[2-4]: Flopped Straight but Flush comes in on the River

I bet 70 to 80 and hope I get a crying call from something weaker; way more than flushes in their range.

Folding to a raise.

Pretty sure I would have overbet the turn at least 100, maybe slightly more.
1. Need to get heads up if possible
2. Because of exactly the situation you have here, I would have put more pressure on the flush draws.

As played, I don’t think there’s any way to glean info now. It’s either they have it or they don’t.

Even though it feels kinda weak, I would check and fully expect v2 to also check. He’s not going to run one of his wild bluffs into two people.

Can’t be worried about the whale, we would have heard from him if he was confident. If v2 does bet huge in this spot, I probably give him credit and sigh fold. You don’t have much money in there yet and a flush is certainly within the realm of possibility.

When you have the nuts, you don’t want more than one player chasing draws to beat you. Bet big and be happy if they both fold. Winning a big pot is unlikely here, but you could lose one.

Don't want to be preflop police, but this is a fold preflop.

Why? We've contributed 4$ into 24$, which is 1/6 pot. Do you think we'll realize less than 1/6 equity with QTo against 5 limping/checking ranges in second best position?

I guess I should have added rake information into the OP because with a lot of the structures you guys play it might be a fold preflop. 0 rake for pots 0-48, 2 rake for pots 50-98, 4 rake for pots 100-298, 8 rake for pots 300-498, 14 rake for pots 500-698; no jackpots of any kind.

Yes. Fold pre.

With V1 in the hand I'm over-betting every street.

As played not sure, hard to imagine we're not up against at least 1 fd, holding Qh is somewhat relevant but all Axhh is possible for either villain it seems. Maybe bet/fold river? Not convinced we can profitably check/call, check/fold sucks but maybe best? Not sure.

Why?

Because QTo is a **** hand. Certainly not looking to play it 6-ways when every time we flop TP we hate our life.

Nearly the whole of 2+2 are preflop police.

But, yes, agree, fold pre.

A call pre is definitely the worst of the three options. You didn't specify your position, but from the CO I'm raising this, earlier I fold. Fish over limp, don't be a fish.

At least with a raise you can put the others on some type of hand. With the limp they could easily be playing something like Th2h. A raise typically eliminates these types of hands. And if they still play it against a raise, you know they will just give it away later.

As for the river decision, at least you've got a blocker. It's almost certainly a bet although can understand being gun shy in this case.

Grunch:

PRE - don't overlimp with multiple players left to act. Raise or fold.

FLOP - bet more. At least pot it.

TURN - 2x pot it.

RIVER - bet half pot. Fold if you get raised.

We have position on the river and villain checked, so probably bet/fold, but the alternative is to check back.

Your logic says jump in there you have equity

My logic says I don’t want to jump in there against 5 people because I will lose.
Win Rate is a thing…

I’m pretty good at self-defense. Most people might not realize, but I’ve got a huge advantage against one opponent and I will come up on top against two often. But a battle against 5 people is not something I want to try, even though I probably have equity.

And I certainly don’t want to top it off with a crap hand just asking to be dominated

Okay! well I guess you can just adopt common wisdom without thought like "don't limp" and that's probably enough to beat the game?

But you guys -- if you understand the reasons that something is a rule, you can do this crazy thing of applying those reasons to a new scenario, and if they don't apply you can break those rules! Crazy concept I guess?

Limping seems bad to me because (1) getting raised is horrible, and (2) lots of games take high rake % out of small pots, and (3) even if it's good, raising is often better. The first two reasons to not apply to the current situation. I'm in the CO with no aggressive player behind me, the chance of getting raised is maybe 10%, and rake is very low.

