Late Friday, $1-$2 game. Villain is a middle aged white guy bought in for $200 and just joined the game (late night Friday). He starts the hand with $180. I cover.

Hand: I raise AcQh UTG to $10. Villain in UTG2 calls and both blinds call.

Flop: QdJhTs (pot: $40, 4-ways).

Both blinds check. I check. UTG2 bets $12. The SB folds, the BB calls.

If both blinds had folded I was content to check-call this (to keep it small), but with the extra caller in there, I opt to raise to either take it down or get it to heads-up against UTG2….I don’t wanna just call and then have an 8 roll off on the Turn. and face a donk from BB.

I check-raise to $40. UTG2 calls. BB folds.

Turn: QdJhTs 4c (pot: $130, heads-up).

I go back to pot control mode and check again. UTG2 promptly bets $60. He has $70 left.

Get It In, lay it down, or close enough to not really matter?

Dont understand the flop raise vs this pool and 4 ways. Think its a close enough to fold or check call down on a friday night vs any random 40 yr old dude to not matter too much.

Maybe an overplay from my side but I would probably bet the flop, and fold to any sus action from the villians. The reasons why I think bet can be better
1) We have strong but vulnerable hand which also has a nut potential if K, A or Q comes
2) we have position on the blinds, so ideally I would want UTG2 to fold and play HU with one of the blinds
3) as we play low limits I assume if somebody hits the board well they will raise our bet and I think bluffs are quite unlikely, so if we bet and get a raise we already know that we are behind, and if opponents check-call they likely have draw/pair+draw/pair so we can bet 2nd barrel for extra value on safe turns
4) we earn extra from fold-equity, even getting the opponents to drop their low pair on our bet is actually good because it has some equity and we just burned it
5) for the same reason, if we check and everyone checks back, it is a disaster for our hand to let J5s/T8 or some other marginal hands the blinds can have to improve on the turn for free

He has a PSB left on the turn. As olayef, just get it in. Never folding at this stack depth.

I am not a big fan of the flop play. You can have AK here, but villains can have K9s, 98s, QJs, QTs, JTs, TT. Maybe even some offsuit combinations depending in how wide they are. And you beat exactly KQ, which maybe gets away from it at some point when you oile all the money in. There are more hands you lose to that call you than those you beat.

RESULT: I do stick it in. He snap-calls with, of course, the inexplicable Ace-King, and I don’t hit my chop out.

The lesson I took is that after someone shows aggression *after a check-raise* in LLSNL, just shut it down.

I think your logic is backwards, I'd be more incentivized to x/r HU than MW. Once BB calls I'm just calling. We're not deep enough either. Although I think the hand is a good one to x/r along with AJ and AT, and obviously AK. I'd probably go bigger though. 160 or so back and pot is 60-65, depends a little on what BBs stack is. If BB hadn't called and its HU and pot is 50ish I'm making it 50 and putting it in OTT for a little under a PSB. You have all the AK.

edit: like the idea of a blocker cbet as well. Could just play this as a straightforward cbet for like 15 bucks. Fold if raised.

I would x/c the small flop bet and reevaluate. TPTK is not very good on this flop. When you play for stacks, you will usually not be good.

Grunch: I think you over played your hand OTF. AP OTT I guess fold is in order.