ATo MW, flop OESD

i think flop and river bet are both meh decisions. flop is 5 ways vs a field you're almost certainly better off trying to hit and then put in money (i get its a small bet so ev can't be too bad but think its a pure x with this hand), river - flop was 5 ways and its still 3 ways. i think river would be ok if its HU or maybe against some combination of SB / BB / BTN. am maybe underestimating how weak co's range is here though and maybe its good idk. dont mind sizing down to 20 either otr

ap, dunno what co is supposed to have but i guess u have good blockers, i cant really see much except for maybe a9 / a8 or like idk man 86dd or something and id call now but don't think you want to get here like this

Fold preflop (basics). Check flop (probably to check-call; I'd be more likely to check-raise with T9).

You do block straights and flushes but what bluffs are there? 67 got there. Unless you think he's turning T9 etc into a bluff, and never plays 2p and sets this way, then it's a fold. He's got to get through two players.

Pre is marginal in EP.

Don't like flop multi way which smashes their range even if we have ok equity

River I think bet or check are valid. If we bet, I like your sizing targeting a lower pair for crying call. Now it's an easy fold. River raise big is so rarely a bluff at low stakes.

Flop cbet is a punt.

I don't like the idea of having ATo oop MW in a situation where it was probably gonna be MW.

PRE - as much as I hate open limping pre, if we're not going to fold ATo in EP, then I think it makes a good limp-calling candidate.

Against this field of villains, I think our basic pre-flop strat should be to see as many cheap flops as possible, not raising with marginal hands when we know none of our opponents has too big a fold button, and a couple of them have way too big a jam button.

FLOP - for God's sake just check.

We're monkey in the middle and five ways with three fish, and the one decent player directly behind us, with a board that smashes everyone's range, and a hand that just wants to realize its equity without bloating the pot. If the flop checks through and action checks to us again on the turn we can make a delayed c-bet.

If we must bet, we could probably go even smaller, like $20, and expect the same opponents to fold.

TURN - if we checked flop, I'd like to make a delayed c-bet here, when the BDFD comes in. I'd probably bet 1/2 pot.

As played on the flop, I dunno. I could see betting to deny equity from other draws and some weaker 1P type hands. But I think a barrel would need to be huge to fold out CO and BB, if BB would even fold.

If we check, I think we're basically giving up unless we drill our straight on the river. Even at that, all our outs aren't clean, so I think I somewhat prefer to barrel here, even though I hate how we got here, and I think that barreling commits us to betting the river on a brick.

RIVER - awesome, we made top pair, $h1t kicker, when the flush comes in. Now we can just play it like a bluff catcher and check-call. This is way too thin to bet for value. If we want to block bet, I think we need to make it around $115 - big enough to discourage bluff raises, but not so big that we can't get called by worse.

No idea why we'd bet less than 1/3 pot. We're asking CO to put us in the blender with a raise. This would be an awesome play if we had the nuts. With a weak TP, it's a disaster.

I don't see what we beat here, other than bluffs. And CO would have to be turning something with some showdown value into a bluff, which most opponents won't do when both straight and flush draws have come in. He'd have to be good enough to know you'd never take this size with the nuts, and are just betting thin or making a weak bluff yourself.

Just fold.

why did you raise pre and why did you bet the flop?

why did you bet the river?

It's 1/3 and the opponent is a rec. Of course you have zero river 3bet bluffs.

Also - you advocate 3bet bluffing to knock out sets and two pair whilst saying he has hardly any flushes, whilat conveniently forgetting the vast number of straights out there. Do 2p/sets/straights make sense with this line? Not really, but given how few hands do, we can't discount any of them too heavily.

Who on earth has a 3-bet river bluff range in Low Stakes?

Not me, and certainly nobody I know.

someone must be watching too many GTO videos

yeah i mean hero has basically no flushes with this line lol. worrying about balance in this spot is probably poor application of poker theory.

i think its worth considering how many of the WAAAAY more flushes you think hero can have cbet 5 ways and then check the turn when they pick up equity, and then they have to block the river as opposed to doing something else. Given Ad and 9d are dead doubt you're going to find even partial percentages of too many realistic combos.

i still think river action rankings are call > fold > 3b from an ev perspective.

tbh think people are hand reading co fairly poorly. look how deep he is with hero and sb is fish. why do you all think he is trapping the turn with any kind of non zero frequency? i honestly think given player description, board, blah blah he is capped to 1p < AJ, and the only real river improves i see for him are a9 / a8 and idk man maybe? a handful of like weird j5dd or 86dd hands both of which are going to be sketchy pre and flop peels, and then at least jx probably considers betting turn

I fold preflop. Would rather limp to a high SPR than raise to a small SPR so we aren't as handcuffed postflop.

