5/5 Call or raise my draw in this 3b pot?

Jeez, I apologise for the wall of text, I might have slightly overdone it. Please don't hold it against me, I don’t think I'm usually this wordy on this forum (as opposed to IRL)…

I thought it was well written.

I like a flop raise just fine but only if youre also raising with TT 88. I see so many solid players who raise draws on the flop and raise value on the turn, and it makes it quite easy to just go ahead and get the money in on the flop with JJ+ in a spot like this.

I think i prefer a call here, especially because people cbet flop and then give up with AK AQ type hands way too offen, so if he checks turn you can take it away.

If you hit a K or Q ott tread carefully.

I will say with the bigger sizing he probably has it, but jamming in when behind when you expect a call isnt a good strategy.

I wouldn't raise the flop, when V 3B's us pre, then c-bets 2/3 pot into two opponents. Our hand has too much going on to raise-fold.

I like flatting, to induce the SB to come along, which may decrease V's turn barreling frequency.

Just flat call, and see what V does on the turn.

Notice that your V called a pre-flop raise with KQ, but here he 3B, suggesting he had better than KQ to start. In that other hand, he waited until the turn to raise on a K-high flop, whereas here he's c-betting big into two people.

I would think he's got at least AK, if not JJ+.

Agree with Tomark, be careful about getting out of line on a K, or Q turn, and I'd add be careful on an A or J.

Couple of things:
1. Like I said, obviously we are not raise/folding. Even if I minraise I only need 30 percent to call it off if he shoves. Because of the overcaller and the 2/3 cbet we aren't that deep anymore.
2. Like I said, the SB seemed to have lost interest, so I really thought the chances of him coming along were slim to none.
3. The KQ hand happened under completely different circumstances. It's simply impossible to deduct anything at all from some vague HH I gave with respect to this hand. (This doesn’t mean I think he can have worse than KQ here, I already said I put him on a pretty strong range myself. But even against parts of that range our equity is not bad at all.)

I don't like raising the flop and then either folding or GII without drawing to the nuts.

I like calling the flop and keeping all turn options open, including possibly bluff-raising.

1. I missed that you said you weren't planning to raise-fold. Seems like that was close to the bottom of the wall of text, which I admit, I just skimmed.

I still don't like raising. I think if raising commits us to call off a jam, I like it even less. I think I'd like it better if we were deep enough to raise-fold, but I still wouldn't like it.

2. I hesitate to put too much stock into it when someone on a forum picks up a live tell like this.

If I were sitting at the table, and could see the SB, I might come to the same conclusion as you. But not sitting there seeing what you're seeing, I'm open to the possibility that SB is giving off a reverse tell, looking uninterested when in fact he's very strong and hoping you'll raise, or at the very least call.

That's not to suggest I think you're bad at reading the SB's tells. I consider myself fairly good at reading live tells, and I still sometimes fall victim to reverse tells.

TL;DR - I wouldn't necessarily assume SB isn't calling if we flat call. If there's even a chance he calls, and might be planning to raise, I prefer to call, not raise.

3. Not sure why you're telling us about the KQ hand if it wasn't relative in some way here.

Maybe the specific holding of KQ isn't the relevant part. Maybe it's the old dude's aggression. Ignoring that he had KQ in that hand, I think it might be relevant that he waited until the turn, after flopping TP2K. Here, he's 3B pre, and c-bet 2/3 pot into two opponents. I would think that he likely has a strong hand.

I suppose it's possible he's spewing with air here, but you said his spews don't happen often enough to factor the possibility of a spew into our analysis here.

I understand that our equity here may be high enough to warrant getting stacks in, but getting stacks in would seem to assume he jams over our raise (with what I presume would be a better hand). What if we raise, and he just folds? In that scenario, it seems likely he actually does have a worse hand.

What if we raise, and he just calls? What's our plan on a brick turn? Like, suppose he goes into check-call mode when we raise flop? Are we barreling off no matter what the run-out is?

I would shove. You have good equity if called.

am unsure how multiway would affect things, but id just call your hand. i dont see what raising does for you that calling doesn't (the expectation should not be that he folds overpairs). this also isn't really a spot you want to raise sets (you rarely possibly never do at this spr in 3b pots ip because you can just get them in later), your raising range is supposed to be more vulnerable value hands (think JJ, AT stuff) at least headsup, which seems sort of dubious to me 3 ways. i think in practice you're going to have fairly poor equity if you commit with the non nut fd, and i don't really see much of an argument of why that's going to be higher ev than calling ip and playing subsequent streets (this requires some amount of work but more complexity is always going to favor the better player). just because you could raise and gii with your hand, doesn't mean that you have to or you should. is actually one of the biggest benefits of working with a solver, is you can see the expectation of later streets and other options.

i think trying to be more aggro is good but there's alot of ways to be aggressive and blindly raising and gii w every 8 / 9 out draw is not necessarily the most effective way to do that. as usual, solvers will be your friend.

also, you may think you're deep, but if u think the sb is a nonfactor continuing wise, this is just basically a bb vs btn 3b pot in terms of spr (~4).

You could have more than 9 outs. You are a favorite versus JJ. Presumably, he isn't always calling a shove.

i dont understand the point you're making. both options are +ev given equity and the size of the pot (at least in theory) i just think calling is more so. i also think hes much more likely to make mistakes on later streets then facing an all in raise otf

Could we sometimes 4b pre with the dead money from SB? It's 4 handed after all! Although yeah we have position so call obviously fine

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So do we call and fold to a shove on a blank turn? Is he paying off if the flush hits?

To everyone that says call: So there's actually nothing wrong with folding the turn unimproved here? Because I felt like a pushover after doing that a couple of times...

