Picture this. You flop top pair in a four-way pot and suddenly you're stuck. Do you check, bet, take your pants off, and roll around on the floor?
As one of our viewers astutely commented on a recent video, “Multi-way pots are 95% of what we face, but most poker content only focuses on heads up.” I think he's right. So today we're going to fix that.
We're going to focus on multi-way. And in this video, you're going to learn when to bet or when to check as the preflop raiser. You'll learn how to size correctly when you are multi-way. You'll learn when to bluff, when to donk bet, and maybe most importantly, the five biggest red flags that most players miss when they are playing multi-way pots.
All right, you guys know I'm a big fan of flowcharts. So, let's start with a flowchart. And when we are multi-way as the preflop raiser, the first question I like to ask is: is this flop likely to get stabbed?
When we look at what makes this a yes, what makes it more likely? If the board is wet, right? If there is a flush draw out there, if there are a bunch of straight draws out there, it is going to be more likely to get stabbed.
Also, more likely to get stabbed if the board is dynamic. This is kind of a cousin of wet, but this just means: are the nuts likely to change on the turn?
So, a dynamic board could be dry like rainbow. But if you look at this board, pretty much every card in the deck except a seven is going to change the nut.
But in general, the more wet and the more dynamic the board, the more likely it is to get stabbed. The final factor that makes it more likely to get stabbed is the amount of players left to act behind us as the preflop raiser.
Example #1
Stacks are 200bb. So, we open from the lowjack. The cutoff, the button, and the big blind are going to call. We flop middle set, and the big blind checks it over to us.
Is this board likely to get stabbed?
The flop is wet. There's a flush draw out there. There's a bunch of straight draws. The board is dynamic. The nuts are likely to change. And there are two players behind us left to act.
Going back to our flowchart, the only thing we have to ask here is: what is our hand on this board?
I would say we have "can play for stacks" — CPFS. This is an acronym I just made up in the shower, but essentially this means a hand that can cooler our opponent's strong hands.
Going back to this board, when we have pocket sixes, we can cooler our opponents having strong hands like pocket fours or 6-4 suited.
That's what "can play for stacks" means. So, going back to our chart, CPFS here would want to check.
So we would want to check in this position because this board is very likely to get stabbed behind us. And if it does get stabbed, when it folds back around to us, we can just put in the big boy check-raise and play a two-street game here.
Example #2
This time we open from under the gun. We're going to get called by the button, the small blind, and the big blind. Flop comes and it checks over to us.
Is this board likely to get stabbed here? I would say no. This is much less likely.
Why?
The board is dry, right? There are not a lot of draws out there, only a wheel draw. The board is static. Pocket aces are going to be the nuts on the majority of turns.
And there is only one player behind us left to act. Because the board is so dry and so static, a player may check back at some frequency on this board because they're just not scared of the nuts changing.
So in this situation, we go back to our flowchart. Is it likely to get stabbed? Here we would say no.
And you see when the board is not likely to get stabbed, we are checking our thin value, our low equity, and our air. And we're just betting our good stuff, right? Our can play for stacks, our thick value, and our high equity draws.
Because this board is not likely to get stabbed, we just bet our good hands and our good draws. Really simple here.
So in this situation, I would just come out and bet.
Example #3
We open . We're going to get called by the cutoff, the button, and the big blind. We are going four ways here to the flop.
And when it checks over to us, is this board likely to get stabbed?
Well, it is wet. It is dynamic. There are two players behind us left to act. So I would say yes.
Going back to our chart, what do we have here? Well, we have a "can play for stacks" hand, right? We got middle set. We can cooler our opponent.
When we do get in the money, we could be beating hands like , , , etc. So we do have a CPFS hand.
We want to check here. Our hand really, really benefits from going for a check-raise right now and piling in as much money as possible. So, we check.
We see a couple of calls, and we can just go for the big boy check-raise. And then if we get called here, we can quite easily jam most clean turns.
Example #4
Let’s say we have in the same spot. So we open, cutoff, button and the big blind call, and the flop comes .
So in this spot, is it likely to get stabbed?
Well, yes. The board is still wet and dynamic and there are multiple players behind us.
But let's go back to our chart here and we see here we just want to bet when we have thick value.
So this is one of the deviations I started making during my $100 an hour challenge.
