KTs OTB multiway: 3b or call?

KQs is the worst K I’d consider 3! against an UTG raise even with dead money in. Basic call.

Probably call. Wouldn't beat you up for making a nitty fold vs these V's, at this stack depth. I'd be happier to continue with any AXs, or better KXs. KT is pretty cuspy.

FWIW, I hesitate to suggest you or anyone else rely on our own perception of having a TAG image in our opponents' minds as justification for getting OOL pre. I'd want to have a downright nitty image to get OOL vs opponents with these sorts of pre-flop stats.

Spots like this in particular are problematic for making an optimistic 3B. We're not deep, and these V's may not have even noticed us sitting at the table. If they have, any of them might relish the chance to stack us by calling our 3B with an even more speculative hand, or going for a trap, or just take their chances by sticking the rest in with KJo+.

V1 has a low RFI, but he's opening UTG. The other two called. He's likely near the top of his range. It's a disaster if we 3B and he jams. It's not great if we 3B and they all call. It's not fantastic if we 3B, he calls, and the other two fold. Best case scenario is he folds and one of the other two call, but we still need to either improve or get them to fold post. And we won't have much SPR to maneuver.

Doc covered this really well but I wonder about the rake here and the proper strategy in light of it.

There's a really good raise or fold case to be made here with this high rake structure. Raising seems optimistic given the Vs' statistics noted by OP. Calling seems Ev- given the rake. We are not going to hit a flush or straight enough to make this work in the long run. The rest of the time, we will be calling with a dominated hand with which even the positional advantage won't offset this rake.

Not really arguing against what GWF said, because I think it makes sense and I mostly agree. But when we play multi-way pots at low stakes, our opponents tend to play pretty face up in a lot of situations which are pretty easy to read and interpret.

Since hero is on the BTN, I can (just barely) get behind a flat call pre, vs these three V's, with these stats, and facing this raise size. We not only have the best ultimate position, we have the best relative position on the PFR, and a hand that fares to be ahead of at least 1, if not 2 of our opponents' ranges.

If we flat call and go multi-way, we keep our opponents' ranges wide / weak, and the multi-way nature of the pot reduces the PFR's bluffing / thin-value betting frequency post-flop. They'll also be more likely to telegraph their hand-strength with their bet sizes. Very often, a lot of our post-flop decisions will be pretty trivial.

Additionally, multi-way pots offer up opportunities to steal pots by aggressively raising when the PFR checks and a field caller stabs.

While I don't recommend making optimistic 3B's pre based on our own perception that we have a tight table image, I'm all for abusing opponents who step out of line post-flop, and are much more likely to be much more unfamiliar and uncomfortable in nodes where they stab and get raised in multi-way situations.

If we 3B here, we're forcing our opponents to call with the better parts of their range. If we flat call on the BTN, we get to rep a wider range on a lot of boards.

All that said - folding pre is totally fine. Not as much fun, but nitty is as nitty does, I s'pose.

The main reason not to flat is the rake. Flatting might be the best play in a rake-free environment, or even if there was something like $5 max rake. When there's $9 coming out of every pot it just eats you alive.

I actually think this might be the number one problem in live low stakes poker these days. The rake incentivizes the regs to play tight, which in turn makes the games less fun for recreational players. A time rake would be much better, but a lot of recs don't know any better.

This chart has zero flatting range on button?

All reasonable. I tend to buy into 1/3 for the max, and will play tighter vs shorter stacks. I do think about rake considerations, but possibly not as much as I ought to.

Yeah I wondered about that too. It's the multiway charts from pokercoaching.com. A 3-bet or fold strategy could make sense facing an EP open and 2 flats, but I didn't run it myself.

Hmmm. that can't be right... we should be flatting a lot of suited aces and non premium pairs at least. Probably some suited connectors and non suited A+broadway and some non suited broadways as well. Don't think I'm folding KQo or T9s, for instance.

It does seem like there should at least be some flats. Thinking more about it, those charts were probably generated from something like an HRC sim, and there are limits as to the number of options that can be handled, even by top end computer hardware.

I'm guessing that after an open and two calls, the solver configuration might have only allowed for the fourth player to 3-bet or fold?

For reference the second caller's flatting range is supposed to be this tight in EP, per the charts:

People are supposed to play much tighter than they generally do in practice. So whether the charts are accurate or not, we can likely play more hands profitably because we will be up against wider ranges.

Anyway what I have taken away from studying these types of cash game charts is that a lot of marginally profitable hands can become unprofitable due to rake. That has aligned with my results as well. I've tended to have a much higher winrate in live cash when playing with a tighter style (I've tried various styles over the years), whereas in MTTs with no rake taken from each pot I've performed better playing many more hands.

Referring to the profitability of playing tighter or looser in cash vs MTT's - those results would seem to make sense, maybe even to be expected, when we consider not just pot rake but the difference in the typical open sizes.

Just the same, I think you're hinting at the inherent ambiguity of determining which hands are +EV or -EV when playing in loose-splashy cash games where many pots go multi-way.

We know which hands are clearly trash and which are clearly premium. I bet a lot of players tend to over-value hands that are probably slightly -EV.

Yeah I've definitely been one of those players overvaluing slightly -EV hands at times. It's sort of natural to push the boundaries, especially when you're tracking your play and having good results. Also let's face it, it's not fun to fold. You convince yourself you can play more and more hands profitably, and next thing you know you've gone through a six-month breakeven stretch and you realize you've probably been leaking money all over the place playing too many hands.

Results:

Hero calls and whiffs flop. Someone bets. Everyone folds.

Fold but getting pretty close. I don't agree with having a 3bet or fold strat from button either. I'd call some suited Ax and pairs here and like 65s, T9s, maybe KQo. KJs, ATs are pretty close to 3bets.

can't just go off a solver's ranges either. rake is high but players are making huge mistakes.