So I ran into this spot super early in my session over the weekend. The hand had a ton of interesting points/opportunities so I wanted to post it as in a PAHWM type style.

Table Dynamics - Friday early afternoon, local card room, 1/2 300 max BI. H sits down at a table and H is the youngest player at the table (32 y.o white kid). H has played with several of these players but not extensively. Table is made up of mostly, tight-passive, older male types who aren't nits but decent enough not to spew, make major mistakes. H has been at the table for an orbit and this hand unrolls.


H has 300, most of of the stacks at this time is close to 200-400.

No EP limps, MP opens to 7, which at 1/2 in my room is a smallish open, two callers in LP, and H looks down at KhQh in SB and?

Ok so basically no particularly useful reads since you've only played with a few of them a few times. We'll consider this spot to be a vacuum --

3bet to $50

Do you know anything about the guy who opened? My concern here is that the small raise is a strong hand that doesn't want to fold everybody. It could also be a weak hand that wants a cheap flop.
All things considered a raise to $40 seems best but if MP calls you need to be ready to slow down post flop if MP sticks around.

I have only played with V once before. It was in a wild game where there was this one Maniac V (not at this table) who is the rooms 'known whale/maniac'. In the earlier session this V doubled up twice against the Maniac. The maniac promised to get his chips back, and 2 hours later ended up with all his chips.


I view the 7 as more of a pot builder type bet. This is most likley Axs, 98s+, pp but prob lower then QQ.

3B $40-45 ... dead $.

If MP is the only caller, evaluate flop texture, don't need to cbet 100%. If multi-way, Xing a miss.

45-50

3! to $50 sounds good. Expect to take it down pre most of the time. If not we have a nice hand to catch something.

After some feedback, it seems that the consensus was to 3b pre. At the time I elected to just call, and figured I didn't want to possibly play a bloated pot OPP.

OTTH-

H calls the 7 dollar open with KQhh, and so does the BB. We see a flop 5 ways.

Flop (32ish)

10h9c6s

H x first to act, and the table checks around. Figured this was the easiest and simplest point in the hand history so going straight to the turn.

Turn (32ish)

10h9c6s3h

H now turned second nut flush draw, two overs, and a gutter, and is first to act and....

I don’t think a bet has a lot of fold equity with this many players. I check again and evaluate. To be clear, this means I might sometimes check/raise.

Bet 16.

Preflop to around 45, but anything 40-50 would do. It's far too good a hand not to squeeze with dead money dripping from the pot

Turn I'm checking (edited for clarity). I'm not worried by the two in late position, but BB could have flopped big, and 5-way toe original raiser may well have checked an overpair for pot control. That said, stabbing with a gutshot + flush draw can't be bad, but would rather not get pushed off our equity as a raise would be pretty unpleasant without the nut flush draw

+1 to 3bet, +1 to check now.

I don't mind the preflop call. Over the small raise your going to have to raise big and it will push SPR down. There are situations where I would call also, particularly with the not particularly deep stacks in play. Raise is higher variance but slightly higher EV against a generic crowd.

As played check flop is good. Check turn is fine. You have a lot of draws but somebody else probably connected with this somewhere. Hopefully a worse draw that you can abuse when you hit but a TX or 9X that won't give up easily is the most likely.

Mandatory 3bet to $40+,

let’s go to the next street…

AP, bet turn $20, planning to give up rivers if called and we brick. Edit: Okay with a check too. Kinda hard to mess up the hand, really.

No one showed interest on the flop. Turn is basically a brick. I'd bet 75%, looking to double barrel, as I would with my strong hands that were looking to check / raise flop.

AP ... X/C turn, while thinking about X/R a small bet from last to act.

have to 3 bet this pre. $45 would be my choice.

before we lead the turn we need to have a plan for the river. Are we simply doing it to build a bigger pot for if we hit a flush or straight on the river? Hitting a pair only gives us a chance to bet/fold thin value. Or are we planning on bluffing unimproved too?

either way I think we should be betting big on turn..close to pot

check again and either CR or call depending on action

x/c. I dont think you can get a bluff through here since anyone else in the hand is pot controlling, unless you pull a solver stunt and raise $200, which I am not adept at yet.

Overbet turn everyone but bb is capped at 1 pair and will be in tough spot as we are threatening our whole stack.

After some feedback, it seems that the consensus was to 3b pre. At the time I elected to just call, and figured I didn't want to possibly play a bloated pot OPP.

OTTH-

H calls the 7 dollar open with KQhh, and so does the BB. We see a flop 5 ways.

Flop (32ish)

10h9c6s

H x first to act, and the table checks around. Figured this was the easiest and simplest point in the hand history so going straight to the turn.

Turn (32ish)

10h9c6s3h

H now turned second nut flush draw, two overs, and a gutter, and is first to act and.... checks

BB x, Original opener bets 11, one fold, guy on BU calls, and h elects to just call, BB folds. A xr might be worth it, but at the same time I wouldnt know what to do if I xr and brick the river.


River (65ish)

10h9c6s3hJd

H rivers the nuts and....?

lead 20. Nobody is bluffing and none of them like their hands, try to get a crying call from some random pair

You’re kind of zooming past an interesting decision point here…you should at least consider a x/r versus this weak turn sizing, with a player on BTN behind you can get BB to fold some weak 1-pair hands. You have a monster draw and you also just want to build a pot….you can give up on brick rivers (though you don’t have to) and it’ll still be profitable to build a pot for when you hit. Versus this anemic action your K/Q outs are almost certainly live as well. You can bluff A rivers and get a stubborn Tx or pair+gutter to fold.

As played the river is a clear bet. I think it’s likely at least one of the players has a T or hit the J with their QJ/KJ/J8/J7 (more likely the BTN) and we want to bet larger to target those hands. I’d go at least to $40.

Just want to point out here that if we are now going to target other straight draws that rivered top pair, we shouldn’t be assuming our pair outs are live when we’re looking at the turn action.

I do agree that we should be considering a turn raise after this action, and that we should bet the river; but I don’t know if we should be betting “big”. I think we can bet $25 and hope that if someone rivered 2 pair (or a straight with Q8) they will raise (or if somehow the original opener was slowplaying a set). I think in this spot, with the overcard river, the worst thing we can do would be to bet a size where a second-best hand just calls when we might have induced a raise from a smaller bet. We also have the benefit that if we bet smaller we could get called twice. I guess this is true for bigger too, but maybe not as much.

Not sure what a turn x/r accomplishes. What are we repping? That we tried to trap on the flop and missed action so lined up a second shot on the turn?

OP as you can see these are all reasons why a preflop 3bet is vastly superior. In my opinion initiative is more important than hand selection or position in LLSNL. I think you can pretty easily see how much money you'd be printing with a juicy 3 barrel given the runnout if you had the betting lead the whole way through.