Low Straight with Nut Flush Draw -- Getting the Right Odds?

PRE - calling seems ok. 3B would also be okay.

FLOP - check seems standard.

TURN - leading seems ok. Not sure what size is best. Half pot might be too in-between. Might be better to bet 1/3 pot or 1.5x pot.

Wouldn't hate checking again, expecting someone to bet now.

As played, I don't think BTN is bluffing very often, if ever. This is going to be 6x a lot. I'd assume we might only have 9 outs, and pray he doesn't have 76dd, such that we'd only have 7 outs.

Don't think we have much fold equity. But the BB call does make me wonder if we're better off jamming to get BB to fold, even if BTN never folds. This could be a situation where everyone has an ace and we profit from getting BB to fold his chop equity, or we deny 2P or a set the opportunity to fill up.

Don't think it makes sense to fold. Close decision between call or jam.

Possible curve ball - clicking it back to $230 might look like the super nuts (76dd), and might get everything that isn't 76dd to fold now, or fold when we jam river for our last $55.

We know no one has a draw to the nut flush, so I think that line could get some made hands to fold, whereas if we jam, we'll have more bluffs in our range, and get fewer folds.

Even if someone has 76dd, we're not drawing dead, and it'll be hard for them to fold river on another diamond, when it's only another $55.

I think I'm ok with preflop.

I'm cool with the flop check.

I would check the turn. We're still 4ways so it's not impossible for someone to have a 6. I'm also hoping UTG has a chopping Ax and bets at it, and if the late position guy doesn't do anything fancy, I'll then jam it down UTG's throat to hopefully blow him off a chop.

And now seems like a trivial fold to this action (i.e. your thoughts given in point C). ETA: We're only getting 2.5:1, so we're going to have to make up 1.5 bets on the river, which is all we have left, just to breakeven. And if anyone else is sucking up some of our outs then it's trivially losing. About the only way we can possibly make money here is that BB has to overcall the turn (keeping in mind he could shave flatted the turn to now tarp shove) and no one be sucking up any outs / all our outs are good (with BB calling?) and we get the river shove into 2 opponents called every time. Very meh, imo.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Seems like responses run the full spectrum here.

I can see merits to playing the turn as a check/raise instead of leading.

I did end up folding, figuring that at least the BTN has a 6 and didn't love the pot odds, though in retrospect I feel like a 6 probably calls any river jam if I do hit the flush so maybe the implied odds were there.

As it turns out, BB did call the turn. The river was 4d, which was painful as I would have made the nut flush. The remaining villains got it in and both of them had a 6.

So I made the right read. But (even trying not to be results oriented) I wonder if the implied odds would have been good enough to call the turn.

You only got two responses. GG and I have very different styles / perspectives, so you might have only gotten the two extreme ends of the spectrum.

I'd have a hard time folding your hand here, even as played. While I'd think we're often beat by at least one of our opponents, I'd also think that we have the implied odds to call, and we won't always be beat. We'll be chopping sometimes, and sometimes BTN is just FOS and we win.

The way I'd look at it - supposing we got here with A5hh, would we ever call the turn with no flush draw, with the intention of trying to bluff anyone into folding a straight on a river diamond? If we don't think anyone is likely to fold a straight if another diamond rolls off, then there are implied odds.

I also think that if BTN had 76, he might stab on the flop, or raise bigger on the turn. I think it's pretty unlikely anyone has 76 here, much less 76dd. I think a 3B on the flop doesn't always get through, but it gets through sometimes, and when it doesn't, we have a made hand, with a redraw to an even better one.

Turn is interesting. I think it checking through and letting an ace realize their chop value is far better than betting and having to fold to a raise.

Utg shouldn’t really have many 6x but btn has plenty. Utg will have a lot of Ax and if they stab small and btn folds I would be tempted to massively overbet and crai, forcing them to fold, or get free rolled for heaps.

I think pre is reasonable. I would happily fold AQo in this spot, facing a reg's UTG raise, and would consider 3betting AQs, but it doesn't seem like a bad spot to call.

I really don't like the turn lead, though. You have almost no 6x and shouldn't have 76s at all really. Plus, I would expect any AX hand to bet turn themselves, and then we will be able to evaluate a XR.

As played, I don't know if I would be capable of finding the fold, which is part of why I would avoid this spot like the plague.

Having read the (premature) reveal, I would 3b AQs every time versus this guy. A decent UTG opening range has basically zero 6x, so he's probably way too wide. Make it $75 next time.

BB and Button had 6x, not UTG preflop raiser.

Gjustsayin'G

My guess is that if you called the Button raise that you'd be facing a reraise a lot from BB.

