PAHWM - things get weird with AA at 2/5...

Bet 60 on flop not 20. Wet board so you need to put pressure on his range which includes a lot of top pair and draws. Now , as played, you need to call with the top 40pc of your hands. Surely it's a call! He has four qt suited bluffs. Three kq suited. He shouldn't have top two sets nor ak. Maybe bottom set? He has three kj suited. So you lose to 6 likely combos but beat 7 combos.

Yeah it sucks you have Ah as that's a card you want him to have but still you have back door hearts and back door Broadway.

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Sorry I missed there's another call. So in fact you need to call with nearly half your range here

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Whose range are we talking about? SB, UTG1, or the MP player? We were four ways to the flop.

Usually I'm just checking flop when I'm the PFR and it goes multi-way with opponents in front and behind. If I do c-bet, I'll usually go large.

Here, my thinking was that a large bet doesn't really accomplish anything other than guaranteeing my opponents only continue with a very strong range of TP+ and big draws, whereas a small bet might induce a raise from one of the deeper stacks if they have 2P+, or a short-stack jam from the SB if he has a good draw, like QTs.

I'm not sure the small sizing wasn't a mistake though, as it wouldn't seem to narrow anyone's range at all, and it's hard for me to have KJ, 66, or QThh on the flop when I opened UTG. I could have KK or JJ, but any opponent with KJ would be blocking my sets, and be more likely to put me on AA, QQ, or AQhh.

Not sure what sort of range my opponents would be giving me here when I c-bet small. Seems like I'd only have AhAx, KK, AhKx, AQhh, JhJx, and maybe QhQx, that play this way from UTG.

I don't hate having the Ah in my hand, as it does give me additional backdoor equity, and does somewhat narrow my opponents' ranges to preclude them from having the NFD, if not all flush draws that aren't at least QXhh, which would seem like just QThh, Q9hh, and maybe Q8hh.

I meant all of the opponent ranges. On a wet flop people are likely to have a piece of a larger bet makes sense. You give a tough decision to draws and one pair hands. So if you are betting here I'd bet about 60 with all my hands. It's not because I have aces I bet 60 but rather because of the flop texture. I either bet 60 or check. I check top set sometimes and maybe top two sometimes and a small number of draws so then I have a check raise range including some semi bluffs and very strong hands, and a check call range that can include some strong draws like nfd and perhaps a weaker top pair like kts or some middle pair like qjs. My bets of 60 include hands like JJ ak aces and some draws. So we are well balanced.

You really really don't want the Ah though after he raises as it blocks them from raising with hands you are ahead of. You want them to gii with the nut flush draws. You don't want to narrow their ranges to exclude the nfd!

I think also it's reasonable for you to have JTs+ so you have kjs and qts here

Anyway what happened? Did you call and find out? Against top two you still have reasonable equity, only bottom set is a total disaster

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Shorties ship with top pair, easy call. Id let MP call behind with his SD/FDs and then value bet blank turns.

This is a very easy call. It gets trickier if Hero calls and someone behind jams.

Hero is surprised when V2 calls clock, thinking it's a sign V2 is more likely to be bluffing. So, hero calls, not expecting V1 to call behind.

V1 calls behind, which is kind of shocking.

Turn ($680) - KhJh6c Qh, bringing in some low flush draws, AT or T9 for a straight, and making 2P for KQ or QJ, but adding flush outs and straight outs and more 2P outs for hero's AhAd.

SB goes all-in for his last $7.

Hero?

Just to speed this along...

I was surprised V1 over-called the $200 x-raise from V2, after just flat-calling my $20 c-bet. This made no sense to me.

I'd think V1 would want to raise my c-bet with 2P+ and any big combo draws like QThh, but once I call V2's $200 x/r, V1 would fold any 1P hand, any flush draw lower than QXhh, any ISSD, and most OESD's.

I figured he must be slow-playing QThh, trying to pot control until he made either a straight or flush. That's why I was shocked to see the Qh on the turn. I was sure someone would show up here with QThh, based on the flop action.

