$200 NLHE 6-max: Middle pair top kicker; drawish board

F Paulsson

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$200 NL HE 6-max: Middle pair top kicker; drawish board

There's no actual HH available for this, because it's a situation rather than a specific hand that I want to discuss. The stakes don't matter all that much either, except that our opponent is pretty good.

We have :ad4: :9d4: and the board is :qh4: :9s4: :4s4:

Some scenarios:

  1. We're the preflop raiser and he's in the blinds. He checks to us.
  2. We flatted in the big blind and he's on the button.
  3. We raised in the cut-off and he's on the button.

Clearly, our decision to bet or not to bet hinges on our opponent's tendencies. If someone was going to say "it depends" you're not getting away with it. I want to know what it depends on. If he peels a lot of flops and never check-raise bluffs, then betting is trivial. If he never peels a flop with a worse hand than ours and will check-raise a balanced mix of draws and big hands, then checking is trivial.

Where are the lines of "a lot of", "never" and "balanced" drawn?

I'm not too hopeful of getting a lot of answers to this for a variety of reasons, not the least that it's a multiple part question and people tend to not reply when they can't give a full answer. Answer whatever part you like. If you're not sure about 2) or 3), then give 1) a shot. If you want to guess or ask follow-up questions, go right ahead. If someone isn't sure why I said the two extremes above make for a trivial decision, feel free to ask; I'll be happy to expand on it.

For what it's worth, I think this is one of the most difficult kinds of flops to play, which is why I'm putting it out there.
 
S93

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Great hand to post since I completly agree these are nasty spots to be in.
Mostly just guessing but here are my answers.

1. Here I usualy like checking back.
You say villain is "good" and I dont really expect to be c/c alot by worse against a competant villain, and geting c/r obvs sucks since we have to fold and I think inducing/firing turn if check to is a better way to get value.
The fact there are draws on the board might be a reason to bet but even then our equity isnt that great against them since almost all draws have multiple outs against our pair.
Our equity against thouse draws also skyrockets the times we check back and a brick hits the turn and villains that flops a FD/STD is often going to lead the turn into us with that deacresed equity.
We also obvs keep in all his air wich might take a stab at the turn.


2.Im kinda lost here tbh.
I guess if villain has a high raise donk bet we could donk/raise or maybe donk/call/donk turn again?
I dont like C/R since no matter who villain is it doesnt really fold out anything we beat and only gets value from draws wich have good equity against us and sometimes jam on us forcing us to fold the best hand.
Guess that just leaves c/c and how many streets to call depends(depends no1 :D) on his barrel stats/AF/What hits.

3.I almost allways cbet here.
I think IP villains will usualy peel a larger range then OOP wich means we can get some value and sometimes we get floats from complete air.
Also just getting a fold here isnt really a bad outcome since geting multistreets of value is so hard with a hand like this.
If villain floats alot I like cbetting, c/c turn and playing river depending(No2) on his aggression.


Mostly just rambling guesses but hopefully there is some sense in there.
 
thepokerkid123

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I'll give it a shot. Keep in mind that most or all of my experiance is against incredibly unchallenging opponents and for your purposes it probably needs more balance.


1: Standard line for me is to check. Obviously most of my range is cbetting this flop but my checking back range looks something like AK/AJ/TT-QQ/9x. This entire range is calling or betting the turn very near 100% of the time and the river a high percentage of the time, the river call is kind of player dependent but comes down to how aggressive villain is, I'm also value betting thin on the river most times unimproved after betting the turn.

2: First, I didn't call in the bb, I 3bet. But if I misclicked or something...
c/r flop, bet turn, I really don't want to see a K on the turn but even if I see one I'm still betting, I'm just more ready to fold if he shows aggression, so yeah I'm betting that about 100% of the time. Check-calling most rivers.

