Player who seems TAG so far raises UTG. I 3 bet AKo middle position. Folds to bad loose passive small blind who calls. Big Blind who seems laggish calls. UTG calls.

Flop: 864 rainbow

Checks to me, I bet, SB calls, BB calls, UTG raises, I 3 bet, SB calls, BB calls, UTG 4 bets (4 bet cap). We all call.

Turn 4

Checks to UTG who bets, I call, SB calls, BB folds.

River 2

SB bets, UTG folds, I call

Why are you 3 betting the flop??!??!!?

spew.

Yes, the flop 3 bet was a bit frisky. My thinking was there would be some benefits to the move compared to just calling that outweighed what I perceived as a slight immediate equity disadvantage 4 ways.

1. I thought it would give me a good chance of retaining the initiative which I could use to take a free card if I did not hit the turn, saving a small bet in a hand where I need to get to the river either way.

2. I felt like it kept my range concealed so that in the event I was to hit an ace or king on the turn, my opponents would be more likely to pay off my value bets.

3. In the heat of the moment, I considered that I might be able to clean up some outs in the event that one of my other opponents had something like A4. I realize now that thinking either of them would fold such a hand for 2 bets on this flop after calling preflop is probably too optimistic.

Preflop looks good.

Flop is very bad. River call is lighting money on fire too.

yeah, i'd never in a million years expect to see a loose-passive show up with 97s even if he was driving the action, let alone donking into 2 players on the river where at least 1 has shown mega-strength.

wp pre

just give up on the flop

What does everyone think about the bet on the flop? I'm not sure what to think about a bet there.

I'd be shocked if the OP was good on the river. I'd fold against the described villain in that situation there.

If I had something like QQ in this spot would river be a call? I find the likelihood of him having some marginal showdownable hand even less likely than an airball that he figures he can only win by betting.

What airball? A tag opened utg then xr capped multiway and fired turn and river multiway on a rainbow board. What airball could he possibly have?

I would think some kind of busted straight or hand like AQ where he figures it is too strong to fold and then realizes on the river that he doesn't have anything. I am not saying this is likely and I will admit I am probably too optimistic about this possibility at 19-1 if that is the consensus.

In general I maybe call too much in these situations where I am closing the action in a big pot. I rarely find myself confident enough in my read to fold getting that price. My head says he took a goofball line, maybe he has a goofball hand once in a while.

I think the idea of him suddenly deciding to bet with some marginal hand that has AK but not QQ beat is even less likely than the airball. If that is true then it seems if calling with AK is lighting money on fire then QQ may also be a fold. I find this interesting because in real time I wouldn't even consider folding QQ.

3 betting this hand on the flop is horrendous.

Looks like 22 got there

River- SB bets, UTG folds, Hero Calls.

The only straight draws on the flop are gutshots, so he would have to be opening 7x/5x/T9 UTG, and then c/r/4 this flop after you have shown real strength, and their are still 2 other players in the hand.

I don't know why you think he took a goofball line, he c/r/4 the flop and then bet every street and didn't get raised. I think his hand is pretty good and probably not an airball.

Maybe he does this with 99, but once you 3! the flop I think a TAG will start to slow down with 99/TT here.

Utg folded the river before I acted

Bah, sorry, misread the action.

I misread the action too. I guess calling the river is actually fine but QQ is significantly better than AK in this spot since bad loose passives often bluff with one pair here.

Seriously the river is pretty meaningless since you should never ever be in this spot with this hand again. 3betting the flop with the hand you have is a classic tagfish mistake in this spot and doing it means you've probably got some other leaks you need to address before you should worry about what to do with this bluff catcher in this huge pot.

My advice to you, if you want to improve your play, is to look at how you play in commonly occurring situations (the flop in this hand is a really good example) and post about those spots. I understand many in this forum want to treat each decision point in a hand with the same care as every other decision point--this is a basic tenant of the "Jailhouse phone call conjecture"--and I can see the usefulness of that line of thought in certain cases, however the way to get better at poker is to learn how to play the boring spots as well as you can, to stay out of jail.

I'm lucky enough to be friends with a bunch of world class players and even more lucky that they are always willing to talk strategy with me. The greatest compliment I've ever received came from DeathDonkey. While we were talking about a limit hold Em hand about which we disagreed, he told me, and I'm paraphrasing, "you know you never really do much". Limit hold Em, especially full ring limit hold Em, is not about making a bunch of fancy plays. It's about developing a good general strategy and using that strategy consistently.

That's the problem that posters like myself and jonlocke have with the jailhouse conjecture. That's why so many of our posts rub people the wrong way. You build a poker player the same way you build a tower, from the foundations up. The number one problem with most strategy posted in these forums (and I have been guilty) is that the OP doesn't ask the right question.

What are people's thoughts on checking the flop versus betting in this spot?

Betting is clearly best.

This is really good. Thanks.

This is my standard thought too, but I've been trying to challenge my own thinking about these sort of situations. I've been playing around with this in PokerStove and I'm having difficulty coming up with a combination of ranges that make sense for our 3 opponents where we can reach even 25% equity on this flop. We're not getting any better hands to fold on this flop. So our basis for betting would need to be that we gain enough equity from any folds to make our bet have a positive return, taking into account that it puts us into situations like this hand where we're going to get check-raised by better hands fairly frequently?

To take this a step further, are we betting with 100% of the hands that we 3-Bet preflop in this scenario?

Thanks for the advice. My first instinct was to just call the check-raise but then I changed my mind based on the reasoning I gave above.

This is not the type of spot I have encountered frequently because I have only recently started taking 20 shots, previously playing 8-16 and 4-8 where the play is a lot more passive and most people are inclined to just check-call if they have an overpair that wasn't worth capping preflop in UTG's spot. As I continue to play in this game, I will post more hands and hopefully discover some areas where my foundation is lacking.

I think you may have actually been dealt into this particular hand. It took place on Saturday night and there was someone in the three seat who had your first name and seemed very solid. I am terrible at faces so I am not actually sure but I was in the four seat and UTG was in the two seat in the must move game.

It was me.