Top two.

If V bets are you ever folding? If no bet all in.

Played fine. We have less than PSB behind. Its a jam. If we lose so be it.

Spr is about 2/3 sometimes we lose. It happens. Jam.

I put the button on an Ace. Would perhaps throwing out a small bet like 40 make sense? He might hope we are gonna chop. It's tough to think he will make the call if I jam and maybe I can get away if he raises the river. AJ was a hand I put him on.

Grunch:

PRE - Raise bigger. The UTG didn't limp in just to fold for $15. And we're EP (?), so make it at least $20.

FLOP - I'd go bigger on ace-high boards as the PFR. Usually over-betting when it's heads up, so maybe potting it since it's multi-way. No less than 2/3 pot, so $40 to $60.

TURN - On a nut-changing card, either bet smaller, to see if he raises, or bet bigger, to target his worse AX, 2P, and charge his flush draws. So either bet $60 or $150. The medium-sized bet you used doesn't really accomplish anything.

If we raised bigger pre, and sized up on the flop, we could have made this a 2-street game and just jammed here. If we made it $20 pre, and the same three V's called, the pot would be $80 on the flop, and if we bet $80 on the flop, the pot would be $240, and we'd have $200 left for a less than pot-sized jam.

RIVER - We have around $180 left? This is the problem with the bet sizing we took on earlier streets. We've gotten here with 2/3 pot, so the SPR is pretty awkward. We're not deep enough to bet-fold.

Seems like we may have run out of value, unless V was calling the whole way with AK or worse AX. Doubtful he calls with just QX. I guess we should check, to give his busted flush draws a chance to bluff at it. Probably have to call any bet size, whether we like it or not.

x/c whatever he bets unfortunately.
he doesnt have much worse to call with if we bet and flop was rainbow so its hard for him to put us on busted fd. if he has Jx then we say NH and reload putting that in our mental filing cabinet

also dont do that. think in terms of ranges not hands.
for instance:
on the flop: AhQs7d
ok btn called a AQ7r board, he could have 77, Ax, Qx, 7x, pps, gutters, gutters with bdfd.
BUT...i block Ax and Qx so his range is mostly 7x, some pps and gutters, bdfds -- i should bet for value here.

on the turn:AhQs7dJh
broadway gets there, some of his 2prs get there, he probably picked up some fds with Qx and 7x, still has KJ, QT, JT aswell
BUT...even though KT got there and 77 is ahead, i still block Ax, Qx so hes more likely to have TT, KQ, KJ, QT, JT or something like T9hh. we have decent equity vs that range so should bet for value again.

on the river:AhQs7dJhJc
KT, AJ, QJ, KJ, JT, 77 all beat us. that leaves Ax, QT, KQ, TT and busted hearts. He has more value combos in his range than we do, check. wait, he has Ax that now chop with everything but AK. we block Ax, check and let him try to bet us off the chop.

this is very rough obviously but this is how you should be thinking through a hand. not "I think he has an Ace"

I do put them on a range. The real question was how much should I bet on the river if I'm targeting his Ax hands for a call. As Doc pointed out I had some bad sizing which created an awkward spot.

Thanks!

I've seen the $15 raise over a $3 limp in many vids or posts. Are you assuming the UTG has a tighter limping range that is less likely to fold to a bigger bet? If it was a HJ open limp would the 15 raise be more appropriate? Is this just a live cash exploit of limpers who rarely fold?

If I bet small on the turn and he raises is this a fold assuming it wasn't a particularly small raise?

Thanks for your well thought out response.

So...my usual RFI open size at 1/3 is $15. Bear in mind I'm usually sitting with at least $450-$500, not playing $300 effective. When there's a limper or two in front of me, I'll typically raise to $20, possibly more if we're playing deeper, or the game is splashy, or my image is wild.

My reasoning is that the limper wants to see a flop, but his hand isn't strong enough to raise. If they want to see a flop, and they're not going to fold for another $12, they're probably not folding if we make it $20 rather than $15.

