6-max Live 2-5

Utg straddle $10
Hero raise HJ AThh to $40 $650eff
TagReg calls CO $650 eff
Recreational in blinds calls $500
Utg straddle calls $600eff

Flop J53hsc
Pot = $160

If this pot had all recreational players, I might find myself wanting to do more betting on the flop small. But with a reg cold calling co to the face, he’s def going to have a tight range.

I’m not really sure how to approach this situation.

I think 4 way we kinda gotta check a lot, but it’s also somewhat dry, and portions of our range will certainly want to deny equity, like JT.

If there were more players IP on me, I would probably do a lot of checking with everything, as people can still stab, and I want to have some strong hands mixed with my air and mid strength stuff so i can play back etc

But with only one player left to act, I’m guessing I probably want to have a bit more of a betting frequency, especially on a Jh board where denying equity from things like KQ or AQ or AK will be a thing. (Yes I think players in this hand can have AK)

As far as hands to bluff with. Hands that contain backdoor potential seem pretty important. And I guess good blockers. So something like KQ w BD’s seems like a good place to start because it blocks potentially slowplayed QQ from the Reg, and then maybe a hand like KTs or QTs that blocks TT(most likely hand to call a cbet other than Jx)

I guess I could also still have a lot of flop checks, but betting does seem pretty valuable for equity denial purposes. One player having Ax, one having a gutter, one having an underpair, is 9 outs total between the 3 players that can outdraw a hand like JT.

Suppose it’s also good to not block the folding range, so not having an A would be pretty good too. So maybe the best combinations would be QT, KT, KQ type stuff. They all have similar blocking properties for the calling range etc

As far as sizing goes. Probably something like 40% probably works okay. I don’t want to go too small as live players can def get sticky with under pairs even in a 4 way spot. But $70 bet probably gets most underpairs to fold