Orange!

[jgorham]

Hey Rory, great post. Simple concept that simply didn't go through my head at the time. However, I went through and tried to think of what the EV of the 3bet would be if you added A6s to his range as well as a small % chance of pure bluff. I don't think he ever folds A6s here to a 3bet (my most likely hand is an overpair, and he has 5 outs vs that hand - he will fold the river sometimes), but he could be folding a bluff with 3 outs versus my hand sometimes. In any case I am gonna do that calculation when I get home tonight.

Another factor: if he caps it I am really no less confused (only hand that makes sense here is AsJs and that is kinda pushin it) and I probably call down.

[StellarWind]

I don't really see what betting the flop accomplishes. You don't have the best hand and your prospects of picking up the 4-handed pot with a 6-high coordinated flop are slim.

A read on UTG would help. Before you can understand what SB is doing it helps to know what he's up against.

SB is acting like he has a pocket pair. That fits the coldcall preflop and perfectly explains the first checkraise. The second checkraise is really good if he reads that it will work. Would you bet something like AQ on the turn? I'd be tempted because it sure looks like it might be the best hand versus a likely draw and an idiot. Anyway I need to show my hand so might as well bet now and check later ... I'm not saying that betting AQ is necessarily correct but I can understand him playing you for it.

My point is that 77 makes perfect sense to me and you probably need to reraise to extract the maximum.

A flush draw is also possible but while I agree with Rory that calling is best in that case, 3-betting is not a big mistake so I'm not going to worry about this somewhat unlikely possibility.

He could also have the monster in which case he's playing at a much higher or lower level than you. This would make more sense if UTG is very loose and apt to call the flop checkraise with junk. He could charge the whole field double while masking his strength from you.

Could SB have been expecting BB to bluff bet the turn for him? Some otherwise loose/passive fish will do exactly that. That would be an awesome setup for checkraising a big hand.

[jgorham]

I don't usually bet the flop into 3 opponents like that. I did here for a few reasons: first the board is pretty raggy. I mean it puts draws out there, but it really is missing a lot of hands. With 8 small bets in the pot, I need to win it slightly better than 1 times in 9 to show a profit.

Second, even if I don't win the pot that often, if I can get the pot heads up I will have a lot of fold equity on the turn, especially with an A or K. So with my hand I would set myself up to be in a very nice position for any face card that hits the turn (obviously the A is better than the king there).

And last, supposing the turn isn't a face card, it wasn't particularly likely that any of these players were going to bet into me, leaving me in a position to take a free river (read on UTG wasn't really defined, but he was a 45/12/1.1 guy).

All of that combined I think is enough to bet that flop, or at least that is my rationale [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

As for the turn, I don't think I would ever bet AQ there. If it were heads up, sure, but with both the SB and UTG in the hand I would be inclined to take the free card. Which is really the reason why I don't think SB has a pocket pair here: 77 is incredibly vulnerable on that board, and I don't think that the SB would risk giving a free card with it. Your arguments are certainly valid, and who am I to say what his read on myself is, so a middling pocket pair probably is in his range, but the combos should probably be discounted significantly. If he has any pair here, I think the most likely pairs are 22 or 33, since they are so vulnerable his only chance to win could be for fold equity. For example, he could have checked 22 with the intention of folding if UTG bet but checkraising if I bet. And against this last hand just calling the turn is a better play in the hopes of picking up another bet on the river.

The more I think about this hand, the more I think just calling the turn is correct.