TT runs out pure at a juicy table

Forget about balancing bluffs vs these players imo. I’m betting around $100 to $150 (pot) and expecting some folds and that’s fine. These bad players will call too much so punish them for the max when they hero call two pair. If he’s calling $60-80 hes probly calling $100-$125. If he folds he probly wasn’t calling anyways and your big bet creates an aggro image and might get you paid later.

Good to see your image has improved 😉

Would be tempted to bet most hands that bet the turn, apart from maybe AK ... so like KJ+. Probably for different sizes depending on strength though.

Not sure how many bluffs I have that check flop and bet turn anyway, and most (all?) of them have decent showdown on this river anyway (Eg. As4s). So there's a decent chance that I have very few or no bluffs on this river vs. randoms.

With a T I'd guess 80-100 looks the same as the 40 into 60 on the turn, so if he called turn quickly then I'd be tempted to throw 100 out ... going to 125 might get a call often enough to be fine, but hard to measure long term.

With Ts I bet flop most of the time. Wouldn't be thinking about it as a bluff.

I would have bet $25 on the flop for sure.
Not sure how the dynamics would have changed, but probably a bigger win.

I don’t think you realize how strong that draw is - it’s certainly not a pure bluff.

As played, bet $100
Villain called 2/3 pot on the turn, so see if he will on the river. Could easily have a ten though.

I may have misstated the thought process behind betting flop -- I know that our hand has some value, and needs some protection, and basically always has equity, but in-game I was thinking that the main benefit to betting flop would be the ability to represent strong hands on future streets.

Is our draw really that strong, though? Our BDFD is bad, our set outs are dirty, we are getting freerolled by JTo, which any of these guys could have, etc. My thought process behind checking also had to do with players over-valuing hands on this board -- getting check-raised by AQ or J9 would be pretty miserable, for instance, and QT and JT will always call to the river.

$100 to $150 sounds about right, targeting two pair hands that just can't fold. Probably depends on how big such a bet "feels" for the game since it's a lot of dollars for a 1/2 table. Don't think it's impossible that SB has a T; you bet more than half pot OTT and he called next to act - could just be hoping you pile in money versus folding to a raise or donk.

I think I like checking back the flop. The draws are still pretty strong but with the pair you have a lot of SDV versus the type of hands that are folding to a cbet. About the only thing we benefit from denial against is like Ace-rag and only if an Ace comes. Otherwise I think hands that we can reasonably expect to fold have very little equity here. Q and J already paired, and likely doesn't have a weak enough kicker to fold easily, and unpaired Kx is basically drawing dead.

We have TTs
Flop: QJ9ss (which two matters a bit, but we always have a BDSFD)

I would check JT/T9 a lot, maybe only bet specifically JsTs/Ts9s ... but TTs blocks 2x (so even QTo can only have 6 combos), and the BDFD is much better if you bet the flop (like even AsJx is in a terrible spot on the flop vs. a bet).

Also while hitting a set on the turn isn't great, it's much better than hitting two pair with JT and we will almost always see a river.

It's quite difficult to x/r this board though. AQ doing it would be borderline insane. J9 might, but I think it's pretty bad. And given the preflop action it's much less likely anyone else has QQ/JJ.
There are a few players who can have all 8 combos. of KT ... but if that's the only thing they are raising, it's easy to play.

Betting also gets the random any2 that are technically in front to realize they have problems, like Q6s/J4s or whatever. Also value in random A7o not seeing the ~8% turn where they hit top pair, or random suited cards with BDFD either getting there or even bluffing you off.

To expand:

I would check 77s on 986ss a lot, for all the reasons you said.

Now there are a lot of bad turn cards if we bet, they have all the sets, BDFD is actually bad instead of just the 2nd-4th nuts, people can have JT and x/r it where AsKx probably never x/r QJ9ss even if they have it. etc.

But TTs on QJ9ss is a lot better.

Thanks, this is all really helpful.

I did somewhat expect that the flop would be the more interesting decision point in the hand, although I am still waiting for someone to suggest that the online-style 2.5x river jam is playable...

Bet flop, bet turn, bet river.

I wouldn't balance my sizing here vs players who don't think. Just bet big with your good hands it's really that simple.

Betting flop is a pretty big spew 4 ways. Some bad advice given here. Just pot the turn at least, maybe 110% pot. River just bet like 150 and go for it against 2 pair at low stakes.

