Top trips facing a turn raise

Not betting this flop is criminal. People will call because this flop clearly missed your range. In addition, by checking you're giving hands with equity free cards to overtake you.

1-2, opening to 7 is certainly something. At UTG+1 with A6s too. On the plus side, as noted, no one will believe you've a 6, lol.

Folding pf, and I think we're supposed to x 5-ways on 966 two-tone, 2nd to act. Bummer it x'd through. If they think you're a mediocre nit; sure, bet >2/3 as a cbet with your obvious OP, or 1/3 given your range, and hang on.

If you call the 50, it's 137 with like 200 back on the river. Which is awkward. We're facing 2 potential flush draws, and 1 OESD. Jamming lets V off the hook. But there doesn't look like a better intermediate raise size, given stacks.

Betting 25-30 on turn into 37 (vs 15) allows V to still raise, and would make river more manageable then. Or if V simply called, another V probably does too.

AP, probably calling with your image and trying to fade a lot of the deck.

Opening to 7 is fine.

I would shove, V is likely inelastic OTT.

Bet flop.

As played calling turn, and check-calling most rivers. Against a tight villain he is just folding most weaker hands vs our shove I think unless he is the type to take a lot of strange lines with premium overpairs.

flop check is fine. 3b turn to between $100-125 and shove the river. obviously calling if he goes all in. if you dont end up all on this hand given v's stack you screwed up.

I would fold preflop and bet the flop as played. As the other poster implied, it looks like you are cbetting with an overpair or bluff.

I would just call down. He can have worse trips, but you have I think 5th nuts. It is weird he didn't bet the flop in position. He should have bet trips on a 2-flush board, but he likely would slow play a boat. I don't know if he would raise a flush draw on this board. He could also just be bluffing, as you checked the flop as the pfr and appeared to miss it based on your range. So I think a boat or a bluff makes the most sense, so call and check/call is best.

Sure, or a king rolls off and we get 2 streets from KJ. I’m not saying checking is better, I think we should mix.

Don't know what to make of that $7 open. Think I'd raise bigger, to at least $10.

Folding pre is also fine.

Flop is interesting. I don't like slow playing in spots like this - thick but vulnerable value on a super wet and dynamic board. I would probably just bet pot.

When flop checks through, I'm probably betting pot on turn.

As played, there isn't much we're losing to, assuming BTN isn't checking back flop with 99/96/62. He's either got 22 for better value, or he's bluffing, or over playing worse value.

Seems like a weird spot to bluff, when he can just flat call with all his draws and realize his equity. But maybe he thinks we're FOS and his raise has some fold equity.

The problem with flatting is that he may not bluff river if we check in flow, so I think I prefer to 3B turn, to charge all his draws.

Since he's only got $208 left, and the pot is $102, I think I just jam and pray he's got something we beat and he can't fold.

Prob fold pre. I don’t mind opening or (god forbid) even limping on occasion depending on table dynamics.

AP I bet flop.

AP your objective should be to maximize the chance of getting stacks in. We have a very strong hand that is discrepant from our perceived range. We are fine going broke against the unlikely 99 (or 22). The time is on the turn. This is a very dynamic board. I’m not worried about squeezing an extra bet out of marginal one pair hands V is likely to check back or fold OTR. He may even be sticky with a 9x hand thinking you wouldn’t have checked flop with overpairs. Get value now before he can play perfect if flush cards come.

Will post results tomorrow, but how do folks advocating for a flop bet construct a range for betting? Are we betting overpairs and hands like AhKx, or just trips, 99, and big draws? Or maybe it doesn't really matter, because we have a strong hand and are playing $1/$2 and just need to bet...

EDIT just to add that I mostly try to check OOP multiway as a baseline strategy and very strongly believed that this board would get stabbed :( I wasn't necessarily "slowplaying" because I was absolutely planning to stuff it down the stabbor's throat

The problem with c/r is that you are just folding out the weak stabs. It also defines your hand as strong. C-betting will keep bluffs in your perceived range and will more likely get value from later streets.