3: I'm never cbetting air here but villain would have to have a lot of history with me to know that (or it might just be standard, I don't know), I think we have almost no fold equity on this flop against good opponents so I value bet flop and turn, if turn is a spade I probably go into bluff-catching mode and check-call.
 
thepokerkid123

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I dont like C/R since no matter who villain is it doesnt really fold out anything we beat and only gets value from draws wich have good equity against us and sometimes jam on us forcing us to fold the best hand.

I agree that the only hands that we beat that call are draws, but lots of them. I don't think many people are folding 5 outs here.
 
S93

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3: I'm never cbetting air here but villain would have to have a lot of history with me to know that (or it might just be standard, I don't know), I think we have almost no fold equity on this flop against good opponents so I value bet flop and turn, if turn is a spade I probably go into bluff-catching mode and check-call.
If we have no fold equity on flop and turn isnt c/c turn allowing villain to bluff his huge range better then double barraling?
What do u expect to call flop and turn?
Also if villain has a huge range isnt he likly to bluff raise a barrel some X of the time in wich case how do u respond to a turn raise?

Just wondering since im curiouse wich line could be considered better.
 
S93

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I agree that the only hands that we beat that call are draws, but lots of them. I don't think many people are folding 5 outs here.
But all thouse draws have great equity against us and will jam on us alot, how do u respond to a jam?

I mean even against just a naked JTo we are a slight underdog.
Any As Ts/Js/Ks have roughly 47% equity.
Hell even giving villain a range which consides only of decent draws we are curently ahead of we are still behind equity wise.

Board: Qh 9s 4s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 49.640% 49.64% 00.00% 11303 0.00 { Ad9d }
Hand 1: 50.360% 50.36% 00.00% 11467 0.00 { AsKs, AsJs, AsTs, KsJs, JTs, 8s7s, 7s6s, 6s5s, JTo }


add in some gutters and stuff:
Board: Qh 9s 4s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 62.792% 62.62% 00.18% 34094 96.00 { Ad9d }
Hand 1: 37.208% 37.03% 00.18% 20164 96.00 { AsKs, AsJs, AsTs, KsJs, J9s+, T8s+, 8s7s, 7s6s, 6s5s, KJo, J9o+, T9o }


Problem is we just aint that far (or at all) ahead of draws add in his made hands and we are crushed.
 
thepokerkid123

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If we have no fold equity on flop and turn isnt c/c turn allowing villain to bluff his huge range better then double barraling?

It's a flop where we'd cbet a huge range, he knows that, he'll call with almost everything, which is really obvious too so I think we're expected to fire the turn with a wide range too.
If we check-call the turn I don't think we're going to get a ton of bluffs on the river.

Also if villain has a huge range isnt he likly to bluff raise a barrel some X of the time in wich case how do u respond to a turn raise?
Depends how aggressive he is, but usually I'll give up unless I've seen him do it a lot before.



Also regarding the c/r decision in number 2, I just estimated (wrongly), yeah I can agree with the c/c.
 
S93

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It's a flop where we'd cbet a huge range, he knows that, he'll call with almost everything, which is really obvious too so I think we're expected to fire the turn with a wide range too.
If we check-call the turn I don't think we're going to get a ton of bluffs on the river.
Yeah I totaly agree with the flop bet its more the turn that im wondering about.

We have a huge cbet range wich means that a decent villains is gonna float us alot, right?
That means both we and villain have a farly large range on the turn.

But we actualy have something in this exact spot.
Say the turn is a 2c do u think we make more money by betting the turn in which case villain is probably gonna fold or raise most of his floats(wich we beat) and continue in some way with his draws/made hands or by checking and either geting a free river or a bet wich I think we can resonble call since his range is wide and probably more inclined to bet the weaker part of his range since he didnt raise the drawy flop.

As for we wont get a bet out him often on the river, why is that bad?
Say it goes we cbet/call, turn is a brick we c/c thinking we are still ahead of his range and then another brick hit and it goes c/bet.
By this point cant we just fold if your premise that he doesnt bluff 2streets often is correct?
I mean its not like we are ever geting 3streets with a hand like this so geting 2 should be good.

meh im just rambling again.
 
