Deep stacked multiway big pot. Unsure about turn bet sizing.

Haven't opened spoiler, so semi-grunch.

I agree with others that I believe this is somewhat of a misconception. Generally, a small c-bet size applies more to range betting in HU single-raised pots at 100b ef. In this case we are in a 4way 3bet pot with stacks varying from 160 to 400bb eff. Obv we have a range-advantage on AK6tt but we are 4way and ranges are likely narrower than a SRP HU pot except perhaps for V2.

I mean V1 raised/called from EP and V3 (BN) should be condensed as others suggest. C-betting larger is theoretically ok 4way but I'd say what determines your decision should be whether you want it to be a 2 street or 3 street hand, as well as the fact that EP, who probably has the strongest range of your opponents, is only 160bb ef. Also, given its 4way, you don't have to think about bluffing here and in this respect your perceived range is relevant to the extent of targeting hands like AQ-AJ versus gaining value from draws (which are typically going to be combos in the form QTs or JTs, particularly as the A and K spades are on the board).

I would favour a larger c-bet size because we can make it a 2 street hand at least against V1. Sure he has some 88-QQ but also ATs and AJ-AQ and it's these latter Ax hands he won't fold regardless of the fact we have more KK+/AK. V1's 88-QQ etc aren't likely to float/bluff-catch for a smaller size, anyway, because its 4way and not HU.

Addressing the concept of downbetting flops; it is especially prudent to this multiway since players are less likely to be bluffing/floating and more likely to be trapping and "checking to the raiser" with sets and such. HOWEVER, this really only applies when we have something vulnerable like TP that could end up valueowning ourselves with an overplay. This is no such scenario; we have a good hand and want to get value from people who also have good hands, plus it's live. We can bet nearly full pot just to get people who cold-call 3bets with suited aces and fish who dont fold to 3bets to commit with whatever they have -- because as mentioned they are less likely to be dicking around.

Do you know the reasoning for betting small on the flop in multiway pots? Or do you just copy+paste what other good players tell you?

Knowing the why behind good player decisions is much more important than knowing what they would do in multiway situations. Why is that? Every poker hand is very unique. If you follow certain default strategies blindly without knowing the reasoning behind them, then you won't know when it's higher EV to deviate from them.

There are certain assumptions built into default strategies like "bet small in multiway pots " Do you know what those assumptions are? If you don't know what those assumptions are, then you are going to be lost.

"When you find a good move in chess, you should look for a better one." Quote by a chess master Emanuel Lasker.

FWIW, I disagree with cbetting anywhere close to 100% pot on this flop. I wouldn't size down to $160. I would argue that $160 is too small. I like something a little larger. But sizing up to anywhere in the $400+ neighborhood would put so much pressure on the guy to your direct left when he has 2 players behind him. When is the last time that anyone saw someone get out of line with a huge pot-sized cbet into a 4-ways 3bet pot?

I don't want to take such a strong action on the flop that the player directly behind us considers folding Ax.

Let's dive in deeper for why a good player might argue for betting smaller in a multiway pot.

Marc Goone has been putting out Hungry Horse Poker videos where he argues that it's a good idea to bet an amount that will get Villains to raise flop with their strong stuff and still call with their weak stuff. Maybe the sizing that achieved that objective is 50% in a headsup pot, and something like 33% pot in a multiway pot.

So we figured out a good move. Can we find a better one?

I will say that Villain's DO NOT raise with AQ in this spot when we cbet $160 (33% pot) on AKx twotone. Why is that? This is a board texture that is very good for AK. Usually live players don't tend to raise cbets much on AKx boards against the PFR especially against the preflop 3bettor who cbet into the whole field in a 4-ways pot when the flop texture is so great for the 3bettor.

There's another reason to think that we won't get raised by Villains with good hands on AKx twotone when we have AK ourselves. Villains can't have much 2pair given the preflop action.

There are so single-paired many good Ax hands possible among all 3 Villain ranges...especially from the "good" player NTA directly behind us. Those hands will not raise us even if we go 33% pot here. And there isn't much 2pair in people's ranges I given the large 3bet squeeze pre.

