Bet sizing in multiway pot

[feelixthegreek]

Typical loose live 1/2 NL game:

I limp EP w/ 54s. We go 7 to the flop. I have $170 behind

Flop 6h7h8d ($14)

One check to me. I lead out for $15 and get three callers.

Turn Qc ($74)

Checked to me. I have $155 behind. What do I lead out for here?

[villains_hero]

In a soft game I would shove because I expect one or two of them to call. In a tough game I wouldnt know what to do which may be a good reason to shove. We have to bet anyway...

[Nick C]

I was thinking about this hand while making a food/beer run, and 45 minutes later, I still don't have any magic bet-size to offer. We just don't have enough information on what kind of draws are out there, and there's no way to get it. I have decided, however, that leaving ourselves with a trivial river bet to make (relative to the pot) is a good thing here, as you might get a crying call out of 97o or T8s or something. And it seems like the time we should really be looking to get the money in is right now, while people still have draws to chase. All the same, a push does kind of seem like overkill to me. I'm not confident about your getting called by, for instance, a mere flush draw or Tx for another $155, whereas those hands might very well call a pot-sized bet, and I'd imagine QT/Q9 are coming along for the ride as well. (I'm thinking those QT/Q9 hands might even call a push, though.)

Aside from pushing, I don't see any real way to deny odds to, say, Kh9h, if it happens to be out there. I mean, a $100 bet practically commits you even on a crap river card like the 5h, so you'd be giving some implied odds to make up for the lack of immediate odds.

So, anyway, I think I'd just go with the "default" decision to bet the pot. Or possibly I'd bet a little more, as in, say, the $100 I mentioned before -- we do have three chances at getting a bad call, which I think strengthens the case for an overbet.

And, to be honest, at the table I'd be so busy thinking about the multitude of river cards I didn't want to see that coming up with some brilliant all-purpose bet size for the hand would be beyond me.

[diebitter]

I'd underbet the turn a lot to keep the idiots in.
$35 on the turn, shove teh river.

[Nick C]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd underbet the turn a lot to keep the idiots in.
$35 on the turn, shove teh river.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? Seven people saw this flop, there's a damn good chance a flush draw is out there, and someone calling for $35 on the turn with a flush draw is not being an idiot.

Meanwhile, versus our massively vulnerable hand, someone calling with 9x is not being much of an idiot either.

Also, someone with 9c3c or Kh2h is not calling our river push. (OK, I suppose the Kh2h might if it spikes a river K, but still.)

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'd underbet the turn a lot to keep the idiots in.
$35 on the turn, shove teh river.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? Seven people saw this flop, there's a damn good chance a flush draw is out there, and someone calling for $35 on the turn with a flush draw is not being an idiot.

Meanwhile, versus our massively vulnerable hand, someone calling with 9x is not being much of an idiot either.

Also, someone with 9c3c or Kh2h is not calling our river push. (OK, I suppose the Kh2h might if it spikes a river K, but still.)

[/ QUOTE ]


Think about how many will hang in there, and how big the pot gets, and the chances are that once it's that big and nothing bad lands on the turn, how much more milking you can do. Compare this with betting to give poor odds.

I have to admit my gut alone tells me this is the most +EV approach (I think about stuff like this using my 'play this a million times over, do you profit or not?' approach), so I'd welcome some theory applied here from someone good at it.

[villains_hero]

[ QUOTE ]
Think about how many will hang in there, and how big the pot gets, and the chances are that once it's that big and nothing bad lands on the turn, how much more milking you can do. Compare this with betting to give poor odds.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, seems like a smart approach. This changed my mind.

[Nick C]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'd underbet the turn a lot to keep the idiots in.
$35 on the turn, shove teh river.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really? Seven people saw this flop, there's a damn good chance a flush draw is out there, and someone calling for $35 on the turn with a flush draw is not being an idiot.

Meanwhile, versus our massively vulnerable hand, someone calling with 9x is not being much of an idiot either.

