KJs

Well overbetting flop to "charge draws" is too much. What draws are there on K72r flop? Or was it with flush draw? Anyway our hand is crushing opponents wide ranges and with call machine reads we can go on somewhat big cbet. Like half pot or 2/3 perhaps.

Turn I would check as if flop was rainbow there is high chance one of them has 7x. If it had fd betting would be ok.

In river we have bluff catcher. If flop was rainbow it's pretty hard to see practically any bluffs in BB range when he bets 3way after overcalling overbet on flop. Shoving is just turning our hand into bluff in hope to get 2 or better K to fold. We can shove K7 or better for sure. 7x is sort of thin as does 2 actually call? It's also tough to have 2 preflop wise and also optimistic holding to overcall on flop.

Originally posted by ghaleon
Well overbetting flop to "charge draws" is too much. What draws are there on K72r flop? Or was it with flush draw? Anyway our hand is crushing opponents wide ranges and with call machine reads we can go on somewhat big cbet. Like half pot or 2/3 perhaps.

Turn I would check as if flop was rainbow there is high chance one of them has 7x. If it had fd betting would be ok.

In river we have bluff catcher. If flop was rainbow it's pretty hard to see practically any bluffs in BB range when he bets 3way after overcalling overbet on flop. Shoving is just turning our hand into bluff in hope to get 2 or better K to fold. We can shove K7 or better for sure. 7x is sort of thin as does 2 actually call? It's also tough to have 2 preflop wise and also optimistic holding to overcall on flop.

I originally thought with my c-bet that I wanted to charge anybody holding either a 7 or a 2. I was aware those cards could potentially be in my opponents' ranges, but there were very few hands in their ranges that could justify calling an preflop raise from me UTG. They had all seen multiple hands of mine that were all premium, and I had a tight image. One or both of them called my preflop UTG raise with one of the few hands they could have had that contained a 7 or 2 (or one or both of them are just really bad players). When I saw two 7's and two 2's on the board, I just thought "there's no way either one of them has a 7 or a 2. My assessment of both of them were that one or both of them would just try to bluff me on the river based on my turn check.

Your assessment is that it was obvious one or both of them had a 7 or a 2? What about hearing what I have to say above? I honestly thought it was extremely unlikely that either one of them would have called my preflop bet or my c-bet with a 7 or a 2. I was positive that neither of them had a K, given the combinations available and the cards I had seen. Same for the 7's and 2's. What I had seen from both of them in past hands told me that any river bet coming from them would be a bluff.

There was no flush possible on the river. I just remember the diamonds because I was suited diamonds.

I tend to think that if I am the preflop aggressor and people who should have very wide ranges call my preflop raises, they will call any c-bet regardless of whether or not they connected with the board, just to appear strong, and then make big bluffs at me on the river if I show any weakness on the turn. Is that not a common strategy in NL? Has that tendency changed since solvers came out? From the point of view of the villains in this hand, they might have thought that my c-bet was an attempt to make them fold by representing strength just because I was the preflop aggressor - and not that I had actually connected with the board.

Who calls a bet like mine - coming from a tight UTG player - on that flop, under those circumstances, even with a 7 or 2? Maybe someone defending their blind with a K7? But wouldn't they raise my c-bet, or bet on the turn, or bet on the river after the turn checked? Even someone with a 73o would realize that they had third nuts and want at least some value on the river in SB after a checked turn, on a river that could not possibly have helped me.

Anyway, I'm coming from a background of being a "semi-pro" small stakes limit live cash game player 20 years ago. I used to play $6/12 limit every Thurs-Sun at Commerce Casino in LA, and made good money while it lasted. I'm still having a hard time adjusting to the idea of having my entire stack in jeopardy. I think sometimes I play way too aggressively with my bet sizing because I'm not used to worrying about losing all my chips at once. Any advice on how to make that adjustment mentally would be appreciated in addition to discussion about this hand.

When we bet big on flop we and they both call we should ask what their range look like. Problem versus any reasonable players with overbet is that most of weaker hands are already questioning if they can continue. You basically say you have good Kx or better as value and maybe some QJs, AQ, 98s type stuff if you are somewhat balanced on this sizing. So when we get action it should be rare that they call with less than board pair. So them having air is pretty tough. Again there are no draws on K72r flop. Its as dry as non paired flop can be. If we went for like 1/3 pot cbet (which I believe is preferred theory wise) we could more easily keep some pocket pairs (with 2 outs) in and potentially get action from some of bd draw hands or Ax.

In river BB leads into two opponent with big sizing. Would he value bet weaker Kx like this? Probably not. He also overcalled flop bet so what bluffs can he really have? I would not be surprised if he folded 7x in river. Because if you think of this action from his view. He bets pot polarizing his range into boat or air. Then hero shoves and SB snap calls. So one other player can have 7 but would either play 2x or Kx top pair like this? Reasonable to assume to not be the case. So really for thinking player this really looks like he is against KK or 22 often. Playing KK like this in heroes shoes would also be quite reasonable option on turn. Overbetting flop would be really bad though. Unless opponents are just most absurd calling machines ever.

