1/2: KK OOP 4-way

Low stakes Vs are huge non-believers on paired boards, so I might consider a c-bet for value, but with 3 limp/callers to a big open, I don't hate the check as pot is bloated and a Q is a likely part of a lot of limp/call ranges.

OTT, I want a delayed c-bet. Yes, these guys could be slowplaying, but you would also like some value and charge any back-door hearts draws.

I won't comment on river as I saw results. Stop posting them until at least 24 hours after the OP. You've been told this (many times) before.

Flop check is good. I prefer a turn bet once nobody bets the flop, flush draws and smaller pairs can stay involved, would keep it on the small side. But check-call probably OK too?

River call is a bit dicey - what hands that you beat call your turn bet and suddenly blast river? Can't be terrible call with an overpair, but you might well see a rivered boat or flush (JJ) quite a bit now and I might find a fold.

I thought I played in wild 1/3 games - it limps all the way around to the SB who raised 20 big blinds and 3 people call. Just another day at the office.

I think it’s kinda a waste to consider opening bigger pre-flop, so here we are.

I don’t think you’re giving anyone a chance to slow play if you don’t cBet. It’s safe to think that they will likely fold without a queen, even to a small bet. I favor a small cbet anyway multiway, so I might bet another 40 or even 25.

I think you should give villain(s) the opportunity to make a mistake. If you fold an ace, it might save that hand from beating you on the runout. Somebody will probably fold, you don’t want everyone drawing against you.
I think you better define your hand when you bet, at least in this case.

As played, I can’t imagine the old guy getting aggressive with a flush on a paired board - smells like JJ.

You have so underrepresented your hand, but from the action pre-flop you face strong ranges. It turned into a player read decision and you provided only that he’s old. If I was sitting there, I would likely know what to do, but from way out here, not sure what to tell you.

You can iso bigger vs this many limpers

River this isnt a bluff from the average low stakes, even for this size, and even moreso vs this player type

The hand is played fine post otherwise, although i wouldnt say alternative options are worse

I like a flop cbet here against undescribed villains. Yes it's 4 ways and the Q being the paired card is scary. But generally villains are too wide and too passive so we can get some value/protection from underpairs and A high and pretty safely fold vs a flop raise.

If I didn't bet the flop I'm definitely betting the turn for value. There are now flush and straight draws to get value from in addition to all the pairs between 5 and Q. Probably going like 100 on the turn.

I would never play the hand this way but if I did I actually like a raise on the turn vs this sizing. I just think we are never behind when the guy checks flop and stabs under 1/3 pot on the turn. We can prevent people overcalling with direct odds to hit the flush or straight.

AP on river yuck. This is so rarely a bluff but we have severely underrepped our hand. Holding the Kh in my hand I probably talk myself into a call given this is the second strongest hand we can ever have. I've seen enough people even 80 year old guys do weird stuff that I'm just gonna close my eyes and call when I have AA or KK with a heart as played. Think it's too exploitable to fold here after playing the hand the way we have

I'm all for bigger opens, but what do you suggest here? 3X straddle + 3 limps + blinds = 15+15+3=33. I've been experimenting with larger opens on squeezes so I would have rounded up to 40. What would you have bet and how do you calc to get there?

I don't like a flop cbet because if I had a Q, I would have checked it there.

I'm not super confident on the turn, but after it checked thru, it's worth $50 bet (a little larger than pre bet and in the range of 20 - 25% of the pot) because again, that's what I would be doing with QX.

With so little info on the Vs, hard to say, but as a rule, vs 3 Vs, it's hard to imagine someone doesn't have something better than top 2. And without further knowledge of this 80yo guy, I'm not going to believe he bets big like that into a paired and flushed board without at least the flush and probably better. That age group almost never bluffs but they do sometimes misinterpret their hands.

I'm not calling river.

Preflop: strongly prefer to raise bigger here from the SB. We will be out of position post flop. I'd go 60 at least over 3 limpers.

Flop: x is good into the world.

AP Turn: I would rather lead this turn with a block bet than turn our KK into a bluff catcher. AP just call. Now it is possible that V has some crap like Ah2h or Ah3h that has turned more equity and decides to lead. Another problem is that the old guy gets direct odds for his FD.

AP River: This may be one of those very complicated Bayesian fold scenarios. The V who bet the turn has x/folded, so he probably didn't turn more equity. This tells us he had some mid pairs and perhaps even AK that are very likely no good with the Jh river. The old guy (V2) who got direct pot odds to draw to his flush instead bets out.

The old guy has no bluffs on this River and only value bets. We can have QJs and JJ and as many nut flushes as him. So I think he's heavily weighted to value. Now we have to decide whether 3-1 is the right price. In a vacuum, I think it is. But the other V has already folded, so by card/combo removal of all his crap, it leaves more Value for the old guy to bet.

I prefer to fold. We can MDF/level ourselves into a call here I guess and perhaps folding is an exploit. Whatever.

Grunch:

PRE - obviously we want to raise, but I'm honestly unsure what size is best here, when we're $500 deep but there's a $5 straddle on and three limpers.

My general heuristic is that when the straddle is on, low stakes players will tend to limp with stronger hands than their usual trash, because suddenly the game is bigger and stacks are shorter.

I sort of think your raise size is okay. But since you got three callers, maybe it could have been bigger. On the other hand, we'll be OOP post and playing with a fairly low SPR, so maybe the raise size isn't an issue and we just need to consider the strength of our opponents' ranges when they call a big raise from the SB.

You didn't say if the three callers were the same three who limped, or if either the BB or straddle were among them. It kind of matters. The BB and straddle could be wider here than the limpers.

