9 handed, effective stacks ~180
One MP limper, hero limps Th8h in C/O, button raises to 10. BB calls, MP calls, hero calls.
Pot = 31
Flop: Qs9h6d
Check to hero. Hero has double gutshot and runner-runner flush draws.
Haven't noticed much about BB so far, guess he might have big cards, TT-22, suited or connected cards based on the call pre-flop.
MP limper will call down with top pair, doesn't seem over aggressive.
Button is here to play but not a fish. I think he would usually CB most of his range if I check here.
If I bet and he raised I'm not sure if that would mean strong but vulnerable or just strong. Board looks quite dry I think.
Should I check or bet?

I slightly prefer a bet on this flop but your main mistake was pre. With only one limper raise or fold pre in this spot (i'm raising).

I also agree with raising pre-flop. I like a bet, too. If he raises, call if you get the odds.

I'm actually okay with over limping pre. Personally, I would raise with this hand but it's not a bad spot to limp.

On the flop if you said he cbets most of the time here I would probably ch/r and lead all turns except an A.

If you don't think he cbets most of the time here, or you're not sure You could bet this flop like half pot (15) and lead the turn if called. If raised (probably to like 40-45), you can reraise all in for 130 more.

No sure I want to gii here against someone who most likely has me dominated when I have only eight outs and a backdoor flush draw.

I should have qualified my last post. It depends if you think villain is capable of folding single pair hands, or if you think villain is capable to bluff raise the flop. If not then you have no fold equity and should not make this play.

Think about villains raising range preflop. It's not very often he has AA-QQ. A lot of times he's just trying to isolate the limper(s) with position. If you are in villains spot and have KQ or QJ or even AQ it's extremely difficult to call a bet/3betAI with just a Q.

If I bet and this player raises, I have to be behind -- and he's strong. If I'm sure he'll fold to an all-in, fine, but many players at this level cannot fold an overpair or even AQ here. It's basically a bluff and without more info, I'm not making it.

Calling preflop is pretty fishy. On the flop, you have to check, because what made hands are you ever leading out here with? I would plan to call a small bet and fold to a big one. A check-raise bluff is going to involve putting a lot of money in against somebody with a very undefined range.

What strong hands do we limp preflop and then b/3b here? The only realistic candidate is Q9s, and we would probably check/raise that on the flop. Our hand looks like what it is, which is bull****, and you're not folding out much of his flop raising range. The only possible saving grace is that he might bluff raise the flop a lot because our lead will look so much like bull**** (because it is), but I highly doubt that will save us.

His range is more undefined when you ch/c. When you take a passive line you have not narrowed down his range at all on this flop. ie - does he have a pair, a draw, a set, two pair, air? We have no clue. When you ch/r when he calls you, you can better define his range to pairs, or draws most likely.

Also ch/c defines your hand as being pretty weak most of the time, whereas ch/r opens your range to sets, two pair, AQ, and the occasional straight draw.

Check-raising the flop to "define his range" is ridiculous. What are we going to do with that information apart from pray that we hit on the turn? Him calling the check-raise doesn't tell us if he has a hand we can push off with another bet, so it's useless information. The flop check-raise is a straight bluff, and we do not have enough info about his range and our line does not show enough strength to make us think it is profitable.

I agree that check-calling is not a very happy line to take, but it's better than spewing a bunch of chips for no clear reason, and it's better than check-folding if we get a price. Playing a weak hand out of position with a capped range against an unpredictable opponent just sucks, which is exactly why limping preflop is so bad.

EDIT: Also, hoping that a check-raise magically brings 99 or 66 back into your range is just wishful thinking. You never have a set here. It's possible he's too clueless to notice that, but even fish can think back one street.

Don't like a c/r here unless a little shorter and the others flat the B c-bet AND we are at a very passive table.

There is $40 in pot, not $30 .. so I don't mind donking $16-20 here. We need to think that our range hit the board more than a PF raiser IMO. So lets weed out the KT and maybe a couple of other V so that 'maybe' our 1 pair hands beat AK/AJ at showdown .. or build up our pot-odds to hit the gutter. I think this is both table and V dependent. I don't think very many V will raise with AQ/Qx here, usually set/2pr (no flushes yet) so nothing wrong with building a pot or just taking control.