If you haven't seen that series, I attempted to make $100 an hour playing low stakes.
In that series, I started off where I was just checking all my hands from out of position when the board was likely to get stabbed. I would just check here.
And one of the deviations I started making when I did have a thick value hand like ace-jack, I would often just come out and go bet myself.
While this hand is very, very good if we go bet-bet-bet and our opponents go call-call-call, when we start going for a check-raise and piling in the money with this type of hand — top pair, top kicker, maybe an overpair — multi-way, in that situation, a lot of times I found I was just value-owning myself in these spots. And by just coming out and going bet, I would often get called by worse.
In general, I just do come out and bet a lot of my thick value hands myself, even if the board is likely to get stabbed.
Example #5 – Multi-Way Hand Strength
All right, next I want to just briefly touch on hand strength multi-way versus heads-up and how it really, really differs.
So, say we open on the button. Big blind calls. . Look at that sweet baby there. This is a hand on this board, heads-up, we're quite comfortable going for three streets here — and often three big streets.
So, we choose the half pot size on the flop. We go with the overbet on the turn. And getting to this river, we're just targeting , , suited, right? We're just targeting a bunch of weaker .
And we think on this board, when the flush draw bricks, our opponent's going to be doing a lot of calling as long as we don't choose some egregious all-in size. So, in this situation, even though our opponent is capped, is definitely a three-street hand. I would for sure go for value on this river. Maybe 400, maybe 500. I go for a big size on this river , targeting weaker .
But when we are multi-way — say someone limps, we ISO in the cutoff, and the blinds and the limper call — when it checks over to us, we need to be a little bit more cautious here.
Because multi-way, the threshold for what a thick value hand is, what a three-street hand is, is going to raise drastically. And the more multi-way we are, the more that threshold raises.
So while is a clear slam-dunk three-street thick value hand heads-up, four ways against three other players, this may be a thin value hand. This may be a hand we want to play for two streets.
I may still bet this on the flop because we are in position and we are four ways, but I would probably be doing a lot of checking either on the turn or on the river in this situation. Heads-up, I would just always be going for three clean streets of value.
Now, the situations where I would definitely only be going for two streets is if we c-bet on this flop and maybe the small blind called and everybody else folded.
And the situations where I may, may, may consider going for three streets — we c-bet, the small blind and the big blind fold, and the lowjack limper calls last to act.
— Concepts feeling complicated? Head to poker rooms with huge soft fields to practice. Marc may be talking about live poker here, but that doesn't mean these strategies are unmerited on the digital felt. Here are some of our recommendations, where you'll find open freerolls and low-stakes full of ideal competition.
Example #6 – Power of the Draw
Just briefly touching on hand strength when we do have draws. Same kind of thing here with . If we have a gutshot — like heads-up, I'm just going for this.
I'm emptying the clip almost all the time until the opponent tells me, "Hey sir, please no more betting. I have a very strong hand."
If they start check-raising, I give up. Otherwise, I'm just going for this. I'm often emptying the clip when I have just a naked gutshot here. I'm just going for it.
I'm going to jam on this river.
Remember when we had , we wanted to go 400, 500, something like that to get , to call? Probably would just go all-in here if I have eight-high and try to get my opponent to fold heads-up.
However, multi-way, once again, we need to be a little bit more careful. So if it checked over to me here in the cutoff multi-way with just kind of a crappy gutshot here, I would just be checking.
The more multi-way it is, the higher the threshold for the draws that we are going to be betting. I like to have a good flush draw — a flush draw that can cooler my opponents. A good straight draw or maybe a combo draw — a pair plus flush draw, a straight draw plus flush draw.
Even if we had a flush draw here, but it was a shitty flush draw like or something like that, probably would not start building up this pot and bloating it multi-way right now.
Because if we get action, we're going to be facing ranges that are much stronger than heads-up. Much more likely that we're facing, say, a flush draw that dominates us or two pair or a set when we are four ways than when we are heads-up.
So, just be a little bit more careful with both the value hands you bet and the draws you bet. The more multi-way you are, the more careful we should be.
Example #7 – Multi-Way Sizing
So, let's say a villain limps in from the lowjack. We ISO with here. We're going to go four ways. And look at that. We flop the nuts on .
So it checks over to us. And generally, when I have a comp play-for-stacks hand multi-way and the board is wet and dynamic, I'm still going to choose a small size.