F Paulsson

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I'm quickly taking back my comment about not getting many replies in this thread. :)
 
S93

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I'm quickly taking back my comment about not getting many replies in this thread. :)
No one is online atm so I know my stupid comments will mostly go un-noticed, hence the spamming :p.
 
F Paulsson

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I'll give it a shot. Keep in mind that most or all of my experiance is against incredibly unchallenging opponents and for your purposes it probably needs more balance.


1: Standard line for me is to check. Obviously most of my range is cbetting this flop but my checking back range looks something like AK/AJ/TT-QQ/9x. This entire range is calling or betting the turn very near 100% of the time and the river a high percentage of the time, the river call is kind of player dependent but comes down to how aggressive villain is, I'm also value betting thin on the river most times unimproved after betting the turn.
I'm going to go ahead and assume you meant TT-JJ.

2: First, I didn't call in the bb, I 3bet. But if I misclicked or something...
Barring button being a shortstacker, A9s is never in my 3-betting range here. This may be a function of the kinds of opponents we play. I couldn't say if I've folded it once in awhile versus a button steal, but my default is definitely to call and I'd guess that I call it 95%+ versus 100bb opponents.

c/r flop, bet turn, I really don't want to see a K on the turn but even if I see one I'm still betting, I'm just more ready to fold if he shows aggression, so yeah I'm betting that about 100% of the time. Check-calling most rivers.
Whoah! That's an aggressive line. I'm not ready to say whether I like it or not, but I'd like to hear you expand on what you think he calls and folds on the flop to your check-raise.

3: I'm never cbetting air here but villain would have to have a lot of history with me to know that (or it might just be standard, I don't know), I think we have almost no fold equity on this flop against good opponents so I value bet flop and turn, if turn is a spade I probably go into bluff-catching mode and check-call.
I agree that there's very little fold equity on the flop. If we get folds, it's from something with at most 3-4 outs.
 
F Paulsson

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Great hand to post since I completly agree these are nasty spots to be in.
Mostly just guessing but here are my answers.

1. Here I usualy like checking back.
You say villain is "good" and I dont really expect to be c/c alot by worse against a competant villain, and geting c/r obvs sucks since we have to fold and I think inducing/firing turn if check to is a better way to get value.
The fact there are draws on the board might be a reason to bet but even then our equity isnt that great against them since almost all draws have multiple outs against our pair.
My default is to check, too. The decision maker for me is the raise-flop-cbet%; if that's below like 10%, I'm betting. Otherwise, I'm checking. If the risk of getting check-raised off the best hand is slim, I expect him to instead call with his gutshots and OESDs, and also call worse nines. While there's very thin value in betting, since nothing better ever folds and I think his calling range on average will be roughly 50% equity, versus a non-tricky opponent I think I make up for it by keeping the initiative and avoiding making a bigger mistake on the turn. I could be wrong about that.

Our equity against thouse draws also skyrockets the times we check back and a brick hits the turn and villains that flops a FD/STD is often going to lead the turn into us with that deacresed equity.
We also obvs keep in all his air wich might take a stab at the turn.
I agree. As long as we seperate the apple villains from the orange villains.

2.Im kinda lost here tbh.
You and me, both.
I guess if villain has a high raise donk bet we could donk/raise or maybe donk/call/donk turn again?
I dont like C/R since no matter who villain is it doesnt really fold out anything we beat and only gets value from draws wich have good equity against us and sometimes jam on us forcing us to fold the best hand.
Guess that just leaves c/c and how many streets to call depends(depends no1 :D) on his barrel stats/AF/What hits.
I think it's interesting that you didn't consider folding. I'm not saying that folding is the right play, only that it's telling that it never entered into the discussion. We presumably don't want to fold because we have the best hand on average versus his c-betting range... Right? How much equity do we think we have? And how much is our EV based on that equity offset by the fact that we're out of position?

