Completely disagree that you butchered the hand, I actually think you played it fine. I think you’re being a little results-oriented assuming that it was bad just because you happened to get raised in this spot.

Your flop c-bet is good since the flop is very strong for your range as the preflop raiser and both callers are likely to have reasonably wide ranges. It’s probably okay to c-bet most of your range on that flop.

On the turn, you pick up a straight draw giving you more equity, but your 55 is unlikely to be the best hand very often, so checking back for any kind of ‘showdown value’ is only a very minor consideration. Instead, you should think in terms of your whole range – you would want to bet this turn for value with something like AT+, 77, 66, 44 and any two pair, so you need to bet it as a bluff sometimes too.

When choosing your bluff hands on this turn, you actually have very few good ones if it’s a rainbow board – you don’t have a lot of hands in your EP raising range that can turn equity (only maybe 98s) and very few 5x hands. With that in mind, 55 is actually one of your best bluffing hands on this turn card – if you get raised, you’re probably behind 100% of the time (and thus you don’t have to beat yourself up for ‘giving your opponent the chance to do it’ – your equity is likely not great anyway so you don’t lose out on much) so it’s a comfortable fold, and your range is likely to look strong so your opponent could easily fold a hand like 99 or 88 that peeled the flop bet. Plus, you do likely have 10 outs versus an Ace if you get called.

I don’t like the ‘free card’ terminology. Try to think of it more in terms of realising your equity in the hand – getting to see a river card 100% of the time is worth something, but you get to see a river card every time villain calls anyway, and the frequency that villain folds to a bet is likely to be much greater than the frequency they raise. Real equity+fold equity >>> Real equity alone.

almofadinhas said

theginger45 said
…
Your flop c-bet is good since the flop is very strong for your range as the preflop raiser and both callers are likely to have reasonably wide ranges. It’s probably okay to c-bet most of your range on that flop.
…

Was not going to be better have a bigger cbet range on a flop like A49? instead of A46? Because there will be more pocket pairs and some kind of str8 draws peeling on A46? (even with hero blocking the 5). Or you going for two or 3 barrels on a spot like this?

theginger45 said
…
On the turn, you pick up a straight draw giving you more equity, but your 55 is unlikely to be the best hand very often, so checking back for any kind of ‘showdown value’ is only a very minor consideration. …

If hero probably dont have the best hand, is not better to check? I am trying to not use the terminology you dont like, but I failed, so: why not take a free card and see if hero improves OTR?

I am assuming you are going to barrel turn and river also if checked to you. I still can´t see why bet turn, and check behind river if we don´t improve as a good line.

Firing another barrel on A, 2, 3, or 5 river card?

theginger45 said
…Instead, you should think in terms of your whole range – you would want to bet this turn for value with something like AT+, 77, 66, 44 and any two pair, so you need to bet it as a bluff sometimes too.

When choosing your bluff hands on this turn, you actually have very few good ones if it’s a rainbow board – you don’t have a lot of hands in your EP raising range that can turn equity (only maybe 98s) and very few 5x hands. With that in mind, 55 is actually one of your best bluffing hands on this turn card…

How important is to mix things here on the turn? Since we play less turns and rivers than pre flop or flop.  

1. A49 and A46 rainbow are both very static boards. There are marginally more gutshots on A46 but people are more likely to call with a 9x hand preflop than a 6x hand, so there are more middle pairs on A94. It balances out. They’re both boards which are very favourable for the preflop raiser’s range, so the preflop raiser should be betting very frequently both for value and as a bluff, to make use of their range advantage.

2. Hero is bluffing on the turn, so the fact that we probably don’t have the best hand isn’t relevant. We’re trying to get hands like 88/99 to fold while giving ourselves the option of barrelling river some % of the time depending on the card. Taking a free card isn’t really that great of an option since we are unlikely to improve – only 20% of the time – and when we don’t improve, the fact we didn’t bet the turn means our range is now capped, and even if villain does check to us, we’re less likely to be able to successfully bluff. Being able to get villain to fold the turn or river some frequency while also winning the pot by hitting our draw sometimes is way better than losing the pot most of the time when we don’t hit.

We’re not necessarily checking behind river – it depends what the river is. I don’t know why you would think betting turn and giving up on river is bad – if villain is folding turn 80% of the time but folding river 0% after calling then that line is ridiculously profitable. Of course the reality is less extreme than that but the turn and river are different scenarios – if the turn bet is profitable but then a river card comes which makes betting not profitable, we bet turn and then don’t bet river. If you’re betting river 100% of the time after you bet turn in this spot, you’re playing very exploitably – a passive player can check-call a set on the turn and just print money when you over-bluff the river and bet too thinly for value.

3. It’s not super important to mix things, but against a more or less unknown villain we shouldn’t just assume it’s okay for us to have almost zero bluffing range on the turn. People miss the point about balance or GTO play – it’s not about trying to stay unpredictable for future turn spots, it’s about not allowing our opponents’ mistakes to go unpunished in this turn spot. The closer we get to being balanced here, the more our entire range benefits. If villain calls too much, our bluffs lose more but our value-bets profit massively. If villain calls too little, our value-bets lose value but our bluffs profit a ton. We don’t know which of those scenarios we’re looking at, so we want to give ourselves at least some chance to pick up extra EV no matter what the case is.

We do play fewer turns and rivers, but the pots are bigger on the turn and river, and people make more mistakes. Playing a more balanced turn/river strategy is almost certainly going to increase our EV in this spot and many others.