Now if this was heads-up, I'd probably go half pot. And why am I choosing the small size when we have a comp play-for-stacks hand? Well, because in general, I like to choose a size — you guys know this — where opponents will call with their weak stuff and raise their strong stuff.
But when we are multi-way, that size has to be much smaller because the absolute size of the pot is much bigger.
So in this situation, I may go a third pot or I may go 30% pot or a quarter pot or something like that because that is the size multi-way that's going to make our opponents raise the strong stuff, call with the weak stuff — much, much smaller than if we are in a heads-up situation.
A lot of times though, when I do have kind of a thick value hand — so let's say we have here and we go four ways on this same type of board. And this would be a thick value hand. This would be a three-street hand here. We can get a lot of value here from hands like , , , top pair plus a gutter.
When we do have a thick value hand, I may deviate here and just go with a big bet. I'm not all that concerned about trying to get my opponents to raise their strong stuff in this situation. I'm just trying to maximize value.
If I do have a nutted hand like suited here, I'll choose a smaller size because I'm really incentivized to get our opponent to raise when they have or or something like that. Really, really good for us because we can just get in all the money right now.
When I have kings, I'm not all that concerned about that. Sure, I'm going to get value-owned slightly more here. We get to maximize value against the flush draw and portion of our opponent's range.
And you may be thinking, "Well, Mark, aren't the players in my games going to exploit me?" And to that, I would say absolutely not.
Number one: I'm only starting these bluffs when the board is not likely to get stabbed.
This doesn't mean that I don't run bluffs when I think the board is likely to get stabbed multi-way. That just means I'm going to check and generally go for a check-raise once I have a lot more information. But what I'm talking about here is betting ourselves as the preflop raiser. I'm really only starting these bluffs when the board is not likely to get stabbed.
Number two: I like to have good blockers in my hand.
I know, I know, I said the B-word, but let me explain why in this situation that this actually matters, unlike 99% of every other situation in poker where you can just throw blockers out the window and they just don't mean anything.
Example #8 – Multi-Way Bluff
So, here's a situation where I think would be a really good spot to start running a multi-way bluff as the preflop raiser.
So, we see the cutoff limps. We ISO on the button with . Big blind and the cutoff call. And in this situation, it checks over to us. And yeah, the board is pretty unlikely to get stabbed here if we check because we are the last player in position. We're on the button.
Why do blockers matter in this spot? Well, this board is dry and static. And when the board is dry and static, do players slow-play more or do they slow-play less? Well, I would say they slow-play more because they are less afraid of the nuts changing.
And what are these super strong hands that we're terrified of our opponents having that they may slow-play here? Maybe hands like , , maybe hands like .
And if you look at what cards we have in our hand here, we've got a , we've got a . We make it way less likely that our opponent has a super strong hand.
Here's where most players completely screw this up and blunder it. The cards that we don't want to have in our hand here are cards like .
Multi-way, if we empty the clip here, I would guess with a very high certainty we're going to get most $2/$5 players to fold hands like or or stuff like that.
So, we don't want to have a , a , a . Those are the hands that we're trying to get to fold. The cards that we want to have in our hand are the cards that make it less likely that our opponent has a super nutted hand that just isn't going to fold if we empty the clip.
And those hands are , , , right? So, having a hand like here, really good to start this multi-way bluff.
I would choose a big size here because the board is dry. It is static. They're not going to fast-play anyway. We want to get them to pile in the most amount of money with hands like , , right now because they're going to do a lot of calling on the flop, calling on the turn, and folding on the river when we put all the money in.
They will not call you down in this spot all that frequently when they do have a hand like or because this looks so strong multi-way. And also, it's hard for us to be bluffing here.
And you may be thinking, "Well, Mark, there's this player in my game that's really sticky and he'll never fold an ace."
And to that, I would ask: okay, when you have in this spot, if this guy's never folding an , are you going bet-overbet-jam every time you have ?
Because if you're not, then either...
- You're leaving a [ __ ] ton of money on the table
- You actually don't believe that he's going to call with ace-jack, right?
One of those things has to be true.
Example #9 – Multi-Way Bluff
This time we open from under the gun. We get called by the cutoff, the button, and the big blind. And we go multi-way to this flop ( ).
