$1/$2 at Mohegan Sun on a Tuesday afternoon. Good game with several typical daytime nits and some action players. The two opponents in this hand are action.

V1 - Young white guy. We played together a couple days ago. He is a fish but I haven't really figured out his strategy yet. He buys in short and jams a lot pre-flop with a wide range. He has run up his stack to about $225. He is a loose player who open limps and also open raises a lot of hands to varying sizes pre-flop. We played a hand where I opened KQ to $10 in LP and he defended BB. Flop AJ3r and he donks $10 off a $125 stack. I call but thought about raising. Turn 3 and he continues for $30 and I fold. $225 stack.

V2 - Old white guy in motorcycle gear. Playing a wide range. He has shown down 34o to win several pots to the point that he and I have been joking about it. He has been open limping and open raising pre-flop, and he limp re-raised me with JJ at one point. Recently he lost a pot to me where I checked my option with 56o in a limped pot. Flop was 9c5s6s and I led for $5. V1 from above called and V2 raised the button to $21. Both myself and V1 called. Turn 3d. Check check V2 bets $50. I call and V1 folds. River 8c. Check Check and I beat V2's A9o. $200 stack.

Hero - Young white guy. I play at this room regularly and should have a reputation as an aggressive winning player. I'm up today and have shown down some solid winning hands. I also had a solid winning session two days ago when V1 and I played together.

Hand:

V1 limps UTG1. V2 overlimps EP. Hero raises BTN to $15 with KcQs. Blinds fold. V1 calls. V2 calls.

Flop: Jh Td 4c (Pot: $43)

Checks to me and I bet $15. Both villain's call. I think this is a standard pre-flop cbet multiway in position with the nut draw.

Turn: JhTd4c Qd (Pot: $86)

V1 donks $25. V2 calls. Hero?

Obviously this is a card that massively favors my range. I am almost 100% certain neither of these players have AK QQ JJ TT based on pre-flop. I think V1 is raising most of his broadway hands instead of limp-calling, so I would discount 2 pair as well.

When V1 donks here, I think he probably has a pair plus draw hand that wants to see a cheap river. I don't really know what V2 has when he calls twice, but I think he raises his strong hands on the flop and, as mentioned, he doesn't have the nuts based on pre-flop. 98 and K9 are a possibility for both players, although I don't know if K9 continues on the flop.

Obviously I'm never folding top pair and an open-ender facing a small bet in position. Would anyone consider raising here? If so, how much are you raising and how are you proceeding on brick rivers? I don't expect to get 3bet on this board much but obviously have to fold the turn if I get jammed on, right?

Preflop and flop are pretty standard I think.

Turn: I prefer the lower variance strategy here of just calling. We get direct odds to make our straight. Getting re-raised off of our equity would suck.

Now it's possible that we have dirty diamond outs because V2 could have picked up a flush draw. And V1's donk is weird, even for a weird player. It's possible he's trying to set the price for his draw.
He can also have Q9 here, which is good.

I guess I'm calling down brick rivers getting any reasonable price. Given the stack sizes, we do have to be prepared for V1 to jam bricks, so we would get maybe 2-1 to call. If we bink, I think we can value bet if checked to.

The bet on the flop is very small? I don't think they should ever be folding to this bet on this board? What does it achieve?

builds the pot, makes it more likely you'll see the river for free. highly unlikely to get CRd either on this board given pf action.

I like calling the turn. Raising seems bad.

I would encourage anyone else to correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of modern poker theory is that one should c-bet smaller (less than half pot) in multi-way pots. Betting small puts my opponents in a difficult spot with hands like Ace high, small pairs, weak draws, etc. I actually think there are a lot of hands in a typical limp-calling range which should fold to this size bet multiway, so betting $15 into ~$45 can be very effective and efficient as a bluff. If I get called, I can double-barrel on certain turn cards and expect my opponents to still have some weak hands in their range that they can fold. Or like, NittyOldMan1 said, I can check back the turn and get a cheap river. I agree with him that it's unlikely I will get check-raised very often on this board and, even if I do, I can certainly continue with this particular hand. And for the record, I would be c-betting the same size here if I had a good hand as well.

