15-30 LHE. My first time playing in anything but the neighborhood game for 7(?) years and first post here in 10? (Single parenting + Black Friday is bad for poker hobby).
I am very rusty and it shows. Think everything here is debatable except flop. PF may be "original sin" but tell me how you would play Post-flop anyway. Game is very juicy. Most pots raised multiway. 80+% go to showdown.

EP limper, MP who plays a fairly standard game raises, MP ultra-loose-passive cold calls (She has called PF raises with Q5s; she will call down with anything). I am cutoff with KJ. Poor player button has calling chips in hand. He is certain to call. I elect to call anticipating multi-way action, button calls, blinds and EP limper calls. 7-way for 14SB.

Flop comes 9T5. Check to PF raiser. Bet, MP loose-passive calls, I call. Button folds. I think 1 other caller. ~8BB

Turn is 6x. PF raiser bets. Loose passive call. I Call (?). Everyone else drops and it's 3-way to river.

River is J. PF raiser bets. Loose passive call. I crying overcall TP/2ndK with last action at 10:1.

PF raiser flopped set with TT, Loose-passive had T6, and I win the bronze.

Seems okay to me. I would not put a raise in anywhere. I slightly prefer calling pre-flop. It helps having passive opponents. I would fold J9s- for sure though. I greatly prefer calling on the rest of the streets. The hand doesn't have enough equity in a multiway pot to go for a free card play, or turn into a bluff.

Not 3 betting pre is criminal.

Post flop I like every street.

Could you explain why? My thought was keep button, blinds, and limper in.

Good hand, almost great position (and holy crap the guy has calling chips! more reason to 3 bet! maybe he'll fold and you'll have the button which is worth a lot). Deny blinds ability to see flop for 1 bet.

I still prefer calling pre-flop. The player telegraphing a call is probably a weak player overall, and it's good to have his chips in the pot. He won't use the position fully anyway.

He's a bad player, and he's already decided his hand is worth 2 bets. Why are you assuming this weak player will fold to a 3bet?

That's a good point. In my experience, many players telegraph to intimidate, and fold to three bets. But, there's a good chunk of players that will call three. They telegraph because they don't want it to go three, but it could be because they'll call three or fold three.

I could get behind all three options pre-flop tbh.

You were crushing it until the behind all three options part. Folding would be obnoxious and calling would be substantially bad and 3 betting would be awesome. Not a close one.

This is my thought process.

Why Fold
Low bankroll, marginally profitable hand... avoid the variance, especially coming back in the game. Though OP didn't say anything about bankroll. This is leaving money on the table.

Why Flat-Call
The hand itself isn't ahead of the original raiser, may be dominated, and some dead-money may enter into the pot that would otherwise leave. (Though the tell itself could be used to exploit you and the button would call three anyway. Most of the time though, they're folding to 3-bets.) It's also unlikely to face three bets with a dominated hands.

Why 3-Bet
Folding misses opportunity.

It's kind've debatable how "dead" that money really is. Even something like Q8s is going to fight for the pot. And it's not as though you see the people that will show down with anything. It's not clear how dead the money is post-flop either. So, it's not all that dead.

This hand, dominated or not has a lot of equity in a multi-way situation. It's not desirable that it goes to 4-bets, but it's still in the game. Also, you may get a free card, and this hand stands to gain a lot from a free card on the flop.

Also, splitting your range gives away information about your hand. But it does feel like it's a situation where you should think about starting a cold-call range. Perhaps I am wrong. Is it better to just 3-bet or fold here?

Hey OP.

I prefer a 3 bet preflop given the players. Calling will make you $, but blowing out the blinds and charging the loose passive fish the max will see the best results here, given the cast of characters.

Flop is obviously standard

Turn is also fine. You're priced

River is fine. You sometimes beat value bets and wtf and the first caller almost never has you beat.

I wouldn't worry about this hand. It's fine.

Also, if BTN wants to call 3 cold, we should just give him the chance to. Usually preflop isn't much of a tell besides "I like my hand enough to play but not enough to raise", which is good news for KJs. So if he calls 3 cold, that's fine. And if he folds, that's fine too.

Thx for comments.

