Game is 2/5 $500 max. Hero has been at the table for 30 minutes and is at a new card room so does not have a whole lot of reads. V in this hand is MAWG, has been fairly active, raising maybe 4 of the first 11 hands. No showdowns though so can't be certain that he hasn't just gotten a good run. His stack is $425 and Hero covers.

One limper to V in MP2 (and OMC who doesn't figure in the hand), V raises to $15, Hero calls in the CO with 55, BTN calls, blinds fold and we are 4 way to the flop:

Flop($62 after max rake)

AT5

Checked to V who bets $25. Hero wants to build the pot here and likes the texture with the Ace so I decide to raise (anyone have arguments for flatting here?). Hero makes it $85 to go, BTN and OMC fold and it is back to V. HE thinks for maybe 10 seconds and makes the call.

At this point, I range him on draws and one pair hands mostly (AK/AQ/AJ, maybe A9). I suppose he could have AT as well and is "waiting to see a safe turn card", but given that we aren't terribly deep, I would guess a normal player would b/3! AT or middle set. He could also have a combo draw like KQ/KJ/QJ. Does this range seem reasonable?

Turn($232)

AT52

V checks. Hero? V has $325 left and we cover. I was legit torn between betting and checking here given my range assignment. It was mostly because I didn't think I was deep enough to b/f BUT I certainly was worried about given a hand like AxK a free look at the river.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Shorn

As played on the turn I think anything but checking is a major mistake. Many live players will try to trap with the made flush here and you have a redraw.

If we want to win the hand without improving to a boat by the river, I think we can expect to only get at most one street of value here. Betting here allows us to be bluffed off the hand just too much. The King of clubs is a concern, but he's only got 7 clean outs to get there.

Flop play is ok. The other option would be to flat and hope to be able to reraise one of the people behind you OR be willing to fold to major action on the turn when a scare card hits. I think with the draws out there, you may get this action anyway with a raise, so i'd just play it like you did.

Ya I like checking this turn back. We run the risk of overplaying our hand if we bet the turn, and if we bet like 110 and he goes all in, we'd be getting 3.1:1 on a call and have to call it off with our holding.

Preflop and flop are very good.

I'm not too worried about an active player raising a lot of hands with only 85 big blinds. I'm happy with getting stacks in. The turn raise was good. Now I would bet like 165 and call off a raise. He's probably putting the rest of it in with his entire range here.

Small argument for flatting flop would be that the only strong hands you can have are: 55 (3), AT (9) and A5s (2), so you are representing many draws.

Gotta raise though. Top of the range on a wet A high board, where we are likely to have our opponent continue, is a mandatory raise versus randoms at low stakes. I'd only consider calling versus really tough regs for balance, and even then it wouldn't be often.

I don't think turn is straightforward against this 500 capped game rando. Against tough regs I would almost always check, but this isn't the case. There's no reason at all to think his range is confined to flushes, when there are probably tons of AK-AJ one club hands, and there's also no reason to think those hands would auto fold to a bet. Plus if he is sticky, you may miss value from the AK-AJ hands with no club if a river club comes. He may also feel compelled to turn his non club hand into a bluff by leading on the 4 flush river, and how happy are you then?

I think he's rather unlikely to have a flush draw since there are only those 3 combos that would also raise preflop (maybe J9 and 98 as well). So he's vastly more likely to have a big Ace or AT or a bigger set.

So I don't think we should be checking this turn. Definitely bet near 3/4pot or so. Jam blank rivers. If river is a club, it's gonna be a rough time.

Flop raise size is pretty small compared to whats' in the pot, I'd go a bit bigger to like $125, to give him about 2:1 on a call instead of about 3:1 you opted for. Also as you can see you left yourself $325 remaining with $230 in the pot, which is awkward and was avoidable.

The vast majority of the time he's got one pair or a flush, and I don't see much middle ground. Your flop raise already looked strong. He's got 12 AK-AJ's, 3 of which might see turn, non club will probably fold. He's also potentially got a lot of flushes, especially since he's opening so much 4 out of 11 times. There are only three top pair and club kicker hands we give a free draw to. And every once in a while we are set over set. I think we check here and pot control.

There's a lot more than three combos of flush draws, he appears to be a pretty splashy character. I think most 2/5 V's make a decent fold with one pair on this turn especially to your suggested bet size.

If V does have AX without X being a club when he calls flop then he's going to struggle to call the turn. Reason being:

When you raise flop he probably thinks you gave 2-pair+ or a FD or strong AX. If he has AX he knows it's less likely you have an Ace too. So he's weighting you towards 2-pair+ and FDs. On the turn if you bet he can't help thinking that most of your flop raising range is now ahead of him. Without the Xc I think he'll just fold.

Therefore we need to add up the number of AX with a club and see how it compares to the number of flushes he could have here. We already discounted most of his 2-pair+ when he didn't try to GII on flop.

Villain's AX that calls turn bet: 3combos (AhKc AdKc AsKc) each of AK AQ and AJ. Maybe he is loose and also has A9/A8, maybe not. That's between 9 and 15 combos.

Villain's turned flushes: KQcc KJcc K9/K8cc? QJcc Q9/Q8cc? J9cc J8cc? 98cc 97cc? 87cc 76cc? 65cc? That's 6 to 14 flushes.

It feels to me like it's going to be quite close whether or not we actually get called by enough worse hands to value bet turn UNLESS V calls some AX no club, has some 2-pair - or he just doesn't open many SC/KXs (seems unlikely if he's raising so frequently).