We can c/c but when we lead 'a lot' of Turn cards it looks stronger. I think donking will get us a free River card, maybe, but I am also willing to c/c Turn depending on the action since I can bet out on River with the right image.

This is a gambling hand, don't wait around for the 'poker gods' to bless you with a low percentage 'small' pot. Bet, build and reap. If HU I might play this different by c/c and lead Turn and River against the right V, but multi-way I want to create my pot odds by letting the others stick around 'cheap'.

I love these type of holdings, they lay the ground work for your image and ability to play a wide range of hands gets you paid off when you are super strong. The pots not that big, yet, take a step out of your comfort zone and donk one out here. GL

PF: Fold or raise. Why are we playing this hand so passively in the CO? Fold when BTN raises. Th8h is a speculative hand and needs deeper stacks to play if you decide to Limp/Call. Additionally, BTN may be just trying to steal dead money here, so calling thinking your going to stack him is less likely.

F: (3) handed. Pot is $41. SPR is 4.1. Check to the raiser.

1) A flop Ch/r is not a straight bluff, it's a semi bluff.

2) He fold to a ch/r more than 50% of the time imo, since he's more than 50% to not hit a pair on the flop. Therefore, ch/r allows us to win the hand immediately with T high, as opposed to ch/c the whole way and never being able to bluff him off his A-high, K-high, or medium pockets that beat us.

3) If he calls our ch/r it narrows his range to hands that are stronger than air, but not nutted. Reason being if he has air he's folding if he is nutted (sets, or top two) he will most likely try and gii on the flop. So he's most likely calling with overpairs, Queens, maybe AT and probably most of his straight draws.
When we ch/c he can literally have anything and we have no clue whether it's closer to bluffs, or nuts.

4) If we end up hitting our straight on the turn we have built a bloated pot with a nutted hand + disguised our straight = maximum value. When we ch/c and hit our straight on the turn, do we check and hope he bets so we can ch/r? maybe he'll check back. Maybe we should lead out? But that looks so much like we were fishing for the straight and he'll just fold.

5) If we miss our straight we can continue bluffing on good turn cards that don't help his range

6) I don't know why there are never sets in our range. 66 is def a hand we can have here, Q9, or 96, depending on how liberal our starting requirements are. Mostly though, we are playing against the weakness in his range not our own.

7) If one is not comfortable playing post flop with these kinds of hands, I agree you should just fold them preflop. But if you are going to play these hands you need to be very good at playing post flop.

Bobman I respect your posts, but for the purpose of 1/2 live, this concept does not apply for the majority of villains.

I am not advocating we bet here, just saying we do not need to be balanced at all or even have to rep anything logical.

This. We're not deep enough to play suited gappers and we won't have fold equity in this pot due to it being bloated.

There's a fine line between changing up your baseline play to exploit your opponents' weaknesses and just playing bad because you hope they're bad enough to let you get away with it. Our only read on this villain is actually that he's a relatively strong player. We don't know that he's not going to try to read our hand when we show up with a check-raise out of the blue. Bad players are bad at hand-reading, but most of them do try to do it at some level. If this guy turns the stink-eye in our direction, we don't really have a lot of cover. It's dangerous to view your opponents as generically bad to justifying ignoring your own fundamentals. This guy probably is bad, but we don't know how bad, and we don't know in what ways. We should figure that out, but until we do we should be playing solid poker (good cards, good position, wider ranges than our opponents).

If you play post flop well, an overlimp is good in live play and while playing not that deep.

I for sure bet(20) this flop for a few reasons
1. If no one has anything I don't even have to play poker and they just fold
2. If I get called, MY main money card (the Jack) hits a TON of a Villains calling range(QJ/J9) and hands like (KQ/JT/QT/T9) are going to stick around because they are still drawing
3. If I hit a heart on the turn, I put out a Pot sized bet, and play pretend that I have a strong hand, while still having a lot of equity

Thanks all for the interesting discussion and helpful opinions. Apologies for my mistake about pot size on the flop, it was 40 not 30.
Hero checks to the raiser. On balance I think leading 20 would have been a better option. I guess the plan, at the time, was to call button's likely CB (and hopefully one or both of BB and MP's calls too), then see a J or a 7 on the turn.
In the event button bet 20, BB made it 50, MP folded, hero folded, button called. I'm a bit fuzzy on how the rest of the hand played out but button won at showdown, with AQ. BB didn't show.