giving odds is a stupid concept. If a hand you are ahead of faces a bet, you are getting value, even if its EV+ for them to call. In this case, checking, which was the concensus, would give them even better odds. you can also get value out of other weaker made hands, and fold lower draws which arent sure they are good. You also could get called by several different single card club draws, like if you had an opponent with Qc and another with Tc. Also even if none of this were true, you cant simply ignore a line just because it gives a portion of their hands an easy decision.

Beyond this, consider if you bet your whole range like this. Sets and 2p can call a raise with draws to the nuts, and youve pot controlled. Kc are happy when those immediate odds people are making their “easy” calls (I acually commonly will make this sort of bet, check back turn or bet small again on turn, check river and win with king high), and you can also even bet the nuts like this.

People suggesting a 40% bet size are basically suggesting the same thing except their bet

1) bloats the pot more
2) gets more folds (bad because you want calls from weak aces, mid pairs etc)
3) loses you more money when you get raised.

FWIW i spam 25% pot bet sizes on static boards and it seems to juke everyone out of their shoes because no one does it so they dont know what it means.

People suggesting checking, the bet by the fish shows exactly the problem. (but you should snap fold)

So I decided to call the $100 bet from the fish. I would've folded to a bet and a raise but Im not surrendering vs one player. I think Im ahead most of the time. Odds are low that he has a flush. He could have 2 pair or a set of course but the odds of that are the same as they would be if the board was not monotone. I wouldnt be folding AQ on a Ac6c3s board and Im not doing it here HU. CRAI is OK, but Id rather see a safe turn card before committing myself.

I have AhQs

Turn ($350) Ac6c3c5d. Action is on me. I spend a few extra seconds thinking than I normally would. Villain has his chips stacked unevenly and starts picking them up counting them. I sense that he may shove but Im not sure. He looks nervous.

He has $235 left. Whats your action?

Just shove. If you didn’t fold the flop you’re not going to fold the turn on a brick so all x does is allow V to x back and realize his equity.

First off, i will say that i dont think check-raise stacking off on the flop is ok with the somewhat limited info we have on villain combined with population tendencies in raised very multiway pots. As Koss mentioned earlier, villain has demonstrated that he can take it slowly on earlier streets- even with an overpair. And i also totally agree with him that we simply cant get a detailed grip on his 2/3 pot bettingrange into the world on a monotone board at this point, thus i think we very well can make a large mistake getting it in on the flop.

Now to your faulty logic about not being afraid of sets/two pair, cause you have the same small chances of being up against those hands as if the board was rainbow. You cant put those two scenarios up against eachother, because on this monotone board its a total of more combos that beats you (have you close to drawing dead), than on the rainbow board. On the rainbow board, you "only" have to be worried about aces up and sets- but in this case, you have additional hands to be worried about: flushes. So that means the total chances of being up against hands that have you close to drawing dead is bigger in the hand you are presenting to us here, and we simply have to take that into account. Its not important that the the pot is now HU either at this point- what matters is that you raised from early pos and 6 players saw the flop.

As played when calling the flop though, and getting this brick turn- you can just pile in the rest yourself as a lead (because i guess youre not folding either way at this point if villain ships it in). Just to not give villain the chance of taking a free card in position with a hand that contains a club.

The way we beat our opponents is when they make mistakes. Giving them great FD odds is not helping our cause.

Thanks for posting this. This is a spot I probably play wrong at the table so doing some work on should help my game. I haven’t read the other comments yet.

A couple of quick PKR cruncher results to frame my comments:

1. Versus 5 opponents with top 25% of hands, you have a 25% to 15% equity edge on that flop with your AQ
2. The naked Kc has 38% equity. To deny all that equity you need a huge overbet of $250.

These points I think speak to betting, the second to betting large. The problem is the stack size of most of your opponents is going to pot commit you if they call since their SPR’s are going to be less than 1 and you maybe drawing dead. So I don’t think I can bet large.

I’m leaning towards a small bet maybe 40% of pot and evaluate if raised. I’d lean towards calling good players since it a great spot to jam the naked Kc.

If called I’d play the turn very carefully versus good players and look to fold the turn on any aggresion versus a fish.

