I seem to find myself in a lot of these borderline situations, and always kick myself in the ass once the hand is over. When I think I'm making the proper decision, it turns out I give my opponents way too much respect. I only had 10 hands logged on each of them, so their stats are kind of irrelevant. Is this a spot where I should almost always continue my aggression and fire away on the flop? I guess I have this automatic mentality if I'm in a multi-way raised pot, and an Ace hits, someone HAS to have it. Now if these players were like 70/40 over 100 hands I'm sure I probably would have raised/called down, but since they were unknowns I gave them the benefit of having it. What do you do here? Thanks~


Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

UTG+1: $1.35
MP1: $6.90
Hero (MP2): $13.10
CO: $1.15
BTN: $10.00
SB: $2.60
BB: $2.00
UTG: $2.00

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is MP2 with K K
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.10, 1 fold, Hero raises to $0.40, 1 fold, BTN calls $0.40, 2 folds, UTG+1 calls $0.30

Flop: ($1.35) 3 3 A (3 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero checks, BTN bets $0.90, UTG+1 calls $0.90, Hero folds

Turn: ($3.15) Q (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $0.05 all in, BTN calls $0.05

River: ($3.25) A (2 players - 1 is all in)

I hate this spot. I usually mix up checking with Cbetting, MW I tend to check more. Thing is its tough to get value by Cbetting an A high flop unless its a station who doesn't fold anything. OTOH, checking pretty much turns your hand face up and makes it very easy for someone to bluff you off the best hand. Double edged sword imo.

This hand, I think folding is fine. If BTN led and UTG+1 folded I might peel a street, but after UTG+1 calls folding is totally fine.

I'm a total newb, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. But everything I read around here says to post in these things so people can shred you when you are wrong, so here it goes.

I would have c-bet. You raised PF and are therefore representing the big hand. By betting out, say maybe half the pot, you represent a big Ace. If you get called, odds are there is at least an Ace something behind you, maybe AQ or AJ. If you get raised, you are done with the hand. In that case, at least you know you are beat and can let it go. But with a c-bet, you have a chance to take it down, especially with a check in front of you already. Once you check it, you are getting bet off the hand no matter what the LP holds.

Now if you get one caller and the turn is a miss/garbage card, well, I'll leave that one to the pros to say whether another bullet should be fired. But that's my thought process for the flop.

Utg+1 is too short. I cbet the flop to put him all in, but if the button tags along i'll probably turn passive.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it sounds too much like an information bet. Yes, Cbetting makes life a whole lot easier for you than checking, but what does it really accomplish? I mean this is the ultimate Way ahead/Way behind spot, meaning either someone has an ace, you are drawing close to dead...and when they don't have an ace, you are pretty much crushing them (unless they hold a 3 but whatevs just assume they don't). The problem with Cbetting is that when they don't have an ace, you most likely won't get any value unless they just don't know where the fold button is, and when they do have an ace they are probably never going to fold(unless its a weakish ace then you end up having to barrel hard turning KK into a bluff, not something I like to do often, or just give up which is alright, but then you are vulnerable to floaters.).

they aren't peeling with mid pp's? if they are, then this is a value bet, but if they decide to turn their hand (or any hand for that matter) into a bluff, we can hardly call. checking almost always turns our range face-up - anything except an ace.

although villains appears to have been mashing the spew button, this is really a standard spot and not cbetting polarizes our range to Ax and air. Unless we're checking Ax hands too after we pfr (and if we are, we're probably missing value) we have this problem.

i do not agree with this sir. i think you have to C-bet with this spot. actullay you can just bet .50, and call with UTG's reraise, fold to BTN's reraise. if you just check and give up on this spot, i think it's too passive. your range is ahead them.

3-handed I'm giving at least 1 of those guys credit for an ace. Folding here is the right play all day. Hopefully you can find a much better spot to stack these guys.

MP, PP, and FD aren't calling a c-bet? I find that anyone who isn't playing ABC / Tight (fit/fold) is totally calling one street with any of the hands I listed.

So in these situations you mix up c-betting and checking (based on position?) so you're playing fit or fold then?