Anyway as I said earlier it make no sense for you to be raising river. If BB is value betting he has you beat and if bluffing he folds.

Originally posted by ghaleon
When we bet big on flop we and they both call we should ask what their range look like. Problem versus any reasonable players with overbet is that most of weaker hands are already questioning if they can continue. You basically say you have good Kx or better as value and maybe some QJs, AQ, 98s type stuff if you are somewhat balanced on this sizing. So when we get action it should be rare that they call with less than board pair. So them having air is pretty tough. Again there are no draws on K72r flop. Its as dry as non paired flop can be. If we went for like 1/3 pot cbet (which I believe is preferred theory wise) we could more easily keep some pocket pairs (with 2 outs) in and potentially get action from some of bd draw hands or Ax.

In river BB leads into two opponent with big sizing. Would he value bet weaker Kx like this? Probably not. He also overcalled flop bet so what bluffs can he really have? I would not be surprised if he folded 7x in river. Because if you think of this action from his view. He bets pot polarizing his range into boat or air. Then hero shoves and SB snap calls. So one other player can have 7 but would either play 2x or Kx top pair like this? Reasonable to assume to not be the case. So really for thinking player this really looks like he is against KK or 22 often. Playing KK like this in heroes shoes would also be quite reasonable option on turn. Overbetting flop would be really bad though. Unless opponents are just most absurd calling machines ever.

Anyway as I said earlier it make no sense for you to be raising river. If BB is value betting he has you beat and if bluffing he folds.

So I absolutely understand the BB's position, and it's possible he folded a 7 or a 2. He definitely didn't fold KK, 77, or 22, and he most likely didn't fold Kx.

I still don't understand SB's play at all. Let's assume he knows I have a polarized range going into this flop, and it's likely that the K was really good for me. The 7 was good for him, so how does he call my overbet on the flop, knowing that I'm way ahead of him? What about his turn and river checks? I think you've acknowledged that both of them overcalled my c-bet optimistically. What we're saying is that, while it was a mistake for me to overbet, it was an even worse -EV mistake on their parts to call both the preflop and postflop bets, right? But he obviously had a great bluff catcher at the very least on the river, and was right to call.

In the end, what I'd like to take from this (if possible) is a lesson on how not to turn situations like this into massive catastrophes while still maintaining aggression, which I feel is optimal - especially with gamblers at the table. Are you saying that a 1/3 pot bet on the flop is still aggressive, but defensive enough so that we aren't so tempted to make even bigger plays on the river if the board kicks us in the teeth like it did to me?

Daniel Negreanu said something like that in his interview with Lex Fridman, which I just got done watching. At 1:38:30, he's talking about being in large-field tourneys like the WSOP main event where you're playing with a bunch of people you'll never see again, and says "risking all your chips on a bluff? You probably don't need to do that." He goes on to say that you can make most of your money incrementally in the less high-risk, but still +EV situations that come up all the time. I like that advice, and I think it applies here.

EDIT: Fixed some grammatical errors and added some discussion about SB's turn and river plays.

Originally posted by ghaleonOverbetting flop would be really bad though. Unless opponents are just most absurd calling machines ever.

Sorry for the second post, but I wanted to comment on this specifically. If I bet 1/3 pot on the flop, that's only $15. They both just paid $15 to see the flop. They both obviously connected with it. My "overbet" was an attempt to either get them to fold their weak pairs so they couldn't improve on me, seeing as how I was certain I had the best hand at that point, or to profit off of their long-shot calls when they don't improve. They both obviously made bad choices to call that bet, which I hope they always do because I make more money from them in the long run if they keep making extremely risky calls like that. Right? No?

EDIT: I'm a little stoned (medical mj) and forgot the second half of a sentence.

As I said in first post if opponents are bad we can size up with cbet but going for overbet on extremely dry flop is unnecessary. 1/3 was more of a default sizing versus unknown or decent opponents. There is concept called overprotection in poker. It means player is overly worried of being sucked out so they go really big to get weaker hands to fold. But that is not necessarily what we want to achieve. We want to get value from hands we are ahead and by not going overly big we could get action from some pockets as well. Those have two outs on this board. 2x or 7x have 5 outs. Those means 8-20% equity from flop to river versus your hand. If we start to blast big to protect versus that we need really bad opponents to make profit.

If flop was like KT7 there would be lot of potential straight draws and really bad players might call flop overbet even with plain gutshots. On more dynamic flop like that I would understand your reasoning to charge the draws. In K72r there are no draws available.

Thank you for helping me understand this.