AA bet sizing.

I’d check flop. As played I’d check now.

I think check flop or bet like 20 are both fine. As played depending on the player type you could do anything I think.

Check, bet small, bet big all could be reasonable.

I agree that we should be checking the flop. But we didn’t so, as played:

With these two Aces in particular I’m leaning toward a check-call line on the Turn as well. We block both flush draws which weights his calling line to value hands, and we’re in bad shape against value hands.

That said, SPR is such that getting stacks in isn’t the worst outcome, and you do have 6 outs against sets (and 12 against two-pair) so geometric sizing for a River shove can’t be terrible, so betting $65 to shove most rivers (anything but a 6?) should be okay.

What's the reasoning behind checking this flop?

BTW, I'm a long time limit player transitioning to NL so for me this is all weird.

The checking with seemingly strong hands and bet sizing has me very confused.

PRE- at a loose-splashy 1/3 table, yes, we can raise bigger, especially when we're OOP, and when we have a good hand. It's an obvious sizing tell that surprisingly gets ignored a ton, usually by loose-splashy rec-fish.

FLOP - I'm c-betting, and sizing up against this lineup, from OOP. $40 isn't bad, but I might have bet $50.

We not only have the best 1P, we have the inside straight draw, we double-block A4, and we have the BDFD. There are a ton of 1P / 1P+draw hands we can get value from here, basically every PP that didn't 3B pre, from 44/66 to 99. If someone shows up with a set, we have 6 outs to a better set or straight, and can go runner-runner to make our flush.

If someone shows up with 64, that sucks. Nice hand. Good game.

TURN - The 8d completes no draws, but adds a BDFD, and BTN didn't raise our 1/2 pot c-bet? Yeah, I'm barreling for at least 2/3 pot, if not an over-bet of 1.3x pot when the 2nd flush draw appears.

If he turned a set with 88, that sucks. Please drop the ace from space on the river, dealer.

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The reasoning behind checking flop is that we're monkey-in-the-middle with 2 opponents in front and 2 behind, as the PFR on a board that really doesn't smash our UTG opening range.

So in theory our opponents would have more nutted hands on this board, and can attack our c-bet with a raise, especially from the BTN or blinds. They can have all the straights, sets, and some 2P that we'll just never have.

But with such a strong hand, and so much added equity from the ISSD and BDFD, and blocking the NFD of both suits on board, I'm not worried about opponents raising our c-bet. I just want to build the pot.

Especially when we bet 1/2 pot on flop, and don't get raised on such a wet board, I don't think we need to be overly concerned about BTN slow-playing 2P+.

Our opponents' ranges are going to have enough combos of 44, over-pairs, and 1P + a draw that we can extract a lot of value by c-betting flop, whereas a lot of those 1P + a draw hands aren't going to call if we check flop and make a delayed c-bet on a turn brick.

On the turn, I'm really only worried about BTN showing up with 88, because we were targeting all V's over-pairs to the board with our flop bet. But even there - the BTN would likely 3B with 88+ pre, at least some of the time.

Because we have the two NFD blockers, we can rep every combo of nut flush on any diamond or heart river, and our opponents really can't. Maybe BTN has some sort of combo draw to a low flush, but he probably won't show up with many big flushes that will want to play for stacks on a flush runout.

Very multiway, dynamic board, your hand needs no protection. Better to not invest too much into the pot until it's more clear where you're at and what's going on.

With the bigger bet sizes in NLHE, people are able to fold larger portions of their range, and when you compound that across 4 players and across multiple streets of betting, ranges narrow much more quickly down to hands that put us in tougher spots. Conversely, because we ourselves fold so many hands to bets, it's harder to withstand the heat we can face from opponents when we never have strong hands in our checking ranges.

Looks like we should overwhelmingly continue OTT with AA, while other overpairs are more apt to check. Blocking A4 probably matters for this hand more than I gave it credit.

River is a x/f unimproved, though.

Regarding "I have a tight image but it obviously didn't matter". Do you actually think anyone is making that much of a mistake against our tight face up range preflop? It sounds like we're sitting on at least $300, so if the first caller is as deep as us then they are getting pretty decent 20:1 IO. The next caller 21:1. The final caller got 24:1. If you factor in maybe a dead money postflop call or two, everyone probably easily got 30+:1 IO against us, with half of them having position. If they play ok postflop, they really aren't making much of a mistake with a wide variety of holdings (at least against us and our possible face up hand).

So with that said, I limp in.

As played, I'd check the flop. Our hand is pretty much face up on the table with a bet into the world here (it's at the very worst an equity hogging couple of overs + flush draw, right?). And I try to not play my hand face up on the table postflop when I still have 95+% of my stack left, especially OOP, especially if there are non-morans in the hand.

As played, we're in a gross turn spot. If Button has half a clue, he knows exactly where we both are in the hand, and yet we don't. I'm a little unclear as to whether he started with $300 or whether that is what he has now, but even just a 2/3 PSB on the turn looks like it could easily leave us with less than as 1/2 PSB for the river. Which ain't great if our opponent has played poker before. I definitely don't want to commit with one pear if I don't have to (especially given the IO I gave preflop), and I don't want to get blown off my outs, so I probably check (to call) and then make a river decision.

Overall, I attempt to plan the whole hand in order to put me in spots that are awsum instead of sucky (cuz I ain't too good in sucky spots).

GcluelesshandplanningnoobG

I also came to NL from Limit (although I made the transition in 2010).

One pear (even the toppest one) is not a strong hand in NL postflop, especially the more multiway you go (even though I realize we have a gutter draw with this one, although it is to the obvious and idiot end so not exactly a premium draw). If you get in three postflop bets with one pear for decent stacks (measured in huge bbs in NL rather than a few piddly BBs in Limit), especially with a tight image, you'll only be good against the most clueless opponents. So they typically should be played extremely cautiously (and much moreso than in Limit due to the price of being wrong, our whole stack, being devastating).

Gwelcometothedarkside!G

i think i'm in the minority on this one.

1/3 players usually play very face up on dynamic boards and we have both nut flush blockers, so a raise OTF is almost certainly value or a strong combo draw at worst. against good players, i would check because this board misses my range and i dont want to get blown off all my overpairs/FDs, but 1/3 players are typically not very good at understanding range vs range theory and applying it in games. OTF i would be going pretty big.

BTN just calls the flop bet with SB and BB still to act. BTN could have 2 pair+, but many 1/3 players would raise here because of the FD and connectedness of the board (SB & BB can have a ton of 4x) and they don't want their nut hands to get drawn out on for free. they waited all day to hit a set, you think they want a 4 liner on the board to ruin it? so i would expect BTN to have either 1 pair, a pair + draw or a naked draw.

OTT nothing changes other than 88 is now ahead of us. 2 pair combos that involve an 8 are unlikely. i would go like 125.

OTR is going to be very dependant of the card.