Check or Thin Value on River OOP?

I don't even consider it thin. We're targeting KQ/KJ, bet the amount you think those would call. I'd go at least $100 but vs some Vs you can go larger especially if they are sick of you betting. The shame is the pot is so small.

We could have bet bigger OTF, there aren't a lot of obvious 2p, Kx and FD s are calling big bets. This is a spot to size up against passive Vs. In a more aggressive game, we can bet small expecting some x/r bluffs, but passive Vs make you do the work.

OTT, I'm not going smaller than $75 and I think you can go as big as $125. If V has a club draw, charge him. KQ/Kj is still calling a lot.

If we had bet $40 flop that puts us at $120ish on turn, then we can easily bet $100 going to river with $320ish and $345 behind - jamming is now an option.

AP, We are way too deep to jam so b/f.

this is an interesting spot.
he has 145 or so left which is less than a psb.
jam is my default because it looks like we missed clubs. we get alot of calls from worse.

NVM just noticed V is only $225 eff. Easy jam on river. I'd have made it a 2-street game. Gii on the turn and make his FD miserable while V has to consider we might be drawing when he has KQ.

Hitting TPTK for <100bb you want it all in early and often.

I play in a similar environment and this sounds exactly how I own myself sometimes. Guy sitting there grinning with his set waiting for me to blast off.

It’s another one of those where I can’t really go by what you say, I need to size the guy up myself. So, I think my opinion may differ

I hate checking the turn, but I don’t mind checking the river sometimes and see what v does.

PRE - seems standard.

FLOP - c-betting seems okay. The 1/2 pot size seems standard. But when we're starting out somewhat shallow, I might size up slightly, to start setting up an easy river jam, or possibly even a turn over-bet jam, if we get more than one caller.

I might check sometimes, depending on the table dynamic and what I think of V on the BTN.

My thinking is that the K-high, two-low-card, two-tone board is one that the BTN might stab at, at some frequency, if we check. If we c-bet, we're basically just targeting worse KX combos to call. But if we check, he's going to bet all those combos anyway, when the board is two-tone, and probably for a large size.

If he has a little more gamble in him at all, he might stab without a K, whereas if we c-bet he'll mostly just fold when he doesn't have any piece of the board.

TURN - the 8d is just a brick. V is pretty capped at KX or the flush draw. I'd want to size up and bet closer to full pot, to set up a less than 1/2 pot river jam.

RIVER - Against most V's, in most games, I'd just jam for the $145 he has left. If I think V has it in him to bluff a missed flush draw, or bet a worse K for value, I might check.

I think we could jam here, but I think there's a chance he folds some worse KX, and occasionally shows up with K9, or even maybe K8. He could also have AK that flatted to trap us pre, and we're just chopping.

If I think he's just tired of my BS, I might bet $20, and pray he thinks we're FOS, and jams KQ/KJ.

One thing to keep in mind that a couple of the comments seem to overlook is that on the flop we are four-handed when I bet and I can't go forward in time to know who the eventual villain will be. One of the others in the hand had about 500 and the other less than 100, so unfortunately I could not size in an exploitative way only factoring in this particular villain.

You didn't give us the other players' stack sizes, just main V. You can still size up or down, regardless. And either way, the shortest stack involved is the effective stack. Someone could be sitting $5k deep. It doesn't matter.

Theory suggests betting smaller when it's multi-way, which you can do. You can also size up because it's LOL-stakes and they're likely to be pretty inelastic with their calling ranges. I don't think they're folding TP or a good draw because you bet 2/3 pot instead of 1/3 pot.

Say you bet $35 or $40 and one of the $500 stacks calls. Is that a bad thing? Why? Say the short stack raises. Are you folding?

My suggestion to c-bet smaller is more about their continuing ranges than their stack sizes. They're going to call a bigger bet with KX or a FD, so let's bet bigger. Let's not bet small just because one of our opponents is starting out shorter, or because theory says we need to bet small. Let's just max exploit the low stakes population.

I don't think this is right. If there are 4 different stack sizes on the flop, the two biggest stacks very much have to consider each other and their respective stack sizes.

I don't think that really changes anything, when I flop TPTK on a safe board, I'm trying to figure out how to get all the money in by the river until someone gives me a very good reason to believe TPTK isn't good enough. If the board was KJ9, well now I'm a bit less ambitious. But this is about as safe a flop as you're going to hit a king on. If any V binked 2p with K3, K2 or 23 or a set whatever, I'm probably paying them off. More players just means it's more likely that one of them has KQ/KJ or a FD that they aren't going to fold to a large bet on the flop.

If one player has $100, maybe we want to cap our flop size at $50 so that if he jams and someone else calls, we get to 3!. So that's room to size up a lot, especially if someone has $500. In my first response, I misread the OP and thought we were $500 deep and was trying to lay out a betting scheme where we could shove river for stacks vs $500. We want to bet the largest size that we can expect at least one of the players to call on a reasonably frequent basis with Kx or a Q high FD. I think $40 is getting called by Kx and FDs almost all the time.

