Hand analysis #2

I would make it 400

I assume because that would be a standard raise size? I felt that by only going to 2X, I would make a middling king hand pay something for that next card that a 4X bet would not. What's your thought process?

lots of draws in both ranges and some top pair. and i'd say at almost any size there are a lot that call the raise. you block bottom set. with bottom 2 pair on a somewhat wet board villains easily have a ton of the natural semibluff holdings and more.

dont know stack sizes though and thats important i'd say.

but i'd set a minimum raise here at 3x and size up from there if villains are willing to call for more without their range shrinking to do so etc

given you're cold 3! the flop, a weak king is less likely to call. there just isnt a lot of bluffs here and this is also why sizing is important relative to stack size i think.

Completely forgot about stack sizes...UTG +1 is at 2K, SB is $2.5K and I'm at around $4K at this point.

Okay, so it looks like you both feel that flatting would not have been the right move, but you both like a bigger raise. Tell me why you don't like the smaller raise. Not big enough to narrow their range down? My thought process was to give them a number that they would be willing to call so that I could take it down on the turn. Raising, I feel, gives me something for the risk I'm taking in keeping them in. If I 3X or 4X it, I feel the only thing they're calling to that tune is if maybe they were lucky enough to have pocket 5's and really hit it, in which case I will likely be toast as the hand progresses.

OP, stop including results, including your last action. They bias advice. Let the conversation die down, or not less than 24 hours, before revealing.

By the math, raising 2x means SB is calling $125 into a $335ish pot. For a call to be "right" from a pot odds standpoint, V only needs 21% equity. Which is any Kx+. V has 25-35% equity with the hands you beat. So we want to bet an amount where calling would be a mistake for V and is a mistake V would make sometimes.

If we raise $300 ($425) total, V now needs 32% equity, so all but his strongest draws would be making a mistake by calling. If we think V would sometimes call $500 with a draw, that would only be right if V has 35% equity. So if V will make that mistake, we want to give him the opportunity. Is Axhh folding to $500? It should, but in most games people would call.

The other consideration is that our hand isn't likely to get better. If we bet smaller and a A,Q,J,T peels off, are we still confident we have the best hand? We incentivized KT to call a small raise and it isn't great if V starts piling it in when a card comes giving him a plausible better two pair. Our hand is good, bet very vulnerable and difficult to know if we're ahead on many turns. So that provides incentive to either take down the pot, or narrow Vs range to mostly FDs.

So betting small allows V to easily play perfectly - call with any equity, fold air, raise the nuts. Betting to $400+ gives V room to make a call that looks attractive, but is actually bad, and if V is going to get sticky with AK or KQ, 78, A2hh etc. we are printing.

Something has gone awry with the suits in the OP. Probably not much of an issue but confirm nobody can have KXhh?

As the straddle you are basically uncapped here (the only nuttish hand you don't have is KK). A 3bet here looks very strong and you have far more made hands than semibluffs (27 combos of 2 pair and 6 of sets). If nobody can have KXhh then it's unlikely you're getting called by many worse hands other than a strong King or the nut flush draw. Stack sizes, which aren't included in the OP, will be relevant here - if you raise will you be leaving enough implied odds for the others to call with a draw?

Absent any other info, while it always looks messy/suspicious, I would just call here. Or maybe minraise to deny equity to the heart draws. There's also the chance SB has you beaten - the straddle is on so they shouldn't be completing with junk, but you may see some K6s/K5s here

Oh yeah with that deep I think larger sizing is necessary too.

And I definitely dont think raising to define a range is exactly the understanding at all. Nor does raise size yield more folds in some linear progression against most live opponent. (in other words its NOT the case that raise of 2x makes him fold offsuit gappers, 2.2x makes him fold unpaired suited connectos with no BDFD, 2.3x makes him fold suited connectors with bdfd and no sd as well as AxXx where Xx is 5 etc etc).

Tons of villains dont understand IO's or are able to apply them correctly. So your raise isnt necessarily for those reasons. "Raising to see where you're at" tends to create mistakes in approach and application.

You're raising to build a pot and/or deny equity. Bottom 2 is an especially vulnerable holding and thus benefits equity denial, but at present given information you've asserted, you want to build a pot too. The ideal situation is you fill up on one street and they hit top 2 on another.

If villain is very good at deeper stack play/hand reading and is likely to put a lot of pressure on you, I'd advocate a slightly passive line thereafter. Moreso OOP than IP with bottom two, but if its still MW to the turn I think it adds more pro's to a checking line and neither UTG+1 and SB should ave a ton of FD combos given position and preflop, especially UTG+1 who arguably should have started the hand with the tightest value heavy range, but largely because its too strong to fold against likely holdings villain may have but too weak to want to keep piling without improving especially if flop raise is called. You block sets and 2 pair combos and so being IP, allows you a little more control. If checked to twice I absolutely think VB'ing is warranted. Checking back seemingly innocuous turns also makes your harder to play against when IP as it strengthens that line with value hands allowing you room in future encounters to realize equity when needing to vs tougher opponents deep stacked. If you only chekced back w/ little to no equity, a solid opponent could donk river as well as donk a smaller size knowing your check turn range never has anything stronger than middle to bottom of your value range. And since bottom 2 is more vulnerable than top 2, i think the EV it collects is more from its ability to support weaker portions of the value range. A somehwat aggressive opponent may default to donking rivers in situations where you check back turn IP too. If you improve on the turn to a FH maybe we can build an argument there for betting.