Even if BB just overflatted again, you still need a river bet paid off OOP into two opponents when an obvious scare card comes in order to eke out a profit (plus completely ignoring RIO when we make our hand and are no good, as we would in this case if someone boated up / made a straight flush).

GcluelessIO/RIOnoobG

Mostly agree, though I wonder how often it actually does get checked through. I think the logic in OP's spot is that if we bet, we might get folds or just get called, and we'd be setting our own price to see the next card. But if we check, and someone bets, we may get priced out.

Seems like a "pick your poison" spot from OOP.

Not looking to provoke an argument - if you're ok with OP's flat call pre, and I assume you wouldn't advocate for leading the flop, how would we avoid this spot on the turn?

I get that you don't like the turn lead. I'm somewhat ambivalent about it. But assuming hero checks, and there's a bet-call or bet-raise, it would seem like we'll be faced with a similar decision about what to do given the action.

Do we really have so little 6x / 76 in our range when we flat call in the SB? I'd think that one of the arguments in favor of flatting rather than 3B'ing pre would be that we'd be giving ourselves the ability to rep a wider range post-flop.

IMO, the problem here isn't necessarily that we don't have enough 6x / 76 in our range, it's that BB and BTN also have a ton, and it's hard to think they both don't have at least an ace here, if not a 6. But the flat call from BB and smallish raise from the BTN makes me think that neither of them has 76.

So, the dilemma, as I see it, is trying to figure out how much fold equity we'd have if we were to raise (probably not much), how much actual equity we have versus their two fairly wide ranges (we're probably not ahead), and if we have enough implied odds to justify a flat call, or if it makes more sense to raise or fold.

This would be easier if we weren't starting out so short. Hero only has $255 left, and there's $250 in the pot. I'd have a hard time believing BTN is going to fold anything for another $125 if we jam over his $130 bet, but he might. I'd think we should be able to get BB to fold, assuming BB and BTN have enough behind to make BB scared BTN will put in a big river bet or re-jam on the turn. If either of them just has 6x, which seems likely, we have 9 outs to a flush (assuming neither has the 6d) and 3 to a chop.

I'm guestimating we need them both to fold to our jam around 25% of the time to make the math work out in favor of jamming, assuming we're always behind. If we're ever ahead or chopping with AX, and we can deny equity by making 2P / sets fold, I'd think a 3B jam would be pretty close to EV neutral.

All that said, I don't like the turn bet size. I'd think betting 1/3 pot or 1.5x pot would avoid this difficult "what do I do with only a PSB" decision.

If hero checks and it goes bet-call, we have a very easy spot where we can call getting a good price or raise if we pick up on weakness. If it goes bet-raise, we are in a version of the same spot, but it's a version where we haven't burned $30 and haven't made a significant blunder (IMO).

I personally have no 76s here (I think suited connectors are terrible OOP multiway) and may only have 66 for 6X hands. The reason to flat pre isn't to "rep a wide range", it's to avoid raising a somewhat mid-strength hand OOP versus what is (presumably) a very strong UTG range from the reg. I think AQs is really cuspy, where AKs is a slam-dunk 3b-GII and hands like AJs and ATs almost feel better about raise-folding to $75.

Thanks. I misread the action and didn't realize the hand was 4-ways (which makes me like the turn lead even less.) Disregard my second post.

IMNSHO the BTN just always has 6x on the turn. Even 55 makes no sense. Also I'm always suspicious of a generic LAG label at this level, but given he checked back BTN on flop with the 6 it's almost guaranteed to be a bad way of looking at his lines.

FWIW I don't think even most bad players pays off with 6x when the river diamond hits and you shove. Maybe if you check and they decide to bet again, or maybe they don't see the flush on the board ... but it's def. reduced.

Also as well as having to worry about your outs being in V's hands you have to worry about 4d/3d and someone (mostly BB) having a set. Also a tiny chance that BB has exactly 4d3d or 54.

So basically you are calling 100 with 12-16% equity, and even if we pretend you get paid off 100% of the time by both players you are maybe breaking even or winning tiny. Which means in the live game you can probably fold and tip the dealer $5 and still come out ahead.

This assumes that the bet is small enough that we'd be getting the "right" price to call, but not so small that we feel compelled to raise, and / or that we pick up some sort of tell from one or both opponents, such that we think raising is higher EV than calling.

Hero bet 1/2 pot. What if instead, he checks, BB bets something more than 1/2 pot, and BTN calls? Does that make our decision easier, or harder? What if BB bets less than 1/2 pot, and BTN raises? How sure are we that our hand is no good?

