I have been in a few similar spots recently where I raise with a speculative hand preflop and I flop a (really disguised) draw, sometimes big draw, and play it aggressively into multiple players, I get called by one or two, and the draw never comes. End up in a tricky spot on the river either 3 barreling into someone who clearly likes their hand or just giving up after putting 1/3+ of my stack in.

How do you manage your downside in this spot? Pump the breaks after the flop? Use much smaller sizing?

Might be standard/just the way it goes sometimes but it’s a frustrating spot so I thought I would get your perspective.

Here is one (of many) example:

Borgata 2/5 Saturday 2pm
Tight tough table
Main villain is TAG/nit.

H ($700) in LJ 6d4d raise 15
4 callers

Flop (75$) 3cKh5h
Hero (OESD) c bets $40, V CO calls. Everyone else folds.

Turn ($155) 8s bet $75 V calls

River ($305) 9d
Hero?



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The first thing to do is find a raise size preflop that gets you heads up most of the time. It might feel like your putting more money in but it keeps the pot size smaller. This keeps your post flop bets cheaper.

Don't always bet the flop with a just good draw. Multiway your not likely to get everybody to fold on the flop. It ends up being too expensive to push the action every time you could. This sort of hand is a good example, your going to the flop 5 ways so the pot is bloated and your OESD is just decent. You will want to check and hope for a free card a good portion of the time.

After that it's too situational for a general rule. You need to know something about villain and look at the specific board. In the example you give the board favors betting flop and turn but if villain gets past turn they probably have a good KX and you shouldn't try to bluff river. The villain pushes towards giving up on the turn, as a nit isn't chasing a flush draw or calling flop with middle pairs.

kind of a crap spot to bluff here since a lot of draws bricked out and a strong king is probably going to call river.

raise bigger pre for one so you don't get 4 callers.

I would bluff on an ace river here but the absolute brick river isn't going to get you a lot of folds.

Raise a size people will fold to pre. Your raise is mostly a bluff, so we need to thin the field.

OTF don't cbet into 4 ppl with an open-ender on a two-tone board when all of the callers' range smash the flop. Save your flop aggression for when you are likely to get folds (HU) and/or have 10+ outs to the ~nuts. This will help you limit how often you push the action in spots like this.

Grunch

Fold pre. 64s is way too weak to be opening in the LJ.

Flop and turn I'm ok with. But would strongly consider playing this one slow and saving my semibluffing for Axhh or other things with more equity.

River he has a strong king and wants you to bet for him. Give up. In theory you can fire again because you are at the bottom of your range, but I just don't see this player type folding a blank river after calling a multiway flop and down with the front door flush missing.

Fold pre. I'm fine with flop. If you're going to bet turn, you need to bet larger. $105-115ish would be my preferred sizing. I think any turn line that starts with a check is also acceptable.

Overbet turn, give up river

I wouldn't consider this example a big draw. An open ender that still may not be good when a flush comes. I prefer betting big draws when there isn't a face card and also when the person is fit or fold.

check the flop

I’m curious to hear your thinking with this flop line. Is it a pure “we have 6 high, but we have equity, and we don’t want to get blown off our hand before seeing the turn” thing?

Bet 125 on turn and shove river.

However this is too loose pf and also my standard is at least 4x rfi.

This is an ok board to attack multiway as there are only heart draws and KQ at best. Sets you will definitely hear from on the flop in this spot and this is a draw I don't mind folding.

But when you do attack this board you need to bet big turn and shove brick rivers. Or else don't bet at all.

Was thinking about that line (with better turn sizing) but I had seen a couple people just calling multi-way with AK and that V seemed like he could do that / felt like a taller order to get him off that hand.


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That's one hand though. The purpose of the line isn't to get someone to fold AK. There are so many other heart draw hands he can have. Also when you arrive at the river with 6 high it's likely one of your best bluff candidates.

If taking the cbet flop bet turn line sizing ott just has to be bigger, half pot isn’t doing anything for you. Bet 150 ott or x. River either option fine, blocking 1/3rd otr might be ok just getting his missed fd to fold

:Grunch:

So a few things here

First, why are you sitting at a Tight, Tough, 2/5 table? Borgata spreads enough games, especially on a Saturday, that you should be able to table select better.

Second, It's not clear what the exact preflop action or your image at the table is so it's hard to comment on the merits of your raise pre. But to play devil's advocate, tell us WHY you raised? Was it for value? To isolate another player? balance your range? Sweeten the pot in case you happen to flop big?

I feel like if you think this through in your head you'll realize why folding can be right sometimes, calling can be right sometimes, and raising can be right sometimes but raising the amount you did is probably never correct.

On the flop I don't see any reason why we are betting? Is your plan to try and fold out 4 other players on a K high flushing flop? Do you feel that's likely to happen?

This turn sizing seems like a bad choice. You're giving Villain 3/1 so it doesn't seem likely he's gonna fold a flush draw or medium strength hand. You're allowing him A big factor in NL bet sizing is not just making your opponent call the current bet, but realize that there's a real threat of a much larger bet coming on the next street. That threat doesn't exist here. You're keeping the pot nice and manageable for him while he's in position.

Now the river puts you in a tough spot. Your hand has no show down value but you still might be able to salvage the hand by hammering with a large bet. The problem is I have no idea what you're supposed to be representing by blasting the river. I probably go $225-$250 and hope V has second thoughts about playing such a bloated pot with a likely medium strength hand. This situation could have been avoided by sizing your bet differently on the turn though.

Can you elaborate on your thinking in regards to a 1/3 blocking bet? The way I see it:

V will fold a busted draw 100% of the time to any bet
V will fold a medium strength hand under 25% of the time to a blocking bet
V will fold a medium strength hand at a much higher frequency to a larger bet

If these are true and V is folding his busted draws to any bet regardless, then why aren't we betting more to try and get his other hands to fold as well? The only reason i can think of is that Hero isn't really repping a whole lot based off bet sizing thus far so if V can read hands he could find a big call.

You are right. I was ~timid all around. Either check starting from the flop or really go for it.


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Thank you for this. I agree with pretty much all of it. Really helpful.

For the table, I kept thinking three wrong things 1) it’s early afternoon so the softer players haven’t arrived yet
2) I understand how they play more now 3h in and if another table is also tough, I am starting over on that
3) I can beat these clowns
4 days there and had the right mindset (and winning) in first 3 days... but was drifting in overconfidence by day 4.

I raised to balance/open my range (because I was playing very tight).
Totally agree size was wrong. Rethinking it after, at that table, it’s just a fold pre. Even $25/30/35 was getting called multi-way sometimes.

My plan on the flop was to get HU and keep barreling. But again thinking thru, not super likely to happen. I did get HU... but then screwed up turn sizing. Yes for threat of huge river bet.


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Solid advice all around. Thank you very much all. Lot to think about on these draws in general and this hand in particular.


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64 is a massive punt. Snap fold pre.

Grunching … won't get into pre, hand nor sizing.

Flop/Turn … if you had AKo, what would your sizing be? Follow that, generally turn would have to be larger, which works well with your actual hand vs. a tight player who may fold FD/TT-.

Fwiw, I haven't gotten to the chapter on flopping SD/FD yet. Been a while since I've seen one, LOL.