I will pretty often check/call the flop with the intention of check/folding any non-ace, non-9 turn. This is really exploitable, but the problem is that calling down with middle pair is even MORE exploitable. Are there villains versus whom you'd just fold?

3.I almost allways cbet here.
I think IP villains will usualy peel a larger range then OOP wich means we can get some value and sometimes we get floats from complete air.
Also just getting a fold here isnt really a bad outcome since geting multistreets of value is so hard with a hand like this.
If villain floats alot I like cbetting, c/c turn and playing river depending(No2) on his aggression.
I'm cbetting against almost the exact same villains as I would when I'm in position, really. I.e. the ones who don't raise often. It's true that there's more value in betting because his range is going to be weaker, but that value - again - has to be offset somewhat (how much?) by the fact that we don't have position. I feel like the value of getting called by weaker hands roughly matches the negative value of being out of position. I'm leaning towards a check/call against most aggressive opponents.
 
F Paulsson

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Lunchtime! I'm not done with this thread yet. Not by a longshot.
 
S93

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Lunchtime here too. Will comment on the rest u quoted later just wanted to reply to this one now.

I think it's interesting that you didn't consider folding. I'm not saying that folding is the right play, only that it's telling that it never entered into the discussion. We presumably don't want to fold because we have the best hand on average versus his c-betting range... Right? How much equity do we think we have? And how much is our EV based on that equity offset by the fact that we're out of position?
The reason folding never enter my thought there is im not calling prf here if villain is a nit. Since u said villain is "good" he most likly has a high steal % wich is usual followed by a high cbet in these spots and there for I think im ahead of his range.
And I dont like folding when I think im ahead of some ones range ;).

He is probably not gonna cbet his entier range but a resonable steal range imo is something like this.
Board: Qh 9s 4s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 66.020% 65.17% 00.85% 253561 3303.00 { Ad9d }
Hand 1: 33.980% 33.13% 00.85% 128903 3303.00 { 22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q7s+, J7s+, T7s+, 97s+, 86s+, 75s+, 65s, 54s, 43s, 32s, A2o+, K9o+, Q9o+, J9o+, T9o }

And we do quiet well against that.
But how much postion off sets this I have no clue.
Guess it depends on villain(lol I manged to squze one in despite OP instructions), what I mean is it depends on how aggresive he is and how often we are gonna be faced with him barreling us?
 
S93

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Cant seem to break away from this thread :S.
I will pretty often check/call the flop with the intention of check/folding any non-ace, non-9 turn. This is really exploitable, but the problem is that calling down with middle pair is even MORE exploitable. Are there villains versus whom you'd just fold?
Yes. But against them I dont call prf so its pretty mute (moot? Mout?)point
 
F Paulsson

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Moot. "a moot point." Weird word. :)

Just a follow-up: You said you fold preflop if villain is a nit. But is a "nit" really the only player type versus whom you fold here? Consider someone who steals fairly wide, and on this flop bets the following range: TT+, 9x, Qx, JTs, flushdraws and gutshots (don't have pokerstove here, so feel free - please - look up how wide that range is). And he plays well on the turn, balancing nicely, and knows how to valuebet KQ and QJ on the river if you've check-called twice, and will occasionally barrel all the way with KJo UI. Can you really show a profit versus him?
 
S93

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Moot. "a moot point." Weird word. :)

Just a follow-up: You said you fold preflop if villain is a nit. But is a "nit" really the only player type versus whom you fold here? Consider someone who steals fairly wide, and on this flop bets the following range: TT+, 9x, Qx, JTs, flushdraws and gutshots (don't have pokerstove here, so feel free - please - look up how wide that range is). And he plays well on the turn, balancing nicely, and knows how to valuebet KQ and QJ on the river if you've check-called twice, and will occasionally barrel all the way with KJo UI. Can you really show a profit versus him?

