I'm still not convinced calling preflop is optimal. Perhaps thats another debate entirely but my main reasons behind folding preflp is that your hand isn't that great, it's going multiway and some stack sizes are deep and your hand isn't going to flop very well. You'll never hit a strong top two pair and rarely flop a nutty draw. Most flops you're going to have to check fold and when good money goes in...more times than not I think you're not happy with this hand. I'm not saying that you cant play it well post flop...I just think there are too many times you'll miss the flop and be forced to fold to make up for the small amount of times you can maybe flop well and maybe get the money in ahead.
I misjudged his betting and bet/calling range on the flop...or my range was much different than yours let's say. The "passive with initiative" is still throwing me off.
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When I say passive with initiative it means exactly that, when it checks through to him he has the initiative, and in this particular spot he is passive, i.e. he checks a lot
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I think he rarely bet folds in these spots with pure air but he's going to bet pretty much any piece without much of a plan
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These two sentances back to back confuse me. If he is passive in this situation, how can you say he is betting any peice without a plan and probably calling everything he bets?
I was assuming since he was passive, I wasn't expecting him to bet/fold much. And what I meant by that is that he is only betting hands he is comfortable calling or raising with and that boils down to sets, top two pair, strong draws and strong pair + draws and combo draws. Would you agree or am I way off here?
So maybe we should talk about what we expect this player to bet into this field with and what he is likely to bet/fold vs bet/call vs bet/shove.
Once you check, I don't think your hand is bad enough to fold so I think we can throw that out safely.
Raising or calling is going to depend on the range we give him and how he reacts to a call or a raise. If he is never bet/folding (ie betting bad hands) then his betting range is narrow and tight and weighted toward strong hands and draws that he is comfortable at least bet/calling.
The range of hands he'd be bet/calling or bet/shoving don't play well vs your hand unless that range is looser and wider.
I just ran some calcs and I wasn't aware how strong your hand was againt some hands in his range. I'm starting to think check/raising here is the best play, especially vs that small half pot bet. And I think it's a fold if he shoves after you check raise. The calculations are pretty easy to make on how wide he needs his bet/shoving range needs to be before a call with our hand is optimal and I don't think it's very wide.
So if he is only betting those hands that which he is shoving then obv I don't like the check/raise. If he is betting a lot of hands he'd bet/call. Naked nut flush, pair plus flush draws, 7896 no flush draw, naked top two then I think check/raising is smart with a plan of folding to a 3bet.
On the various turns when called we can check and we can bet depending on what falls I think.
On this turn I'm betting happily and getting it in.
I think the turn bet sizing can have pros and cons though. Your hand is good a lot...even against a lot of non flush draw two pair hands; but betting less leaves bad stack/pot ratios and gives him more implied odds with better draws. I think i'd bet full pot here, not to try and get him to fold better hands, but to decrease the value of the play on the river.
I think we'd like a fold even though we are better than a lot of the hands he can have...and are never going to get him to fold a set.
