2/5 flop nuts, we stab? or slowplay?

If this is a genuine question, then you're an even worse poker player than I thought.

I'll answer you if you really want me to.

Do I need to though?

Do I really?

Yes.

It's because decisions matter, and results don't

Some of you guys apparently don’t realize that Villain is allowed to check/raise the flop and that this possibility means we absolutely should not miss a bet with the nuts here.

You're correct, check/raising is allowed.

Totally within the rules.

But, Villain needs to have a hand that's good enough to check/raise and he probably doesn't.

What if he only has a hand that's strong enough to call?

He probably doesn't even have that

“Probably” doesn’t decide our actions in poker. Expectation does. Villain putting in more money now with a hand he is willing to do so with is worth more than the prospect of slightly increasing the chances of extracting on later streets. (And it is slight. If we believe Villain is checking to give up, the chances of him hitting a pair is 6/45, and the chances of him turning a draw aren’t much better, plus if he turns a draw he could win a pile from us on the river if his draw hits.)

If I wanted to mix it up and show up on the turn or river with a slowplayed flopped set, I still would not choose top set. I would check back 33 here before I checked back TT.

yeah, and the expectations are functions of probabilities. You just said absolutely nothing. But you said it with authority and confidence, so it almost sounded badass. Good try, sport.

Again, you're just saying words and hoping they form some kind of coherent thought. You can't just claim a certain line is "worth more". Show your work. As played, the flop checked through and villain led turn. We got to our action on the turn with **EXACTLY** the same amount of villain's money in the pot as if we had bet flop, got called, and V checked the turn. So from a purely mathematical standpoint it's worth the same. However, as played, our range appears weaker, and Villain's range has more hands from which we can extract value.

So, not zero then? Six out of forty-five sounds better than zero.

The chances of him check/calling with air are actually zero.

Still not zero though, right?

WHOOOAAAAA. What happened to playing poker by "expectations"?? LOL, that didn't last long.

LOL at trying to GTO balance your set-traps. Good luck with that.

But hey, since that's gonna be your angle, you might wanna try inverting that strategy. You'd want to be betting 33 because you wouldn't be blocking top pair like you are with TT.

LOL, even when you're wrong, you're wrong.

One street less of betting.

If V is now bluffing, and we are targeting his bluffs, we have to call turn and pray he bluffs the river and then we probably only make another 50 or so. Because very few villains will decide our turn raise is also a bluff and then bluff 3bet the turn.

Check flop and then raising later streets on bricks is a well known super nutted line where _we don't have bluffs_. The turn does bring a heart draw, except it's also a paired board ... so maybe we also checked back a couple of combos. of 3x that spew called preflop. I very much doubt you are raising 9h8h on this turn, so if I check flop planning to raise to your random stab then when you instead raise turn I'd heavily lean towards fold.

When we have TT on T43r, it's very difficult for us to win a big pot. One of the many reasons why set value is overrated by bad players. But our best chance by far is to bet flop (small) and target the higher end of V's range (Eg. AA/KK/QQ/JJ/AT/etc and maybe some 44/33). The fact that AK/AQ/KQ etc. can make top pair and give us a bit of money later doesn't make up for the fact that the good hands in V's range are way more likely to put a lot of money in if we bet flop.

Also assuming V is checking AA/KK/QQ/JJ (which he should), then if we are checking flop and piling money in with V on A-J turns it's not only losing +money but gaining -money. Dito. if the turn is a 7/6/5 and V somehow has a straight.

Maybe V is a bad player, or has a read you are bad, and will pile money in with AK on a turn A or K ... but do you really think he's folding flop to a small bet if that's true? And him hitting top pair on the turn is 12%, so what do you do the other 88% of the time when he checks again? Yes, maybe he has KQ/JT and the turn is a J ... but again how likely is that? 8%/6% ... and again those hands aren't always folding flop anyway.