Now that I know neither V can have QThh, I'm putting V2 on KJ, 66, AKo, or KQ, and putting V1 on KQ, QJ, TT, QT of some other suit, or two random hearts that got sticky on the flop.

But now that I've picked up the NFD and ISSD outs to go with my over-pair, I don't know what to do. I figure I'm behind two opponents who both have 2P, a set, or a weak flush, but I'm thinking I could have good equity against their combined ranges, if they're weighted towards 2P, which seems most likely, especially for V1.

Obviously I'm not folding for another $7, so I flat call, basically checking to V1.

V1 bets $150 into a dry side pot with the main pot at $694, creating a side pot of $150, laying hero a little better than 5.5 to 1 pot odds.

Hero?

Just call again. Hopefully we hit the heart or 10 and if not maybe villain checks back river w something like KT.

Ugh. Id say you cant fold royal draw + overpair to a 1/4 pot bet. He may have a flush, but Ah blocks it, so id sorta guess 2p or set? You arent super pleased with any river card othee than a heart if you face a bef.

I thought this was easy but maybe its a fold. Curious to see what others say

Honestly, I'm a little surprised at the responses so far. I was expecting people to say I should fold to V2's flop x/r, or to this turn bet from V1, because "no one ever bluffs into a dry side pot."

My thinking on flop was that V2 was jamming KJ, 66, QThh, and maybe even KQ. Now that the Qh comes on the turn, I'm just giving him KJ, 66, and KQ. I was giving V1 QThh and KQ when he over-called, but now it looks more like it's just KQ, or a non-nut flush draw that just turned a low or middling flush.

In game, I didn't know if V1 was smart enough to work out that he has to be able to beat V2 to win the main pot, and if he couldn't, he needs to win $227 from me just to break even on the $227 he's losing to V2. I didn't know if he'd give me hands like AThh or A5hh, or if he'd think KQ would be good here, or if he'd put me on exactly AA with the Ah.

On the turn, I'm thinking that if V2 has KJ and V1 has KQ, I need the board to be an A, 6, heart or T, giving me 13 outs. If V2 has 66 and V1 has KQ, I have 12 outs. If V1 has a straight with T9, I'm drawing to 11 outs. If V1 has a flush already, I'm dead to 7 outs.

I'm averaging everything out in my head, and figuring I have about 20% equity against these ranges, maybe a little more, and about a 25% chance to improve to 2P or better, whether it's enough to give me the best hand or not.

Figuring I have roughly 20% equity, and being laid a little better than 5.5 to 1, hero calls V1's bet.

River ($701 main pot / $286 side pot) - KhJh6cQh 6s, giving me aces up. I now have the best 2P hand, and am only losing to sets or better.

Hero x. V1 bets $250, laying hero almost 4 to 1 pot odds on a call (3.95 to 1). We need to be best here 20.2% of the time to make a call profitable. If we're only beating V1 for the side pot, the odds are closer to 2:1 (2.14 to 1), and we need to be best about 1/3 of the time.

Is aces up going to win 20.2% of the time against both V's? To use MDF, is it in the top 79.8% of hands I'll have on the river? Can I beat just V1 here roughly 1/3 of the time? Is aces up in the top 53% of hands I'll have against just V1?

Hero?

Yeah i would 100% have put him on 2p or set (with KQ bottom of his range getting there) but then he bet. I think im folding here.

The fish, and even halfway decent regs dont seem to understand how sidepots work so they can bluff. When i get bluffed out of a protected pot is the one time i found myself berating people about their play (have mostly successfully stopped myself).

idk what hed even bluff with, youre either somewhat behind 2p/set, or way behind a flush. Youre only 20% to hit the flush IF V doesnt already have a flush, which i think is a lot of his range. Gross spot, cant hate a call, but a call is just banking that they are spazzing.

Hero has no idea what hands V1 has in his range that play this way, but our read was that he's not bright, so this could be some KQ or maybe QJ going for thin value against hero's AK/AQ combos.

Now that we've got aces up, we're beating all our opponents' worse 2P, and getting almost 4:1, we flick in the call.

V1 turns over T9hh for a turned inside straight flush and the stone nuts.

V2 mucks, claiming he had KJ for top 2 on the flop.

