1/3, 7 handed, folds to Hero in the HJ with AQo. Hero bets $11, folds to BB who just calls.

Flop is A55 rainbow. We both check. What do y'all think about this flop check? I checked because I don't think BB has many hands he can call with that we're ahead of. Sure he can have some aces but I think he'll fold almost any hand that doesn't have an A or 5 besides maybe 66-99. Don't think he has TT-KK. I like the idea of him possibly catching up a little on the turn and maybe he'll call down or induce a bluff.

Turn ($20) A55J bringing in a club draw. BB leads for $15, Hero calls.

River ($45 after rake) A55J7, flush draw misses. BB bets $45. Hero?

I say we call, the plan was to get him to induce and now he has obliged.

I love this thinking. What if he has a pocket pair and he catches up a little?

Why $11 pf? There's lots of reasons not to do it.

The poster above is making the point that anyone who catches up at all is going to be ahead of you. You want to bet this flop because no one likely has AK and all worse aces are going to call a bet.

I'm fine with our whole thought process / play and now call the river.

ETA (since it looks like I disagree with a couple comments):

Assuming a bigger stack where we won't be able to setup trivial commitment spots, I'm cool with a smaller raise preflop (especially if it will often limit the field as it did here) to give us a more manageable SPR in position.

Overall, things might depend a bit on our image, but if ours leans to the tighter/nittier end of the spectrum then it is highly unlikely we are going to get 4 streets from a worse Ax; we're pretty happy with 3. So checking the flop to guarantee this is perfectly fine. Especially on a drawless board where there are no draws to get value from. Especially when it isn't impossible for us to be behind (AK, 5x). We're also fine with setting up bluffcatchers to get this guy to attempt to blow us off our KK-. Or letting his KT catch a K to start paying off a street or two. Or have him pay off a street or two with 99 that is on a 2outer. Or have him size small in the times he actually has a better hand due to not wanting to blow us off our KK-. Plus checking back our Ax on Axx boards in good spots helps protect the times we check back KK-. It's fine, imo.

ETA#2: Betting the flop isn't horrible, of course. It's just that I think that we'll want to pick some spots where we check back TP sometimes too, and this is about as perfect time to do it. I'd check back here far more often than I'd bet it, unless I'm up against the biggest clueless calling station in the room.

Gnicehand,imoG

I'm not that concerned about villain having a pocket pair AND hitting their two outer.

I made it $11 because I usually mix it up anywhere between $10-$15 if it folds to me. In this specific scenario I made it the most I thought I could where I would still get called.

I think a lot of hands can catch up and still be behind. For example, any J that he holds has now caught up on the turn. If he was bluffing the turn then any 7 he holds has now caught up on the river (would now be behind the unlikely 77 and A7 in this case).

I think the preflop sizing is ok, but you definitely want to go bigger as you approach the button. Players in these games call too wide from the blinds and don’t 3bet enough, and these are both things that make you want to size up.

On the flop I prefer betting. Yes checking does induce the occasional bluff, but there are also plenty of Ax hands that will potentially call you down if you bet 3 streets.

In theory the bluffs you induce + the money you save vs his 5x balances out the extra value you get from betting. But in practice live players are so value heavy when they checkraise that you can fold AQ quite comfortably, meaning you don’t lose that much more vs 5x by betting.

So I would only check behind if I thought he was bluffing a lot after I check, or was likely to fold most of his Ax against a 3 barrel.

So if you open smaller from EP, don't the blinds have an even easier bet to call too wide with? Or do we want more players to call us when we raise from EP vs LP?

Main reason for sizing down is that the lack of absolute position postflop hurts our potshare. So there’s not as much point in bloating the pot pre.

Compare this with BTN open where we are always in position vs a wide and capped range. Clearly we would want the pot to be as big as possible.

If we use a standard raise size pre (for our entire raising range) of either 4x IP or starting at 5x from the blinds, we're not "bloating the pot" just by raising pre.

We take into consideration that we're going to be IP when we raise OTB, and therefore our raising range is much wider, but we should never raise smaller just because we're OOP. I would rather open fold than raise small from EP.

And since our raising range OTB is wider, why would we wanna bloat the pot by raising bigger with hands like KTo for example, or Q9s, it only makes our Cbet have to be that much bigger; and then our turn bet, etc.

Raising bigger when we're OTB just to bloat the pot because we have position isn't a very good strategy, aside from, of course, when we have value hands like KK/QQ/AK and the table is full of stations.

