1/2 homegame 7 handed.
my stack $140
villians $80

I am utg.
Raise to 6 pre flop.
4 callers in position, villian calls in bb.

flop 737 2 hearts
Villian checks, I bet $20
4 callers fold, villian goes all-in.

$54 to me, and now in the tank.

*live read* He made like a slight hesitation before he went all in, like well I gotta do it.. I know it's probably tough to get an idea of what he was doing because you werent there, but he just did something funky... But it was obv a fake tell I guess.. Does anyone have any good theories on facial tells?

I ended up calling. But during the hand I was thinking like, "well he could have a flush draw, and even then he prob also has two overs as well.... F-It I call" he had 75 and I was drawing dead.

Should I have c-bet the flop? I figured it was a good board for a value bet, or to protect my hand?

How do you know when to make the right call or fold, consistently on boards like this, with hands like 55-99?

What did you have?

lol whoops, 55

I think your call is ok if you bet the flop. Your preflop raise is meant to build the pot when you flop a set, but this flop is too good to give up on. Your villain's SPR is <3 here and on this board with the two hearts I think it's ok to call.

Sorry, could you define SPR for me? Super Poor Range?

Stack to Pot Ratio. It's a huge part of my game, detailed in a 2+2 book "Professional NLHE" by Miller and a couple other guys.

hmm, I'll check it out. Thanks.

Problem here is that even if he's doing this with flush draws most of the time. most flush draws will have 2 live OC's as well, which means you are either way behind or slightly ahead. I think this is a fold.

If he has flush draws most of the time then this is an obvious call. Versus 15 outs twice we are actually slightly behind and we should still call because there is money in the pot.

I think this is the problem

But if that's the bottom of his range you aren't doing so great.

You didn't raise enough, or you should not have raised at all. UTG with a small pair either pop it to $12-15 or just limp in. If you limp, then check/fold the flop. If you raise correctly then he probably doesn't even see that flop.

Additionally, always remember when dealing with recreational players...like Mike Caro said, "If they act weak, they're strong...if they act strong, they're weak." Simple as that.

His slight hesitation and mild hollywood act of, "I gotta do it" is a sure fire tell. If he was bluffing and didn't want you to call then there would have been no uncertainty with his actions. He would seemed over confident. Now if you're playing against a seasoned vet, then you have to be careful about reverse tells...but this guy you described sounds like a typical rec player. He practically turned his cards face up.

I don't think my pre-flop sizing is all that relevant tbh. With a small pocket pair I am hoping to hit a set, so why not have a 5 way pot? Obviously I didnt reevaluate on the flop very well, but most of the time I am just gonna bet/fold or check/fold the flop.

And also I think if I were to change the size of my pre flop raise with certain hands, good players would be able to exploit me pretty easily..

Clearly. I said if he has that hand most of the time then it's a call. Ranges can be expressed in quality and quantity. i.e. "bottom" and "most of the time"

Oh, and another reason why this is such a call for me is that after betting $20, we have put in exactly 1/3 of villain's stack. Pot committing then folding is usually a pretty big mistake in NLHE. Yet another chapter out of Miller's book.

What was the point of the preflop raise? There's no reason for a sweetner cuz the stacks are shallow and we shouldn't have any problem getting them in if we hit. Plus we don't want to raise out anyone that could pay off a flopped set. And obviously a $6 raise isn't going to limit the field to where we can cbet / take it, as the 5 callers to our raise indicate; if we're gonna raise, raise more. But I would simply open limp and setmine.

As played, I just check/fold the flop. We're up against 5 opponents here but we're OOP so we haven't the slightest clue how we're doing. Better hands ain't folding, it's doubtful any worse hands will call (other than perhaps a flush draw or maybe an unlikely weak gutshot), and even though we could protect our equity in the pot that's only if we're ahead, and right now we don't have enough reason to believe that. Plus any bet might commit us against smaller stacks. BTW, there's a 27% chance (according to Phil Gordon's pair principle) that someone behind us has a bigger pocket pair (ignoring the fact that bigger ones probably would have raised preflop), let alone the chance that someone has 7x or 33.

As played, even though we're getting decent odds, I'd probably just fold since we showed strength betting into the world and yet villain is still check/raising us. I guess flush draw w/ overs could definitely do this (ETA: and as others point out, we're actually behind to those but have the pot odds to call), but other than that, we're behind to everything else that would do this.

Whole hand is played too aggressively, IMO.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Like all AI on the flop hands it is a simple case of assign a range and stove it. Nobody can really do that for you without being there but in my experience this is a snap fold.