This is the time to do more of the heavy lifting ourselves in spots where people will be more passive. We cbet larger than the default multiway pot strategy says.

That's why I think $160 is an autopilot. $225 cbet is far better.

If I got a fold for every time someone told me how much respect they have for me before putting calling chips in, I'd be playing on TV by now.

Re - the flop c-bet size...

I think the theory behind c-betting small when multi-way is that the burden of defense is spread among more than one opponent, and they need a stronger range when they do call, and betting smaller allows them to continue wider, so we're not always value-owning ourselves when we bet large. We're betting into multiple ranges, where our equity is going to be lower generally, and the probability that someone has a strong hand increases.

My suggestion that we could size up slightly here is partly based on the read that one of the players in the hand is a bit splashy and may defend too wide. It's also partly based on the board having a FDFD, and us having top 2P, such that we block a lot of the AX combos that are going to continue, but unblock all the somewhat inelastic flush draws our opponents could have, and any stupid GSSD's that may want to peel if we bet smaller.

I think in spots like this, there's a tipping point beyond which we're just folding out too much of our opponents' range. If the theory suggests a 1/3 pot bet size, we might be able to go somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 pot, but the closer we get to 1/2 pot, the more elastic our opponents become, and the more they start to fold, because our hand becomes more face up.

With $480 in the pot on the flop, and V1 only starting with $850, I think we'd like to use a bet sizing that allows the appearance of some fold equity if he check-jams. I think we could go $200, get called by V3, and if V1 jams for $730, it makes it very easy for us to re-jam.

That would be my goal - try to get V3 to make a light call, which seems possible after he cold-calls the 3B pre, and hope V1 will check-jam, so we can re-jam with a boat-load of dead money in the pot. In fact, the smaller we bet, the more fold equity V1 may think he has when he jams.

Maybe we could go as high as $225, but my fear would be that we're letting our opponents off the hook. Maybe QJss shows up. Maybe AQ or A6. What other worse hands can continue on this board, to a bet that's almost 1/2 pot?

Re - Hungry Horse - most of the content deals with HU pots, and to the extent the content deals with multi-way pots, there isn't a lot that would seem to deal directly with this exact situation, i.e, flopping top 2P with AK on a two-tone board with a solid reg cold-calling our 3B pre, a short-stack in EP and a loose-goose in there.

He often recommends an over-bet or check approach to ace-high flops, but again, that's usually when it's HU, and the board is less connected, like A72rb, and he will still deviate when there's reason to. I'd think this is a spot to deviate, and find a bet size that targets enough of our opponents' combined ranges to call without giving their draws a price that makes their call automatic and correct.

The very fact that V3 cold-called our 3B pre should set off alarm bells, if our read is right. If V3 did cold flat pre with AA/KK, and we c-bet small, he should be raising at some frequency. As we start sizing up, his raising frequency should go down, and we're just value-owning ourselves.

$200 might be a little better than $225. But they are both better than $160. Mainly because the $160 here seems to be an autopilot and not something that Hero put a lot of thought into.

There's nothing wrong with autipiloting. That's human nature. We all do it. But if we want to become better players, we should be self aware enough to know when we autopilot. And then hold ourselves accountable to doing better next time at slowing down and being more thoughtful.

have been messing around with gtow multiway solve for this.

basically co should cbet range for like 20%, btn plays no flop raises, ep is either x/r or x/f. he should xjam his hand pure otf. turn btn has by far the strongest range if everyone mostly adheres to that (which they arent) and co would need to check range which makes sense - he has entire pre range. is also a weird node because we are never supposed to be here bc of hj. if i remove hj's ability to x/r flop, and his ability to open shove turn, i see co working in some bets around b50 with fairly substantial ev loss if u use all in.

the real question is any of this relevant and what to take away. i think the most important thing is understanding while this flop is good for you, given the nature of pre ranges particularly of btn, but also oop, and that they get reduced even more by flop action (we are cbetting range, they are defending very small amount of hands), you don't have anything close to an equity advantage on the turn. you still have a polarity advantage, so you can bet some hands but you need to be aware of that. also all in is fish and just ends up being fairly large blunder compared to other options (which should have been obvious already). when you're dealing with such a small amount of actual combos, if you choose a size that filters him down even further, you're going to end up running into just very good hands.