Hero, the dealer, and the rest of the table stare at V1's hand in stunned silence. He over-called an almost 2x pot check raise with the 3rd nut flush draw and an ISSD to the dumb end of the straight, drilled the one card on the turn that would give him the pure nuts and keep me from folding, then drilled a board pairing river card to keep me from folding again.

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Did he play it so badly? Basically you are questioning his flop call. It's not such a dumb end of straight because what AT can anyone have on the flop given the action? And he has equity against that hand. Okay Vs aq hearts he is dead but that's one combo. There aren't many ax hearts combos left in general. I sort of forgot about the second villain when I was responding before. I wonder if it's better to reraise after the 200 to fold out flush draws that get equity? Because he probably isn't calling again with say kq even the 200 and is unlikely to have trapped a set for your small bet.

On the turn his hand looks a lot like a made flush, or do u think there is another hand that takes this line? If it has to be a flush maybe it's a sigh fold. So your plan could be to bet turn on a blank and fold a heart? As played perhaps river is a fold?

But really now I'm thinking the flop was a 3b

What do u think?

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I dont think he did anything wrong. If you had folded he could fold his draw, but after you call I think hes justified in making the call. Because the K and J of hearts are on the board, there are very few combos of better flushes for him to worry about so he is going to be good most of the time he makes it. Plus any Q he hits should be good too because who is going to have ATo here? The only AT combo that would be represented is AThh but he has the Th so hes good with any Q.

I dont think you did anything wrong either. Unfortunately the river brought a card that we cannot fold on, and i cant see folding for this small sizing.

By the way, a lot of people dont understand how to play in side pot situations, and in general you cant give low limit players too much credit for making plays that make sense. You know how many times ive seen this exact situation play out where ive folded 2 pair or something and then the guy shows up with K8 or some other nonsense

Somewhat pedantic but: The way you compute the raise in pots is by comparing the raise size ($180) to the pot if the raiser called (80+20+20+20)=$140.
When you face a pot sized raise you are getting 2:1 on a call. With a flush draw this is about the right price.

idk i think he played his hand better than you did tbh. im actually genuinely unsure what you think he should have done differently. even his sizing looks good to me

river seems very difficult for him to be bluffing or overvaluing worse given how the hand has played out. people putting him on kj, qj, or k8 i think are making some wild assumptions. kq is the only remotely plausible one and idk it doesn't really seem like that's all that likely to me either

worrying about things like mdf when the flop is 4 ways and you're dealing with a dry side pot and facing a nearly 50bb xr all in on the flop is probably misguided

Yes, true. I get that.

It just seemed odd to me that he would flat call pre, flat call my flop c-bet, and then over-call V2's effective jam. Like, if we're trying to give him a range, what hands does he have that are strong enough to call the $200 jam, but not strong enough to 3B pre or raise my dinky little 20% pot flop c-bet?

There's $500 in the pot when it gets back to V1, and he has to call off another $180 to continue, so it's more like 2.78 to 1. Maybe those are good enough odds to call with the nut flush draw, or a better combo draw, but are they good enough to chase the 3rd nut flush and an inside straight to the dumb end?

I'm not sure if he was getting the right price to chase, especially if he realizes I'm likely to bet huge on a brick turn, or any turn that improves my hand, if I'm drawing too.

Depending on what range he gives me, and what range he gives V2, he might be able to work out he's got 9 to 12 outs, give or take, but only the Qh will make him the pure nuts. He'll only make his hand on the turn about 20% of the time, and some of the time, the hand he makes will be dominated by a higher straight or flush.

Otherwise, if the turn is just a brick, he'll have to fold if I bet. Even getting 2.78 to 1 pot odds, it wouldn't seem to be enough.

I posted the hand because I wanted to see if anyone would have played it differently than how I did. If I could go back and change what I did, I'd have c-bet bigger, and 3B over SB's jam.

EDIT TO ADD - Actually, I'm not sure I would have or should have 3B the flop, if I'm putting QThh, KQ, AT and a bunch of other random stuff in his range. Seems like I'm either way ahead and don't want him to fold, or he's got the OESFD and he's never folding, even to a jam. Maybe I should have just checked flop. I might have been able to get away from my hand on the turn.