In general, when you are deep (flop SPR is ~15x) you want to bet more often with the hands that are happiest to get all-in. Eg. on T43 if both players are going to get all the money in with sets/two-pair/OESD+ ... then 33 is the worst hand to pick.

Post less, read more and then think.

I'm thrilled to get it in with TT, 44, and 33. I'm not gonna rank them.

But if you are gonna pick and choose....then don't pick the hand that blocks top pair (your only real hope for value here)

Villian is supposed to check almost his whole range on T34 - assuming he is good - You said he is just a regfish, but maybe he knows he is supposed to check this board?

You are supposed to do very little checking on this board - maybe 25% of the time with hands like AQo that have some showdown value and can't stand a check/raise.

With TT you want to be betting small to half pot most of the time. I can see merit in checking is villian is a total spaz who will start piling money in against weakness, but i'd lean towards betting this flop most of the time.

As played - Turn is mostly a call. I'd raise this turn very low % of the time. Maybe a hand like JJ-QQ can raise and you can rarely balance it with a drawing hand like 65 or a set, but i'm usually only calling.

You prolly not gonna win a lot of money in this hand unless the player sucks, or you cooler him.

Irrelevant. We got to our action on the turn with the **EXACT** same amount of V's money in the pot.

We're not simply targeting bluffs. We make more overall if V has bluffs and less if he doesn't.

Disagree. We could absolutely have heart-draw bluffs when we raise this turn.

Why? V's range is full of unpaired overcards. Depending on sizing, I'd probably need the bluff to work less than 1/3 of the time, and I'd have the heart draw as backup.

If V is that strong, the money will find its way into the middle somehow. Missing a street isn't going to ruin our chances of stacking off.

Does not compute. If Villain has AA-JJ and turns a bigger set, then just chalk it up to variance.. He's not folding those hands to a flop bet. Our flop bet doesn't change which turn card comes out of the deck. What are you even talking about?

Yes.

I think that is more likely than him slow playing AA. (I also don't think we're missing value against AA. If he's checking that kind of hand, he's trapping. The money will find its way in, I'm sure)

hang on man...that's a lot of small % possibilities that are adding up to a not-so-small %

What's small is the % chance he's actively trying to win the minimum with an overpair.

Anything you say is awful advice because you're a 2nl reg. We've gone over this.

Agreed and folding flop was a bad decision in that hand, just like checking flop in this hand is bad and your reasoning ''let them catch up'' is stuck in 2006 and lol at hoping that a passive player will start doing the betting for you.

Anyways, forgot to put you on ignore. Now it's time to actually do, can't be bothered to read any more of your garbage.

Dango, you know how you're always asking if V is capped when they check the flop? Or, alternatively, you're asking if V is range-betting, or range-checking?

Assume V is range-checking here. He could have a strong hand, and is checking to let you stab at it, planning to check-call, or check-raise. That's a good reason for you to bet your hand.

Suppose V isn't range-checking. Suppose he's c-betting his value hands and checking everything else. He might decide to turn his hand into a bluff and check-raise if you bet. That's a good reason to bet your hand.

Suppose we think he's capped. He raised pre. How capped can he be? He could have some PP between 55 and 99, or AX, or 65 for an OESD that isn't going to fold to a single bet. That's a good reason to bet your hand.

Opponents tend to be most inelastic on early streets, and most elastic on later streets. Pre-flop, they're in there with almost ATC. They float wide on the flop. They don't really start over-folding until the turn. By the river, they're giving up on their busted draws and trying to hold on with their SDV.

When was the last time you called a raise pre, the PFR checked the flop, you bet, and the PFR just folded, on a dry-as-toast board like this one? If they're folding everything in their range to a single bet, you should be calling every pre-flop raise with ATC, and wildly stabbing every time they check to you on the flop.

Why aren't you? "Because they could be checking to trap, or checking to check-call, or maybe they just won't fold AK."

AH-HAH!!!!!!!!

