Orange!

[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.