huge pita to keep simming this because of uneven stack sizes and again no one is playing close to correctly multiway. multiway is also problematic where guy playing incorrectly can cost you ev too (and give it to the third guy) but is important to understand basics because huge swath of the population have absolutely no idea what to do in non headsup pots and its not intuitive at all.

am not that interested in elaborating beyond this on this sim but you can recreate it fairly easily. will this change if we start adding more combos to hj / btn? probably but not to an extreme amount because co is always going to have dramatically more combos pre than button at very least and he will get to turn with (imo by far) the largest range

is another submersible thread where i continue to yell into the void about theory / strategy and OP is long gone lol

fyi. biggest ev blunder in this hand in any node is hj overcalling vs x jamming fd otf. stack sizes wont match the actual hand but in my sim i have the pot as 38 bb and hj's stack as 60 bb and it thinks just calling is a 7-9bb error depending on which fd, whereas turn all in w AK in admittedly weird conditions is like a 5bb (in a 70bb pot) error, and pre call with AJss is maybe at most a 1bb error given how egregiously large sizing is pre. to add to this really quickly, folding as HJ facing the cbet would be a slightly bigger disaster (0ev vs fold vs ~8 bb for call vs ~16 for jamming)

This is a spot where you just wanna b/b/b fairly neutral sizes.

Once the 3rd broadway hits, you’re not thrilled in any scenario with a raise or an overbet (by yourself or others), but so long as others are just flatting and blanks keep hitting, you’re happy to stick the last half of the stack in yourself OTR and let them make inevitable mistakes with their doomed ranges.

Flop is interesting because there’s a number of strategies you can take with both your range as a whole and this particular combo and things could get interesting on a number of runouts, but once you have this flop action and turn card, the rest of the hand should be played more straightforwardly.

This is literally what 99% of top pros have already done, not sure why you’re trying to tempt fate with possibly literally the best remaining poster.

meh i like poker strategy and posting forces me to articulate thoughts. also multiway solver is new to me. allegedly we post here to talk about poker strategy but generally doesn't seem to be the case much.

going back to the hand. even if i make hj fold the turn so we just look at the turn with spr ~2 co vs btn. co has to check a ton a ton (80+% of the time) which again makes intuitive sense - co has entire pre range and btn who started with a much tighter range got filtered down to even less hands (v similar i guess to like a SRP where pfr has more of the best hands but range is so wide he has to defer to IP player to protect his range as a whole because equity disadvantage). so like does any of this matter in this hand? im not sure. its a weird spot where co is less incentivized to bluff because he should expect minimal fold equity from HJ given stacks / player profile. BTN also has a similar dilemna and he doesn't need to worry about mda or anything otf (also a lot of his marginal flop peels - gutter or mid pair or whatever are going to struggle to realize equity given 2 players behind, one of which could / should be playing raise or fold). so a) his range may not have a ton of possible bluffs, and b) he probably rightly will not think he has much fe into hj at very least and may not bet them anyways. so i dont think range / theory is as important as realizing ok pot is big, fish is in the hand and likely committed so i should bet something to protect my equity / value. also we almost always defer to playing vs recs as opposed to theory.

Multiway we bet smaller, because our betting range is stronger and even our bluffs have more equity. I guess we can bet more, if villains are call happy, but that's an exploit.

On the turn, this issue is magnified. Your top of the range is very nutty and dominates other people. Hero has the vast majority of AA, KK and AK. What do you do with hands like AQ, ATs, A5s, A4s? Most people probably don't double barrel them, even fewer do so by consciously turning them into bluffs. Another question Do you 3bet 45s, 65s and 67s preflop? Even if you do, those 3 combos aren't probably enough to balance the 15 nutted value you have. So unless you are capable of finding both natural and unnatural bluffs, most thinking players have a relatively easy fold against a big size even when holding a strong hand like AJs.