In game, it seemed very unlikely that V1 would over-call the $200, and I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted him in or out of the hand, if he was drawing to something, or geting sticky with KT or some other trash. Flat calling with a plan to bet huge on a brick turn seemed like the lowest variance play, in the event he had QThh and was just never folding an OESFD, even if I jammed.

You guys should probably take what I think with a grain of salt, because I lost the hand, and I may not be capable of looking at this objective. I think I can be objective, but everyone says that.

I should have put in my OP that V1 was UTG+3. So at a 9-handed table, he's 4th to act, with 5 players left to act behind, including a short-stacked player in the blinds who's already shown a propensity to jam pre or jam flop for $200+.

Let's look at his decisions along the way:

PRE - I raised 4x UTG (strong). UTG1 calls next to act (strong). V1 over-calls with T9s from UTG3, with 5 players behind.

First off, in EP-MP, I'm playing most of my range as a 3B or fold pre-flop. I could see flatting T9s from the BTN or the blinds, but not in this set-up, where there's a decent chance someone behind him might 3B-squeeze (including the SB who might jam $227 pre), and the UTG opener might 4B. If that happens, he has to fold, so he's just torching $20 with his flat call.

Even if the UTG opener flats a 3B from an LP player or the blinds, is V1 going to be in a good spot to double-flat pre? That would really narrow his range, and make it really hard for him to realize his equity from MP, especially if he's sandwiched between an LP 3B'er and UTG.

Even if the 3B comes from the blinds, if we go multi-way to a flop, what's his plan if the 3B'er c-bets, and UTG calls, or raises? What does he do if the 3B'er checks, and UTG bets? Unless he smashes the flop, or action checks to him, he's probably going to be folding on most flops.

T9s just doesn't seem like a good hand to flat call pre, from UTG+3, facing a UTG raise, a UTG1 flat, five players left to act still, and a short-stacked jam-happy dude in the SB. I think it would be better if he 3B pre, or just let it go.

FLOP - He's got the 3rd nut flush draw and an inside straight draw. The UTG PFR bets 1/4 pot when the SB checks, and he flat calls.

Here again, in his spot, I think I'd prefer to raise as a semi-bluff, to get heads-up and IP on the PFR. Here, he's out of relative position to the SB. If he raises to $60 or $80, the SB may fold (he won't, with KJ, but V1 doesn't know that yet).

A raise might get me to fold some hands like AQo, PP's from 99 down, AJ, QJ, and some other hands that were good enough to open pre but not really strong enough to continue to a raise when I'll be OOP. Raising his hand to deny equity from a lot of my range seems like a viable play.

Once he flat calls, he's inducing SB to jam. If he's been paying attention, he'd know the SB can jam here with TP or better. Is he going to call that jam if I fold? What does he do if SB jams for $207, and I re-raise? Even if I just flat call, if he doesn't drill the turn, he'll have to fold if I bet huge on a brick.

In his spot, at this point, I think I'd fold T9hh here, facing this action, knowing I'm only going to make my hand on the turn about 20% of the time, and even then, the hand I make could easily be dominated, or at best, the PFR in UTG could still be drawing live to a better hand, and want to pile the money in with a big range and nut advantage on this board.

Otherwise, if he wants to gamble, maybe he'd be better off back-raising, if not jamming, to put me in the blender. He doesn't know I have AA. I could have AK with no heart. I'd have to fold.

I'm not saying he should have back-raised or back-jammed. But I don't think his flat call of my c-bet is all that great, and I don't think he was getting the right odds to over-call SB's flop jam, unless he's willing to back-jam and see all five cards.

Since no one can have QJhh here, and he's the only one who knows that, raising my c-bet, or back-jamming doesn't seem too insane, especially if I fold all my better hands without a heart to his raise, or if I'm not going to pay him off with those hands when he drills the turn (and I guarantee I wouldn't, though he probably doesn't realize it).

TURN - okay, he drilled the Qh to make the nuts. Not much he can do to mess up at this point. I honestly don't know what I would have bet in his spot. Maybe 20% pot is the right number.

