1/3, what's better than a royal draw?

Pre: I like the call in position with a hand that flops well.
Flop: We have the second nut flush draw on a board where it is very unlikely someone has the nut flush draw, and a double gutter, so we are obviously not folding. I think you can make good arguments for raise or call. We might not need any fold equity given we we are probably close to 50% equity given his range, so I think I raise to 120, looking to jam most turns if we get called.

make it like $75. i was going to say raise flop and then jam any non ace turn but i think he has AK a lot and you're getting snapped. so i raise small now to just see a cheap river. i dont think AK is jamming over your raise here ever, people dont like to commit with one pair at this depth.

Raise to a hundred!
Like your action so far.

I think you have to raise for value as you’re a slight favorite or flip against the strongest hands in villain(s) range. Getting the pot heads up would also increase your chances.

Calling would be weak, because the scare card on the turn could fold everyone.

Even though your equity drops when you brick the turn (maybe 35% instead of 55%), I would be more inclined to shove here, than when I hit my hand. Making my hand on the turn, and I’d be more likely trying to milk value and not fold anyone.

With unknown-but-probably-not-great fold equity for a small raise and an immediate price to see a turn card, I wouldn't raise here unless it's all in, because you'll be left without much turn flexibility and will just be putting money on when behind whilst only guaranteeing one card. You can dominate other draws a lot here (you have a sort of double nut draw in some ways, apart from the field caller who might very occasionally have K9ss or KXss, but I wouldn't be overly concerned). Would probably just jam now, you pick up a lot of free money in folds whilst being ahead when called. Probably a bit better than just calling.

Low stakes players sometimes cbet ace high boards too often. Not sure if that’s happening here, but let’s jam and find out. I believe we’re a favorite over 2 pair though I’m not sure about that. Either way we have plenty of equity.

Get it in on the flop. I think a non-all-in raise is better (a jam looks like exactly what it is) but the reality is that you cannot go wrong getting the money in here. Your hand is ahead of AK and, like, 45-55 with AA. The worst spot you can be in is K8ss, which is like 65-35.

Shove would be 295 into 155, including your call, so I would shove the flop. If you were OOP, you could raise and shove blank turns, but don't like that in position.

How would you play a set? Two pair?

In isolation, this hand could be a call, shove, or raise to committing amount. I don't think you can go wrong on this dream flop. But raising gives you a chance to win the whole pot while you have ~60% equity and based on stacks vs pot that seems like it's worth a go.

Grunch:

PRE - do we have any reads on the UTG raiser? With the dead money from the flat callers, I think we could possibly 3B.

FLOP - it would suck to raise and get 3B-jammed on. We have so much equity and a low enough SPR that we don't need to start piling the money in yet. Just call.

Snap call if we get jammed on. Might be tricky if he flat calls and shoves a blank turn. The idea is to get a fold or gii.

what.

I'm IP against V1 who looks like he made a "let's see where I'm at" bet, and V2 who has called twice. If either of them had flopped something hard they should be trying to defend on that wet board or maybe trying a x/r.

A lot of times I'm just going to shove but in a home game where people know I use that trick a lot, I'm raising to 120. That looks to the world like the bet I'm making with a set or 2P where I don't want the flush to come. That leaves >$200 behind to shove almost any turn except for a paired board.

We'll do we want to follow thru on a turn blank? I think the $120 will get rid of under pairs and weak Ax but if AK/Q calls a flop raise they are often going to call the turn shove if it's like an off suit Trey

I find it fascinating that you're pondering three-banging a UTG raiser with QJs preflop but not wanting to get stacks in or even raise against basically that same range with the biggest draw in history. Why do the first if you're not willing to do the second? I like my hand OTF way more than I did preflop.

This is one of those situations where it's easy to take a wrong turn by saying "action X is +EV, so I'll do that". It's probably +EV whatever you do, so our goal is to get greedy and maximise our EV.

IMO, raising, overbet shoving, and calling are close in EV.

If we call some bad things could happen and I’m not sure how high our EV is. Yes, being in position with the nuts or second nuts is a great situation, but so is winning uncontested with queen high. How to quantify each without precise ranges is beyond me, but my gut says shoving is better, especially if we might get priced out by a huge turn overbet.

I would consider 3B'ing pre because we have a reasonable hand to 3B and there were two callers in between we could squeeze.

I would flat call flop because we have two opponents with two uncapped ranges, and we don't rep much for value if we raise.

Consider what happens if we raise, the PFR 3B's, and the player in the middle calls or jams over top. In that scenario, our flush draw is probably no good, and we're left with just a double-gutter with only 6 clean outs.

