$600 Venetian. Middle position raises 2.5x, tight player calls next to act, we squeeze to 9x from the BB with AQs, only the tight player calls.

Flop is 743dd giving us nut flush draw. Effective stack is about SPR4 (villain, we cover but not by a huge amount), we are about 1/2 through 1st day of 2 day tournament.

Cbet or not Cbet?

I would have squeezed to 12x pre flop or just called.

I don't understand "SPR4".

As played I will bet here almost all of the time hoping to take it down. If raised I would jam if my raise would be over 30% of the effective stack size. I expect a PP to call the first bet and possibly the 2nd (but much less likely).

I follow with a 1/2 pot bet on turn and would expect villain to fold a lot of the time with PP's.

River would be tough but my sizing on the turn should have left a 3/4 to pot size+ bet available and I would just have to figure out how badly I care about punting a tourney.

Given the way we played this, villain has to assume we have QQ+ or AKs/AQs/AJs? with a flush draw. And I think they fold most rivers. Unless they have 77/44/33 which is possible especially the 77 but a bit unlikely.

SPR of 4 means the effective stack has about 4 times the number of chips remaining.

Havent run it but it feels like a x or large bet otf and I imagine both are fine, I'd probably x with the intention of x/j.

Stack size?
Blinds?
Post flop at equilibrium plays for like 75-90% but if villain is stabbing at the wrong frequency (2much) then x/r starts getting much more ev as an exploit

Effective stack was 4 times the pot. I don't remember the levels. We as hero, cover, but not by a huge amount.

Translated to 500-1000, raise was to 2500, squeeze was to 9500. So 23k in pot on flop, Villain has about 90K behind, hero has about 110K behind.

If V is a typical tight live-rec-donk then I like a big bet OTF - at least 20K. This board does not hit a tight player's call/call pre range. If V doesn't fold flop, you can pretty much put him on a TT/JJ type hand. I think we have 15 outs but are likely behind at the moment. I think betting is better for us than checking as I really don't want V checking behind.

I think flop going x/x w AQ is fine since we're almost certainly ahead of his x behind range - I wouldnt check J high fds though.

I Check...mostly b/c I don't love any of the F-T-R betting sequences with an SPR of 4 to 1.

Most of our range here wants to check but if you want to do some explo sizing stuff, you could go 30%-67%-Give Up (with 70% pot left otr), maybe hoping to get a small protection raise otf to shove over.

You could also just go Pot-Pot, which isn't that bad b/c it's a good line for TT-QQ for value. But i think a lot good things happen when we check.

^^^ I appreciate your logic but a live, tight player is just looking for a reason to fold that flop. I think our FE here is quite large and diminishes significantly on any non-diamond turn. Hence the large flop bet.

I do tend to put too much emphasis on my player reading skills but I like giving this type of player a reason to fold.

disagree with all posts to date

cbet 25%-30% then bomb all turns

tight scared V will p** in his Y-fronts and run from the room

Cbet some, c/r some
The wider you squeeze the more you check obv.(and start c/c-ing some)

For sure cbet flop. If V gets out of line and stabby then checking as an exploit is nice. But he needs to be really getting out of line before check becomes better than bet. Go 50% pot.

Turn I expect these V's to get too sticky with overpairs hence I exploitatively split my range and just jam turn with my fat value and expect to be paid off by TT and 99 and FDs and bet something small with my unmade hands like this one. Not caring about being unbalanced with this approach because I'm exploiting.

cb camp, tho check can't be that bad.

I just want to start building a pot now so If I hit my 9 outer I can shove by the river with this SPR, don't think we can do this as effectively when we start with a check. Agree with above that check becomes much better on stabby loser players compared to this guy

Is fold equity even a thing anymore?

OcbetsmallbombturnS

Thanks for the responses. FWIW, I was not the hero on this hand. It was a poker star who you probably all know, and I was surprised by his check. He also checked a 2x turn giving him a gutter to go along with his Flush draw.

I also noticed multiple instances of checking nut flush draw in various spots at yesterday’s Venetian $600.

Is the thinking that Ace high has too much show down to turn into a bluff? What happened to building a bigger pot for when you do get there...

You never have any of the sets or 65s here, and if you bet small your opponent gets to float incredibly wide (two overs + bd draw essentially) and put you in the cage w AK type hands that struggle against that OOP. Basically we x almost our entire range (I'd probably bet 99-JJ for protection) so when we do bet it has to be large, like pot, and will generally be two overs + bdfd type stuff.

Thanks JK. That sounds like a solverish answer, though I'd be surprised we don't go for value with our biggest pairs..

Agree with this. Think I would Cbet small on flop, and set up for a river shove that is like a psb if we think Villian will potentially fold and not station.

I think checking is too weak here. Rarily we have sets here or a straight, but we can have many overpairs which we probably aren’t checking. I like Cbet re-eval over checking.

Nothing wrong with checking with intention to x-call really however I feel we have much better chance to win pot by cbetting into a pot we had control of pre being the raiser. Check helps us realize equity I guess but keeps pot small. This is def an awkard spot oop.

Just curious what is our bet sizing here on the flop?

Given that there are 22 bb's in the pot after pre-flop, which assumes a 1 bb ante, and assuming that SPR is Stack to Pot Ratio, then 88 bb's is effective stack size OTF.

I normally will bet 9 bb's (my pre-flop raise size) on the flop. On the turn, if we bet, I would bet half pot (20 bb's) so we would have ~60 bb's to shove on the river into an 80 bb size pot. This is adequate to make our point. And we can also give up if that is our read.

What I bet on the flop depends on my image and how I've been playing at that table. I try to make consistently sized bets relative to the pot on the flop so that my bet sizing does not give away the strength of my hand. It also may depend on the trickiness and skill level of my opponents. The better they are the less I tend to bet.

I would have no problem betting a bit more on the turn, especially if I was leaning towards not shoving the river. That would make our remaining river bet size look like a value bet (at half pot) and might convince villain with 88-JJ to fold on the turn.