My recurrent leak is paying off on rivers. What to do here in this 7-way bomb pot?

V1 turn x/r feels so nutted.

If I had to guess v1's range is only KK. V2's range probably 8x.

I think we can make a tight fold on turn.

Hard to imagine someone x/c then x/min raise with trips only vs 2 other players unless they have 0 clue on hand value.

I mean I think I feel you for paying this guy off, you're thinking A8 is nutted. You're also thinking you're pot committed.
But it's not really the case especially in a bomb pot.
I'd only pay this off if I had 8K specifically.
I'm folding every 8x I have here on turn.

HU call, but b/c you are 3 way id fold river. the other guy clearly has the other 8 so the CR has to be KK.

Very frustrating but textbook hand. After the xr is the classic middleman NL spot; you can’t raise so you have to fold even 8K—NOM spelled it out perfectly.

I’ve been there, talked myself into V1 having 8Q and V2 nut diamond draw. Hard to believe a flopped kings full in a nlhe bomb pot, but with three callers it’s probably a gritted teeth check ott.

On the one hand, it looks very very likely that someone has a five card hand, you don’t ——so fold.

On the other hand, if you think you win this hand 20% of the time, you have equity to call.

You label villain as passive, he’s firing, must have a made hand. The villain behind you calling is worrisome. I would look his way to see if there’s any signs that he’s folding.

I don’t do it much, but I would tank & look for clues, because we’re ranging them strong and villain could have a worse 8 and very loose sticky could have anything.

Hate to see a hand like this with a problem of hero-calling too often. Just make a read and go with it.

Why so small OTF? It's a bomb pot, someone has a K and someone has a FD. Get some value. AP, I agree with the fold to the turn raise advice, but probably couldn't do it in game. Def folding river.

Grunch:

FLOP - you've got the best trip 8's possible. You're only behind KK and K8, exactly 6 combos, but there's an obvious flush draw available, and worse 8x can improve to make a sneaky boat. In a bomb pot, I think we'd want to bet huge in this spot. At least $100, if not full pot, looking to play a two-street game by getting it in on brick turns.

When our bet gets 3 calls, especially by some loose-passive players, I'd be somewhat concerned someone is sand-bagging with KK or K8. But hopefully we're just looking at worse 8x, Kx, and flush draws.

TURN - I'd think the Jc is mostly just a brick. If someone finds their way here with JJ, I'd want to lay down in traffic after this hand.

It seems like an absolutely beautiful card we can barrel for an obnoxiously large size. But we only have $740 left in our stack, making the SPR awkward.

My first instinct is we should just jam for over 2x pot. But with the read that two of our V's are sticky, and likely passive, I am somewhat concerned we could be beat somehow. I'm not completely ruling out one of these clowns having JJ after we bet so small on the flop.

Actually just realized J8 is also now a possibility. I might actually check to feign weakness, see what transpires, and possibly x-jam if the conditions seem right. But I also might slow down and just try to get to showdown as cheaply as possible. Pray the river is the case 8 or at least an A.

This situation has the potential to get weird. Someone could have worse 8x that was slow playing on the flop and will now decide to spring the trap. I'd think 8x would raise flop, but with passive opponents, maybe not.

As played, the call of our 1/2 pot barrel, followed by the min-click x/r, and the over-call would make me very concerned we're beat somewhere. I'd think we'd have to be beat by one of them, but the reads we have on the them muddy the water.

RIVER - I dunno man. I could see a world where our line looks weak and induced aggression from worse hands, but I'd think this has to be super under-bluffed. V1 would have to be pretty clueless to be doing this with worse value. This looks like KK, K8, JJ, or J8 to me. Nothing else makes sense.

There can always be some frequency of spew-punt from fishy V's. But a bluff here seems nucking futs. Even getting such a price, I think we're almost always beat, and we should fold.

ETA - based on the subject line I'm putting a 20% probability on the reveal being hero called and was somehow good.

It would be surprising, but not shocking. Our line could induce wacky $hlt from fishy opponents. Older middle-eastern dudes have been know to FAFO.

I knew you’d come around eventually!

Oh I see v2

So he was FAFO'ing. Not saying I knew it all along, but your line does tend to induce this player type to aggressively seek protection for hands that are unlikely to improve.

His turn raise is either completely non-sensical when he has worse for value or completely face-up when he has better, and the odds of you feeling stupid no matter your decision are like 50-50.

I wouldn't worry about the commentary from the mean girls at the table. I might have responded with something along the lines of, "I was trying to figure out if you'd be stupid enough to over-play a worse 8."

Really is amazing I don't have more friends.

