5/10 76s

Turn, at least, feels like a drunk banana play.

But the flop bet seems very questionable as well ... do you bet 99/88 for this? Aka. are you just range betting KQ4r for half pot?

Generally not a fan of OOP bluffing adventures...but one question I might raise is whether check turn/bet river can work better as a bluff (seeing as you have zero showdown value)
This way you might see Kx bet the turn and Broadway draws check, but perhaps this player is bound to check almost his entire range that called the flop.

Grunch:

PRE - you being a coach, you should know the recs don't limp in from EP to fold to a single raise, even if it seems kinda large. They seem to fold even less when they'll have position on the raiser.

FLOP - we gotta think about what his EP limp-calling range looks like. Is he one of those recs who doesn't raise AK pre? Is he limping with KQ?

I dunno, man. I already don't like this situation, before we even do anything. His calling range on the flop would seem likely to block a big chunk of our value range, making it harder for us to rep all those nutted hands we'd like to actually have, not just in our range, but actually have in this hand.

Against recs, when we just completely whiff, I might do a fair bit of checking back. If he bets turn on a diamond or any other card that gives us some additional equity, we can continue. I wouldn't want to try to run a 3-street bluff on Joey Bagadonuts who doesn't know he's supposed to fold to our continued aggression.

If we absolutely must bet, I might go really small, hoping that barreling will look scary to him, even if we're not going huge. Might bet $70 into $210, and consider sizing up on favorable turn cards. Definitely snap-folding if he x/r's.

TURN - reading ahead to the river, I'm already wishing we bet smaller on the flop, for better SPR management. Even betting 60% pot here, we're only leaving ourselves 70% pot behind for the river.

I mean...I get it. You're a coach. He's a fish. He's supposed to know you're not f**king around. But what if he has no clue, or just has it when he gets here this way? You think he's going to call another bet with JT? Okay, but is he folding KJ or KT for 70% pot on the river, or is he just always going broke when he flops TP and calls two bets?

If the plan is to barrel off and jam river...why not jam now, for 2x pot, when we should be able to generate more fold equity with an over-bet? Make him fold all his whack-a$$ KX, and also make him fold JT. Why give him a decent price to chase his OESD and hero-call the river with top pair?

I'd think a turn jam here is credible. You raised kinda chunky pre, and you c-bet over 1/2 pot on a two-Broadway board. What the hell are your bluffs here?

I think once we get to the river like this we let it rip - I would imagine the top of his range is like KJ?

Limp behind preflop.

I think the flaw in the thought process is when you said you “picked up equity” on the turn. Having a longshot draw doesn’t mean you should bluff from out of position simply because you picked up the draw on the turn. This is still a really low equity bluff and one that doesn’t seem to have a good chance of success.

Making it 9xBB to try to take it preflop. You aren't going to make your money in cash games stealing pots preflop versus fish who want to see the flop. Maybe it sets up getting value with big hands, but you probably wouldn't risk getting no action playing AA/KK that way.

hand seems like totally unnecessary spew for ego purposes or something. so much easy money out there and you feel the need to do something like this?

Seems like a troll
Raising from the SB with 76s - lol
Putting in the stack with 7 high - lol

Maybe you can range online your way (I don’t play online) but to think there are no kings or queens in villain’s range is naive.

‘when he calls twice, he probably has a good hand’ - so let’s try to force him to fold???

Regardless of the result…
Consider playing strong hands, in position, with the initiative.

I don't hate it as a low frequency play with the caveats that (1) coming over the top of two limpers from OOP with a small suited connector should be done pretty rarely and (2) bluffing rec players always has its risks and the fact that you raise preflop doesn't automatically commit you to carrying on later.

That being said, KQx seems a decent board to continue. Would agree that additional equity isn't a great reason to barrel turn on its own, but if you're trying to decide when to give up and when to continue then additional equity is as good a reason as any. And yes I would shove river, aside from KQ and 44 what hands can call? It would be a disaster if you gave up and lost to JT, and if you think gutshots call two streets then that's all the more reason to bet river, although that would presumably mean you'll get called by more Kx if EP is stationy

Has to be.

OP has been a semi-regular contributor to the forum. I don't believe he's trolling.