If he does call tightly on turn then many of the hands that we're currently beating have equity. This further diminishes the chances we've got a good value bet here.

So if I bet I think I want to go pretty small to try to coax calls out of as much AX as possible. I'd go about $100. It'll also give you close to the right odds to call it off to try to boat up if he shoves. Or you could go $85 again and allow yourself to fold (maybe??) to a shove?

I do think it's ok to check back here too though. Mostly the river won't be a club. We do have to be careful with a Broadway river because of his combo draws but I think, with the right river, we can potentially extract more value than on the turn as well as draw for free when he is ahead and forcing him to act in front of us again either way.

Personally I would check here with little in the way of reads and take my chances on being outdrawn going to the river.

I bet $110. 3 things can happen.

1) V shoves and we fold

2) V folds BONUS!

3) V calls. We call any bet on the river. If he checks, check or shove is debatable.

This is pretty spot on IMO. 30 mins is too soon to swing for the fences in these type of spots for me. We don't know that V is sticky enough to call a second barrel with Ax, so I doubt we are getting value against enough of Vs range to justify the risk. Our check back also helps induce a bluff on missed draws and we can easily call a river value bet. If V checks again on safe rivers I think we have to go for value.

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This is insanely bad advice and logic.

1) We can never bet/fold $110. We only need 24% equity to call once we do that and we have 23% if he has a flush every single time and he clearly wont.

2) We dont want villain to fold if we bet.

3) If villain calls the turn bet and open shoves a non board pairing and non 4th flush card river, he has a flush a hell of a lot of the time.

Are you saying that if he shoves on a 4th club river then we should call?

No, Im saying we dont have to auto call if he shoves a brick river.

Very close decision.

I’d assume AA/TT/AT would 3b flop considering: 1) he is oop; 2) 85 bbs to start the hand. I’d also assume the smaller flushes in his range would bet the turn to avoid a river counterfeit.

Possible range for his line could be:
AxKc/AxQc – 6 combos. Not much history, but generally lower AX hands are folding to the flop raise.
High rank flushes – 4 combos.

I’d lean bet / gii, $180.

Somewhat close but I would bet the turn. It's likely the best line against the majority of his range since he has few made flushes (probably under 11 but can't be sure given history). His most likely made flushes were also prime candidates to 3 bet the flop (KQ/KJ/QJ) Meanwhile, he has 24 combos of AQ/AK and 6 of them have a club. He also has some ATs/A5s.

Without a club in his hand he is going to pay off one more street or he isn't, it doesn't matter if it's on the turn or river. With a club in his hand, he is far more likely to pay off a bet on the turn than the river unimproved. If we get him to fold out hands on the turn with a club in them that would not have called a river bet unimproved that's a good outcome as well.

Bet around 170 and obviously call it off against a jam. I'm jamming brick rivers.

This is a good point and in retrospect I do think I should have raised more on the flop. It did create an awkward stack for me which caused problems on the turn.

Really good stuff and wish I had gone through this detailed process before making my turn decision as now that I look back on it, there were probably more than one better option than what I chose.

I decided that stack sizes were weird enough (my fault due to flop sizing) that I could not bet/fold here. That being said, I chose an amount ($165) that was in hindsight too big and would result in V calling/shoving only with better and folding all else. I now think checking or betting less (like $100-$115) are superior as they likely accomplish the same thing (charging draws) but potentially give me a small out to bet/fold if I sense I am beat.

Anyway, V shoved and I called. He said "how big is your flush?" which was no bueno obv, I bricked and he won with 87. River was not a club so not sure how he would have played it had I bet less or checked, but I think I played this hand pretty poorly and maybe lost more than I should have here.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Shorn

Yeah you are probably right here Mike. Pot would be $667 to call $215, so a bit over 3-1, so I would need 32% equity to call off here (if I eliminate higher sets from his range which would make sense as doubt he would check/shove a set when the flush came in). So, with 10 outs, it is right there (44 unseen cards assuming he tabled two clubs, 3.4-1 to fill), Small -EV but that goes away even with a tiny chance I am ahead and he is making a play with AX

Bet the turn 2/3 pot and snap villain off. Toss the dealer a $1 chip and say pair the board just in case before the river card is dealt. You cannot get away from this hand given your stacksize and whats in the pot.

Coolers happen. Do not check the turn. Villain has a lot more hands other than flushdraws when you raise the flop that you can continue to get value from on the turn.

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b/c turn is spew. We are not getting two streets of value from top pair and that hand is drawing dead 75% of the time. We can wait until the river and get the same value from that and not expose ourselves to getting crai from the significant part of the range that just got there. Betting to protect and for value here against specifically 3 hands isn't making sense.

Ouch but you are right unless that hand has a club in it (so AxK/AxQ/AxJ/maybe KQx and KxQ). And I agree those hands may pay off a river bet as well on a blank. I guess I felt my bet was more of an equity protection bet than pure value in this spot. Regardless, it was too big and as you and others have pointed out, checking may have been superior.

My post was directed more at the chorus of bet/call posters who are excited to keep betting when the obvious draw came in that either made V's hand or scared it.

Yeah no, blindly shoving your stack (100+ BBs) into a wet board where we only get called by straights and flushes (in this hand) is not a cooler.

I made enough of these mistakes in my first 30 hours to chose my forum ID specifically to remind myself to double check the board before playing sets like this.

Against unknowns, I just pot control this and check back turn. We can eval the river card then, but generally speaking I'm less concerned about a paired board killing action here. But my card room is nittier than average, so betting turn after raising is unlikely to get called by anything lower than a flush.