Lol, I didn't mind what they said. It just made me think...was this supposed to be an easy call? But then another player across the table said, "Wow, nice call."

It doesn't matter anyway, none of those 3 guys who commented are good players. Furthermore, I really have been playing poorly for months now, so it doesn't matter what I think of them either.

It's not an easy call, as played. Your small bet sizing and read on V make it harder. It's an easy fold if you used bigger sizing and had a read that V is nitty/TAG.

It wouldn't have been a terrible fold, even if it happened to be incorrect in this instance. Had you made it, and gotten a reveal, I'd try to look at it as evidence that we're learning to fold more when we probably should, or otherwise question if we truly have been calling too much, or simply running bad recently, and don't need to plug a leak.

Again, I'm not sure how much people have really played NLHE BP. "Have the nuts or be drawing to the nuts" is a PLO BP thing, where you don't want to go to war with bad trips or small flushes.

There are 1,326 starting hands, and 82o on K88 is behind 46 combos, 87o is behind 26 combos.

For equity 82o is 63% 7 ways and 62.6% if we have neither suit, 87o with neither suit is 64.6%.

AA is 45.5% on the same board, which is ~2% better equity than on a random board (and AA is always very strong in NLHE BPs), and A8o with neither suit is 70%.

82o is borderline on if (and how fast) you want to get 10x flop SPR in 7 ways (although he's less than that vs. H) ... would depend on how I thought other players play, with the main downside being getting too many folds. Saying that playing even 82o in a way so you don't get stacked by better, would need strong reads or would be just bad IMO.

Action was H betting small on flop, getting two calls and V also calling (would assume he thinks he has the nuts and is calling because there are very few bad turn cards).

Then H betting ~1/2 pot on turn which brought a 2nd FD and a straight draw in, and only one fold ... now FDs are much less common in BPs, but it's worth noting that for BDFD all Kc*c are in everyone's range and dito. any A high hands should prioritize BDFD, at least. Bare QT is kind of a loose flop call, depending on position/reads, but AQ/AT is still 32 combos.

The main thing I don't love from V is min. raise turn with lots of draws, and then shoving river when one gets there.

Again, without reads that H has very often got an 8 (and even then we are in front of a decent number of 8x with 87) or maybe that someone is going to bluff rivers big a lot, then V just calling turn looks worse than shoving to me.

Maybe worth saying I haven't had a solver do anything, but I've run a bunch of PPT as well as playing a stupid amount of them.

Rough guess at how things change vs. number of players:

9 handed: 87o should be more careful.

5 handed: 87o should get stacked.

Maybe "FAFO" isn't the best term for what I thought V might be doing.

There's a segment of the population that doesn't know what to do with hands that are semi-strong, but not nutted, and still vulnerable, when facing small bets, particularly small barrels on the turn.

Like, they don't know if they're way ahead and need protection, or if they're way behind. They're bad at ranging opponents and don't know how to interpret a small turn barrel, or what the optimal response should be.

They would never barrel turn small with thick but vulnerable value on a wet board, so a small bet looks weak to themz but they're not sure, and don't want to look foolish by punting into the nuts.

They can find a call or a fold to repeat betting with increasing sizing. But facing repeat small bets on wet boards, their response is often a raise "to find out where they're at" (i.e, "FAFO").

The problem of the find out where I'm at bet or raise is the person doing it would usually be hard pressed to explain what it means when they get called. Within the segment that does this, there's a sub-segment which seems to assume their hand is good and will continue betting for value. Alternatively, they may interpret a call as a bad sign, but then turn their SDV into an ad-hoc bluff, and also continue betting.

Either way, the "find out where I'm at" bet or raise is often followed by a "still don't know" barrel, often a big one. They know where the gas is. The brakes, not so much. They're the prototypical two-street bluffer.

I'm not certain, but it seems like the underlying logic is rooted in a vague understanding that aggression is always good in poker, without any understanding of the nuances that come into play.

To the rest of us, their line looks credibly strong, and we'll often exploitatively over-fold in response, which serves to reinforce their behavior, especially if they show their hand and we reveal we folded the winner.

The clues are in the timing, the sizing, and the instigation. A small turn barrel or check is the trigger. Their small bet or raise size is the tell. The big barrel size is the follow-through.

I think certain demographies are over-represented within the segment that does this. Usually they're males, middle aged or older, and very often hailing from a part of the world where the culture is steeped in centuries old ideas of what constitutes strength in men, as well as ingrained mistrust among counter-parties in any transaction involving money changing hands.

So, to sum up, when we barrel turn small, and the middle-aged middle-Eastern guy clicks it, I wonder if he's raising a worse value hand because our line induced him to FAFO.