[gergery]

Preflop: Easy call. You are getting 11:1. This hand is weaker than average, but vs. 5 opponents it would need to be worth ~50-60% of an average hand with the odds you’re getting, and it is not close to that bad. Particularly since you have reasonable position here – even tho you are in the BB, the preflop raiser is 2 spots behind you out of 6 players, so you can check and see most of the table act before deciding.

This hand at these odds should be clearly EV+ for an experienced O8 player who plays well postflop, but the magnitude of the positive EV is relatively small. So I think folding is clearly a mistake but a small mistake.


Flop: I’d check-call usually. This flop is ok for you, but not great, and as such you want others to fold. To do that, you need to give them unfavorable odds. Unfortunately, betting out here offers them 12:1 odds, so they are close to correct to call with many weak hands. So you need to present them with calling a double bet (which still offers good odds to many hands), or better yet, wait for the turn and hope a blank hits.

Note that folding here is bad. The ideal turn/river for you is a low card on the turn that then pairs or 9’s on the river, giving you both some action on the turn and an overboat/quads on the river. That will happen ~15% of the time, and a reasonable expectation the size of the pot at showdown divided by money you must put in between now and showdown should easily offer you 7:1 here.


Turn: Betting or checking are both reasonable, and I’d pick one based on whether I thought I could get some folds, with my default being check as most opponents will have odds to call with most hands here.

Important point: Your opponent who you ridiculed for hitting his 3-outer played more correctly than you did. He had 5 outs (3 outs to non-diamond T’s, and 2 K’s) on the turn so was correct to call given the pot odds. His call on the flop was close to EV neutral given actual cards. Net, your flop bet was bad because 1) you increased the size of the pot on the flop when doing so didn’t increase your EV significantly, and 2) by increasing the pot on the flop when it didn’t help you, you gave your opponent correct odds on the turn to call.

I think this was an example of overaggressing on the flop/turn, and do NOT consider the river much of a bad beat for you since on the flop you were not a strong favorite to have the best hand at the river.

--Greg