This is a live hand from a local league I play in. $120 entry with $60 rebuys, only 16 players. A lot of the same guys show up each game but I don't have much experience with this particular villain. The only relevant piece of info is that we're still early in the rebuy period, so people do tend to call lighter.

5500 starting stacks and we're on level 1, 25/50. I've bled a few chips so I'm down to about 4900 and villain has me covered. We're playing 8-handed.

I raise to 150 in early position with K Q and get 4 callers.

Flop (675): A 6 3
Hero leads out for 400 and everyone folds except villain in middle position.

Turn (1475): 2
Hero checks, villain thinks for a few seconds, looks at Hero, and throws in a 1k chip, Hero ???

Before I tell you how I played it and why, I'm open to criticisms on how I played it up to this point and suggestions for the best move as played.

I have no problem with how you played the hand to this point.

Tbh, I shove over the top here. Why?

Rebuys are half the buy in.

Villain doesn't need an A in his hand to make that bet OTT. His range includes some TT-77 and smaller flush draws that he's betting to rep an A and make you fold hands like JJ.

Your fold equity is not 0, and you're not behind anywhere near 100% of the time.

But I'm a rebuy maniac.

This is what I'm not sure about. Heads-up I'd agree 100% but this was a 4-way pot to the flop and he wasn't closing the action when he called my CB. And I raised pre and bet into several players on an A-high flop. Do you really think hands like 77-TT are in his range?

Preflop and flop are standard. Villain definitely has an Ace IMO. I like leading the turn with a blocking bet and would try something like "I'm pretty sure I have you out kicked so I should bet more but let's just do 400 again."

Keep applying pressure, I find most players will play 'honestly' back at you, in other words, a raise by Villain will be two pair or better. If it works you get your flush draw at a good price, and have options to bluff him on the river.

As played, I don't know, you're getting about the right price if you can get it all in when you bink your spade, but you won't always get paid.

I tend to avoid saying much if anything at the table because I'd rather not risk giving away any information. I'm no Negreanu - I'm not nearly confident enough in my ability to talk people into what I want them to do.

But your last point is a valid point against just calling his bet. Even if I hit a spade on the river, I'm not likely going to get anything more out of him.

X flop

I like having some flushes in a check/call line, and vs. multiple players I think it makes sense to just check flop here a lot. If we're taking the bluff line we need to be firing turn a decent amount.

As played, your action really depends on how often you think you're getting paid off when a spade hits, as you're not getting the right direct price to call.

pretty awesome combo to x/c flop esp x-ways and esp if you dont want to barrell off (which would be reasonable because its probably one of the nutworst combos to barrell off with). as played i dont know, the problem with having too many fds in your bet flop/check turn range (and you have every one of those in your range if KsQs makes it into that range) is that it makes your overall range for taking that line ridic weak and somewhat easy to play against. therefore id much rather strengthen my x/c otf with that combo and bet/bet/bet a pretty polar range that includes a very limited amount of fd combos (reason for that is that if we have an fd we block a lot of hands from villains range that will fold to double/triple barrels.

I tend to bet smaller with only 100 blinds. I would raise pre-flop to 125.

Similarly on the flop I would bet about 300-350 but most likely 325. This makes a turn bet smaller if you choose to throw out a blocking bet and if you check it makes his bet smaller than 1k usually.

Its tough to play this hand OOP because you can't effectively c/r all-in on the flop. As played, I think villain has an A when he calls. I think a blocking bet of about 500 on the turn will work because villain likely doesn't have AK or he might have 3-bet pre-flop so he will likely call fearing you have AK. If he comes over the top then I would just do the math.

As played on the turn I think I fold because I doubt we will get called if a spade hits and we lead out and there is a good chance villain checks behind. I also don't think a bluff works on the river.

So would you bet/bet something like 75ss here? (ignoring for a moment that you probably wouldn't raise this from EP)

this is a combo that id be more inclined to barrell off with, yes. better blockers (doesn't block too many midpairs/Ax flatting hands), has some added equity with the gutter and its lower in our range so its more of a "natural" bluffing hand.

Makes sense. I do recall reading something from Polk about playing flush draws a while ago where he talks about playing a polarized range: being aggressive with the best and worst FDs but passive with the ones in between. Just wasn't in my mind at the time.

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Daviid wins this thread.

Multiway, you really wouldn’t want to be this combo and get raised.