PF, my thought process was specifically to keep poor button player in. I was 95% sure he would cold call 2-bets but cannot assess likelihood he would call 3-cold. I figure that if I win this pot, it will be with a big hand, not 1-pair, so I want weak players in who will pay off and chase lesser draws.

PF, I though decision was close between fold/call. "Cold Call" range is absurdly small for me, but probably includes JTs, KQs, and KJs and A7s+ in this spot. I am definitely in the 3-bet or fold camp in vast majority of situations, but this was special.

Turn, I'm not sure I'm getting right price, but close in any case. 3 nut outs, 1 straight out that puts flush draw on board, which is probably OK. But reverse implied odds for single pair are bad. If I hit TP, I don't think I'm good most of the time (board including 9TJ or 9TK is just ugly for JK vs. standard PF raiser and cold caller)--but I have to pay off in most cases.


Anyhow, booked a small win for first real session in 7 years and accidentally took a bunch of chips home...so now I "have" to go back.

this is not good thought process

Thanks for sharing. It's incomplete if it doesn't compare the arguments. Its not enough to find that calling is profitable even if that's an undeniable truth. You want to find the most profitable action and take that. Good luck.

Welcome back to the forum. You found a great game, that's more than half the battle, imo.
I'd pass on the results. They don't really help the discussion, and they tend to limit the replies. Few people are going to say "raise the flop, because we want to clean up overcards" when they know you're drawing against a set to a gutter + BDFD. (I think calling down is good, but you get the point).
Just going to agree with what BK is saying. Absent a read that KJs is just a dog to some hand already in the pot, in the CO we want to raise our good hands as he's saying. A) maybe we buy the button or make dead money in the blinds. B) What hands to we raise if we don't raise this? C) We're ahead, so money goes in good.

We're not obligated to bet bad flops. We like having the button, even if the player behind is bad. The players in front are bad, and we make more money with position.

I think against typical opponents you can fold the river here. I would need a special read to overcall.

This might be a dumb question but how does KJ stand against the standard guys range preflop?

I think preflop is pretty close between 3 bet and call. Folding seems to be by far the worst option as either of the other two should be quite profitable.

I slightly prefer calling to 3 betting because I don't think we're doing that splendidly against the original raiser's range (so I don't think that's a dumb question dead.money). I mean, I wouldn't expect standard player to raise KTo in middle position after a limp. So we're dominated by more of his hands than we are dominating. Because of that, I'd opt towards trying to maximize the multi-wayness.

If we know the button and blinds are as likely to call 3 bets as 2, then go ahead and 3 bet, but that seems like a pretty bold assumption. Even so, I do think it's close as we're not that far behind the opener's range and we can probably safely assume the limper (and obviously cold caller) will come along for the extra bet.

I'm also interested what people would do with KJo preflop in this spot.

I couldn't agree less with almost this whole post except the whole folding is the worst option

I'd be tempted to raise the flop to force out the button and take a free turn card if we don't improve. For those of you who are against this, would you still disagree if the flop were rainbow with a backdoor flush draw?

12.8% 3bets 4ways ev=$7.68 + $8.46 dead ev total ev $16.14
23.3% 2bets 5ways ev=$9.32 + $2.33 dead ev total ev $11.65

cost of reopening action vs the stronger lj range = about $1
lj range 17.9%
4bet freq 18.45% lose $12.00 ev + $6.00 dead ev total ev -$6.00 | ev*freq= -$1.1
call freq 83.3% gain $10.80 ev + $8.85 dead ev total ev +$19.60| ev*freq= +$16.3
total= +$15.2

You have a hand that plays well multi-way, but that is most likely behind to a standard raisers range. If you call here..the ep limper comes along the loose pasive, the button, and both blinds plus the raiser..thats 6 to the flop for two bets. If you raise.. (and I guess this is where the whole convo turns), IMO you fold out the button, both blinds, and the ep. so you go 3 to flop for 3bets! If you can get them all to cold call 3 to the face then yes raising is better...just don't think that's likely.

The button just cold called 3 bets. He either has a hand and hence isn't folding to a raise..hell he might raise you back. Or he is bad enough to cold call with garbage and wants to gamble and obviously isn't folding...either way, don't think a raise does anything but put more money in pot when you have a marginal holding.

Doesn’t sound like there will be much bluffing in that game.