ITM at the Venetian $250. Effective stacks are 33ish BBs.

Loose, somewhat passive player open limps the button. We complete with 97ss. I assume this is OK. Sure, we can raise to isolate, but let's just say we call. Tight BB checks his option.

Flop is K64, rainbow, with one of my suit. This looks like a good board for a bluff, not too connected, and I have plenty of backdoors to barrel with on the turn.I bet ~1/2 the pot. BB folds, button calls.

Turn is a King, completing the rainbow. Should I be barreling the turn?

No. You bet the flop based largely on the premise that you can barrel lots of turn cards that either improve your equity or your perceived range, but you didn't get one of those cards on the turn.

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Yeah a barrel here is burning money.

As mentioned, you didn't get the card you were looking for. You're also in a situation where your overlimp range OOP in the SB more often hits the middle/bottom of the flop. Your range is capped.

Even if he's passive he's likely to call you down here since his continuing range on the flop is stronger than yours, and it's probably even stronger after a Q hits the turn.

I don't think the flop bluff was terrible, but I would have sized it a bit smaller. Closer to 1/3 pot.

I don’t think your range is capped, for example lots of suited kings you could have completed with. You didn’t pick up equity but this might be a good card to barrel unless he is so passive that he limps KJ on button or something like that. You will get foods from hands like 76, A6, 54 etc

Don’t they know it’s an auto barrel nor do I think it’s burning money. If he has no king or slowplayed monster the pot is probably yours

Having a weak suited queen or king is a capped range. That's pretty much the very top end of it.

Hawkes:

The turn paired the king.

Hmm, not sure how I misread that, sorry.

Still, if you want to take the bluff line with a paired king on the turn, I think a turn check followed by a river shove is more likely to take it down than a 2nd barrel when the board pairs. V is probably continuing with any pairs 22-TT if you bet the turn.

Not many combos of the pairs and again how passive of a player we are talking about is very important here. Think even the most passives will raise most kings and at least medium pairs such as 77s or 88s here. So think the turn bet will shake out many combos of hands like A4, A6, 65, 76, 54 etc

im not convinced donking is best here, being first to act we have no info to act and make the best desicion on. We are bluffing with 0 outs, don't think purely semi-bluffing back-doors oop is a very +ev long term strategy

As played x/f turn

Don’t really agree that we are bluffing with 0 outs, you do have six outs against a lot of hands that call you

I don’t really bother with the play OOP with two OOP, as played I’m not sure about the second barrel but I have a hunch it’s profitable if it does get him off small pairs.

If anyone is interested in diving deeper, try plugging assumptions into flopzilla

But we got the best possible bluff card

Thanks for all of the answers. I did check the turn. The river was a Queen (Hawkes was one street ahead of himself) and I checked again. Villain showed 65ss.

My question really revolves around Scoth's observation. Did we get the best bluff card? Or will pairing the King make Villain more skeptical that I have a King and entice him to call me down?

Digging further, how many bluffs should we have on the turn? We can choose to bluff all of the hearts, and the 6 cards that give us OESD. That is 16 bluffs. Another 6 give us gutters. 6 cards make us one pair, which might easily be good against Villain's flopped middle/bottom pair.

Should we ever bluff here with what has turned into almost complete air ( just overcards to a small pair)

I think so because the non pocket pairs are now drawing dead if you have what you are representing. Sure some might consider that is less likely you have kings but you did bet into two people OOP, so the drawing dead aspect is usually more of a concern. I think a limping range on button has a lot of those small connector stuff in the range plus the six possible pair outs makes it seem like a profitable second barrel. Of course the king on board makes it less likely he has one as well (especially with just the limp preflop) and we are mostly playing his hand...

its a fairly terrible bluff card. you didn’t gain any equity and it drastically reduces the amount of value combos you had in your range when you lead the flop and therefore makes mid pair hands easy calls ott (and possibly otr) from villains perspective.

we are oop against two players, one who has a somewhat uncapped range (btn). theres nothing wrong with cutting down bluff combos to (all sorts of) straight draws otf. that’s simply a function of us not having too many hands that we want to lead for value otf either.

its a simple x/f otf unless villains sizes absurdly small but even then i lean towards folding.