When we have position on a weak player, I just want the pot to be bigger, especially in low stakes games with higher rake structures. It's not that I think his EP limping range is tighter, and therefore less likely to fold if we make it $20 as opposed to $15. I just think they tend to be fairly inelastic, up to a certain point.

Like, he's probably folding if we make it $50. But the incremental difference between a $15 raise and a $20 raise isn't enough to make him fold at a proportionally higher rate. Whatever his limping range is, I don't think he's folding 33% of that range when we make our raise 1/3 bigger. Maybe he folds 10% of it. The additional value we get by making it $20 more than offsets the value we lose when they fold.

It very much is a low-stakes population exploit, and I don't think the positions matter very much when someone open limps, other than viewing a limp from LP as generally weaker than a limp from EP. So, the EP limper is more likely to call our raise than the LP limper, all other things being equal.

When we're only starting $300 effective, and we're raising with AQ from EP or MP, I think we'd prefer to open for a larger size, to make it harder for our opponents to profitably set-mine, and set up easier two-street games with a lower SPR post-flop. I want them to fold more of their PP's and middling SC's, and call with more of the Broadway combos we have dominated.

Like, when we look down at AQ pre, I'm already thinking ahead, planning to c-bet large when we make a good TP, to set up a turn over-bet jam. I don't really want to play a three-street game with a $300 stack at 1/3.

If we raise bigger pre, and c-bet bigger on the flop, our opponents' ranges get funneled towards worse high-card hands we have crushed. If we raise smaller, and c-bet smaller, they're going to call wider, and show up on the river with some sneaky flush, straight or set that would have folded to a larger bet on an earlier street.

As for the turn...what constitutes a "small" vs a "large" bet can be a range that's reasonable, or absurd. So, on a nut-changing card, a "small" bet may be 1/2 pot, give or take, or maybe a little lower range, like 1/3 pot, give or take. It somewhat depends on our remaining stack depth, and how we range our opponents.

But if you start going REALLY small, then we're possibly inducing light raises, and we have to call more. With top 2P on a straight-completing card, we don't really want to bet so small that we don't know if our opponent is raising because we induced or raising because he has us beat.

Likewise, we don't want to bet REALLY big, because then our opponents can only call with better hands. But, again, it depends on the SPR and how we're ranging our opponents, which depends on what happened on earlier streets.

If we bet $60 on the turn and he raises...I might fold. It depends. But I don't like the spot, and we wouldn't be in it if we raised bigger pre, and c-bet bigger on the flop.

If we got to the turn with less than 1 SPR, we could jam, and live with the result if he snaps with KT, because KT shouldn't be showing up on the turn if we used larger sizing pre and on the flop. More likely, he's going to have a worse 2P, or some sort of 1P + draw hand, like KQhh.

That is a great explanation.

Thank you!!

Not looking to beat you up, but I think your river jam is problematic, from a hand-reading perspective.

It's hard for V to show up with worse AX that will call. Even if he has AK, or worse AX, it's hard for him to call when we raise pre and go bet-bet-jam on this board. He doesn't beat anything but a bluff, and what bluffs would we possibly have here? If he calls, I'd expect he has trips or better.

If we check, he's likely to check back a lot, but he might go for super-thin value with AK, or turn something into a bluff. We might have a hand like AK, KK, KQ, or AT that just doesn't like the run-out, and is checking hoping he'll check back.

If I'm V, and I somehow got to the river with KQ, Q7, QT, or any hand that doesn't seem likely to win at showdown vs the hands you'd check, I might try to make you fold by jamming. Some opponents will just spaz-stab when they get here with anything, and we check. He might stab at it with TT or A2.

When we jam, he's folding everything we beat. If we check, he'll bet all the hands that have us beat, but he can also bet some worse hands that can't win if he just checks back, and he might convince himself we checked because we're scared of the board.

if you are targeting Ax you should pot flop and jam turn. i used to think that betting 1/3 with everything multiway was standard, then i realized that if we are targeting certain ranges we should just size up, especially on boards that favor us.

You can bomb the flop it depends how sticky people are your image etc. I would definitely bet more on the turn tho and river is just a jam. If you're beat it's a cooler.