AAJ5ss

SPR is 1,5 so you can bet small and then get it in on the turn/river vs CO.

Would you pot here with a bluff? I would bet 40 here to at least give someone a chance to make a bad call/bad raise. No need to protect here and it's REALLY hard to get value if you bet big.

Agreed. Vs reg alone would never bet this big and dislike my bet either way. Betting $40 might be a mistake vs the best wraps, though, won't it?

Of course if opponent happens to have KQT9 with backdoor flushdraws.

If opponent has that kind of a hand, it doesn’t matter what we bet anyway as the money goes is on the flop or on the turn.

But when opponent has something else (which is most of the times) we minimize our value if we pot it.

I actually agree with what you're saying. Problem for me is to understand why this is so different from
this hand

In each case, when we are considering betting, we have an incredibly strong hand. In one case, top set with Q high flushdraw with one card to come, in the other, top set with only str8 draws possible, with two cards to come, up against two opponents.

Can it really be that we should bet 1/3 pot in once case but 3/4 pot in the other? Putting it another way, when we bet $40 here, it's because we have a bet/f range. Shouldn't we have a b/f range in the other hand too?

Thanks

If this was 100bbs deep, I'd pick a size, where I'm quite happy about bet/folding hands like pair + gs.

When the button's stack size gets smaller, I don't quite know how to size this. I'm guessing making it less than half his stack is going to be best with our range even though we're always committed vs him with anything we bet.

Do you still think betting large is best?

Originally posted by Shevtshenko

Do you still think betting large is best?

Me? No, definitely don't think my bet size is even good, let alone optimal. But I agree, the stack dynamics are a problem, as well as the fact that BU is our main target in the hand but acts after CO. But even betting $60 seems like we wouldn't be folding to a shove. Or rather, I'm struggling to believe that b/f to $60 is better than x/f.

On the QJJ9 it was turn, here it is flop. On the QJJ9 there were actions on the flop that defines ranges, cbet and c-raise. Here it is on the flop and no postflop actions have yet defined ranges.

And the boards are different. You 3bet vs 2 players, so your range just smashes AJ3r. It is also a spot where you want to bluff all your missed (non Axxx) hands as you have a good FE. It is kind of board that you want to cbet with really high frequency. Big bet gets mostly as much folds as small bet here, and the bigger the bet the harder it is to get value. So small bet works better for both value and bluffs. And you don't have to protect your hand that much. If the board wasn't rainbow but suited, it would be different. Cos then the opponents possible continuation range gets wider and your hand needs more protection.

Here you have bluffs, meaning you have bet-fold range. In QJJ9 hand you don't have pure bluffs as you called flop c-raise. And the turn isn't a good bluff card so you shouldn't really have a bet-fold range there (as you don't have much FE vs. his range) with less than a pot behind after the bet.

Ok, thanks for the explanation. I can see the differences between the spots (though still don't like a big bet in the other hand )

However, I still don't really like betting this AJ4r board much, into two players, with no Ace blocker. Let's give ourselves 7♦:8♦:9♠:T♠: hand here. We have about 10% equity. At least one of our opponents will have an ace 80+% of the time. So unless we expect them to fold tp to 1/3 pot bet, aren't we just burning money with such a cbet, or am I missing something?

Cheers

Would you 3bet T987 there?

If their range is around 30% they both have A+ half of the time. Both of them not having that is therefore around 25%.

If you bet only for value and check with non-A hands, that is quite unbalanced. Against regs I recommend starting by doing the same with value hands and bluffs. In the first place I wouldn't like to 3bet here oop against 2 players without an Ace in the hand, so we shouldn't have many hands in our range that is bet-fold in here.

Hmmm. Well I think often would 3b that kind of hand, because I want to play a big pot against the fish. Maybe that's wrong? But unless the reg who's opening is very tight (e.g 20/20 overal and opening from UTG) I don't expect to face a 4b often and even if we do, we have a pretty easy call with the hand I mentioned.

I'm not saying we should never bluff cbet but clearly we should do so less when against 2 players and less when we have no blockers to hands that connect with the flop. If you don't like my example, what about KK99ds? Should we cbet/f that hand on this board against 2 opponents?

Finally, we're not just against a reg in this hand, as I said. The reg is sandwiched by the fish on BU. He can't exploit our lack of cbet (or even the size of it, for that matter) without a hand, because he doesn't know what the fish is going to do after he acts.