If it wasn’t a good strategy, solvers wouldn’t prefer minraising from EP and 2.5x on BTN.

It’s really about the ratio of 3bets to calls that we face. The more we get called (especially by BB), the bigger we want to go, since we always have >50% potshare. The more we get 3bet, the smaller we want to go, because most of our range is ~0ev against the 3bet.

LJ gets 3bet quite often relative to the times he gets called, so it doesn’t make much sense to go big.

BTN gets called much more often than he gets 3bet, so we size up to bloat the pot the times we get called. And this is especially true in small stakes live, where players are calling hands like JTo vs a 7bb open.

I prefer betting the flop in a "this hand only" sense. But I play in a regular game and struggle to balance C-betting. So this seems like a great spot if I've been C-betting too much, or whiffing a lot and C-betting too little and feeling picked on.

Call river, not close. To under-rep your hand and then fold is a crime. It needs to be an overbet for me to drop.

No, it's not a good strategy to minraise from EP and 2.5x OTB, just because a solver says to do it. In a live no limit cash game it would be horrible. Solvers are not the answer of how to crush these games, that I can assure you.

What games are you playing where the LJ get 3bet quite often?

Yeah, you very clearly can not fold after checking flop. You're way too strong unless you face a significant overbet. He can easily have worse value or just be blasting off because he thinks PFR would never check an Ax.

Flop check is ok in theory but I prefer betting small always. Ax will always call, gutshots will always call, pocket pairs will always call. High cards and/or cards with backdoor draws will sometimes call. He needs to double barrel turn+river at a high frequency to incentivize checking.

No one is saying to make it 2.5x in a live game, I literally just told OP to make it bigger than 11. But the fact that solvers raise bigger OTB and smaller from EP is telling. What we need to do is understand the reason for this trend, and think about how it applies to different games.

In a live game, players don’t 3bet enough, and call too wide vs big opens. This makes us want to size up from every position, but I would size up more on the BTN because we always have position.

From EP it’s not so clear we want to be bloating the pot in this way, because we are likely to be OOP postflop, which hurts our potshare.

LJ gets 3bet more because there are more players to act who can wake up with a hand.

I bet ~7 bucks on the flop with AT+ (and my non-nut air), if you want a check behind range with an ace, it's probably your wheel draw aces, an occasional AT, and AA

Turn and river lines are fine as played

I believe this makes sense on an intuitive level — raising smaller in EP than LP. Do you know if the solver work was for 9max or 6max? Was this the pluribus bot or something else?

I once experimented with open limping my entire range from UTG-UTG2 at 2/5. This is sort of an extreme version of what you were saying. I got to see how the table reacted and then either limp-call/ limp-fold/ or limp-raise. It was an interesting experiment. I had some funny hand histories where I limp-raised A5s for example and got a player to fold AK face-up. But I eventually reverted to opening a more standard 3x at all positions.

+1 on it makes sense intuitively.

I think the main adjustments I make now are: If the table is deep + full of stations I play a wide polarized limp/rr strat UTG + UTG+1

I'd be curious to see how 3b frequencies change if I start minraising UTG + UTG+1, may try this strat in my next few sessions

Do you generally go for a 2x => 5x range or something more conservative?

It’s quite well-known for 6max but we can probably extrapolate it to 9max.

Zenith poker has free preflop solutions that illustrate this effect: when given multiple sizes from EP the solver prefers minraising. I don’t recommend getting any of their paid stuff though.

I think limping from EP is an interesting idea! I used to play in Macau every now and then, and some of the (winning) regs were doing it. Might have something to do with the game being 10 handed though.

Minraising from EP is probably not so good in a live game, because you kind of justify their strategy of flatting a lot and not 3betting much.

I think for 1/3 you can go 3-4x from EP, and at least 5x OTB.

Re: "Minraising from EP is probably not so good in a live game, because you kind of justify their strategy of flatting a lot and not 3betting much."

Isn't this somewhat contradictory to the assertion that villains are (somewhat) price insensitive at live low stakes? And if so, it seems like the intuitive (exploitive) adjustment is to make the ramp more aggressive (2x UTG => 5x OTB)

It’s because they are inelastic that you want to go a bit bigger, to extract value from their calling range (BB especially).

The main reason we size down is to lose less the times we get 3bet, and that’s not happening often enough in a live game to justify minraising from EP.

Pre - Sizing is whatever.
Flop - Good board to check (mix in some cbets too).
Turn - Call or raise.
River - Call.