Neither answer is terrible. The only challenge is you're out of position, so if you just call and check, then you don't get any additional value. I'd raise. An A or K comes and he could get scared. Just don't raise too much to make folding easy.

You raise to 120 total. He calls. Pot is 270. He's got a half pot sized stack left after that. You jam on river. He's going to call with overpairs usually.

The result of this hand was a (predictable) disaster.

You made a mistake many of us make - assuming our opponents play like we do, rather than thinking they're playing like most opponents do.

I would have made the same mistake by not putting him on 6x when he checked back the flop. But some guys can't stop themselves from slow playing in spots like this.

The other mistake lots of people make is underestimating how many bad cards can come on the river, to kill the action. Here, any card from 3 to 10 might complete a straight draw, any heart or spade might bring in a flush, any nine through ace might make someone top boat, a six might give someone quads and makes any pair a boat. The only real bricks are the two off suit deuces, and that's assuming no one is turning 2x into a bluff on the turn.

I advocated just calling the turn raise. Evidently V should be a lot stickier than I was fearing and a 3! would be best. Live and learn.

I certainly didn't vote for call turn in order to then check river. Why didn't you bet again? Mubsy?

Realizing the OP may be worded a bit confusingly... I am EP in this hand and the main villain is the button. I check flop OOP and bet turn with three people left to act. Button raises turn IP and I bet-call. On the river, I check in flow and villain snap checks back.

If I was in position, I am always betting this river. As OOP I did not consider leading on this card, but was planning to call a bet of any size.

This is why I suggested we just jam turn, when we might conceivably have some bluffs, and before an action-killing river card comes, especially since it would be weird to flat call the turn raise, and then donk the river, on almost any card, and we really can't expect V to bet most rivers as a bluff if we call turn and check to him on the river.

When we raise with garbage pre-flop, and manage to spin garbage into gold, we need to get full value - pot it on the flop, and pot it on the turn, setting up a trivial river jam. It's almost criminal how little value we got for our hand here.

Not really. Villain made a super tight checkback on river when he is at the top of his range. 2 is not much of a scare card.

The biggest argument for a river donk is targeting 2p hands happy to check it back and/or against a calling station. But against a player you thought was tight, river would also presumably be a bet/fold, which is a somewhat gross line for Hero exact hand and villain stack size. (bet 75 and fold for 100 more?; bet/call 125? 85-100 would certainly be good value against the weaker parts of his range)

If you do a search for how to play paired flops, you'll find some decent content out there. I found this article on Upswing:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/upswingpoker.com/paired-boards-strategy/amp/

Upswing Poker

5 Paired Board Tips to Help You Win More Chips

The article suggests checking range when OOP as the PFR, but the assumption seems to be that we didn't flop trips on a middling board (because we shouldn't be raising pre from EP with hands like A6s).

Slow playing trips here would seem to fall under the heading of what Bart Hanson has dubbed a "negative equity slow play" - letting opponents catch up in sneaky ways to stack us. Opponents with PP's that would have folded to a bet can boat up on later streets, and we'll have a hard time getting away from our hand after we under-repped it on earlier streets, and no draw has come in.

Case in point is this hand. By slow playing the flop, we're somewhat lost on the turn and river, and missed value. It's possible V shows up with 22 after the flop checks through, or he's just making a play for the pot, possibly with some sort of draw, some of which get there on the river.

Note that V is likewise lost by checking back flop, which is why he checked back river after raising turn. He was probably worried you got there. He made the same mistake by slow playing.

My approach to this spot would be to bet my flopped trips and 96 for value, and semi-bluff with my combo draws. I might c-bet some pocket pairs, like AA/77/55, because they block the likely trips combos of A6/76/65, and c-bet TT/JJ for protection, but probably check KK/QQ, flush draws, and straight draws, and slow play 99/66 by just checking, hoping for someone on a draw to make their hand.

