1/2, $500 deep: I x/r semibluff flop MW but don’t know what to do when I bink turn

you bet. I'd go 130 ish

if he's super passive, why can't he have overpairs or sets as well as flushes?

your call if you fold if he shoves depends on your read, but he can have far more than just bigger flushes.

again, if he's super passive/trappy then maybe you can check back river, but IDK man, I'd need good evidence before I did that

Any reason to go this big (relatively to 1/2 stakes) on turn and narrow his range to the strongest portion?

Preflop, why are we flatting? Make it 50$. Or is this another "no one ever folds preflop" games? I would almost never enter a limped pot with a limp if I'm holding a suited connector; barring very specific player dynamics, this is always a big raise.

Turn: bet. Don't be a fish who checks his flush when he hits it. You don't have to go big. Maybe repeat bet 75$.

It’s 60% ish of pot. Not big at all and we want value

He’s not thinking about % of pot, he’s looking at it as a relatively large bet. What hands can he realistically call with? Maybe just As7x or something? He shouldn’t have any Qx, sets, 2p as played.

I feel - most of the time when he continues turn, I’m drawing dead.

You’re raising $50 with 76s in BB in a 1/2 game with $300-500 stacks?! I’d understand if you wanted to raise like KJs+.

I do, yeah. I would raise premiums here (AK, AQ, TT+, maybe AJ and KQs) as well as suited connectors as bluffs (pretty much all of them down to 54s, even suited gappers if I'm feeling like it's a good spot). If I do get called with a suited connector and I hit, it's very profitable because it doesn't look like I hit, and if there's high cards, people probably fold because they have to give me credit for big broadways.

This seems to be unusual in this forum, but I don't get why. It's normal to have a balanced 3bet range with value and bluffs; why wouldn't you also have a squeezing range with value and bluffs? (And if you do, isn't this the perfect hand for it?)

Suited connectors also don't particularly want to go mutliway because they can go flush under flush. if you had A3s, then yeah I'm calling all day, I want to go as multiway as possible. But with 76s it's meh. (I wouldn't take this too far, I think playing 76s multiway is okay, and I think call > fold here given the price, but I don't think it's great.)

Probably bet very small like 50-75.
If V calls
We make like a 125 bet river.

Because you'd like your squeeze candidates to have the ability to win by making a decent pair.

You can bet small or check. If he checks back, value bet small on brick rivers. If you bet and he calls, check-evaluate the river, or bet small again.

He's not going to have many raises as a bluff or raise with worse value, so just try to get some value from his worse hands by betting small, and fold if he starts shoveling money in.

I'm very confused by the follow-up reads beyond "V is a passive player".

Using only a read of V as a typical passive fish of any stripe, we have the nuts after making the flush. A passive player is not stabbing massively multiway with a naked flush draw, and we hold the 7s. A passive player would play sets and whatever 2p would fit an open-limping range like this.

I have a lot of reservations about going for the check-raise in the first place depending on V's station tendencies, but we lucked out and this is absolutely the spot we want to be in. Bet $115 or so, small as we can go to keep him in as wide as possible while still having an SPR under 1 on the river. Jam non-spade non-pairing rivers for sure.

Maybe you shouldn't x/r this hand. Maybe overplaying it. When you hit, you can't get much value and need to fold to a raise.

Why is this not also true for your 3bets?

In the interest of not seeing the thread derailed, I'm jumping in here.

I think the point AF was making is that if we 3B with 76s here, we kind of have to connect with the flop in a big way, by making 2P+, because simply making 1P isn't likely to win us the pot at showdown, and a UTG raiser isn't likely to fold very many hands on a 7-high or 6-high board, and if the board is 8-high or higher, our 1P isn't even top pair.

He didn't say it, but I suspect he'd suggest we can just fold 76s pre. He might point to the fact that UTG was the original raiser, and he opened for a large 7.5x raise size, which is supposed to push us to folding more of our range, and maybe also 3B'ing a tighter / stronger range.

While I personally understand the LAG instincts that lead to wanting to 3B this hand out of the BB, I suspect he's correct that it's going to be higher EV to fold.

Maybe you or I would argue that we're balancing our 3B range by having a hand like 76s in there, but I'm as LAG as they come, and even I'm willing to accept that we don't need to have a balanced 3B range in a 1/2 game when our UTG opponents are opening to a 7.5x size.

In fact, if we're looking to play exploitable, we can probably over-fold here, a ton, and go huge when we 3B with the top of our range, precisely because our opponents are going to call too much pre, and continue too often post.

The frequency of smashing the flop with 76s and getting paid off is going to be dwarfed by the frequency of whiffing and having to check-fold after we bloat the pot with our 3B pre. We're better off 3B'ing a linear range of strong hands that can win at showdown when they make a good top pair.

6BF - you're asking a good question, when you note that it's 1/2.

FW is correct that the bet size he suggested is ~60% of pot, and relative to most turn bet sizes, which skew larger, it's not that large a bet. I'd suggest the size you want to take here is going to be dependent on how you range your opponent and what you're hoping to accomplish.

Honestly, I think ranging V here is more difficult than it needs to be, because of the raise size we used on the flop. Yes, we went 5x, and that sounds large enough, but the pot was small, and there was another opponent who called V's $15 bet, so the raise really wasn't all that large in real terms, nor relative to the pot. I'd have made it at least $90, if not $105 or more - enough to send a message that we're very willing to GII here, and want to play for stacks.