Here's a limping range I just made up:

Here's how we do 6way against 4 of those ranges and one random range (bc BB will just check):

As you can see, we're essentially even here. Actually we're only slightly behind the limping ranges and ahead of the BB, so we already have more than 1/6 raw equity. And then position matters a ton for equity realization. Even a bad player could limp this hand profitably! And skill advantage in multiway pots with best position is huge! FreeCard just said he doesn't want to play multiway. Okay fair enough. But I do. These are some of the highest skill advantage spots you can have. People play incredibly straight-forward in multiway pots. I would play this spot all day if I could.

I think we get 5€ back on this call easily, probably more than 6€. I mean honestly I think if I weren't allowed to play these types of hands then my hourly rate would dip noticeably. Not like huge, but noticeably. It's not at all rare that some weird limped pot was my biggest win in a session. I'll limp J9o, make the nuts straight, and some bad player makes a huge blunder by thinking the second nuts straight is good enough to put all his chips on in a pot that started 6way. If you don't enter these pots, you don't give them this opportunity to blunder.

What about (3); should you raise preflop? Idk. I mean you can probably make it work if you're willing to barrel off postflop (bc you will probably get called). But you can't do that too much, and idk why this is ever the hand you'd choose for it. This is a hand that doesn't want to strengthen opponent's ranges because then it folds out all the crap. Here's how QTo does against a limp-calling range I just made up:

Not great. And if you raise big to put a lot pressure on the limped ranges and they call even tighter, it will only get worse. (And if you ever get re-raised by limper premium it's a disaster, not that I was really worrying about that on this table.)

The hands I'm raising are are the ones that are either so strong that they still do well against the stronger range (JJ+, AK, AQ, KQ, maybe AJ) or speculative hands that don't try to win by making a big pair (suited connectors, maybe small pairs). And the second category only if I think people are sufficiently willing to fold; it's not good if I always get called. QTo is a hand that I'm never raising if someone limped before me. If it folds to me, then sure I raise on the CO. But if someone limps before me, either I fold if one of the players behind me is very aggressive (pretty rare and not the case here), or if not it's always an overlimp.

You make some strong points prim. I’ll have to think about more. Still, when you talk of hitting a limped pot for your biggest pot of the day, I wonder how often it goes the other way and you lose a big hand like this one:

Flopped the nuts, but a flush takes your money

Selective memory may have you doing better in your mind, than actual play.

Sure, there’s times I fold and realize I would have flopped a monster. That doesn’t change the fact that it was not a good decision to get involved.

Your logic makes sense to me in a MTT chasing every little edge, but playing cash is a waiting game for me. There’s simply no reason for fancy play syndrome.

I’m listening, just haven’t heard enough to change my mind yet. It’s inevitable that I play multiway at times and I agree people play straight forward and that’s helpful, but it’s still not a situation I would actively seek out.

We have position on V1, V2 is still in the pot and behind us. I'm good with bet/folding btw.

This is all fine but I think the highlighted is just confirmation bias and nothing else. You're completely ignoring the 98/100 times where you whiff, you flop a pair and lose a sizeable pot, where you chase a draw and brick etc etc etc.

Pre-flop is all but solved for every rake structure that exists. You're not going to do better than the thousands before you who have tried. Why argue with proven trial and error? It makes no sense to me.

If there was a good way to track/confirm this data, I'd bet good money this is not even remotely close to true.

These are just generic reasons why multiway pots are hard to win though. They apply to the other players as well.

I mean that's the fundamental issue with how you guys seem to think about multiway pots. You're talking as if everyone always loses by playing them. But this isn't possible; the money has to go somewhere. And it doesn't go for the casino; if this pot remains below 50, it will be rake free. So if you want to argue why this call is bad, you have to explain why I'm less likely to win than the other five players in the pot. "One pair probably isn't good" and "draws may not arrive" is also true for everyone else.

And also I mean the most basic ways to over-realize your equity in a multiway pot, especially in position, is to fold one pair. If you have A♦4♦ and the flop comes A♠8♠2♣ and someone in early position leads 2/3 pot into four people, you can just fold immediately. Whereas most other people will auto-call the first bet with top pair even if it's never good given the action.