I see that when I first posted, the suits of the 5/6 are in reverse. Sorry about that!

Okay, I'm glad to see that we all agree that raising was the correct play. I can also see how a higher raise will make it more costly for V to realize any equity they might have.

Thanks!

If V is good at deeper stack play and is aggressive, then when V flats we are ahead right now more often than not.

We were straddle in a limped pot. If we jack it up to say $400, what hand is SB just calling with? We are only behind K6, K5, KK, 66, 55. Which of those hands is a competent player ever flatting when OOP against a player who has literally 100% of their range going to the flop (we know H has previously flatted with AA preflop, don't know if V was around for that hand). All the SD, FD, and combo draws are in Hs range. So if V has any kind of nutted hand, he isn't going to play this balanced. If V flats with say 66 here, and 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, or heart OTT puts him in an uncomfortable spot of possibly completing H's draw, but if V doesn't donk, then the turn checking through is a disaster for any made hand. H has shown a ton of strength with a cold 3!, if V has a nutted hand he has every reason to 4! and no good reason to flat.

We're playing $5/$10, we have to assume that V has some concept of how poor being OOP is going to be on future streets with a nutted hand right now. So I would expect that if we get a flat call, Vs range is heavily skewed toward high equity draws to the nuts. So on a non-heart turn, we should be biased toward keeping the pressure high IMO. If we bet $400 OTF, pot is around $900 we have a little bit more than 2x SPR. If turn bricks, we can decide if we want to get greedy and risk the heart with a bet like $500 (technically a bad call with naked FD but most players are calling) or we can just try to shut it down with a bigger bet. I think it is a huge mistake to check back any bricky looking turn and let V get two draws for the price of one. If we're going to play passive, we should start being passive right away and just call the flop bet and keep the pot small. If we're going to bloat the pot with a 3!, I think we have to be willing to fight for it on future streets.

I think the harder question is, if we make it $400 and V 4!s, can we call? Do we just 5! rip it in ourselves? A good $5/$10 player is going to have bluffs, but with that much action we are just getting stacked by a hand that has us crushed too. If I'm in H's position and V flats, I feel like I have the best hand almost always. If V comes over the top, that's an uncomfortable spot where I can go either way depending on my read of V.

Are you saying this in opposition to my comment about taking a more passive line therafter? I think my qualification for that has to do with choosing to put our hand into that line vs the approach of only analyzing thru lens of max value as a way to benefit our weaker hands some protection when we check the turn.

As you mentioend, its 5/10 and if villain is any good they may pick up that when we check the turn in these situations, our raises from the flop would tend to be weighted towards weaker holdings, wouldnt they?

Also if they are good enough - how concerned are you with sizing given the comments above about odds offered on bet size and laying improper odds against their range?

In other words: can we come to some agreed upon value of the villain's ability through the hand so when we discuss options we arent shifting our understanding of them in a non-linear fashion.

so when i game this out in my head: we raise to 400
villain flats -> conclusion -> we're ahead
villain rips/4! -> conclusion -> we're against a range that is probably insaneely value heavy, i just dont see many villains properly having enough bluffs to make that 4! occur at a frequency that allows us to continue. obviously we have outs to a FH but its a guess as to whether or not it would still be one we could beat (eg. if villain has 55 and turn is 6, we maintain a lead but any other set has us dead) so clearly not deep enough to satisfy the equity requirement/po's in any shape or form.

i see what you mean now - but im having trouble coming up with a way to advocate for anything until we can establish either a baseline level of competancy for villain OR we respond to a situation that splits up how we'd play into something like
Scenario
(A) villain is excellent - so we do x
(B) villain is mediocre - so we do y
(C) villain is hot garbage - so we do z

i think that best alleviates the shifting perception of villain and how our strategy might respond so we're providing a linear answer from PF to end of hand.

I think you answered the situation and I tried to touch on it above wherein a villain of some undetermined ability might 4! here and in that case that range has so few bluffs. or same thing said differently, the frequency with which that happens indicates a lack of enough bluffs balancing that 4! given action that we just cannot continue against that bet.

And based off that conclusion we can then assume that in the scenario where villain is aware of the above, they may start to increase the frequency/add bluffs to that range knowing we'd be forced to roll over with a significant portion of hands.

I want to conclude with a question around your suggestion where if we want to take a passive line we must start at the flop with the concept that again depending on villain, this becomes exploitable to some degree where the top of that range is always a bottom two pair and given the range we arrive at, unless we plan to simply call down, escalating bets/continued pressure would force us into difficult situations just as much wouldnt it?