Facing your smaller raise, V could call with a wider range, thinking all our sets would have raised larger on this wet / dynamic board. So he could get here with some better flushes, and also a lot of weak 1P hands or straight draws that are going to over-fold if we barrel for a large size.

This is why I suggested you could bet small. What "small" means here is a bit nebulous. My normal "small" bet size on the turn is going to be around 1/2 pot, but that's often when I'm IP, as the PFR, and just c-bet the flop for a small size, capping my opponent's range, and then see a nut-changing card. Getting here the way you did makes "small" debatable.

Here, our opponent is uncapped, but I'd also say his range is somewhat polar. Like, he's not going to have a lot of sets or 2P after bet-calling on the flop. He's going to have a lot of 7x, some better flushes, and some straight draws that hate the turn card.

Also making this complicated is that you were repping a strong hand on the flop, like 2P or a set, so you should also hate this turn card, unless you were bluffing with a hand exactly like the one you actually have. So if you bet here, you're basically only repping 7Xss for value, or you're over-playing something that's been downgraded.

So, if you come out and bet small, V may raise as a bluff, thinking you'll fold 2P or a set. Or he might raise with his better flushes, thinking you won't fold a low flush, 2P or a set. He might call with his 7x or straight draws, because your line doesn't make sense to him. He may think, "why would you barrel on the turn spade if you were check-raising flop with 2P or a set?"

If you come out and bet large, V may call with some of his 7x, thinking you'll slow down and check river, and he can steal the pot. Or he might fold 7x, and all his straight draws, because what the hell does he beat when you barrel on a flush-completing card?

V was the UTG straddle, yes? If so, he could literally have any two cards getting to the flop. When he leads out into multiple opponents, I would assume he has at least 1P or a good draw. I wouldn't necessarily assume he folds 7x or 65 if we bet small. I would be concerned we're behind if we bet large and he calls, or worse, raises.

Imagine V having As7x here - OMG, if I were him, I'd be salivating over the prospect of putting max pressure on you if you bet the turn.

Further complicating matters is that many opponents will view it as weakness if we go "too" small here, relative to our flop x/r size. If we bet less than $150 after making it $75 on the flop, some opponents are going to raise at a very high frequency.

Like I said, you've set up a spot where it's hard to range V, which is why I suggested checking or betting small. But thinking about it more, I think I'd prefer to just check, because I don't really like any size bet, because I'm not sure what we're hoping to accomplish based on the size we take.

It's hard to think he's going to call flop with 7x or a straight draw, see this turn card, and go for a huge bluff if we check to him, unless he has exactly As7x. If we check and he checks back, we're going to have the best hand a lot, and we can make a small value bet on brick rivers. We may even be able to size up some if the river completes a straight draw or puts another 7 on board.

If we check and he bets huge, we can probably rage-fold. If we check and he bets small, we probably have to call and check-evaluate the river, where I'd lean towards check-fold if he bets large, and check-call if he bets small.

It’s 1/2. Why are you ranging him like he’s Steven Chidwick?

Steven Chidwick has entered the chat...

For real though - is it just me, or is this dude about as Nosferatu-looking as they come?

Grunch from title alone: Continue betting. You told the story that you already had a made hand, so now continue it an hopefully he won't think you binked. OK, off to read post.

Grunch to post. Haven't read replies. Completing is OK here given a bunch of limps ahead, if the straddle isn't the type to juice the pot often. It's a little iffy given our poor position, though.

Flop is WP. Turn is a bet of at least half pot.

Given V is passive, I think there should be plenty of 2p in his range. I also think that if he's really folding 65s, then he's a prime candidate to be bluffing a ton of turns and balancing by also betting when you made a hand is good. Target his As7x, 74o, etc. Remember, he was the straddle and checked his option. He could have anything. If you bet small to try to milk value out of 7x etc, you may get called more often, but your EV when getting called by a real bet is still better, even if it only gets called half as often.

OK, off to read replies now.

Post Grunch: This. With the exception of the river jam. I think a half pot bet OTR gets called more than twice as much as a jam, making it higher EV. Also saves us some RIOs when the passive player just calls with a better flush.

If you can't continue when you hit, don't C/R flop.

Preflop seems correct. Would want something stronger than this to raise OOP. Raising is possible, but mostly for board coverage and deception. It you raise, you will not to bluff maybe 2 or 3 streets on some boards and actions.

Flop may be a flat call. Hard to play the flush. Hard to play the pair if you miss.

Good job answering the question and having a logically consistent position

I think you confused preflop and flop action here. If UTG opens to 7.5BB, then yeah snap fold every hand worse than 99, and up to JJ depending on the player. In that case, calling this hand preflop would be a blunder, imho. But the 15$ bet was on the Flop, not preflop. This was a limped preflop pot.

Also in general this doesn't answer the question. I'm totally on board with having only value raises preflop if the game is splashy. I'm saying that the asymmetry of having a 3bet bluffing range but not a 2bet squeeze bluffing range doesn't make any sense to me. Limped ranges are weaker than RFI ranges, not stronger.

Lighten-up, Frances.