Quick, find me a call on the turn--READY?! GO!

[jskinn04]

This is a cool hand FWIW.

I think raising the flop is too 'conservative'. Raising the flop pretty much folds out all hands worse than AJ. MP might call w/ KJ, but I doubt he'd always raise that crap preflop. A flop call will leave your range much more wide to MP and it also allows you to see what UTG does before committing a pile of chips. I'm really not worried about giving a free card to AK, AQ, KQ. Half of the "free" cards are going to cost AK and AQ another large bet so AJ is not necessarily "laying odds" by allowing these hands to stick around. KQ is the only hand that really needs to be shut out, but it's a minority of the overcards range. Just calling allows you to extract another bet from 99 and TT on the river.

I also don't think any hands better than AJ will ever fold. Thus, any future betting by you after the flop would be a bluff.

I'd much rather leave my range wide and make easy money from worse hands than three-barrel bluff w/ TPTK so I'm not raising this flop w/ AJ ever.

The whole problem here is that AJ lies in the middle of equilbrium of hands that would stick around after a flop bet. That is, sets, freak two pairs, and slowplayed overpairs are the strongest hands, and middle pair/bottom pair/gutshots/ are the weakest. Raising represents the highest end of the spectrum. If villains have a very strong hand then raising is good because they've probably got an expensive second best hand. They will fold hands like TT and 99 to a flop raise, but that's a small casuality compared to stacking someone with AA or KK before scare cards can kill the action. With the weakest hands, raising is good, too, because it folds out many slightly better but still mediocre hands. It also creates deception. Raising with TPTK pretty much leaves villain playing perfectly. The only way I'd raise TPTK here was if I was willing to fire three barrels and I didn't have a laggy image.

I'm with you Portugese.

[jskinn04]

Now for the melee on the turn.

Hand reading 101. What does UTG have? Well, the weakest hand I can credit him for is KK. His turn lead smells of absolute strength to me. I'd say his range is 44,77,JJ,QQ,KK,AA,QJs, but KK and AA are weighted less because they get raise pre a lot. QQ is weighted much less because "slowplaying" queens is terrible.

The orginal raiser has a monster-either in preflop donk terms or the here and now. I mean KK and AA are quite possible and so QJs. I think MP's range is JJ+ and QJs. What else could he have?

Board: 4c Jh 7s Qs
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 20.3598 % 20.36% 00.00% { AsJs }
Hand 2: 48.7081 % 47.71% 00.99% { AdAh, AdAs, AhAs, KdKh, KdKs, KhKs, QcQd, JJ, 77, 44, QJs }
Hand 3: 30.9321 % 29.94% 00.99% { JJ+, QJs }

The ranges can be debated, but given the way this hand played out, I'm pretty sure no one is bluffing. So you have 20% equity in the main pot, which isn't that bad. However, the pot odds for the main pot aren't good enough. The pot is/will be $27.75*3 + $21.75 = $105. The call will be $27.75, which is the rest of UTG's stack. So the odds for this pot are 105/27.75 = 3.78:1, which corresponds to needing 21% chances.

So basically, if the implied for the river are at all positive then it's an easy call. If a J hits, I'd say the odds are about neutral. It's an obvious scare card and it might give MP a house. I doubt you get a ton of value from AA, KK on a river J, and sometimes you get stacked when he fills up. A river ace is another mixed blessing card. If he's got AA or a set already, he's probably stacks you. Maybe he pays with KK but I doubt it. An ace is probably EV neutral or slightly -EV. A flush card that doesn't pair the baord is gin!!! I bet you get called 100% when a backdoor flush comes in. You also get stacked almost always when the flush card pairs the board. I'd guess that the flush draws offer ++implied odds. A laggy image helps to get the flush paid too. I can't really come up with a dollar figure for implied odds, but I think they are positive, although not huge. It's a high variance play, but I'd gambool it up here.

[terencetsao]

just call it, if you missed, fold the river, by doing that you save a small amount of $$ in long run. I dont think folding is a option here, will anyone fold?