all the chips in the middle with this hand if I'm pushing them in myself - at all costs, I want to avoid calling off my stack OTF.

I think $30-35 is a good size to entice a shove by V4, but I'm only using that sizing if I plan to come over the top myself behind him - meaning I think I have significant fold equity from the rest of the table (because stacks aren't real deep here).

If I don't think I've got enough fold equity in this spot, a bet size like $55-60 would be better. It's more likely to buy you the pot with ace-high (never a bad outcome) and a shove by V4 won't reopen the betting (so if the other V's want to get tricky-aggressive here, they'll have to do so before shorty acts).

AP, V1 has a little more than the current pot left, so I think the decision is pretty close between "shove now" and "raise now, shove all turns". In a vacuum I usually shove, though here I'd lean toward the latter, only because I think clubs are a significant portion of his range here and I'd hate to blow a smaller FD out of this pot here.

No I meant raise. I'm not calling here and I think shove folds out some stuff that we are fine getting it in with. Although I guess given the stacks it prob doesn't matter if we raise to 145 and shove turn for 150 or w/e is left

Yeah, I see with these stacks. I just didn't want to be 'that' strong by 3-betting V1 out of the hand when I might have a better shot at beating him than V4 with my Ace high.

I usually am the first one to say 'get that side pot opened up' but I think in this case I am fine with letting him see a cheaper Turn and value/donk betting into him.

I think he is most likely going to fold out worse flush draws if we 3-bet is my only 'real' issue with 3-betting the Flop. If we had AJ/AT here and not both the Ace and King I might be leaning towards a 3-bet here on the Flop. GL

I would have cbet closer to $50 then on the flop. As played, pot is $217 and effective stack is $254, so I would get it in.

If it's routine for a $16 PFR to get 4 callers, I would make it $20 pre.

Cbet should be larger. With our particular holding, I think it's a fine size but for balance I would prefer $55. I'm never betting $30 here with an over-pair.

As played, I'm just calling V4's raise all-in, hoping for V1 to come along.

While it's likely our equity is greater than that of V4, we presumably must still improve to at least a pair to win the hand. Further, while V1 can continue with worse if we just call that likelihood is diminished greatly by raising.

Lastly, V1 is described as Putting in a second raise on the flop would likely qualify as 'enough aggression,' and thus constitute a bluff. Keep him in there, call flop, bet turn.

Excellent responses friends. Thank you!

I did indeed bet the $30 to allow myself the option to isolate V4's light stack-off, should I choose to exercise it.

Once V1 flats our relatively light c-bet, we can be almost certain that he is extremely unlikely to have a hand stronger than TP. I would very much expect a strong raise from flopped sets, and a defensive "see where I am at" type of raise from small overpairs (88-TT). Therefore, we are ranging him for TP/FD. I would say that the top of his range is 45 or 56, the bottom non-flush gutters and OESDs.

As expected, V4 sticks it in there lightly, and Hero decides to... jam. Err, I'm not sure I like this. Actually, I knew I didn't like it the second my chips crossed the betting line... In retrospect, this was kind of like a "heat of the moment" reaction, and I allowed myself to think that V1 would for sure stack off with 45, but fold 7x, giving us better equity vs. V4. I really feel like had I thought about it further, I would have realized that inviting V1 to come along has a considerably higher EV than shutting him out.

If we know that he has a ton of flush draws in his range and that he has a fold button when shown aggression, it's really unlikely that he would get 7x to showdown without improving to 2p+. So, why not give him the chance to "get there" with those flush draws and stack him when he thinks he hit gin, but is actually drawing dead.

Anyway, thanks for the comments.

not sure what you are asking here.

you are never ever ever folding.

the only question is if you push hard against V1 on the flop. he has 255 left. the pot is about 245 after you call the 48 on top of your 30.... I would pop it another 60 on top of the 48. He is most likely going to fold unless he has some kind of clubs combo draw.

shove all turns unless a 7 or a wheel card turns, then you might be in trouble.