Is the small flop bet just to prevent others from betting large? Think I would mostly check/evaluate (folding to most non-small bets as our IO / RIO are horrible).

I also check (to fold) the turn.

If anyone left is payoffy I don't think I hate a very small bet/fold on the river. If anyone is bluffy I might lean to a check/call.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Result:

Check-evaluating or block-betting for 2/3 pot both seem like better options than betting less than 1/3 pot (for value?), and then turning our hand into a 3B bluff when we get raised.

If we thought V might be bluffing, why not just call? He's folding his bluffs, and calling with an insanely strong range.

Yeah. You had the right hand for the 3-bet bluff. But it’s understandably hard to pull that trigger, haha. Oh well, well-played by V.

First read thought H was in CO ... opening this UTG+1 is just bad.

Check flop is obvious. Would be checking AA/KK here and it's not close.

Would probably check river as played. When we bet our hand looks a lot like AK/AQ that is now going for thin value, and our hand is even thinner than that. V showing 9h doesn't mean he's bluffing H IMO, esp. given read he's trying to give off an opposite image, he could easily be correctly raising 2 pair for value.
Td isn't the blocker it might look like IMO because lots of Td hands continue betting turn, if we want to bluff 3bet river then I think I'd want Kd. That also might be bad if H isn't checking some strong diamond draws on the turn (esp. so if V knows/assumes that).

FWIW, the vast majority of times someone only exposes one card after the hand that isn't a complete brick, the unexposed card is usually the money card (so in this case probably an Ace). If they wanted to tilt us by showing a bluff then they'd mostly just show both cards.

GcluelesstiltinducingnoobG

Ordinarily I'd agree, but...A9o? Hero has the Ah in his hand, so it can't be Ah9h. If CO is that wide, I'd think Kd9h might be more likely, blocking the nut flush. Seems like A9 would be an ambitious value raise on the river.

If he wants to tilt hero, or do some future-value advertising for the table's benefit, then it seems like he'd want us to think he had 99. I'd think showing the Kd would be less tilting than not showing it, because bluffing with the Kd makes sense, whereas slow-playing 99 on the flop and turn, just to over-play it on the river really doesn't, and would encourage opponents to look him up light in the future.

Kd9h/Th9h make some sense, but 99/J9/98o/A9o are just much more likely IMO. Also not sure 99 is an overplay as BDFD is hard to hit when flop is bet small and turn checked and H probably never has a straight (or JJ) and if he does he doesn't raise river. On the flop it's a small bet so V would normally raise but he also has 3 people behind him who probably have all 16 combos. of QT (the joy of sets).

Also H is bluffing away with AxTd, so why not let him keep firing all 666 combos. that have near (or actual) 0% equity.

Be somewhat curious if H folds AJ on river, also curious if V folds 99 here to the 3bet.

"Never show" but this guy has the whole forum arguing over whether he was showing value or showing a bluff...skillz

I mean I'm pretty sure I'd treat showing the 9h the same as not showing in game. I think it's roughly 80% likely it was better than H's hand, but I doubt V achieved much by showing _me_ here. Maybe others would assume it's a bluff and over compensate by playing the same and 3betting H's hand, or hero calling down.

Also I don't argue "never show", Eg. I would 100% show both cards with Th9h here and would sometimes show one or both with Kd.

I agree that showing one card is usually indicative of a strong hand meant to look like a bluff. But I've also done that when I was bluffing, just to show I didn't have the nuts.

Given OP's read on V, and how the action went, it just seems more likely to me that he'd be more likely to make this play with Kd9h as a bluff than with 2P or a set raising for thin value.

I don't think he'd show just the 9h if he had 2P or a set for value, if he wanted the table to believe he was bluffing. All that does is make it possible for him to have had 2P+.

It seems like he just wants the table to wonder or debate what his other card was. The goal is to get people thinking he's a wild man raising with 3rd pair, or that he's hanging on with A9 and over-played it.

He doesn't want opponents to think he's capable of floating the turn and raising river as a bluff with Kd9h if that's what he actually did.

he has all the A9o...