Adding this for context, and really hoping no one thinks I'm just going out of my way to be a dick to OP.

OP started another thread with a disclosure that he's been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Yet he's also a practicing attorney, which would lead me to think he's able to manage his mental health issues well enough to function in a role requiring intelligence and deliberation.

That said, and speaking as someone who struggles to manage ADHD, I would not be surprised if OP sometimes relaxes a bit at the poker table, effectively "letting his guard down", resulting in the occasional dubious adventure. I've launched a few ill-fated adventures of my own when the meds wore off or I just wasn't in the right head space, so I recognize the signs.

This hand may fall into that category. Perhaps not indicative of OP's usual level of play, but rather an example of the occasional lapse in discipline many of us are susceptible to, especially those of us who aren't neurotypical, and need some form of assistance to maintain the internal calm necessary for good decision making.

think the line becomes mandatory when we decide to bet this flop.

Could be a troll with the line "We pick up equity with our nut gutter so we bet $275."

I would just add that we are 120 BB deep. So we are probably not deep enough to set up spots like this from OOP where equity realization is going to be difficult.

I agree with Docvail that the turn is the decision point here and if we're going with this bluff line we should jam turn and offer V 3-2 odds. He has to fold everything except sets, KQ and AA.

Otherwise we should x turn and give up unless we bink as we only have 200 invested so far.

I think early sizing is the biggest issue with this hand tbh. $90 preflop probably isn't accomplishing anything that $70 wouldn't; and b60 OTF isn't getting many (any?) more folds than b40 or b33. Then the turn is a nearly 4 SPR which still isn't amazing but is much more playable than this line which seems like a sneaky way to size up for value and get more calls on b/b/b when you actually have AK.

Villain is a fish who limp/called 9xBB. He didn't do that with KJ or KT to fold top pair. If you shove the turn for 2xpot, does that credibly represent AA/KK/QQ/AK?

You have fish who will limp/call huge raises and call down when they have something. You can make enough when you have something. No need to balance by doing it with 7-high.

The flop favors the preflop raiser, but it is also fairly wet with 2 high cards, so villain is likely to have hit it somehow.

I gather OP is a lawyer, so he probably doesn't play 5/10 for a living. Is he making this play for money or for fun?

I think instead of blaming mental health issues, it’s probably more likely (though not certain by any means) that OP plays so much PLO that there’s a kind of transition tilt with NL. I used to play live 5 card PLO like OP does. I never played majority PLO but the different ways of evaluating hand strength used to slightly mess up my game from time to time.

In 5-card PLO, a gutshot and 7-high isn't a hand to go with.

Of course that is true. I was speaking more abstractly. It could also be the case that Hero is overestimating his fold equity because in NL we can get called down by hands that it would be suicide to do so with in PLO (or that probably don’t even see the flop, such as 44).

That's also a possibility. I have heard of "PLO-itis", where PLO players end up making sub-optimal plays in NLHE games, because their minds are still stuck in PLO-land. From personal experience as a NLHE player, I've seen the reverse, getting wrecked in double-board PLO bomb pots.

I was just acknowledging that OP is apparently a verified coach, and I vaguely recall prior threads of his where the responses from many low-stakes NLHE players were along the lines of, "I don't play these stakes, so maybe this makes sense, but I wouldn't do this at 1/2 to 2/5."

It seemed to me that he deserves the benefit of the doubt, rather than accusation that he's trolling.

Probably not folding to a 60% pot bet on the turn. Seems somewhat more likely he folds to a 2x pot bet.

Yes, as long as V doesn't have KQ.

Yeah, I don't love it, either. But we got here how we got here. Our choices are try to win, or give up and accept defeat. OP is trying to win.

Yes, he probably hit it somehow, but unless he flopped top 2P or bottom set, he's unlikely to have smashed the flop, and is more likely to have some 1P holding that only partially blocks some of OP's thick value range. Like, if he has KJ or KT, he's not blocking QQ or AA. And he could have JT, which I think would fold to a 2x pot jam.

I'd hope JT would fold. We're going to want to lay down in traffic if we 2x pot jam, V calls with JT, and wins unimproved with jack-high.

Strictly for the memes, I say.