There’s only one player and players of this ilk have a lot of small connectors when they limp the button. Still looks like the best card to me

Btw I’m talking about the turn just in case you aren’t. I would not lead the flop but the way it turned out and the turn king I like a barrel

So, it is either a great bluff card or a terrible bluff card. I guess that mainly depends on how sticky the Button is.

Everyone seems to think (me included) that the villain has lots of connectors that have turned into 1 pair hands. Isn't that the kind of hand we can barrel effectively against? If he has few kings in his range (would have raised) that he is the one with the capped range, especially since his 64's got counterfeited.

Maybe leading the flop with this hand makes me unbalanced with too many bluffs. But, shouldn't I be willing to take that sort of unbalanced overly bluffy lines against 2 capped ranges?

If you want to cap his range and take kings out of it, then you need to better define your OP which stated he was "somewhat passive."

In live tourneys, I see "somewhat passive" players limp all kinds of kings.

Only you can tell us what you meant and how you defined him as "somewhat passive."

In either case, you devised a plan on the flop: bluff a passive player and hope to pick up some equity on the turn if he calls so you can barrel again. He didn't fold and you picked up 0 equity unless you're referring to fold equity and that's the part we're debating. Why make a plan and then not stick to it?

We don't have devise a plan to win every hand we go into. Sometimes we make a bluff attempt and it doesn't work out. It doesn't mean we have to barrel a 2nd street when our original plan didn't work out. Generally speaking, that's how you punt chips away.

Could your barrel here work? Maybe. We can't be results oriented here, though. Is it going to work in the long run? Probably not, unless you're saying this "somewhat passive" player won't limp Kx or PPs 44-JJ.

A decent player is also not expecting you to go for value on the first two streets by betting top pair and then betting it again when it pairs on the turn. If I'm that other player I'm going to be sticky with almost any pair I have after you bet into the paired king on the turn, especially with a rainbow flop. You're generally betting the turn hoping he floated the flop with complete air, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

He checked the turn, but if he did bet it wasn't because he thought the loose passive floated with air. The turn bet (if made) would be done on the premise that the villain has a small pair with a lot of hands that a loose passive likes to limp, A6, 65, 54, 76 etc

I don't really consider it results oriented that he showed with the 65, rather it is more hand reading and experience with those player types. The original description was "somewhat passive", I know we are basing a lot on that original description but someone would have to be extremely passive to limp hands like JJ,TT, KQ, KJ on the button.

Lastly in a $250 live tourney I think it's more likely villain is thinking, "He's betting again, looks likes he has a king and I have no outs" as opposed to "Due to card removal I think it is less likely he has a king and is more weighted to three flush/ three straight bluff sequence and decided to continue betting with the king"...especially from a guy limping the button

Hawkes: The player in question was probably something like 50% VPIP from the button, with an unbalanced 1/2 and 1/2 limps and raises. He would certainly be raising any K/Broadway. Might have limped some Kx suited combos. Very unlikely to be limping small pairs, etc.

I am not sure why I wouldn't want to get stacks in with a King. Checking the turn won't let that happen, unless I bomb (4x pot) the river. Maybe that is the line I should take with my entire range, but that is not part of my repertoire.

We all would love to get 3 streets of value, ultimately ending in stacks, when we bet top pair on the flop, it pairs on the turn, and we get a safe river, but that's generally not reality. It's way too ambitious to expect that to happen unless you're playing a very poor player or you take a very good player to a fourth level of thinking.

Against your normal pool of players, you're only getting 3 streets of value for stacks with top-pair-turned-trips when you're fortunate enough to out-kick them or you river a full house when you were actually behind in the hand and didn't realize it. Occasionally, you may be lucky enough to get three streets of value from a sticky (bad) player who can't let go of their PP which beats the other cards on the board. Too often, you'd find yourself out-kicked yourself or losing to a full house when three streets of bet/calling is actually happening.

If we are only getting 2 streets from hands that are Kx or better, aren’t we folding out all of the small pairs when we triple barrel?

You're reducing your exposure by 2 barreling with proper sizing vs. most Vs.

Triple barreling a paired board of Ks with the intention to fold out smaller pairs isn't worth the risk/reward.