FLOP - Yeah, I think checking range first to act in a four-way pot is fine on this board. Alternatively, we could bet really small, like 20% pot, around $30-$35, targeting all their 1P holdings below the Q's.

TURN - I disagree that these guys are slow-playing after you check. Consider the ranges that limp-call pre or cold-call pre. If they have QX, it's unlikely to be AQ, and we double-block KQ.

Their QX combos are likely to be QJ or worse that would want to get value from our AA/KK, and might bet the flop for value / protection and "to see where they're at". They wouldn't want to give our PP's or any of the other players' PP's a free chance to fill up on the turn.

When the flop checks through, I'm bombing the turn, targeting all their heart draws, straight draws, and non-believing middling PP's that are likely to get more sticky when we don't c-bet the flop. Hell, we can get value from ace-high on this board.

As played, when we check and it gets to the fish who likes to stab, I'm assuming none of the other players have anything better than a draw, and I'm putting in a VERY big raise, to target all those hands.

With $215 in the pot when it gets back to us, I'm likely to make it $300, if not $350. At the very least, $250, when we only started out $500 effective. I want to set up a less than PSB river jam, and make opponents feel like they have to fold or jam with their draws.

My reasoning is that the players in the middle are only going to call with draws to the nuts, and won't put another dime into the pot if they don't make their hand on the river, but they might think we're FOS when we check twice and now put in this obnoxiously large raise.

Meanwhile, the fish on the BTN is a fish, and he might get a wild hair up his a$$ and come back over the top with something stupid, like A4hh, or 54, or A5o with the Ah, etc.

If we call, the players in the middle will be getting a fantastic price to call with all their draws.

Also, once we call, what's our plan for the river, if we think our hand is best and we want to get value? Busted draws aren't calling. Maybe we can get hero-called by some non-believing PP's below the Q, but that seems fairly unlikely. Are we going to check again, and hope someone bets?

RIVER - yuck.

Without the info that he's an 80 year old man, I'd assume he called turn with the NFD.

When you tell us he's an 80 year old man - he's going to have a ton of AXs in his range when he limps. He's not stabbing the flop with AXs. He's not stabbing the turn when he picks up the BDNFD. He's not over-calling the turn with a worse draw than JXhh, and he may not even call with that, because he's not limping in with many JXs combos. It's mostly just the one combo of JThh. They don't like drawing to the 3rd nuts.

Other than AXhh, he'll also show up with JJ that limped pre, 55 and 44 that limped pre, and very occasionally, QX that was insanely slow-played on the flop and turn, for fear of "scaring everyone away if I bet."

He's very rarely bluffing here, into two opponents, one of whom bet the turn, the other of whom called next to act, and either of whom could realistically have a flush or better. He's probably not bluffing for over $150 in a $1/$2 game, even with the $5 straddle on, when the last bet that went in was only $50.

I would mostly fold, and take a walk to mentally berate myself for playing the hand this way.

The problem with playing our hand as a bluff catcher is that very few low stakes opponents will bluff in multi-way pots. Fewer still when the PFR is first to act and could be slow-playing a monster. Even fewer still on a board of QQ4 where anyone could have QX and there aren't any draws possible.

I said we could range-check the flop precisely because we'll have a fair bit of AQ/KQ/QJ here, as well as AA/KK, and AK, JJ, TT, etc. A lot of that range wants to check to induce or check to pot-control. Once the action checks through, most of that range wants to start betting for value or as a bluff on the turn, because our opponents capped their range by checking back.

If you check again on the turn, you MUST check-raise for value. And you can also check-raise with some bluffs when someone bets small, especially the player who is last to act, because we still have a lot of very strong hands after we checked flop.

When you say you didn't think many worse hands would call if you started betting, consider these questions, and try to find logically consistent answers:

1. When we have a hand that can bet for value, what sort of hands are we targeting to call? Better hands, or worse hands?

2. If we don't think worse hands will call a value bet because of the board texture, are we expecting worse hands to bet when we check? What sort of hands would those be? Something with some SDV, or something with no SDV?

3. If we think those hands would bet, why do we think they won't call a bet? In our opponents' positions, would we call with any of those hands? Would we bet with any of them?

When you think about those questions, can you find a logically consistent argument for checking, rather than betting?

Don't expect opponents to bet your hand for you. Once they check back, we need to start betting our hands for value and bluffing more liberally.

Thinking about this more...

PRE - maybe we could raise bigger. But I'm not sure how big is too big. We're going to be setting up a low flop SPR, potentially leading to us having no good choices post flop.

FLOP - maybe we could c-bet small to deny some equity. But then we'll be guessing what to do on a lot of turns.

TURN - I'm not sure what a small delayed c-bet would accomplish. I think we should take our chances with a big bet, and maybe play the river as a check-evaluate when our turn bet gets called and the river bricks off.

Alternatively, checking again doesn't seem terrible, so long as we're willing to check raise, depending on which opponent bets, and how big.

RIVER - yeesh. We have about $400 left with $315 in the pot. With the Kd in our hand, we block KQ and some FD combos. I wonder if we could or should block bet small and plan to fold to a raise. Maybe we bet $75-$100 and fold if someone jams over top.

It's really hard for anyone to jam as a bluff in that scenario, I'd think. We could have been slow-playing QX, or improved to the NF or a boat on the river. Trip Q's and worse shouldn't love it if we lead out for 1/4 to 1/3 pot here.

I doubt a worse hand calls. But I think the purpose would be to prevent the action from checking through and prevent our opponents from bluffing us.

If someone calls we're probably beat. Maybe we should block even smaller, so we can get called by some worse hands. Maybe 99/TT flicks it in if we make it $65.