Idk, I'm very anti GTO for live play. Is it even true that GTO says to not overlimp? (If so, what if you adjust for players behind you not squeezing?) Also I've seen coaches recommend limping behind in tournaments, idk if this is such a hot take outside this forum.

Yea I mean I'd pay good money for a data base of all my live hands to confirm. But this also isn't a case where I should need hard evidence to prove that the spot is profitable because a basic analysis already suggests that it's profitable. Like I said, I mean it really looks like the limp is already profitable just based on equity and position, even if you calculate no skill edge postflop at all.

Idk, I'd approach both in essentially the same way. If it's +EV in an MTT, it's also +EV here. There's a small EV difference based on rake, but it really is small.

I'm not sure what you think I have an issue with. MW pots are harder to play, sure, I never advocated for avoiding them all together though. I'm saying limping in QTo as the 4th player is not a good play and I'm certainly not convinced anyone will play this profitably, regardless of skill level. You seem to think QTo is a perfectly fine limp here, fair enough, I'm not going to try and change your mind.

Right and this is where confirmation bias really kicks in. I simply refuse to believe you fold all your 1 pair hands always or don't chase your draws. On top of that, if the only reason to play QTo is to flop a straight, you're BURNING money. This one is simple math.

Not debating overlimping. I play a reasonable chunk of my yearly volume in time raked games, there's a lot of limping to be done here.

Yeah I mean I just disagree completely. Pre-flop equity is one thing, post-flop skill is an entirely different beast. I think it's insane to believe you won't be making huge mistakes post-flop with these hands. It's just not in reality. This isn't something directed just at you, that's the nature of poker. It's literally the reason we're on this forum. I make tons of post-flop mistakes still to this day and very often the easiest solution is ''fold pre''. Funnily enough a LOT of hands posted here the true answer is ''fold pre''.

Offsuit broadway worse than KJo / ATo are junk. Doyle called them trouble hands. You make a pair and its dominated. Making the second best hand is a way to lose money. K9s/Q9s or like 86s are marginally playable hands that aren't a big mistake to overlimp or raise with on the button. KTo/QJo/QTo/JTo are junk. I am sure you see people in your 1/2 game limping in with worse, but that doesn't make them playable.

OK maybe to call in the SB in a limped pot with QTo or defend the BB with a straddle and no raise. Sometimes in tournaments you could raise QTo in late position, 3!/fold it, or open shove it short stacked.

Position is a factor for equity realization, it's hardly the only one. Saying that you have enough raw equity simply is not enough, That is only applicable if there's no further betting.

For example suppose the flop comes out 852 and anyone bets - You have position, and you're using that position and the information provided to fold 100% of the time. But much of the time, the best hand is 8x, and included in that preflop equity is all the times the turn or river comes a Q and you win. But your not going to realize that equity because you folded when someone else bet their 98.

A significant portion of the equity realization advantage you get from the button is the opportunity to get better hands to fold. In a heads up scenario, with a suited Qx, You might call with a back door draw, and then when V gives up on betting you can steal the pot with some frequency as V might give up and fold to a bluff. Multi-way, you don't get to overealize as frequently, because bluffs will be called a ton more. Which means you actually have to hit and accurately identify when your value is good. So while you might be able to limit some losses, overall you won't be able to overealize to the extent that you can when heads up. Hands like QTo are harder to realize their equity in any pot relative to QTs or even Q5s.

Don't want to be dismissive here and in the end it's everyone's own money to do with it as you please, but pre is really not an interesting debate at all. The fringe minority who convince themselves they can profitably play these garbage hands are just behind the rest of us who've tried and failed. I think in 2026 making pre-flop mistakes is inexcusable. It's all but solved for every limit, rake structure and format out there.

You're essentially arguing with a database larger than any amount of hands you'll be able to play in 2000 lifetimes.