Standard flop bet holding the Ts. It’s really not even close.

Grunch:

PRE - Seems standard. Wondering if we could raise bigger in this game.

FLOP - Checking it back this multi-way seems okay and "standard".

I think an argument could be made that with 1P, an OESD, and the BDFD, we have enough equity to c-bet for a small size, and not worry about getting x/r'd on this board that would seem to smash our range as the PFR. We can have all the 2P+ here, and we block straights, and our opponents are unlikely to have any sets.

It would suck to check it back and have someone come out swinging with a big bet on a brick turn. A 1/4-1/3 pot c-bet might be okay, to clean up some equity.

TURN - When they all check, I'd think they're pretty capped, and we'd want to size up to target the flush draws and anything else that is going to be somewhat inelastic here. I might bet a little over pot, or even up to 1.5x, like $90.

RIVER - Unless V is pretty bad, it's hard to get called by worse than aces up here, but V could have some aces up. He may have also just run into a weak TP after chasing the FDFD.

I think I'd either want to jam and hope he can't fold 2P, or if we think V might spaz-raise if we bet really small, then I might go absurdly small, like a "same bet" of $40, and pray he raises huge.

There's a non-zero percent chance he just flat calls with some hand that may have called a larger bet, like AJ or A9, and we lose value, but I think we make up for that with the times he folds to a large bet or raises our smaller bet.

Thanks, Doc. I like the idea of overbetting the turn, but I pretty often find myself overbetting turns and rivers into weak ranges and just watching everyone fold. Good result with a bluff, obviously, not so much with the nuts. That being said, I agree that hands like 2p and pair-plus-fd aren't folding for any size after checking twice.

One of the ideas behind the turn bet sizing I chose was to give villains a chance to do something crazy, as they may perceive me to be light on TX hands. In that sense, maybe the "bet small to induce" play on the river is good, too...

Pretty nasty if you get checkraised on the turn.

Pre- They are calling $30 with K4s and raises with 53o. We have a hand that crushes their calling ranges - make it $25.

Flop: I don't hate the check back. This is a spot where I think its perfectly fine to mix.

Turn: Since we opted to check flop, I think we want to go big. There are a lot of inelastic hands OTT, and we want to get $380 in the middle over two streets. I think we want to go $75 setting up slightly under 1.5x for the river jam. And yes, we are jamming all non-spade rivers.

River: Jam. Yes, people are going to fold a lot, but you'll be surprised at how often they call with hands that have no business being in the pot. If I was bluffing and V turned over AJ, would I be confident enough in V's ability to play decent enough poker that I could bluffjam? Heck no. V could be sitting here with 99 - you think 99 is ever folding? 99 flatted the turn because he's afraid of the T, but flatting out of fear of being beat is very different than folding a set.

This is a terrible spot to go huge with a bluff. V has hands that he's afraid to bet but will absolutely call off stacks like sets and 2p. V's big hands aren't x/r us on the turn, and they aren't betting the turn when 4 to a straight comes out. The big hands are looking to x/r the flop, and you didn't give them that chance. So KK, QQ, JJ, 99 are all in V's range if he isn't 3!ing those preflop and a lot of $1/$2 players aren't aware that they can 3! anything but AA. So target the strong end of his range, and sometimes the fish will make you especially happy by calling you down light because what kind of a nutjob would jam with a T here instead of betting small?

I think jamming works better if we raised a little bit bigger OTT, but it's still the best play IMO.

I think it's a fist-pump jam versus turn raise, especially after checking back and holding the Ts. If they have AT, they have AT.

Thanks. As I mentioned earlier, I was waiting for someone to give this feedback. I am not super comfortable with raising to such a big preflop size, but I think that trying to find a turn size that gets called by 2p, sets, and pair-plus-fd, in order to set up a river jam makes a lot of sense.

As played, river jam is 2.5x, but I agree that I wouldn't trust villains to fold a set or something like AK/AQ (which are possible from SB) if the hands were face up, so it's probably good on some level.

I feel your pain brother. Sometimes we have it all and they ain't got $hlt. That's always a possibility.