If the turn and river brick I’m going to value bet a lot on the river, 40 or 50% of pot and fold to a raise.

I’m not sure this is the right line.

I think Petrucci's point about playing vs. the field rather than this particular opponent is important: it's not so much we have to believe that V "has it" but that one of 5 is likely to.

There's some weird stuff about this guy, just from the few hands you posted, about playing hands upside-down: the AA is slowplayed until the river, where top set loses to both straight and flush. But still: top set is a strong hand, so bet, right? Maybe our theory is that he bets based on absolute strength rather than relative - so he shouldn't be betting a naked TP (or god forbid, a draw).

Thats the whole reason to check and see what happens after that. Once there's a bet and everyone else folds, I am playing only against the one guy and decisions are much easier.

So results ...

Turn ($350) Ac6c3c5d

I wasnt sure whether or not villain was going to shove or check behind so I shoved for him. He called with AxJc. I put him on a big ace with or without a club.

If I crai on the flop and he calls with a club we are basically 50/50.
If I crai and he has no club he may not call.

So when I called the $100 on the flop, I already decided I was shoving any non club turn. The only reason I hesitated was because it looked like he was going to shove out of turn so I gave him a few extra secs to do it. When he looked unsure, I shoved for him.

If he calls with AxJc on the turn, Im 73% favorite. Much better than doing it on the flop IMO. If the turn is a club I can get away. If he has a flush/set/2pair I doubt that it matters what I do because I dont think hes folding after putting in $100.

The only downside is if the turn is a club and he shoves without a club which this guy may well have done based on his AA hand.

That’s an OK reason to check. But let’s be clear, their is a huge cost to that. Your giving away the initiate to someone in position. Basically your giving him the opportunity to play his hand perfectly and fully capture his equity.

Of course, but thats what happens when you are OOP in a big pot. Especially when 6 people see the flop. That's unavoidable.

Nailed it again.

Kobe!

It’s only unavoidable if you check. Betting does maintain the initiative and somewhat negatives the posistional advantage since you set the price.

Well there's no perfect situation in a spot like this. We can bet and get ourselves into all kinds of trouble if there's a call (or 2). What do we do if we bet $70 on the flop and get called twice? On the turn the pot is going to be about the same ($360) but we are OOP to 2 other people with no idea if we are ahead, behind or drawing dead....which is twice as likely now. Are we checking the turn when its 3 handed to the turn?

If we bet $70 on the flop and our fishy villain shoves $335 then what? We will be much more likely to fold the winner. If we bet $70 and the fish calls and someone else raises, we can fold but that just cost us an extra $70.

I think checking the flop is the best option in a tough spot like this. Checking the flop and waiting to see the action before we proceed is almost as good as being last to act. It may even be better. Being last to act may seem better because it can never check thru unless we want it to but that's not necessarily a good thing because people check most everything to the raiser so if we are last to act we have learned nothing about anyone's hand until after we bet.

Mike - if I bet flop, fish jammed and everyone else folded I would never be folding your hand.

Your argument about wasting $70 is fine, but you also risk flops checking thru and allowing the field to realize their equity. That’s the point I was making when I said you checking, fish betting and everyone else folding was a very very positive variance outcome for this particular permutation of the hand.

This is also why I say poker is a game of very small margins, because even when you “run good” like in this flop action, you still have to fade outs and continue running good for the remainder of the hand.

This is the kind of thing that takes thousands upon thousands of hours to even out.

Agreed. I guess my main point is that I would rather take the chance of other people realizing their equity than putting more money in and having to fold or building a massive pot and still being OOP on the turn with no idea what to do.

Some people raise preflop pretty infrequently. Those people are much more likely to attack this flop because they dont hit TP all that often and they arent willing to surrender a pot that already had $150 in preflop.

I play about 24/17 so I am raising enough preflop that Im more worried about the money going in the rest of the hand than I am what I already put in or worried about fighting over the $150.

This is where you need to understand the odds of you being behind. There's a world of difference between being called by one player or 3 players. If one player calls, the odds are they are on a draw. If three players call, the odds are that one of them beats TPGK. If someone raises and there was already a caller, you're beat. You can easily fold.

