(1st.. i like a pre flop raise more)

Enough said about pre.

obv this is a tough spot... I feel that V1 and V2 range is wider than Adjx hands and KdXx hands. The problem lies within the pot sized bet call on the flop from V1 and V2.. i would smell something fishy to me and as nitty as it sounds check the turn..

The reasoning for checking is that it puts you in a wierd spot otr if you bet into 2 pople.. I feel you if you bet the turn the only bet at minimum is half the pot.. if you do that. leaving you with 119 behind on the river.... but a tricky situation depending on the river card (hopefully not any diamond.)

Eh as cray as it sounds i like checking the turn to see what V1 and V2 do....

This is a really good hand and would love to see more responses

I personally check/evaluate turn

What are we getting called by for value? AdJx, KdJx?

Thanks for all the responses so far. As basic as this hand is, I am not yet confident with any line.

I am interested if the sizing on the flop is correct?

Are we committed on the flop? If so, consider overbetting flop.
As played, check/fold.

Initially, I was on board with trying to check through the turn and get to showdown.

But I threw in some ranges in Poker Stove. I gave one villain sets and AJ, KJ hands and I gave the other villain flush draws and AJs, KJs. I feel this is a fairly snug range for villains

Now, I think that the above ranges are probably weighted more towards AJ/KJ hands because flush draws should be shoving over the top of Hero's flop bet a fair amount of the time. I mean, pot is pretty big on flop with Hero's bet and villains should want to see two cards if they are on the flush draw. Now, does this mean villains are shoving the FDs all the time? No, but I think flush draws are shoving flop at least 30% of the time (especially V2 since he's last to call).

So, Hero should have a little more equity than poker stove shows. Also, we can get value from AdJx and KdJx hands.

So initially, I was a fan of checking turn, but after careful thought and stoving this, I think we have to shove turn. We just have too much equity to fold

Obviously, when we shove and V turns over AQ we feel stupid but the math is the math. We have the equity to call a shove, so we might as well utilize fold equity and shove which in a sense is charging AJx and KJx draws.

Too bad we don't have the Q makes a huge difference equity wise

So overall, not a boner inspiring spot by any stretch. I think we are just stuck, which is what happens when SPR < 1

Maybe, maybe not. 5x can be a bit low, but sometimes you never really know what's going to happen. Like Op said, sometimes one guy calls a big bet, and suddenly half the table feels priced in. Surely you've had that happen before: make what you thought was a healthy bet from EP with a big pair/AK/AQ, then watched in horror when 4-5 players call.

I'm checking here.

dgi--I think these ranges you put in are reasonable. I'm amazed at the difference the Q makes.

I'm still not so convinced by pf comments in thread. Once it gets over 5bbs, people need a hand to call (eg. KTo lol). If I make it 8-10 bbs, sometimes an early call makes the KJ's think "yeah, let's gambool," but mostly you get looked up by premium hands and are committing to a 15-20 bb CB oop. If I'm in position w/ AA and someone makes a pf raise to $30 [$15-18 is quite big in this game--"ten (or fifteen) on top" is usual]. I might just call if that player is known to laydown hands to big 3bets but will often bet the pot on the flop.

stacks $300 effective--
Hero raises to $30, solid player calls in co
pot $~60 flop:249
Hero bets $50, Solid player calls
Turn, $160--249 J

So what do we do here? Either co has a bigger pair, AK, or something that will lay down for a bet (like TT)

This hand puts us in a similar spot to OP, though we are now heads up. The question is how do we make our commitment decision. Once I have put 28% of my stack in, it is hard to get away with an overpair.

When the bet is almost double the standard pf raise, we are often taking the blinds down by betting $30 pf and missing value on our QQ. Wouldn't we rather have QJ come along?

DGI's pokerstove makes an extremely compelling case.

Such an overall tough spot.

Im still folding though, I think its going to be so tough to get value from any worse hands, besides AdJx or KdJx.. a ship here might even fold out QdJx..

Either people fold more easily because the bet is smaller and we get heads up (much preferable to this crap situation) OR

they all come along anyway and have a huge pot with a top ten premium holding with an SPR so low that when the flop comes as it did, we have no question what the best play is.

Sometimes, we raise big and everyone comes along anyway and ya that's not as fun (except when we win), but that's faaaaar superior to raising an amount that we KNOW will get called by half the table just because we're scared of having to bet more on the flop. That's the point of raising. So we can bet more on the flop. If you could open shove QQ and get called by worse you'd do it.

As usual the few times we disagree in a thread, the issues are pretty subtle, and it starts with the ranges you've assigned.

There are basically 2 issues that I think call your analysis into question:

1. I don't think the ranges you assigned Villains are necessarily accurate--and here the decision is so close that even little mistakes in assigning the ranges matter. For one thing, you've assigned V1 a range that includes no flushes.

In my analysis I came to the conclusion that the probability we're drawing dead is pretty high. The main reason I think that is because I think either of our opponents can have a flush here, not just V2. In your analysis you gave V2 5 combos of flushes and 18 combos of other stuff. Firstly I think there are more combos of flushes than you assigned--you don't think V2, described as loose, can show up with smaller suited connectors here? If he can have QT, I think he can also have T9, 97, 75, or 54 (maybe even some smaller ones but let's stop there). That's 4 more combos. If we toss those in, V2 has us drawing dead 33% of the time.