My point is that I don't think betting is demonstrably worse than checking in this multi-way spot. I think betting 1/3 pot or 1.5x pot is probably better than betting 1/2 pot, and betting smaller or bigger are probably pretty close in EV to checking.

So...if we check and it goes bet-raise, we're folding? How sure are we that checking twice didn't give our opponents the green light to assume we're checking to check-fold, and they can start betting a hand worse than ours?

Would that not make checking a blunder, if it leads us to check-fold the best hand, or surrender a bunch of equity we might have been able to realize if we had bet, and not induced that action by checking?

Are you handing out copies of your pre-flop ranges to your opponents at the table? How do THEY know we don't have 76s here? Would THEY never have 76s here, in our spot? If THEY might have it, doesn't it seem reasonable for them to think WE might have it?

How much 76 should BB or BTN have here, compared to us in the SB? More? Less? Are they handing out their range charts?

How likely is it BB has 76 when he flats our 1/2 pot turn bet? How likely is it BTN has 76 when he doesn't raise bigger. If we did get here with 76s, wouldn't it make sense to bet it after the flop checks through? If they don't think we have 76, what do they think we're betting? What would they think we have if we bet-3B over BB's call and the BTN's raise, if not 76?

I didn't say repping a wide range was "THE" reason. I said it was one of the arguments in favor of flatting, rather than raising.

If AQs is really cuspy as a 3B, and plays better as a flat call, wouldn't our flatting range be wider than our 3B'ing range? Wouldn't flatting give us the ability to rep a wider range of hands on more boards?

That's kind of my point - if we're going to flat pre with AQs, and we make a straight with a re-draw to the nut flush, are we NEVER going to consider pushing our equity by playing our hand like a semi-bluff?

I'm not saying I hate checking turn. I'm just saying, I don't think betting is demonstrably worse than checking, and I don't see how checking avoids a difficult decision if there's a bet and a call or a bet and a raise. We still need to decide how best to realize our equity.

To be clear, I wasn't necessarily advocating for a jam.

I think hero has a difficult decision to check or bet when action is on him first. It's a difficult decision because I think the EV of checking and betting are pretty close, somewhat depending on what happens next.

Sometimes what's going to happen next will be a raise. That'll happen more often when we bet smaller, and less often when we bet bigger.

I think betting bigger will let us realize our equity more often. If we bet big and happen to get raised, I'd view it as a clear jam or fold decision.

We get to the turn with $285. If we bet $90 (1.5x pot), we'll have $195 left. We should get more credit, and expect fewer raises. If someone raises enough to put us all in, we'd need around 31% equity to call. We can probably just fold, and preserve 2/3 of our starting stack.

If we bet smaller, we'll likely get raised more often. But the SPR is such that it will be tricky for an opponent to choose a raise size that doesn't give us a better price to continue or isn't absurdly large.

If we bet $20 (1/3 pot), we'll have $265 left. If someone raises to $100, we'll be getting around the same price and need around 31% equity to call the additional $80. We'll have $185 left if we do, so we can think about implied odds. We could also think about pushing our equity with a jam for another $265, putting 6x in the blender. Or we could fold, and only lose $35.

The problem with the 1/2 pot bet is the SPR it sets up when an opponent raises. It forces us to choose between folding our equity, calling getting a bad price, and pushing with less fold equity.

There's clearly a difference between 1/3 pot and 1/2 pot, when we expect to get raised.

Checking doesn't necessarily avoid a tough decision, if we're expecting someone to bet. If we check, BB bets, and BTN raises, depending on their sizing, we'll have to choose between folding our equity, calling getting a bad price, or jamming without having much fold equity. Checking is likely to lead to the same dilemma as betting 1/2 pot.

I hate this.spot. But once here, I think we ought to consider our opponents' ranges given the action, and consider all our options before deciding what to do. If we think no one has 76, only 6x, and we think we can credibly rep 76, jamming doesn't seem terrible.

If we're not in the business of getting our opponents to fold 6x, okay, let's not jam. Call or fold, but recognize that our bet size made this decision harder than it needed to be.

Folding a straight with a redraw to the nut flush seems like it could be a blunder here, in this configuration, with our reads. The BB probably isn't flatting with 76, and the BTN is described as LAG. He's probably not raising for a small size with 76. Seems like we'll be chopping with AX or make our flush just often enough to call rather than fold, and we might get 6x to fold just often enough to consider a jam.

Appreciate your thoughts on this, but I didn't think either villain was ever folding 6x on the turn if I jammed to represent 76.

The calculus I think is: do I call on the hopes of freerolling one or more villains if they have just Ax (unlikely) or on the hopes of getting it in against 6x if I hit my flush (plausible), or just let it go?