Not sure it helps, but...let's think it through logically. On a board of QJ9K two-tone, very few opponents are calling anything over a 10% pot bet with worse than J9, in a multi-way pot. When action checks to us a second time on this board, two things become true:

1. We're not getting called by weak trash, almost no matter how small we bet. The best hands we can target for value are going to be 2P, or 1P + a draw, or just a reasonably good draw.

2. When they all check to the PFR twice, they've given us the green light to start bluffing with our entire range, such that the hands that will call any bet are likely to be more inelastic, and will likely call a larger bet.

If you were one of them, would you decide to randomly do something crazy just because the PFR checks back the flop and then bets small on the turn? On *THIS* board? The small turn bet could just be you peddling the nuts, praying someone has something that can call (which brings us back to the question of what hands can call, and how inelastic those hands are likely to be).

All the draws are likely to give up and check-fold on brick rivers. All the 2P are going to be sticky on brick rivers. The way to get max value here is to get it on the turn, and then size up or down on the river based on what we're hoping to accomplish.

If we bet small on the turn, we're losing value from the draws that aren't going to call another bet unless they bink the river, and we lose value from the 2P when the draws come in and the river just goes check-check.

This is an extremely wet board. It would be really bad to bluff at it with air multiway.

idk i dont think overbet really gets called, would prob bet half and expect that to outperform betting bigger

ace is bad card for his two pairs and he prob have some kind of leading range here

ppl are living in fantasy land that 2 pair pays off river shove here w any kind of regularity

Results:

You missed the point. They're either checking to check-fold, or they're checking to induce. When they check twice, they're inviting us to start bluffing. They're either going to fold and our bluffs will print, or they're going to call and we'll know they actually have a hand, so we can't barrel river unless we improve.

Look at it this way - if we only bet for value on the turn, and never bluff, they can always just check-fold. If they come out and bet the turn, and we call, they're in no man's land on the river. But if they check again, they get to see if we bet or check it back. If we check it back, they get to bluff or go for thin value on the river.

Bluffing the turn with a plan to give up unimproved on the river is actually okay. The bluff prints when they fold (which happens a lot), or when we get there and they check-call.

I think you play it well up to the river, although I would size up to $20 preflop. Running a multi-street bluff with the Ts and strongest preflop range is a slightly interesting thought experiment, but I can't bring myself to care about that enough to see it to fruition. At that point, I think we're clearly focusing on the wrong things vs typical low stakes opponents (which these guys seem to be). I might bet the flop if there was only the 2 loose players as it both clears out random equity and allows us to see a cheap showdown fairly often.

As for the river sizing, I wouldn't bet anymore than 66% pot. What is he going to call with? $90 seems good with both our value and bluff hands, even though we seem pretty devoid of bluffs.

We don't need all the 2p to call. We win 3.5x more when the jam gets called so V can fold approximately 70% of whatever range he calls the smaller bet.

There are 105 combos of 2P and sets. So if all of them are in play, we need to be called by 30 of them. Sets are 15 of them, AK & AQ are 18 combos.

As we start excluding hands that likely wouldn't get here like AA/KK probably raise pre, it gets smaller. But on the other hand, is J9 calling $100 here? Not pure. If we just assume that Q9 and J9 will find the fold to $100, and AA/KK don't exist, we have 81 combos, and we need 24 to call. We have 9 combos of sets still in there, so we need 15 combos. Which is AK + partial AQ.

Essentially, if our assumption is V is going to call off a set and AK, then we only need a sliver of anything else to call. If V has a weirdly played AA/KK ever, if V calls with AQ sometimes, then the jam is equal or better even though it will be called a lot less frequently. (And if we're betting half which is $70-$75, then our jam needs to be called even more rarely)

So we aren't expecting to get called by any 2p, most 2p will fold, and that's ok. We only need to be called by AK and AQ sometimes for the jam to be better than a small bet. And I would argue that Vs at low stakes have a very hard time folding when their hand just improved to 2p. I wouldn't be entirely surprised to be called down by AJ. And if V is calling with AJ ever, then jamming is absolutely superior to $70 or $100 or other size.

On the other hand, if V is folding AK or a set to a jam, then jamming is inferior.

In this case, V tanked. It would be interesting to see what he had because apparently he came to the conclusion that H didn't have a T. He might have called a jam faster because it looks more bluffy - against some players betting bigger induces wider calls with hands that are bluffcatchers. But it's ok if V folds 70% of whatever range he's calling for $100.