I know this is probably very simple situation for you
but I often get stuck in spots like this.

What is correct play here on the flop?
Is it okay to check/fold here?

Villain 14/11 over 300 hands
He called 4BB bet
K is in his range very often
I have no draws
maybe 8 outs
nothing.

If we cbet what if he calls
how do we play on the turn?

Actually you have a backdoor nutflush, meaning you can cbet turn on any Xh card.
Don't think he has that many K in his range. He probably has more pps as AK would likely 3bet you.

I'd cbet flop and depending on the turn, either check or double barrel and give up on most rivers.

If he was a calling station, then I probably wouldn't barrel any turn except an A.

Vs decent villains you have to use your equity to the maximum and use it as a mean of aggression. Vs a 14/11, you should be able to make him fold most pp and hands that beat you by double barreling boards where you pick up some equity.

Well backdoor nutflush isn't much. Also I would need to double barrel for it, I don't think odds are very good here for it. I would be spewing way too much I think. Why wouldn't he have many K's in his range?? If there are PP in his range then those are TT-QQ. This guy is more or less a nit. I would need to double barrel here most of the time to get him to fold his TT-QQ pairs.

Seems ok to me...can't cbet every flop and if you percieve the villains range is still ahead of your AQ, a check/fold is totally ok.

Villian has alot of PPs here.

C-bet the flop.


22,33,55,66 --> 24 combos

AQ --> 9 combos (I think)

88 - JJ --> 24 combos

QQ (if he doesn't 3bet it pre) --> 3 combos

KQ --> 9 combos (I think)

AK (if he doesn't 3bet it pre) --> 9 combos (I think)


Maybe he could also have some suited connectors like JTs, T9s or AJ or maybe KJs, but let us just look at the above:


That is 78 combos. I think that: (1) He will likely fold 22,33,55,66 to a c-bet (maybe he would sometimes call with 55 or 66, but I think a 14/11 is generally folding them on the flop); (2) he'll generally fold AQ to a flop bet; (3) he will not fold AK, KQ or QQ to a flop bet; (4) maybe he would sometimes fold 88-JJ (particularly the lower end to a c-bet, but let us say he calls the flop with them.

That is 33 combos he folds to a c-bet and 45 he does not fold. So according to this he would fold about 42% of the time. So, if you bet 35 cents into the 52 cent pot, he folds enough for this to show a profit:

.42(.52) + .48(-.35) = .0504. [SEE MY EDIT BELOW]

And all the hands I counted in his folding range are either ahead of you or tied with you on the flop.


And I think my assumptions leaned toward him calling more than maybe he will. He might fold 8's or 9's. Maybe he has those suited connectors and will fold. Maybe he does 3bet AK and QQ pre-flop, so those really shouldn't be here. More information on opponents can help.

And you do have some equity with an A overcard. And the Q is an overcard too vs. any underpairs that call and those underpairs, moreso the larger underpairs, would, I think, be unlikely to bluff you out when a Q hits.

You also do have backdoor flush and gutshot straight draws.

I think you double barrel any heart and maybe T's and J's. I think most 14/11's will fold anything worse than KX to a double barrel here, though occasionally I've seen some of them get sticky with like JJ or maybe TT. With respect to double barreling, particularly on T's and J's, it should be even better if you think he could fold KQ to a triple barrel (even more so if you think he 3bets AK pre), as at that point, especially when the turn is a J, KQ is really only beating a bluff. And at that point his range looks pretty capped at KQ, unless he could have called AK pre or maybe calls pre with KJs.


You maybe double barrel an A too for value. If I had some other hand, I'd just about always bet the A as a bluff, so if balance is necessary, you have to bet it when you have it too. But if I knew the player, maybe I'd change my mind because most 14/11's I've played against would just fold about always. Though the times they may call a turn or river bet after a turn A, I would be thinking they have something like KQ, which may call the turn thinking you would bluff the A. Depending on how good he is maybe if you check the turn he would be more likely to call a river with the KQ. But check turn and then bet river seems like a weird way to bluff as generally a TAGgy player would just bluff on the overcard turn and, therefore, the turn check followed by a river bet from such a player would seem like it would rarely be a bluff and usually a value bet. So, if you think he would know that, then just bet your bluffs and your hit A's on the turn. But if he doesn't know that and you think he would be more likely to call if you check the turn and bet the river because the action would be closed and he wouldn't have to worry about the possibility of facing another bet, then do that.




EDIT:

Yes, my calculation above is incorrect because it shouldn't be .48, it should be .58:

.42(.52) + .58(-.35) = -.0154.

I would still c-bet. As I stated above, villain may fold more hands than I counted, may not have AK or QQ in his pre-flop calling range, or at least not all the time, and maybe has some suited connectors that would fold. I also think you'll be able to get folds on double or triple barrels in the right spots. And you do have some equity with your hand.

A backdoor flush isn't much, but you do pick up some equity on a good turn card (probably 12 or even 15 outs), it would be a shame to check/fold when we both have decent fold equity and hand equity.

In general, it's better to play aggressively your hands with low equity rather than those with no equity. This is both for balancing purposes (we don't want to be merged toward nut hands when we bet vs a decent villain) and EV-wise: the combination of our fold equity and our pot equity makes the cbet mathematically correct most of the times (as Lego showed).
Also, we don't barrel too much with our medium value hands because we'll only get called by better and only fold worse. That's why being polarized between nut hands / weak drawing hands is a good polarized combination.

there aren't that many K in his range. the K hits your range a lot harder than it hits his