Level 6 of the tournament in the local casino, 9-max table
I have about ~40bb left on BB
Fold to SB(stack 25BB), he completes
I check with J3o
Flop(3BB) J23 rainbow
SB checks, I check
5 comes on the turn, there is a flush draw on the board now - J235
SB checks, I bet 2BB, SB raises to 6BB, I go all-in thinking that I am against top pair or 2 smaller pairs or pair + draw

What everyone thinks?

I think call and retain the ability to utilise positional advantage. Significant chance he does something on the river which will help you decide whether you want to pay him off or not with what is effectively a bluff-catcher. Forget about top pair, in La La Land where he has top pair he now can easily fold so raising achieves nothing.

Even if you always intend to pay him off on clean rivers, which would be reasonable, you allow him the opportunity to value bet worse or bluff. All his bluffs have equity, that sucks and you'll curse yourself on rivers that fill tons of draws, but those same rivers will save you from getting stacked when you were already behind on the turn.

+1. No need to raise here, he'll play close to perfect vs an all in here. He'll call straights and sets or J5. Not sure he'll call or even be here with a hand like 52 or 53.

thanks guys, you are right, calling seems to be the best option.

another interesting idea is raising on the preflop 4BB, that SB guy's game seemed fairly tight and he might have folded with only 25BB stack behind.

Why are we not betting flop? We have really good hand and want to start building pot.

I thought that it's quite dry board, so if I bet, which hands except of 2x, 3x, Jx and 54 would pay here? Wheel aces should have raise on the preflop, there are no any flush draws..
I am not really sure if he calls with a gutshot.
And my hand "blocks" Jx,3x to some extent. Also, a lot of 2x, 3x should have folded on the preflop
I wanted to give opponent a chance to hit something on the turn.

Lots of people are limping Ax from sb these days

Lots of people may peel once on flop with Ax

They should peel one with gut shot

We block hands sure but I still want to start putting money in flop as they can still have hands to call with

Many competent players will peel with all sorts of hands in blind vs. blind situations so I think betting here is fine. I'm not super excited to check this back, especially if the board changes and either we start losing value or villain decides to start firing.

As played always calling the raise and deciding river.

We want to bet the flop so we aren't giving two chances for a gutter to get there facing a single bet.

If we bet the flop we can check back this turn and call reasonable river bets to pick off bluffs or hands that are somehow worse than ours that are bet for value on the river... Or we can bet/fold the turn.

Not betting flop should be reported to the police.

I feel you should bet flop to build a pot. Checking behind is meh here.

And meh is always -ev

i am actually quite surprised that a lot of people advocate for c-bet here. I am just wondering - how do you think SB(25BB) calling range looks like on this board? Let me reiterate the list of reasons for this range being miniscule :

• a lot of 2x should fold preflop from SB
• we block 3x, Jx
• Ax should have stolen from SB on the preflop
• there are no fd's on the board

Have you seen him open raise from the sb? If you haven't you have no right to assume he isn't employing a 100% sb complete strat. Even if mixing he should ensure he has some Ax in both portions.

I remember something Matt Janda said in another thread years ago. The average player is not going to pass on a clearly +EV bet with air, while an excellent player would for the sake of a stronger overall strat. So the average player struggles to miss a cbet with air on A73 while a better player would delay some air.

In this case, J32. He's facing a very wide and weak range. Why would he miss a cbet with air on a board where it's difficult your your range to connect? If he had a gutshot, 2 overs, 1 over, backdoor this or that, A high, K high.... he's almost certainly not checking to fold unless he's super passive.

His check range is strong enough to call a bet, and if it's not who cares, God didn't want you to stack him here. Let me tell you now that if you check behind flop (miss a perceived +EV bet) I'm not gonna think you have air when you start raising my turn delay bet.

Bet flop.
If you check turn here you save yourself from coming here and posting this hand.
You might then come and post a river scenario instead.
call river.

as played call turn.

No one is advocating for a c-bet because it's a limped pot. Can't continuation bet without raising pre.

The simple fact that you're calling it a c-bet when the pot is limped and your light 3bet note from the other thread tells me that you are probably a newer player. Nothing wrong with that but when the majority of people are telling you to bet the flop maybe it's because you should be betting the flop.


1. Nah, people are playing pretty wide from the SB and a lot of hands that contain a 2 are actually just completing.

2. Lol blockers, you probably heard that on a tv show or youtube video and while yes we do have blockers that doesn't mean they can't have Jx or 3x.

3. Maybe but lots of people play a mixed strategy and that includes limping Ax hands.

4. Ok, what is your point? We still have 2 pair and need to put chips in the pot if we want to try and get all the chips in by the river. What does a FD have to do with anything?

Thanks numberonedonk, I am not going to argue further, indeed if several experienced players say that i should have bet on the flop, then it's most likely good decision. However, I want to clarify that:
1. I observed how SB played before this hand happened and I was under impression that he is a fairly tight player. Tight players do not limp from SB with marginal hands and 25BB.
2. Indeed, blockers do not block all the 3x, Jx hands, they only block those combos to some extent. But it does reduce the calling range
3. Again, from observations, I was under impression that SB is a fairly straightforward player, so I don't expect him to have mixed strategies.

But again, i understand now that there is nothing wrong with betting on the flop.

1. That is a poor observation. While at 25BB you can probably eliminate the absolute garbage, there is no reason to think the SB isn't limping the majority of his range here. Even if you perceive the player as tight.

2. This is true, but only marginally. And in any case, if he's that tight maybe we bet bigger than normal on the flop, knowing that he's only continuing with a good draw or pair anyway. Or we bet small to get our opponent to continue with a wide range.

I also want to consider what I do with ALL of my hands here, not just my specific hand. I may want to bet small with J3 but I will probably also want to bet small with other hands with no showdown value like T8 knowing that getting Kx or Qx to fold is a huge win.

3. Whether our villain uses mixed strategies or not is somewhat irrelevant. We just need to understand what villain's range is likely to be and the best way to target that range for value.

Thanks for the input! In SB vs BB limped pot I always bet 1/3 of the pot if I am on BB, have no made hand and SB checks on the flop. This only need to work 25% of the time and from my experience(mainly online) it works more often than that.

Well what do they limp with?

A tight player is not going to risk being outdrawn with QQ, AK, even AA for the sake of protecting their limping range.