What are you possibly hoping will happen when you check back the flop? He's going to spike an A or K to make TPTK and start backing up the money-truck? Suppose that happens. He starts betting on an A or K. Is he going to bet huge when it should be obvious he has a hand, or is he going to bet small, hoping you call? What happens if you raise when he bets small?

Put yourself in his position. You raise AK pre, get a LP call, check the T32rb flop, your opponent checks back, and then, when you make TPTK on the turn, and put in a little delayed, please-call me c-bet, your opponent raises. How tight does your sphincter pucker up in that scenario? Mine gets tighter than a frog's a$$ just thinking about it. Water-tight. Like a virgin on prom night.

That check-back-flop / raise turn line is SUPER under-bluffed. No one sees the PFR bet the A or K turn and decides, "you know what, I'm going to turn my 22 into a bluff and make him fold TPTK, because my image is just that good."

If he c-bet the turn on an A or K, you raise, and he 3B's, you're up against AA or KK. You know that, right? Like, there's not a world in which your set isn't dust. The best thing about checking back this flop is that you might not go broke if he spikes a bigger set on the turn or river. So...I guess checking has that going for it.

Just bet your hand. The PFR is checking to check-call or check-raise. He's rarely if ever checking to just check-fold on T32rb. Good things can happen when you bet here. Nothing good happens when you check.

So the hand is kinda wonky now but we need to decide what we're targeting. Natural bluffs are going to be his NFD hands that I think would have stabbed on the flop, and missed draws require 3 streets which he forfeited when we checked turn so what is his range now? I think it's less flush draws and more showdown value. I think he's still going to be pretty inelastic with his SDV here, hands like 99 for example, therefore since we have value we should make it egregiously big, I'm going 200. He's capped, we're not, so he might be looking to hero call/peel 1 street here. Then on the river we can bet tiny to get that crying call.

If he checked with AK, it’s not to fold to a small bet.

This is a good result for your slowplay.
You’ve been passive and got villain betting.
Just call and hope he fires again.
It feels like the minute you raise, he folds

Nobody has great advice for this situation, because you dominate a board with little for villain to connect with.

You describe v as passive and here he’s putting money in the pot. He’s capable of aggro plays, so maybe he pops the river.

Then you can raise.

V x, you have a set on a dryish board. Short answer, no, bet, long answer, when a passive reg x this board in a single raised pot, his range is often:
AK/AQ that missed
77-99
Some slowplayed AA/KK occasionally
A4s/55/66 type hands
Possibly JJ
Very important, this board is low and dynamic, not static
Against a passive player, slowplaying = losing value
Passive players:
Don't bluff enough
Don't turn hands into bluffs often
Don't double barrel light
So if you x, you're not inducing much
This is a spot where betting small is very clean, something like 25-35 into a pot of 77, why small?
Because:
His range is condensed around medium strength hands
You want calls from 77-99, A4s, 55
You don't need protection urgently
You keep in dominated hands
If you bomb 65+, you narrow his continuing range too much
Exploit adjustment based on HH1 and HH2, let's connect patterns
HH1, he calls flop raise on montone board, and then rips turn over bet.
HH2, he tank calls 4b with TT, and then rips turn on low board
What does that tell us, he's willing to stack off strong, but not nut hands, he's not afraid to put money in on low boards and probably overvalues overpairs in some spots
That makes betting flop even better, because if he has JJ/QQ, this is exactly the type of board he may overplay later
If he had AA/KK and x to trap? Great we build the pot.
When would checking be better? Only if, he's very aggressive, he stabs flop at high frequency and he overbluffs turns, you did not describe him that way, you described him as passive in general. Passive players don't stab enough when x to. So checking is just lighting value on fire
This is not a deception spot, it's a value extraction spot
Common leak in improving players is: board is dry, I'll trap, but you trap players who bluff too much, barrel too much overplay marginal hands aggressively
You do not trap passive regs, you milk them