Or are we only calling flop and folding turn to a guy whom we expect to always have an overpair if he bets/shoves the turn? And when we face someone who's laggier and more bluffy, we do raise the flop? Because we simply can't do anything if he barrels turn big, right? I mean, we have king high. Even if he's wide, we'd have to fold, I would imagine.

Correct, there's nothing wrong with folding turn unimproved.

Consider that you'll get to the flop with some hands that whiff and just fold to this sizing, some hands that smash it hard enough to raise, and some hands that connect well enough to call, some of which will come in on the turn sometimes.

By betting so large on the flop, he's making it easy for you to play perfectly. You don't have to think about what to do with most hands. This one looks close, but if we look at it as part of a complete range, we can see that we'll have other hands that are better to raise.

If he's bluffing, he's risking way too much, and we'll be able to capitalize on that when we have a hand that can raise flop or call turn. If he has value, he's leaving money on the table by forcing us to over-fold to his large bet sizing.

I know GTO usually recommends small flop bets, but I don't see how a 2/3 flop bet is some big mistake that can be exploited. However, shoving does exploit it to some extent. If he puts in a big bet, maybe with ace high, and folds to your draw, that is a good result.

V sizing and description screams value. I would guess TT and overpairs are the most likely holdings. We have ~41% vs that range, so we need 16% fold equity if we shove here just to break even, and I doubt he ever folds with that range. If that's the case, we are losing money by shoving.

If on the flop it was already 560 and we were check to, then stacking off with 41% equity would be auto-profitable even when he never folds but to overbet 1.5x pot when we haven't called the 2/3 pot bet requires fold equity. Raising a large bet always requires much more fold equity than bluffing first to act or when checked to. It is easy to underestimate how much.

That said, I tend to like calling in position here. But there could be an argument for raising smaller, potentially to check a blank turns to realize our equity. That would assume villain doesn't always jam vs a raise. If he does then it goes back to being unprofitable to raise.

It feels dumb. A part of us wants to have bluff jams here, but I think if we lean hard into exploits thinking this villain isn't 3b and going 2/3 multiway with anything that plans to fold, we just can't profitably bluff here.

That said, it's not impossible v could have a hand like AK that actually will fold to a jam, but I am worried it is not often enough.

Depending on what the turn sizing is, yeah, we may fold. We may call smaller sizing though.

Shoving and making him fold AK and AQ is a huge win. Not a fan of calling flop and folding turn, or worse yet hitting the turn and going broke to a better kicker.

If he calls that’s ok too.

The 2/3 pot c-bet is easy to exploit in that we don't have to raise our good hands for value and protection, nor do we have much if any incentive to start a bluff by raising.

If he put in a big bet with ace-high, why would we want to shove with our value hands? If we jam with TT, maybe we cooler JJ-AA, but we lose value when we fold out hands that would barrel. It's a disaster if he finds a fold with an over-pair.

What other hands would we jam for value, that didn't 4B pre? Are we jamming AT, or JJ, or QQ? Why, when V is uncapped?

How many really strong hands do we have in our range on this flop? Maybe just TT and 66. How many bluffs do we have? Seems like we're going to have way more bluffs than value here.

Shoving with thin value and bluffs makes us exploitable, because V can just fold ace-high and snap us off with his better value. If we're only and always shoving TT and 66, we're super-exploitable.

If we are sure that this sizing is heavy towards value—and that we have no fold equity on a jam—it’s possible we should fold.

Even if we think Villain stacks off on a diamond, there are 9 diamonds in the deck and our stack odds are 6:1 or close to it. Do we have the discipline to fold to an overbet jam from Villain on a K, Q,
A or J? Do we think Villain can be habe nut flush draws? The flop call is so close that these things matter.

People pay off flushes often enough imo. Imagine he could have JJ with a diamond or AA with a diamond which he might jam on turn. Or even no diamond he may call off certain sizes. For unknowable reasons I see it happen often enough that I think calling the flop is going to be worth it.

V is a tight aggressive old guy, we have KdQd, Td on the board. That mainly leaves AdJd which we don't know he will 3bet and some other AdXd which a younger reg might 3b but probably not this villain. He overwhelmingly have an overpair imo, which we call flop to win a big pot against sometimes. We can also win some money vs SB sometimes. And once in a blue moon we will get a free card on the turn. Recreational players are more likely to check with the intention of calling with a strong hand than regs, although that is more on the river.

Agree with Mlark. Many V's who play this way will get married to their over-pairs, and pay us off when we make our hand.

There's a slight chance we'll make our flush with a card that gives V a set, and he will never be able to get away in that scenario.

Very often, he'll slow down with AA/KK/QQ on a turn J, fearing we have JT. He'll slow down on a turn A if he has KK/QQ/JJ, because of course we're always floating with AX. We should worry more about him betting big on a K or Q than him betting big on an A or J.

If he has AK, he's probably checking turn a lot, because he was hoping we'd fold flop when he bet big, and when we didn't, he assumes we have at least a pair, and aren't folding if he barrels.

If he checks to us on the turn, we should mostly just be checking back, to take our equity, rather than betting, on the chance that he's planning to check-raise, or just going into check-call mode.

He has 27 combos of AA, KK, QQ, JJ or TT, but 12 of AK, and maybe another 3 of AQs.

So, we've got 13 outs to make our hand on the turn, but there's another 8 that will slow down his over-pairs from barreling. It seems reasonably likely he'll check to us on a lot of turns, even when we haven't yet made our hand.

worry about making the most +ev decision at every point not about not being a push over. if you think he has an overpair what do you think raising / getting it in on the flop does except commit yourself with 37% or whatever equity?

Shoving is terrible unless he thinks he has reasonable fold equity,