Because we're not range betting here, I would size up and bet pot, rather than bet small.

by docvail k

If you do a search for how to play paired flops, you'll find some decent content out there. I found this article on Upswing:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/upswingpoker.com/paired-boards-strategy/amp/

Upswing Poker

5 Paired Board Tips to Help You Win More Chips

The article suggests checking range when OOP as the PFR, but the assumption seems to be that we didn't flop trips on a middling board (because we shouldn't be raising pre from EP with hands like A6s).

Slow playing trips here would seem to fall under the heading of what Bart Hanson has dubbed a "negativ

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Don't take this the wrong way, because I always appreciate your responses and enjoy reading your contributions to other threads, but what is the point of searching for, reading, and sharing an article like the attached one from Upswing and then just completely ignoring it?

My approach in multiway pots OOP is to check basically my entire range. As I mentioned above, I don't consider this a "slowplay" because I was planning to check-raise over a lot of stabs. To me, a slowplay would be to check-call a flop stab or to check back in position, as villain did. Whether or not check-raising here is actually good play is up for debate (I appreciated fatman's perspective on that.)

I don't raise 96s (maybe a surprise given that I raised A6s) so my only strong hands on this board are 99 and then A6s, 66, 76s, and 65s at mixed frequencies, ergo I think I am checking basically everything. Maybe the best move at $1/$2 is just to throw strategy out the window and bet big anytime I have a strong hand, but I haven't gotten to that point in poker journey yet...

I think the best spots for c/r flops are scenarios where you want to add FE to bluffs/semibluffs or when you have fat/nutty value with a strong or inelastic value target. C-betting will generally keep your perceived range wider as it can include bluffs/semibluffs/thin value/fat value.

Board texture is important. Even bad players now have a sense of which boards favour the preflop aggressor and which do not. But that doesn’t mean we check all unfavourable boards and bet all favourable ones. Even solvers will mostly “mix” actions except for rare exceptions. In this hand, you have the effective nuts without necessarily having a nut advantage (only a range advantage). This is a good scenario for betting. Here, V happened to have a holding that satisfies the “H fat value with a strong/inelastic value target” but there’s no way we could have suspected that.

You obviously shouldn’t throw “strategy” out the window. Your strategy however should generally be exploitative at low stakes. So it’s ok to throw “GTO” out the window.

I wasn't completely ignoring it. The article had good advice in it generally, but the advice doesn't seem to speak to your scenario specifically.

You asked how we'd construct a c-betting range on the flop. I gave you a way to construct a c-betting range that I think is logical.

Checking range is fine as a baseline. But there are times when we want to deviate. I think this scenario is one of them.

yeah idk. its unlikely any reasonable solution that doesn't lose game value (ev) is going to pot into 4 people here w anything. its even less likely you're going to be able to do that for value with less than trips. you're just going to funnel people into trips+ if you start putting in large bets over multiple streets and blocker effects blah blah. its why you really don't see large bets on these textures unless trips is entirely unrepresented in ranges. then you figure whatever size you bet has to get defended by 4 people instead of 1 and you're supposed to tighten up for value and size down as a result (because good hands are going to be ~4x as prevalent and pretty much all of their low equity / ev defends can just be folded)

if the rebuttal is just lol people are bad they will call any bet with anything regardless of size and context, im not sure thats accurate, but i also don't really see the point of ever analyzing hands then. empirically most people seem to tighten up significantly multiway / when bets get bigger. it's unclear to me that stacks are shallow enough given its 5 ways that you can just assume overpairs are the nuts here, my guess is that's probably not the case at spr 6 and definitely not at spr 10

i think the hand is ok but probably small 3b ott is best. i just kind of doubt most people continue bluffing otr if you b/c the turn

i think ip checkback otf is ok too, although should not be standard, and certainly not THE WORST PLAY EVER