We have AKo - this is about the best flop we're going to get for our hand. So I'm counting the biggest stack and trying to plan my sizing scheme to play for stacks by the river if not earlier. Because poker is an exponential game, sizing up another $15 on the flop is going to put you in a position where you can play for stacks vs playing for $200. You have a hand that on this board is perfectly happy playing for $500. We want to play a big pot.

The question is simply how we get the money in without scaring out the hands we beat. Kx and FD hands are going to call a chunky bet on the flop, many will call an overbet on the turn, but are less likely to call a huge river bet. So we want to make our flop and turn bet larger so that by the river the bet isn't so big relative to the pot and V sitting there with KQ feels pot committed.

Betting small just gives all the Vs the right odds to call you with any piece of the flop and draw at a fair price. Don't give Vs fair prices, make them pay unfair prices.

I think you're over-complicating things. This isn't a tournament, and we're not playing super-deep. It's a 1/3 game. More often than not, the stacks are going to range from $150 to $600.

We just want to manipulate the pot size according to our relative hand strength. We don't need to get bogged down trying to calculate the SPR for everyone involved.

The board is K32 with two clubs, with the Kc on board, and we have TPTK with the Ac in our hand. Whether someone has $200 or $600, there just aren't many hands that are going to continue if we c-bet. I wouldn't even expect to get raised if someone flopped a set with 22 or 33, when we could have KK.

Their calling range may get larger if we bet small, or if our opponents are deeper, but generally our opponents' ranges are going to fall into buckets that are elastic or inelastic. And we should be targeting the inelastic portion of their ranges.

Like, if we c-bet REALLY small, maybe we can get called by some AX or middling PP's that are just being sticky because we bet so small. And maybe most of those hands fold if we start sizing up. But the range we should be targeting is their KX and good draws. Those hands are inelastic, and will call a bigger bet.

We have to be able to do some hand-reading. How likely is it the UTG player is limping in with a good PP or strong KX? How likely is it anyone has 2P here? Most of their ranges are going to be total air that's going to fold to any reasonable-sized bet, worse KX, and flush draws.

I said I'd probably size up slightly on the flop, but thinking about it more, I might just pot it, and pray someone thinks we're FOS or wants to push their draw.

Pot flop. Shove turn. As played shove river.

Don't spend too much time overcomplicating very simple spots vs simple villains who will make too many calling mistakes. Go for value.

You're value betting vs multiple bad players. Not sure what else there is to factor in. We pot this flop because bad players call too much and we worry about getting raised when we actually get raised. Fwiw, I'd go for 3 streets of value on this run out vs most villains here regardless of their stack size. Yes, sometimes you'll run into K9 or K8. That's poker.

The strength of the call.

I don’t know why I see this spot so differently. You bet 80% pot on the turn and got called.

It takes a better hand to call, than to bet, so what is he calling with?

Maybe y’all just say it’s a fish with KJ and maybe you’re right. I need to see him call quickly or tank call.

I’m a 2pair shove guy, but with nothing but TPTK, I’m just not as willing to throw it all in the middle. If you get called, you’re beat.

You think the guy who calls pre with KQ or KJ pre is folding to a couple 1/2 pot bets after he flops TP? On a two-flush board?

I suspect you're referring to Sklansky's gap concept. He was talking about the strength of the range that can call an opening raise, compared to the strength needed to open for a raise. It's a way to begin ranging our opponents when they first enter a pot by calling. It just means they don't have bottom of range.

Even if we think the concept also applies to bets on later streets, not just raises at the start of a hand, that's fine. The bettor's or raiser's range can include weak hands that are being bet or raised as a bluff. The caller's range is going to be stronger, because he can't call with all his weak hands.

Here, OP is closer to the top of his range than the bottom of his range, but V doesn't know that. OP could bet flop and turn with the nuts or air. V can't call flop and turn with air, but that doesn't mean he's calling with the nuts.

Sure, V could have run into a strong hand, or he could be slow-playing. But we can't always play with the assumption that any time we bet a hand that isn't the nuts and we get called, our opponent has to have a stronger hand, and therefore we have to stop betting.

The point of ranging our opponents is to determine if there are hands we can target for value. We probably would have heard from V sooner if he can beat TPTK on this board.

So...kudos to FreeCard for sniffing out this guy's flopped set.

Also, why do I feel like the read was incomplete, and you held something back that may have led more of us to suspect this guy could have us beat? If you have a read that this guy only gets his money in with nutted hands, that would change the analysis.

Absent that read, there's not much we can do when we raise AK starting out short, get called by a low pair, and flop TPTK on a two-tone board that goes runner-runner-brick-brick. We're just going to lose.

I have no clue why you feel that way or why you think I might have had a read that he only gets his money in with nutted hands. We had been playing together for about 45 mins so I had limited reads but shared what I saw in the V description.

Fair enough. The reveal made my spidey sense tingle. No offense intended.