I know from other threads that the math behind poker is one of your leaks. You have the ability to be a great player. Ignoring the math is going to deny you the opportunity to be make a career of poker.

this is inaccurate. We make our money off of making non reciprocal plays compared to our opponents, for example, if I had Qc (and lets say I was the fish) and you checked here (which was your proposed play), I would receive a free look at the turn card by checking back, however if you had Qc, I would bet $35 and you would be forced to decide whether to call with players behind (you would likely call, and I would get value from your draw). My play, being different and better than yours, has caused me to on average make money off of you, even though you made the right call my bet. Further, if i were the fish and had a set, i would bet $100 and you would possibly stack off with top pair against me, and if you were the fish and had a set, youd raise me and id fold, again having an advantage on the outcome.

Further, worrying about direct odds to call is ridiculous, because you can happily call without direct odds with Kc because of IO.

Odds to call only really matter if there is some real possibility of taking down the pot, because youd rather have the pot than a value bet which is less than the direct odds to the draw. In this case, there is near zero chance you take down the pot, so this concept is entirely irrelevant to the circumstance.

yeesh, i feel like this may well be best case, facing 2 draws to 12 outs. could he really have A4 with no C here? or a bare Kc?

I mean, no idea what “total fish” means, but normally these guys arent semi bluffing.

I think it would be tough to put him on a range you beat, but maybe can find a range you have pot odds against. I would fold, but i think calling turn for a free look is WAY better than raising, you can ship blank turns, check/fold the flush ones, and if he checks back the 4 card flush, you can probably bluff ship the river and he will fold his 2p or set.

Lets move past the flop for a second and talk about the lead on the turn. I’m surprised at how good this works out. I sat down this afternoon to do the math on it, expecting this to be a big loser as I thought it was pretty likely that most no flush draw hands were going to fold and you were going to get snapped off by nutted hands which was going to destroy your profitability but it’s a solid line. I’m not convinced it’s the bets line. But it works.

Here is my math.
Most likely there are only a few types of hands that bet that flop. Flopped flushes, an ace with no flush draw, an ace with a flush draw, a good pair with a flush draw, a set and naked king flush draw. The below table indicates the number of reasonable combos for each type of hand and each hand types equity versus AsQh after both the flop and the turn and the aggregate equity on the flop and the turn versus all of the combos.

crap... need to figure out how to make image work.
You're drawing dead on the flop to sets and flopped flushes which is 24% of combos.
You're ahead in aggregate versus flush draws (53/47 on flop and a lot better on turn 70/30) but the fact that AxKs is in V's range makes it way closer than I'd guess most think, and thats 36% of V's combos.
You're target here is the other 40% of hands, which are top pair no flush draw. Where you have a huge equity edge versus these 36 combos of 65/35. The problem is I don't think there is a reasonable reason to think V has this than any only of the other types of hands.

You’re leading $230 into a $350, so the equity needed for V to call is (230/570) is 40%. Lets look at that versus the 6 types of hands I laid out earlier:

- Flopped Flush: 17% of the time, V’s equity is 100% and he never folds so you lose $142 on that bet ($810*17%)
- Ace no FD: 40% of the time. V’s equity is 35%, there is definitely fold equity here and which ace he has matters but for simplicity lets say he folds half the time. You win $173 (350*40%*.5)+(810*65%*40%*.5)
- Ace and a FD Combos: 9% of the time with very little fold equity and V’s has small equity edge 52% versus Hero’s 48%. Hero loses $34.
- Good pairs and flush draw: 18% of the time. I think you have a lot of fold equity. Solid players should be folding here almost always I think, but lets say you 25% calls. Hero makes $77.
- Sets: 7% of the time. No fold equity, you lose $53.
- Naked K: 9% of the time. Again most solid players aren’t calling here but lets say you get 25% calls. Hero makes $37

You make $57 in aggregate.

I may spend some more time thinking about how alternative lines play out. Though it is worth noting that the ideal flop action happened on the check, where the next player to act raised a good amount for hero and folded out everyone else. It’s pretty likely that if hero lead out $100 the exact same thing would have happened in this situation.

As best as I can tell, your math is assuming hero always hits the excellent turn card.