Should hero call this river raise?

Open preflop.

When BU checks flop, he's saying he doesn't have a K.

Only hand you lose to is QQ, I'd call river for that price. You unblock spades and AT, which is good.

Honestly you might be better off potting the flop and trying to stack Kx - no one is betting that flop 5 way without Kx so it's not like someone is going to stab at it. On the turn sort of the same situation - I would bet larger. On the river I would go larger as well - maybe you were targeting flushes or worse which I get. Once you get raised it's really just live read time - you know the opponent better than us so it's hard to comment. What I will say is there are no natural bluffs - literally everything got there on the river. The only argument to call is your river sizing is suspect - maybe he sees this as a middling value hand but generally I would fold.

agree with both other answers, i'd always bet this flop. my reasons:

a) you are only drawing dead against KJxx (which is very unlikely)
b) against any other hand containing a King (with no other pair) you are big favorite, he has 10 outs twice
c) if nobody has a king, you won't get paid anyway, it will be checked around twice, and when you bet everybody folds
d) you give people holding QQxx or AAxx a free card to draw to a higher full house

and back to your original question:
you have no idea what he has (bc you didn't define his hand on the flop by leading), so he could have nuts, nothing, or something in between that you beat ... so you most likely have to call it off (although it smells like value, bc he raises so small)

Always fun to read other players thoughts.

Pre we open this hand. You ideally don’t wanna take this multi-way as the suits aren’t high enough to matter. We wanna fold out weak hands that contain higher flush draws and we are fine playing a SRP or even calling 3bets. We have enough going on here.

Flop is not a lead. A K should bet small here and PFR has a ton and you have enough here to check call or XR. I prefer the check call as you are really only scared of an A or Q and nothing else. Had you had a lower pair with less playability on turns and rivers I’d lean towards a XR to make turns easier to play. A flop XX is ok. He still has some weak Ks without an A, mostly because in theory a lot of pre flop callers have hands that should have KJ in them.

Turn is a dud but brings in a possible flush draw and almost no possible boats. I don’t mind the lead. It allows slow played Ks to call, especially ones with a possible back door flush. We are super polar in this spot tho and need to go for a pot. For bluffs you can use hands like QJT with a FD that block KJ hands and also have equity when called with straight/flush outs vs a naked K.

River i don’t mind either targeting flushes. Just fold to the XR. Almost no one is good enough to turn a K into a bluff here to fold flushes.

Only decision I’d ask myself is if he’s stupid enough to think just a naked K or the NF is the nuts here.

Yes I agree that the hand should be opened preflop. I'm really close on whether or not the river should be a call given that it's an aggressive opponent against whom hero has a lot of history.

Note that I posted this hand for a friend.

Interesting idea with donking flop. The question, as always, is - how does one balance one's donking range with one's check-raising range? And also - doesn't our checking range become very weak if we have a donking range? Perhaps this isn't such a big deal in multiway pots, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts. I'm more of a NLHE player, where donking is virtually unheard of - so I'm open to learning more about this in PLO, as I've heard it can be a useful tool to have.

I agree the betsize should be larger on the turn - I posted this hand for a friend. He mentioned that once he gets raised by this villain to a smaller size that it's very likely to be for value.

There are definitely not too many natural bluffs - perhaps QJxx hands, the weakest Kx, or hands with the lone A of spades?

Okay, so as I mentioned in a previous post, the question is - how does one balance one's donking range with one's check-raising range? And also - doesn't our checking range become very weak if we have a donking range? I agree there is value to be had on the flop vs Kx, but the above has to be considered too. I do agree with most of your points though, just interested to hear what you think.

Well, we do have some idea what villain has, as he didn't bet the flop when checked to - so there's that to consider too.

Definitely a tough river spot.

Yeah, I agree we should open this hand (I posted the hand for a friend). I also agree that flop should not be a lead. Would you have any leads on this board multiway? I like the idea of check-raising flop with a lower boat, like 88 on KK8.

I agree the turn should be a lead with a polarized range, and should therefore bet pot. But on which turns does hero's hand instead become a check-call? Just ace and queen turns I guess?

Nb the river was not a check raise, just a regular raise. Good question on whether or not villain thinks he can raise with the nut flush on this river for value. I guess most players would probably think it's too thin? Kind of difficult for villain to have K2xx or 22xx as well right? Very few combos. Thanks for your input, I appreciate it a lot.

Given blockers and the lack of flop bet where surely KJ bets this super frequently, he's selling exactly KQ and again lots of KQ is incentivized to bet the flop. Given the raiser is described as an aggressive player and we've bet quite weak on the river, where we might be expected to bomb bigger on turn and river with the overfull, I'm happily flicking in a call here as this makes for top of at least our expected range.

