This was maybe the fifth hand of a session of $1/$2 Saturday @ Thunder Valley Casino in Sacramento. Nobody was deep aside from a player two to my right who had felted two players in two hands as I was getting settled. No reads except for physical ones: 2 OMC in seats 8 and 9, OWC with costume jewelry and a nice purse in seat 1, older asian woman in 2, young guy with big stack in 3. I was in 5, and 7 was a coworker of seat 3.

Preflop Hero dealt K♣︎9♣︎ ($190)
UTG2 calls, LJ calls, HJ calls, CO calls, Hero calls, SB calls, BB checks ($200)

I know I should have raised here. I snap raise this online playing playing NL50 or NL100. Let's blame the nerves of the first time in a Casino in 15 years. I had yet to see a 3! and opens were generally around 7-10x+ a little more for each limp. Always at least 2-3 limps per hand. Before I limped, I was thinking about a raise for $20. I realized later that in a setup like this, it isn't uncommon to get to the flop multiway with an SPR of 2-3 in a SRP.

Flop ($13)
Q♣︎8♠︎7♥︎

Checks through. I assume this is a stab opportunity for me. Flop bets in a multiway pots were getting called by most if not everyone at the table when they were less than $15. So in a situation like this, do you overbet the pot? With a bunch of backdoor equity, I assume bloating the pot here isn't a bad thing.

Turn A♣︎ ($13)
Checks BB bets $10 Hero calls

I am likely behind at this point, but is this a spot where I should be raising? I feel like not only does the ace feel like a great card for me, it gives me more equity while possibly improving the BB to a pair, two pair or a flush draw.

River 5♣︎ ($27 - rake removed)
BB checks Hero bets $20 BB calls, BB folds

I tried to make up for lost value. BB was muttering about my made flush at which point I thought I might have been better off if I had made an over pot sized bet, representing a bluff.

Feedback would is appreciated.

This doesn't sound like a good game, at all. First thing I'd do is look for a different table.

AP...

PRE - raise pre. You're on the BTN with a decent hand and the population of an Antartic Research Station limping in front of you. Gotta raise to thin out the field.

FLOP - yes, you can stab at this. You have all kinds of backdoor equity here. Bet 1/3 pot. See what happens. Fold if anyone check-raises.

TURN - raising isn't insane, but I'd probably just flat call now. We pick up the BDFD, but lose our BDSD. Not enough in our favor to start piling money into the pot.

What would we be repping if we raise on the A turn when BB bets and everyone folds to you? BB is either stabbing with weak value or pure air, or he flopped huge and was going for a check-raise on the flop, and is trying to make up for lost value because the flop checked through.

No sense in folding his bluffs or donating more to his monsters. He's not folding any AX, so if we raise and he calls, we're in no-man's land on a brick river.

RIVER - go small to get value from more of V's range, and possibly induce a raise, OR, go huge with an over-bet, to polarize. Betting a hair over 2/3 pot looks exactly like you rivered a flush.

At 1/2, I dunno, I guess I could go either way, but when V checks flop, bets turn, and checks river, he doesn't look very strong, so I'd probably go big, hoping it looks bluffy as hell, rather than go small, which looks milky as hell.

Then again, you're probably not getting more out of him no matter how much you bet, so maybe betting small and showing your hand whether he calls or not will allow you to get some smaller bluffs through on future hands, so...smaller or bigger, either is good, but 2/3 pot isn't doing you any favors here or in the future.

It was so bad. I really should have taken an opportunity to play in the 1/3 game. I had aces full twice. Felted 3 players in one and felted 2 in the other. Got paid a total of $340 (that's including my bets in those hands). By the end of the night I realized almost all of the players that were losing were never topping off until they got felted. One guy played down to $10 from his $200 before losing it and reloading for another $200.

You see a lot of short-stacking at lower stakes. As you move up, you see it less. It would drive me bananas to see some guy buy in for $100 at 1/3, go broke, and re-buy for $100, six or seven times.

I know people say we should welcome those types of fish, but I don't. I don't want to have to out-play someone seven times to get the $700 he brought with him, at the risk of doubling him up for $100 (and usually less) every time he enters a pot. Just buy in for the max and play poker, nimrods.

I see it much less at 2/5, and even then, I think the min buy-in is $200, and the open sizes aren't as proportionally large compared to the blinds and stack sizes, so it's less annoying.

Aside from the short stacks, just your description of the table sounds horrible - one young kid with a deep stack, who might be the best player at the table, and 6 or 7 short-stacked OMC/OWC's. Yuck.

I wouldn't play that game mid-afternoon on a Wednesday. On a Saturday, there has to be a better game going somewhere.

With so many interested parties I actually don't mind overlimping this hand if we suspect everyone's gonna hop on the call train anyway. How happy are we on a K high flop in a bloated pot for instance? On limp-foldy tables I do want to raise.

As played I wouldn’t stab the flop and just check behind.

Turn is a bit shitty, with just nine outs at most, maybe less. Depending on our implied odds it could just simply be a fold? On the other hand, we are drawing to the nuts and there's always a non-zero chance BB is betting out a worse flushdraw. And we did manage to keep the pot small, so in absolute terms it's only a small price to pay now to try and hit our nut flush.

River is fine I guess.

To my surprise the OWC (who was drinking some fruit juice thing) was a pretty solid player. She was mixing it up with hands and position, being aggressive with draws in good spots. She got stacked at one point getting it in kings vs AKo. Then a few hands later flopped broadway and extracted max value from a player who had turned top two. The kid to my right was only in the game for a couple hours, but he was definitely the better player at the table.