That's why I am not enamored with the big turn sizing. Our double barreling range is extremely nutty. I also think you need to protect your AQ and AT from floats, so I would move a few monsters to my check raising range. Probably AA since it blocks so many of the continues.

Vs a fish, those considerations matter less. But the tricky part in this spot is that the recreational player has more flushes in his range and a smaller stack, while V3 probably deviated by calling mid strength hands like QQ-88( with the occassional trap thrown in) and also stuff like AQs, AJs that many people find difficult to fold, especially when deep. So you have two type of players, with two different stacks and two different ranges. I can't say what's the optimal way to play this spot.

Isn't this sim a 3-way GTOWiz multiway solve?

Doesn't seem appropriate for a 4-way pot to use a 3-way solver. I don't think that GTOWiz has a 4-way multiway solve available yet.

do you think the equilibrium here is closer to a hu solve or a 3 handed solve?

most likely btn will converge to never raising, co will cbet range for even smaller, v1 still gets to play raise / fold bc of stack. the guy we cant simulate isnt even a factor in the hand, he folded the flop before v2 acted

You two should start a new forum called Two Just Two.

It'll just be you two.

All (friendly) ribbing aside, I appreciate you both being here, injecting a more rigid application of theory into what would otherwise be a lot of feels-based argle-bargle.

I think the theory could be injected without any condescension, and we'd all be happier for it, but courtesy isn't a requirement on the internet.

I've come to view the challenge of accepting the wisdom without reacting to the snark as a way to practice emotional intelligence, which I believe is good for my game.

Inasmuch as Sub is doing me a favor by challenging me to become a better player, in more ways than one, I like to think I'm repaying the favor by challenging him to find some sliver of happiness in posting here.

To me this is one of the key points. In theory, it looks like we use small sizing in part because it will induce raises against hands we want to be playing for bigger bets against. But in practice, when opponents are way too passive, calling with hands that the solver expects them to raise, it seems intuitively correct to me that we adjust for this passivity by betting bigger ourselves.

so i don't think its this. i ran this a couple times, one of them was without giving ep the option to raise at all. co is going to bet range for around 20-25% in pretty much all cases. btn will raise a tiny bit more if ep isn't ever xring but not by much and i think it could / should get simplified to pure call. i believe its using a small size because it wants to bet range on this particular board. even if i run all 3 ranges at spr 5, it still will cbet range for 20% as co. button begins to do a fair amount of raising 13.5% in this case, primarily centered around AK. again the sim is kind of whatever because everyones cold call range is going to be different and most people won't even play one as button. one thing to keep in mind is we can still get all in pretty easily by betting geometrically ott if we bet tiny otf without having to overbet, so i dont know that you need to or want to bet big

its very much a product of the AKx board as if i change the board to AJ6tt in both cases (spr 5 w all, actual stacks) co is xing range to btn. i do think this will be highly sensitive to what range you give button but for some perspective combinatorically, at least in this sim co has ~100 combos, hj has 75, and btn has ~15. co in particular going to be the most ace centric, but btn also heavily interacts with it. Why is this important? on non ax boards co will have even more combos than everyone else and have an even weaker range. again just random rambling but even on something like k72r w spr 4 vs btn and 1.5 vs ep its checking around half the time. the way these seem to work is btn is equity favorite but co over realizes equity at least on AKx and Kxx. HJ is kind of in the most difficult spot which gets reflected in the pre range as hes very pocket pair heavy. some suited strong broadway hands and connectors but its going to be very very difficult for him to win the pot in most cases unless he either makes a very good hand or pretends to have one.

ive seen a bunch of the hungry horse vids and I agree with his concept of inducing opponents to 'protect their hand' with 100% of your range. But at its core his concept is really just one that is always targeting your opponents range. There are plenty of times where he'll 8x someone's open with AA because he already knows their range is strong. Or 6x 3bet. If you havent defined someones range then it makes sense to target the weaker portion of it with smaller sizing to get the ball rolling. I just feel in this particular configuration we dont need to do much probing and are better off targeting the strong parts of anyone's range and playing a 2 street game instead of 3.