Also, someone with 9c3c or Kh2h is not calling our river push. (OK, I suppose the Kh2h might if it spikes a river K, but still.)

[/ QUOTE ]


Think about how many will hang in there, and how big the pot gets, and the chances are that once it's that big and nothing bad lands on the turn, how much more milking you can do. Compare this with betting to give poor odds.

I have to admit my gut alone tells me this is the most +EV approach (I think about stuff like this using my 'play this a million times over, do you profit or not?' approach), so I'd welcome some theory applied here from someone good at it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll admit that I'm torn over how much to bet, and I'll also admit that I didn't really even consider an underbet. And there are potential advantages to playing the turn the way you propose.

To take one obvious scenario, let's say someone out there holds Ah9h and is pretty much calling anything short of a push. Meanwhile, the other two people in the hand are sitting on Ac5s and 7c4c. Let's also say that they'll continue chasing for an underbet but will go away if this starts looking expensive. Well, in that case, playing for $105 of your opponents' collective money while investing only $35 of your own, without decreasing your chances of winning the hand very much at all, is better than playing for a $105 overbet HU.

Also, playing for an underbet doesn't commit us as much, so there's that too. On a crappy river card, we can simply check and make a decision.

However, one player will not always be hogging all the outs like he was in the scenario I gave. And also the A5o guy might've come along for more than an underbet, and meanwhile I'm not so sure the 74s guy is continuing to chase at all, now that he missed his miracle on the cheap streets. And, of course, I have in no way exhausted the hand possibilities that could be out there.

It's hard to make a confident decision about how to proceed here when the hands we'll get called by on the flop is such a mix of good draws and weak draws and made hands of varying strength that hope to improve and/or to get to showdown cheaply. From what I've seen, though, live players have a tendency to disregard pot size to a surprising degree. So while they may call $15 on the flop because it's just $15, once the bet goes up to $35, or $75, or $105 on the turn and they're still looking at bottom pair and an overcard to a super-scary board, they could easily decide it's starting to look expensive and it's time to dump their hand. I agree that potentially we could get paid on a river push after building the pot on the turn, but I think the player in question is usually either going to need to improve to a second best like two pair or is going to have to have flopped something strong he couldn't let go of (like two pair).

[feelixthegreek]

Let's say I underbet for $35 and get two callers. There'll be $180 in the pot and I'll have $120 behind. Do I shut down if a bad card comes on the river? Is that a benefit to underbetting instead of making a PSB?

The trouble to me is that it seems weak not to bet a stack-committing amount, yet it seems awkward to bet $75 then be stuck pushing (or calling getting anywhere from 4-6 to 1) my last $75 into a likely made draw.

Given my EP, might I have been better off going for a c/r to increase my chances of getting all my money in on the turn? What about overbetting the flop, like $20-25?

[sweetjazz]

Interesting hand because you're almost certainly good here (and you should get stacked if someone flopped a higher straight because of all the other callers), yet there are a lot of bad river cards which will either beat you or keep you from getting any more value if you are still good.

My intuition is that pushing can't be that bad (i.e. not that far from optimal). First, getting good draws to fold is not a horrible result, and in a live game there's a good chance you'll get a bad call from Ahxh and some straight draws (especially those that have also paired the board). Second, you might get a fantastic result by folding out the draws which know they are behind, but get a call from a hand drawing slim (like 87) or dead (perhaps an awfully played AQ).

The way I think about it is this: Would I overbet push here with air figuring that I could only get called by a straight and that most straights would have played more aggressively on the flop because of the heart draw? In most live games I wouldn't because I would expect to get called by a lot of weak hands including draws, so it would be silly to put overbet all-in with a hand that can't even beat a busted draw that calls. But if that's the case, then overbet pushing for value seems like a nice variation play, and a nice spot to do it is a situation like this, where it will be a bit awkward to get value on the river fairly frequently and your hand is still vulnerable (so "good folds" are less costly than if you had, say, Th 9h).