UTG is 24/21/11 over 500 hands. Button 43/27/2 in 150 hands. Checking or betting the flop? If betting how much?

CO: 109.51 BB
BTN: 80.53 BB
Hero (SB): 100.5 BB
BB: 111.95 BB
UTG: 297.21 BB
MP: 128.32 BB

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has A J

UTG raises to 2.2 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 2.2 BB, Hero raises to 12 BB, fold, UTG calls 9.8 BB, BTN calls 9.8 BB

Flop: (37 BB, 3 players) J Q 8
Hero?

the general heuristic is that we don't really ever want to bet very large multi-way and OOP.

The SPR is so small we can probably bet even smaller than normal if we do bet. This hand in particular probably works pretty well as a x

we want to do a very small amount of betting on all textures when facing ep sandwich 3b calls. this board and our actual hand (and the fact btn also called) are just extra good reasons to be checking. imo.

I know this is the thinking I get from a lot of people here. Though I recently had a hand with KK with a very similar situation and things got very dicey by checking it. I mean do you really check AA, KK, QQ, and JJ here? I understand you need some checking in your range here with hands like maybe AKd that don't want to bet out, and checking this actual hand here protects those other types of checks. But if I really did have the overpairs and sets here, are we checking this board most of the time? It gets very difficult to play IMO OOP multiway, and the pot is already getting large. I feel betting a lot of those hands to deny equity and to just take it down now isn't a bad idea.

the thing is, an utg open with a caller sandwiching him with the sb 3bettor should be calling the 3b extremely infrequently. so the range advantage a 3bettor usually has in hu pots is nowhere near the same. furthermore, that narrow calling range (and some naughty but very possible hands too) hits this actual flop very hard. it's not like we should be seeing any auto folds from 44 or 67s etc.

i agree it can get difficult to play but strong ranges shouldn't be easy to play vs oop. luckily our actual hand here is actually very easy to play. have fun with AA or KK though!

this is a really good post

Thanks for the explanation and yes this hand is tough to really screw up. Though this isn't heads up at this point. I agree that the UTG range is quite narrow now, but do you still want to check say AA and KK here multiway?

Yeah we should be checking AA and KK often. AcAx and KcKx can also bet small.

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