I like raising pre too, and think that with straddles we're going to face some light defends too and our hand is strong enough to raise for pure value.

There seems to be good reason to lead the flop too - I'm less convinced that the A and the Q are the only realistic scarecards, as relatively raggedy kings will be incentivised to check the flop sometimes.

On the river we're not facing a check-raise, just a regular raise.

Is this friend called joey-jojo shabadoo? It doesn't affect what we've got to say nor in what regard we hold you 😃

PLO has donking ranges on a ton of boards, in a ton of spots, especially multi-way. You generally donk on boards that are good for your range and with hands that can handle multiple street calls OOP due to either having redraws or strong blocker properties.

You can simplify a lot of gametrees to checking range, like as the caller on A hi boards OOP, or the PFR on non A hi boards OOP, but for example SB v BTN, the SB can lead on almost all broadway heavy boards and should, but that’s due to range composition. That’s what drives all our decisions.

Multi-way you bet equity/blocker based on boards that favor your range. A lot of boards are “even” and therefore competitive but generally the higher the cards, the more favored the PFR, lower trends towards the BB and callers, and then below 5s trends back to the PFR.

So on paired boards, broadway pairs the PFR can bet small and often.

T-5 leads towards the field caller betting small and often.

4-2 lead back towards the PFR cuz no one should have these cards in their range often and therefore overpairs are way more powerful.

As far as the concepts multi-way, it’s important to remember in general how little we bet multi-way. It’s only 20-40% at most from what I’ve studied. Our range is naturally protected in both checking and betting lines when we bet so little by intuitive range selection.

For example on this board, we can check weak trip Ks like KT98 and also some KJ like maybe KJT9 and KQQJ since we have the boat and block straight draws that can call. We bet with hands like AKQJ AK65 since we free roll when we have it and have outs to bigger boats when called while AK65 unblocking straight draws with QT. This strategy revolves around betting proper GTO sizing of 33% tho. If you bet more then you need to readjust your range to compensate.

The general idea multi-way to protect range is to select nutted but unable to improve hands to check with. When we do this, we are protected and also allow us to have the coveted turn and river check raises when nuts don’t change.

The hands you pile money in are hands that have the free rolls and redraws. Too many times people get this backwards. They think they have the nuts right now and there’s a flush draw I need to get the money in good now! No these are the hands you play passively unless you have the necessary blockers. It’s the ones where you have the flush draw plus the redraw to a higher straight with the current nuts that you pot with.

I agree with all of this on a strategy level, but on a tactical level, to account for this being a 'loose and lively home game', the arguments to bet the flop and be unbalanced go up in value. Particularly when we account for all the raggedy Kx hands that will check back but call a bet.

When we play a more merged style, that also causes our variance to skyrocket and “bad beats” that aren’t really bad beats happen like

“OMG I LOST WITH A STRAIGHT VS NAKED 2 PAIR WHEN THE BOARD HAD A FLUSH DRAW AND HE CALLED WITHOUT THE FD WHAT WAS HE THINKING”

As long as a player you understand you are taking a more exploitative line to both simultaneously increase potential profit while also increasing potential loss and variance. PLO already is a game where a GTO style has a 150bb/100 standard deviation. Playing more merged but exploitative post flop skyrockets that. Make sure you’re rolled for it. Even im not rolled for normal live PLO at the standard deviation lol. I can’t imagine needing 200 starting stacks just to sit at 5-10-25 live.

I’d focus instead on adjusting your preflop ranges as opposed to being more merged postflop. Arguably, you’d skyrocket your win rate more and take a lower variance route postflop by just adjusting your 3b to be more merged and playing vs fish in 3b pots IP as opposed to hoping to outflop 7 people every flop with poker bingo.

Curious: Does anyone ever limp/repot this hand vs. this player? Personally, I open, but just curious about a repot considering the other limps and an aggressive straddle.

Not this hand. Use non nutted but powerful hands that block Aces and have playability post flop since you will be OOP usually when you go for limp reraises.

I generally limp reraise the worst aces. So think like AA92r and ****.

Then I will use hands that are strong and block aces and kings like AKQT or AKT9 but with the Q hi suit and T hi suit. The suits don’t matter in a deep stack spot but in a 3 or 4b pot pre they grant you the required equity to stack off on two tones.

I would check call this river, I don’t see us getting called by worse that often. It pot controls when we’re beat and maybe gets some bluffs out of bad Kx.

***REVEAL***

Really? I had not heard this before, about the standard deviation. What's your source for this?

Primedope

Do you know what the standard deviation is for GTO playing NLHE?

I don’t but just check primedope.com