Trying to Keep Opponent in the Pot with top set

Don’t you mean 12.5 percent rake, uncapped? I thought Germany taxed poker so high, even pros lose. If the rake is really 2.5 percent, please tell us where!

Falls Poker in Deutschland so billig ist, kehre ich hinein zurück.

I completely forgot about this thread so apologies for not replying sooner.

Well if I were to 3bet on this board (and as I said in my original comment I'm not convinced that that's the best line to take) then I'd have to ask the question - what is villain's calling range going to be?

You've got top pair blocked.

A c/r looks so strong that you're probably not getting calls from villains medium pocket pairs.

That just leaves the flush draws and open ended straight draws. Your hand is the nuts on the flop but it's not impervious from being drawn out on by those hands. When you min c/r villain needs to put €28 into a pot of €134. If they have a flush draw or an OESD then you're giving them a trivial call.

If I were to c/r then I'd make it at least €100

rake is pleasantly low indeed! Won't tell you which casino it is bc it's small so you could theoretically find out who I am, but there are a few with similarly low rake afaik.

Rake cap is 50. It goes up in discrete steps, so 2.5% was a guess for what it is on average. 4% is worst case.

Yeah agree with all of this.

Whenever I'm the PFR and have opponents in front and behind me, my default play is to check flop, so I like your check to start.

When someone bets, we can check-call or check-raise, or make a delayed c-bet on the turn if no one bets flop. Whether we check call or check raise flop depends on their bet sizing, the board texture, and our hand.

Here, when V bets over half pot into two opponents, I think we should just check call, not check raise. It's unlikely he's doing that with some sort of draw, unless maybe it's a good combo draw. It's more likely he's stabbing with a PP lower than JJ, or two over-cards, or perhaps Jx occasionally.

When we check-call, we can have a lot of flush draws in our range, so we don't necessarily need to worry that our opponent is going to turn the weak value parts of his range into a bluff on a flush run-out.

All that said, there are scenarios wherein I deviate from my default play and make a c-bet. Doing so here, for a 1/3-1/2 size, seems fine. We can get value from the same sorts of hands that might bet when checked to. We can barrel most if not all turns, and evaluate the river.

I really don't like a check-raise here, as the PFR, on this flop texture, in this configuration, when V bets >1/2 pot. It looks pretty nutted, and any decent V will expect us to bomb the turn on a brick. Other than bottom or middle set, or maybe occasionally bottom 2P, V is pretty capped for value at 55-88, and can't continue with very much of his range.

If we want to check raise occasionally, I would go bigger than a min-click, to polarize. A min-click check raise on the flop seems like fancy play syndrome to me.

Someone with 77 or whatever is going to be pretty unimpressed with a cbet on a J34 board so just get your value while you can. The clickback minraise is just a hallmark nutted hand trying to milk your opponent, never do this if you want a call.