Here is some more detail from UpSwing regarding sizing down c-bets multiway:

source: https://upswingpoker.com/multi-way-p...rategies-tips/

Thanks, I was genuinely interested. This kinda makes sense if the Vs are ever folding. Like the article says, we are doing this to improve the bluffing efficiency.

For sure. I appreciate your genuine interest. I know there are some spots that theory dictates that we still size up on a cbet multi-way. It's entirely possible that this flop of JT5r is one of them. I'm definitely not an expert in multi-way post-flop play.

Theory also kind of goes out the window when you are playing against maniacs who are limp-calling with garbage. There is definitely no one perfect way to play this spot and, as will be demonstrated when I post the results of this hand, I can assure you that the way that I ultimately played this hand was pretty far from perfect.

Calling turn, not raising unless I had a much better handle on all Vs involved. Keeping in their air as well

OK, it's been a day and no one has advocated for raising turn. That makes me feel more confident that I made a mistake in game, because I did raise the turn to $75. My thinking was that V1 is often weak here, but probably has a hand with equity which will call a raise (JXdd, AXdd, Q9, KT, etc.). I also thought there was some chance V2, who is somewhat capped and sandwiched in the middle, might fold a better hand than KQ (AQ is possible for him, as well as maybe a raggy two pair like J4s). I was thinking about this as sort of a merge-y raise, which can both get better to fold and worse to call. I figured I would most likely check back on a blank river, and hope to beat one of the above listed hands.

The reality is that I think I was just overthinking things here. I have a tendency to do that. I also have a tendency to spazz on occasion, and being donked into in weird spots can sometimes cause me to spazz.

There is a clear, simple, and good way to proceed against this donk, which is to call in position with TPGK and an open-ender. Against two fish who are largely unknown, I should probably be sticking to the clear, simple, and good path, instead of trying to play way above the rim (sorry for the mixed metaphor).

The final result of this hand is pretty weird. I'll spoiler tag, just in case anyone wants to contribute further without seeing what happened first.

In theory, V1 should never have Q7o in this position, but it seems quite common in these live games. Calling the flop bet with Q7o is terrible, obviously.

Our strategy seems fine until the turn, but after that every play is a bit questionable. The most likely hands for V1 after the donk bet on turn are QJ, QT, Q9, Q8, even something like AQ and KQ. Very hard to imagine any hands not involving a Q. Therefore, we should probably be calling and not raising. On the river we should also check since we are beat by many of the V1's hands and it is difficult to imagine anything worse than KQ would call. V1's call with two pair seems completely fine and I would not imagine them ever folding this.

This is very fair analysis and I agree on the river play. V1's check/call is good and my jam is bad. The jam with KQ does not work as a value bet because worse hands should not call and it does not work as a bluff because better hands should not fold.

were you seriously bluffing with top pair? i cant see that being good in a low limit game, like ever.

Yeah next level FPS from me.

When I raised the turn, I was hoping to get value from V1's inferior made hands and combo draws. When I jammed the river, I got spooked by his table talk and was hoping to get worse hands to fold. Looking back, it seems absurd, especially given the remaining stack size.

I would just call turn. A bunch of villains, as you can see, aren't thinking on the level that you have the exclusive nuts on this board and they should never lead. They won't fold a Q, much less two pair. The donk lead is somewhat a give away that they are a fish and I would not expect to get a fish to fold a queen.

Villain's hand is pretty absurd though. Rough beat.

I think calling turn is best, we have position, a decent hand, a decent draw. That said I don’t think this donk is strong very often. Like you said most of the strong hands on this board are raising pre. But yes, 89 and K9 are peeling flop vs a small bet.

If you’re going to raise turn you should ship it.

river is unbelievable spew if you're bluffing (i think theres a non zero chance he calls a worse hand but still bad jam)

i think turn read is mostly accurate but raising makes more sense vs one as opposed to 2 imo. also ironically the q7 is fairly good evidence your theory about small cbetting putting pairs and ace high in tough spots is wrong atleast with this crowd

Indeed, which was also my initial thought about the flop bet sizing. Curious how to deal with this from the theoretical point of view? Bet more on the flop and be ready to go all-in vs a raise? What is the GTO approved play on this flop (I don't know how to solve for three people).