Its probably the fact that u play 400nl+ and I play 25nl that I just dont run into that type of villain often(or at all) and there for I have a really hard time imagining the best line against a good tricky villain that balances well.

Stoved by request ;).

Board: Qh 9s 4s
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 41.952% 40.56% 01.40% 90738 3126.50 { Ad9d }
Hand 1: 58.048% 56.65% 01.40% 126749 3126.50 { TT+, AQs, AsJs, AsTs, A9s-A8s, K8s+, Q2s+, J8s+, T8s+, 96s+, 8s7s, 8s6s, 7s6s, 7s5s, 6s5s, 5s4s, 4s3s, 3s2s, AQo, A9o, K9o+, Q7o+, J9o+, T9o, 98o }
 
F Paulsson

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Yeah, I'm at my "real" computer now. Even without the flushdraws, a range of

99+,44,AQs,KJs+,Q9s+,J8s+,T8s+,98s,AQo,KJo+,QTo+,J8o+,T8o+,98o

... is almost 17% of hands. So if he opens ~35% on the button (probably not your idea of a nit, but it may vary) and c-bets half his hands on this board, you're still in trouble. And out of position. I'm not convinced check/folding isn't an option we should take seriously when we don't know of any major leaks he has postflop (e.g. bluffing too much or too little, bad at value betting and will get us to showdown cheaply, etc).

This was an interesting stove exercise. I wasn't actually aware of just how much of his range hit that flop hard enough for us to be in trouble with A9. Even just the straight draws - including gutshots - are 40% to win, and are all drawing to the nuts. A pretty good spot to be in when you have position, and a pretty crappy one for the opponent who doesn't.

Now I'm leaning towards check/folding being the default line to take in scenario 2 and other lines be for very specific villains. Maybe I'm wrong about that, though, I'm still waiting to hear pokerkid's thoughts on check-raising.
 
S93

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Am I allowed to change my answer :p?

Yeah it really is a huge chunk that hits that flop.
Im the first to admit I c/c to much OOP, probably one of my biggest leaks I know of.

So far we(you mostly) seem to reached the conclusion that if villain has a good balanced range c/c is probably spewy.

But shouldnt we just fold prf then in spot 2? Or 3bet if he is stealing wide.
Just a thought since even if our hand is decent prf there isnt alot of flops where we can get anything out of this type of villain is there?

Any thoughts on donking? I hardly ever donk but recently been trying it and alot of seemingly competent villains go ape shit when I do, granted if not been trying it with mid pairs on a drawy board.
 
S93

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Also, If you weren´t a mod u would have thread of the month in the bag just from your last few posts.
/end kiss ass :p.
 
F Paulsson

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Just to be clear on this: I think I can count on one hand the times I've check/folded this flop with this hand. I'm not asking rhetoricals here; I genuinely find these spots really hard. Might be that I've played it wrong.

As for folding A9s preflop... Meh, I think it's profitable to flat it. I'd have to do some filtering to see if I'm speaking the truth though, but obviously we're going to hit other flops than this one where we rate to do a lot better. I'll look into it more at some other time.
 
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Barring button being a shortstacker, A9s is never in my 3-betting range here. This may be a function of the kinds of opponents we play. I couldn't say if I've folded it once in awhile versus a button steal, but my default is definitely to call and I'd guess that I call it 95%+ versus 100bb opponents.

To not 3bet it you've got to know something I don't. I can't come up with a reason to call with it and I'm certainly not folding it.


Whoah! That's an aggressive line. I'm not ready to say whether I like it or not, but I'd like to hear you expand on what you think he calls and folds on the flop to your check-raise.

