This is a standard spot I find myself not knowing what the best play is

We are on the button with T596 and raise and get called

flop K47

As a standard play do we cbet?

standard would be to check it back and take the free card, same with actual wraps on the FD board.

ok ty, my first thought I was thinking betting had some merit here because of all the pots we take down when opponents just fold, plus they might counterfeit turn and river us with weaker hands just seeing free cards. Can you maybe explain why my thinking here is wrong?

If you bet this then I don't understand what you could possibly having in your checking range. We're merge betting so hard that any reasonable calling range is going to have us beat and then when you check your checking range is going to be about 0% equity so we get to force you to fold just about every time you check-back.

The only way to fix that problem then is going to be checking the top of your range back which is a huge waste of value or checking back a lot of your middling range that doesn't push equity and loves the positional advantage. Take your pick which you prefer.

Edit: this hand also causes problems with your check/raise defending range as well but I'm not going to get in depth with that either. Just think about it a little.

This would be standard check,but if you know your opponent is weak and passive player

bet can be fine.

I would generally c-bet this hand. As PFR we're completely uncapped and can rep KK. We have zero showdown value now, and can get a ton of better hands (like random one pairs) to fold. We have decent equity if called and are never dead. Can easily fold to a check raise. Betting flop also allows you to take down pot on river if flush draw doesn't come in.

If I c-bet I'd double barrel turns that make the straight (maybe not if flush comes in to), pair the board or give us the diamond draw.

I don't really focus on balancing, so am coming at this from a different perspective than Darkfangs. He may be right, as checking this hand is OK too, but makes it very hard to win unless our straight comes in.

What you're saying makes sense but it's still a question of picking combos to put in the diff ranges.

In my mind, this combo is a clear bet/fold, bc we have good equity with oesd+fd, we have 0 sdv, and we lack a pair, which makes it so that we can't profitably call a bet on most turn cards.
Getting hands like AQJT AQT9, 88-QQ to fold is really good here.

I think it makes more sense to xb a hand like T765 (no fd) which can defend against a lead on most turn cards.

In general, my check back range in this spot would look something like the following:

- the obvious stuff, 88-QQ
- 90% of (88-QQ that have fd/sd)
- a smattering of top pairs with low to medium kicker, preferring to check back ones with some kind of backdoor draws or blockers, e.g. like K986 with a club I think is a great candidate to xb.
- a decent portion of nfds that have a pair with them (prefer to cbet unpaired fds)
- maybe 20% of middle pairs. the ones I check back again usually are ones that are strong enough to call a turn bet. I usually cbet random middle pairs with no frontdoors/backdoors, especially if they have a club in them.
- most oesds that have a pair but lack the fd

I'm rarely/never checking back hands like oesds/fds that DON'T have a pair in them.

Keep in mind in low to midstakes online and probably all live games, all except good regs are playing way too passively on early streets.

Thoughts?

We don't have a FD, we have a weak open ender on a two-tone board. From my work in solvers it's also a check-back with a OESD + FD almost all the time as well. You only start betting when you have the good side of a wrap and a good FD. Or any wrap+top pair type hands on R board, or OESD+FD+pair.

A bet in position with our hand and board is looking for a fold, as we aren't pushing any equity, in this specific case we're actually behind. We also don't block any of villians continuing range and we're giving up our positional strength by reducing the SPR all for no gain. A bet in this spot is basically very bad in this position without extreme reads on villian like he is way over-folding. It's a bluff, not a value bet, and a bad one at that.

I know we don't have a fd, I'm saying it makes more sense to xb a hand that has a pair, instead of a hand without one, bc we cannot call turn leads on many turn cards without a pair to our draw.

You seem very entrenched in your position, so that's fine.
I think you cannot go too wrong playing this kind of balanced/correct strategy, I just think you sacrifice some EV at lower stakes. People do not xr K74f nearly as much as they should.

If you node lock OOP to only c/r the very top of their range, which is entirely reasonable assumption for the 25plo population, you'll be getting much diff results and a higher cbetting frequency in most spots.

fwiw I probably bet this, there's just too many better hands we can get to fold right now and unless we hit the straight/diamond on the turn usually you're not quite getting right price and most opponents are gonna bet turn if we check flop. I dunno what the argument for needing a balanced range on this board with this one is as it's not hard to check a decent range that can at least peel a turn. This one is a bit of a loose peel on a brick. Obv if we get c/r'd we just dump it whatever we don't care. The biggest problem is simply no matter what our opponent has he's got a better hand right now but that doesn't mean he's gonna call a flop bet with most of them.

We block a little bit of 56 and slightly a four and a seven because we have 56 so saying we block none of his range he'd want to keep playing with isn't accurate.

With clubs is a different argument as that's a much stronger hand but it's not that great vs a c/r range.

Yes we don't block any king but odds are he doesn't have one same with clubs. *shrugs*

Isn't this hand is a bit to good to be a bet fold hand?

no, not even close

how do you work that out? not saying you're wrong just wondering how you come to that conclusion?

b/f here.

When we get check raised we're usually up against good flush draws or sets. We have something like 25% equity against that range and RIO when we hit our straight on flush cards or the board pairs.

RIO?

Reverse implied odds.

thanks