But now let's say that V1 also has flushes in his range, and let's assume he can show up with a flush 33% of the time as well. Our equity plummets! We're drawing dead over half the time now! Our equity in this spot comes from the times we're up against Jx from both Villains; if we widen V1's range to include flushes this happens significantly less often.

2. Let's put that aside and assume that the ranges you've given the Villains are accurate. The ranges you've given them are the ranges that they can have in this spot. That is not necessarily the same range that they will call a shove with. I think a lot of the Jx no diamond hands will fold, especially if V1 has a hand like that. But those are the hands that the lion's share of our equity is supposed to be coming from. So when we actually get all-in, our equity is going to be lower than what you claim.

Furthermore, as to the bolded part above, for the same reason, I disagree that we have the equity to call a shove (if I agreed with that, though, then I'd agree with your conclusion that we might as well shove ourselves). If we check here, a lot of the weaker hands in the range that make up most of our equity are also going to check (especially if V1 has them). So when someone else actually puts a big bet in here, our equity changes because the range of hands they play that way changes, and I think often it will mean we should actually be folding. In particular a bet from V1 should be viewed as extremely strong and we should not have the equity to call it.

Between these two points, I think the decision swings from a borderline, not-happy-about-it shove to a less borderline, but still not-happy-about-it check.

Well this may be true, the point I was trying to make is that I think there is a certain threshold where players will start to fold Jx and single diamond hands. It really comes down to player tendencies and whether they will call all-in with a draw or Jx. I find that most players will fold single diamonds OTT to a shove. A good portion will fold Jx too.

I have seen so many times naked Ad calling here. That combined with top pair, most villains cannot find a fold. I'm not sure what is the correct play here as checking lets someone IP use the scare card as bluff esp if the villain is even marginally competent. I think the question is how often, 3 way in this spot we are against a made flush.

I quite like the discussion assigning ranges instead of just saying raise more pre as the mantra to avoid any tricky spot. Many times we do not know what is the sweet spot in terms of raising pre to get exact one caller. It is more trial and error and sometimes you get two caller, sometimes one and sometimes none.

You are absolutely right, this decision is so close that any mistake in ranges swings decisions either way. I absolutely agree with that statement.

You are right, if we put flush draws in both their ranges we are screwed. However, I felt okay with splitting their ranges into two categories: One villain with AJ/KJ and sets and the other villain with AJ/KJ and flush draws. The reason I did this was because I felt that a flush draw should be shoving flop to see two cards and realize fold equity. So I felt the probability of two flush draws just calling seemed low. Not to mention the probability of both villains having the flush draw. I mean, if we started out with 8-way action and then reduced to 2 villains then sure, 2 flush draws could be possible. But starting out 3-way and to have both our villains flopping a flush draw and then both villains just call their flush draw without shoving over the top of a fairly decent sized pot as relates to SPR seemed improbable to me.

So, I felt comfortable splitting the ranges as such. That was my logic. But you make a pretty compelling argument.

I think I'm right about the ranges but you are right about the range of hands that continue, in particular, our shove folding out all non diamond AJ/KJ/QJ hands ...

So, I think we have to check through turn and then reevaluate river.

but what sucks so bad is that we end up folding to river value bets by hands we beat...

So then I guess we are check/folding river????

i just think the villains' ranges are too skewed toward flushes to put any more money into this pot, unless it's checked through on the turn, in which case value bet a third of the pot if a brick comes on river.

there's a good chance we would have heard from AJ and maybe even KJ on the flop, which cuts down on a decent number of the hands that we can expect to be ahead of. and with a description of V2 as 'Spewy and loose' and 'Calls raises with poor hands,' his range is very wide as the second pre-flop caller here and includes an array of connected and semi-connected diamond draws. the ranges discussed above are too narrow.

T9 has not been talked about here much, and has to be considered, but i don't think T9 would make a play here on the turn so we're likely to get a reliable picture with the action that would follow a turn check.

flop bet sizing is good, and the fact that it was larger lessens the possibility that we're up against mid-pairs like 77 or 99 here, making flushes even more likely.

this is simply not a hand we want to go to the mat with imo.

To the first bolded statement: I am not claiming both villains need to be on flush draws at the same time. I'm just saying both villains can have flush draws in their ranges at different times. For example, in your ranging, one possibility for the flop action is that V1 calls with AJ and V2 overcalls with a flush draw. Or, V1 calls with a set and V2 overcalls with AJ. But I'm saying it's also possible that V1 calls with a flush draw and V2 overcalls with AJ. That's a possibility that your ranges don't account for but I think has a decent chance of happening.

In order to be drawing dead here, we don't need both villains to have flushes--we just need one of them to have a flush. I'm not saying it's likely they both have one; I'm saying it's likely that at least one of them has one.

As to the second bolded statement, if the turn checks through, we don't have to check/fold the river; if neither guy bets the turn and the river bricks we can try a small value bet (not a shove) to see if the Jx parts of the range look us up. (The difference is that when there's no turn bet we can start to de-weight the flushes in their range, and also Jx is more likely to call when it's one bet to see a showdown.)

Now that my daily railing on a preflop raise is past, I an say that I like this a lot. Sucky spot, but I think this is probably best.