RIVER - once I call turn, and the board pairs on the river, I think he can size up a lot. I could have some boats there, nut flushes, and straights. At worst, I've made 2P with AA.

I only started the hand with $1k. I've got $630 left. There's $1k in the pot. I think I would have jammed if I was in his spot. His river bet sizing left a lot of money on the table.

I think everyone at the table was stunned because of how the hand played, how wide he was when he called the flop jam, how insanely bad the run-out was for my hand, and how small he bet on the river. No one was putting him on T9hh there.

I admit I should have played the flop differently. From there, not much I can do other than call turn and river, given the run-out and his sizing.

But he didn't play the hand all that well, IMO, until he got lucky to make the nuts on the turn, and then lucky again when the board paired on the river.

I think his decisions pre-flop and on flop were sub-optimal. Turn was fine. River, he left money on the table by not jamming.

what do you call a river jam with that doesn't reopen betting ott (nut flush) or xjam over his river bet (mostly full houses that would need to flat call instead of iso the flop not even sure what combos these would be)? i think his sizing is good given hand reading / dry side pot dynamic. in order for him to be bluffing somehow he would have to over float a 50bb xr otf vs a player all in to raise a turn small into a dry side where he always has to show down. given that he can't be bluffing and the top end of your range realy discounted by flop / turn i think his line is good to target like 2p / low flushes (6xhh maybe)

pre is whatever by him but life is short and its live poker

would think you do better check raising the flop if the alternative is betting 1/4 of pot and people aren't going to raise aggressively vs it

I raised UTG pre, c-bet flop, called off a 2x pot check raise jam, and check-called turn when the flush draw and GS come in. From V's perspective, it should look like I have a hand I don't want to fold, even if he's terrible at hand reading. It should be obvious to him that it's a cooler situation.

I could have quads with 66, a boat with KK/JJ, or even QQ that got sticky on the flop. I could have the nut flush with any AXhh combo. I could have a straight with AT, maybe AhTx that blocks the nut flush.

At a minimum, I could have aces up with the Ah, which is now beating all the KJ the SB jammed on the flop, and the KQ he might be over-playing on the turn, that doesn't want to fold now.

Who cares if it's not that many combos? What I don't have is total air that was raising pre, bet-calling flop, and check-calling turn, just to check-fold on the river.

In his spot, with his hand, I'd jam river to target all the stronger hands I'm more likely to have, rather than bet small to target the three combos of AhAx at the bottom of my range, that aren't all that likely to fold to a jam anyway, if they get here this way, and getting better than 2.5 to 1.

Literally nothing else in my range can call a bet of any size, so he might as well jam.

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ok but you're not answering my question. look at your actions. what are these strong hands that you think you have that take this line that don't raise the river vs his bet or lead? lets be realistic. you don't have qq, you don't have AT. you i guess can have axhh that does this on the flop but it seems extremely unlikely to me that you go for the giga trap on the turn by just flatting 7$ and then just flatting villain's raise. and even if you have axhh it seems reasonable to me for you to lead or xjam the river on a 6 (what are we supposed to lose to that flops the flop twice as villain and then raises the turn except for t9hh?) if you get here this way. if he jams the river you almost certainly find a fold with KJ / KQ / AhAx and AhKx / and maybe 6xhh. realistically like 76hh and 65hh are the only hands i can see that even consider calling off 130bb on the river vs a range that really cannot have bluffs / thin value (given flop and turn). also he leaves you room in case you want to spew the money off with 2pair or whatever.

he may also not think any of that and just be correctly be thinking this guy probably doesn't have a great hand or he would have reraised the flop or raised the turn at either juncture so i should try to bet smaller to target that range, especially when a guy is already all in so i cant really win the pot via bluffing (he can win the side pot on the river i understand but a) it ruins the risk reward of betting and b) he would have to decide to create a dry side pot on the turn with air to then try to steal on the river)

I did answer your questions. I have every hand in my last post.

You seem to just love arguing for the sake of arguing.

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Exactly. Does this boring hand really need a 15 page explanation?