Range that should call our c/r: 22+,A9s+,As8s,As7s,As6s,As5s,A4s,As3s,As2s,K9s+,Ks8s,Ks7s,Ks6s,Ks5s,K4s,Ks3s,Q7s+,J8s+,T9s,Ts8s,97s+,8s7s,7s6s,6s5s,54s,A9o+,A4o,K9o+,K4o,Q9o+,J8o+,T9o,97o+
Against which we have 57% equity
 
S93

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To not 3bet it you've got to know something I don't. I can't come up with a reason to call with it and I'm certainly not folding it.
FP will probably post a much better reason, but , I will give it a go.
If villains range for opening BTN is wide we dominate a decent portion of it and are ahead of most of the rest, by 3betting we fold almost every thing we beat and get jammed/called by a range that crushes us.
So by calling we get to play against a much weaker range.
This is obvs all based on the premise that villain isnt a spewmonkey that is gonna 4bet/jam with stuff like A6 and 98s in wich case we can just 3bet/get it in happily.



Range that should call our c/r: 22+,A9s+,As8s,As7s,As6s,As5s,A4s,As3s,As2s,K9s+,Ks8s,Ks7s,Ks6s,Ks5s,K4s,Ks3s,Q7s+,J8s+,T9s,Ts8s,97s+,8s7s,7s6s,6s5s,54s,A9o+,A4o,K9o+,K4o,Q9o+,J8o+,T9o,97o+
Against which we have 57% equity

Wow. Thats one huge range u think some ones gonna call our c/r with.
I have a hard time seeing 22-88(-44),K4,majority of the gut shots(unless they have an over or/and backdoor spades) and some of the nines calling here.
Yes hands like these are gonna call a X% of the time but that X% is imo very low so we need to discount thouse heavily.
If u do that we change from a favorite to underdog.

Any one else agree/disagree with that range?
 
thepokerkid123

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I question our ability to extract more value than we give with A9s post-flop, and it is very profitable to 3bet.


K4o, 22-66, J8 (except for Js8s) I can see folding (K4o not getting to the flop some of the time). The rest is hanging around really light because we called in the bb, we're expected to c/r light and anything with outs should be calling.
 
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I'm answering this without scrolling thru the rest of the posts so that I'm un-influenced as I see Sindri and others have already responded.

First off, I play FR so A9s being in play here assumes that if I raised I'm in late position, and if I called then the preflop raiser is in late position. And I assume that we're now heads up on the flop or else that would have been specified if different.

I tend to look first at how the flop might connect with my opponent's range, but because we have different scenarios the range changes somewhat, so in this case the easier thing is to first look at our hand. Middle pair may have some showdown value depending on how the turn and river come. A future Ace is not a scare card for us, but a K/J/T could be because they're a bigger pair and they help straight draws.



1) With middle pair and an Ace overcard I'm almost tempted to check this back, to open up his bluffing range as well as his calling range with lower pairs and for some pot control. The problem is there are a bunch of cards (K/J/T) that we don't want to see.

Relatively recently I realized that I have a very tight opening range and a fairly wide late position range, even for full ring. And more recently I think that I've found that I have a low post-flop betting frequency for full ring and I think that the two go together. In other words I play lots in position but with a wider range than my opponents so I end up checking a lot of boards and waiting to see if they'll bet their marginal hands/air and so I end up doing a lot of calling in later streets with so-so hands rather than betting in earlier streets.


2) In the blind I think I have to almost always check/call the flop. Like in the first situation the paired 9 has value but is vulnerable 'cause there are overcards that will make bigger pairs as well as help any straight draws. If the flop were AJ4 and I had paired the J I'd probably like to call 2 streets to get to showdown but the 9, I dunno. My immediate reaction is probably to call one street and just hope to get to showdown if unimproved, which, without using some reads to help, is probably a leak, but I don't often play opponents enough to have much of a postflop read.

3) Default is to bet with a high probability of betting any turn as well. There are hands that have something and that are willing to call the flop but the flop is not drawy enough that I expect a good opponent to consider floating with air in position, hence the plan to fire at least once more, shutting down on the river unimproved.
 
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