What would your raise size be here, when the PFR bets 1/2 pot? $90? $120? $150? All in? Are we trying to make better hands fold, or are we trying to get it in? Is there a scenario in which you'd ever raise-fold?

I don't think better hands or better draws are all that likely to fold. If we get it in, we might be flipping with the PFR. If we get it in with both of them, we're probably drawing pretty slim. We're about 18.5% vs K9ss and AKo.

I really think we have to ask what the MP player has when he calls the flop, with us next to act. At a minimum, that should be AX for value, or the NFD. But if we think he's 3B'ing pre with AJs+, and folding flop with worse AX, that would weight his range towards KXss.

You said you were targeting the MP player. Suppose the off-duty dealer was doing the same. He could be in here with all sorts of KXs combos.

In this spot, I would proceed as if we just have the double-gutter with 6 clean outs. We're getting a little better than 4:1 direct odds, but the implied odds of hitting an off-suit K or 9 make it worth continuing.

Even if we "only" have the straight draw, I count 7 clean outs since K♠ makes us the übernuts. Regardless, I don't expect to be up against the worst-case scenario that often.

However, I was doing all of this thinking and wondering if I had enough fold equity and realizing I was probably looking weird, so I took the low-variance option and flicked in the call. That was basically the last interesting spot of the hand, since the turn brought the nice K♣, UTG bet $50, the player in between called and I, realizing pretty quickly that any raise was going to look super-nutted regardless, shoved for $306. UTG cut chips out, thought for a moment, then semi-reluctantly called and the other player dropped. The river bricked off and I doubled up with a little extra sprinkles on top.

I fastrolled my straight and nobody else showed. UTG said he probably wouldn't have called if he hadn't picked up the backdoor club draw on the turn, so I figure him for A♣ Q♣. The other player stated he had also had clubs, so, I dunno, J♣ 10♣ maybe? Not a lot else makes sense. I congratulated myself on "slowplaying" my draw enough for them to get just enough to pay me off when I got there, but wondered if it wasn't right for me to get more money in with a huge equity advantage on the flop.

Nice hand. Well played.

The Ks makes us the stone nuts, but we won't see it hit the board if MP has KXss, hence why I said I'd proceed as if we just have the 6-out draw.

I think it's another example of the challenges which arise from card removal in extreme spots. If we raise flop, it looks like we're semi-bluffing when our opponents have thick value, and it looks like we have thick value when our opponents just have a draw. A raise mostly folds out weaker hands / weaker draws with less equity and gets called by strong hands / better draws.

MP probably would have folded to our flop raise, so by just calling, we made another $50 off him, on top of the $356 from UTG when he picks up the BDFD to go with his TPTK. No way was UTG folding AQcc on the flop, so flat calling saves our stack on brick run-outs.

Nothing wrong with delayed gratification. Very often, there's a lot right with it.

you would not wanna raise on a board that is bad for your range even though your hand is good.

Seems like an easy spot to just call.

If you raise you are saying you have 2pair+ or a very strong combo draw which we have. I don't think raising is -EV but I think our meta game is better if we just call and see what develops. Also we let him make a mistake if screws up his sizing on the turn.

If you call, you have the widest range and can see what he does on the turn, and keep the pot smaller if you miss.

can you explain why for me or direct me to a site?

DJ may have other reasoning, but I'd say it aligns with what I was saying in one of my earlier posts. We can't rep much for value on this flop.

We over-called on the BTN pre, behind two other players who also called UTG's open. We'll never have AA in range here. Probably not ATs or TT all that often. We probably don't have T8s very often. We could show up with A8s or 88. We just can't have a ton of thick value if we raise.

UTG can have AA, TT, 88, ATs, or maybe A8s. Even if he just has AX, he blocks a good chunk of AT/A8 from our range. He's not folding 2P+. He's probably 3B-jamming 2P+. I don't think he's folding any AX combo on such a wet board.

Simply having a huge combo draw doesn't give us the green light to start pumping money into the pot. Not when the board favors the aggressor's range more than ours.

If the board was 9s5s4d, and we had 76ss, we could blast off, because UTG isn't going to have as many sets or 2P in his range. He can't come over the top and 3B as much, because we'll have a ton of thick value in our range when we flat call OTB, and his range would be weighted more towards over-pairs that mostly hate the board texture.

If we 3B pre, we could credibly rep AA, TT, and ATs, as well as a bunch of AK/AQ/AJ combos. So we could c-bet with our combo-draw, and not worry too much about getting raised. We can't raise this flop when we just flat call pre.

If it helps - even if we had an actual value hand here, I'd be leery of raising for value on this board. I wouldn't be thrilled to get it in on the flop with A8s or 88. I'd say ATs is probably my threshold for blast-off.