In this situation, remember our two kind of components for starting a multi-way bluff here: is the board not likely to get stabbed, and do we have good blockers?
Well, I would say in this situation we've got some pretty decent blockers — make it unlikely our opponents have hands like or .
But in this situation, I would say even though the board is dry, there are multiple players behind us and the board is somewhat dynamic — the board is somewhat likely to get stabbed. And if the board is at all likely to get stabbed, I just really don't like coming out and betting with pretty much anything except thick value in this situation.
Because what happens when we check? Well, either it checks through or players are going to start to bet. And when they bet, they start to telegraph their hand strength with their size. They start to give us a clue of what they have.
So if we check here and this checks through, bottom pair — we could have the best hand, right? We could have the best hand and we just get to realize and see a turn for free. And if someone bets — well, if they stab big multi-way, likely going to indicate strength, and we could just get away from this and not waste any money.
And if they stab small, well, we can start considering actually turning bottom pair here into a bluff — trying to get weak , , draws, all this stuff to fold.
That's why I don't like to just come out and c-bet ourselves as a bluff. I like to kind of see what our opponents do when the board is likely to get stabbed. If the board is not likely to get stabbed, like in this example where we had , that's where I just come out and bet myself.
Example #10 – Multi-Way Pots as Preflop Caller
So, when should we continue very, very tight as the preflop caller? When an aware player c-bets multi-way. Let me show you this one.
A good pro opens under the gun. If you guys have been watching this channel for a while, when a strong pro opens early vs. early, I am just three-betting a polarized range. So the very top of my range — hands like aces, kings, ace-king suited — and then the bottom of my continue range, which early vs. hands like king-ten suited, king-jack suited, ace-five suited, hands like that.
So — squarely in the middle of my range.
Why do I want to be doing a lot of calling when a pro opens in general? Most of the table behind us probably is not going to be pros, and a lot of the table behind us is fish. We want to be doing a lot of flatting here to let the fish into the pot.
So in this situation, I'd be calling with pocket jacks. We are going to go multi-way here — four ways to the flop.
Checks over to the pro who opened from under the gun.
When an aware player c-bets four ways into three other people, this is a spot I would just be continuing very, very tight. Pocket jacks — slam dunk fold. Probably even considering folding hands like queen-jack suited or king-queen suited here.
Possibly this multi-way because what is this pro betting four ways on this flop into us and two fish? It's probably going to be a very strong range that consists of hands like king-queen+ and big draws. So how is a hand like queen-jack or king-queen doing against that range? Not all that great.
When an aware player c-bets multi-way, run — get out of the way.
Example #11 – Multi-Way Pots as Preflop Caller
Next example: when we want to continue super tight — when we see someone stab big multi-way.
So we're going to call here with on the button because a player named Limping Larry opened from under the gun. And when players who have a limp range — who are not limp-raisers but guys who are just limping like pairs, suited Broadway, stuff like that — when these guys open, it's just going to be very, very strong.
So we call here with . We go four ways. And now this guy from under the gun into three other people is just going to c-bet for pot.
And it looks like, hey, pretty safe flop for . Right? We flopped an overpair.
This is a situation I just be folding all the time. When this guy opens from under the gun — a guy who has a limping range — opens to 5x and then c-bets into three other people on this flop, he is just screaming at the top of his lungs, "I got kings. I got queens. I got jacks. I'm scared. I'm terrified. I don't know what to do. Please, everyone fold so I can just take down this pot right now and not have a bad beat."
When a player c-bets multi-way with a big size, we just want to be continuing very, very, very tight here.
Example #12 – Multi-Way Pots as Preflop Caller
Next situation: I want to be continuing very, very tight when there is a c-bet and then a call next to act — and then it's on us.
So we see a player opens from under the gun, the button, and we are going to call in the big blind along with the button. We're going three ways to a flop here. And now the under-the-gun preflop raiser comes out and bets 50, and the button calls next to act.
So in this situation, where you see a c-bet multi-way and then a call next to act, and then it's on us — when a player calls next to act, when we jump into the red flag section, we're going to cover what this means exactly — but when a player calls next to act, going to be a super strong range.
When a player c-bets multi-way, going to be a much stronger range than when they c-bet heads up. So already we're against two pretty strong ranges here.
I would just be considering folding top pair without anything else going on right here, right now, on this flop.
Example #13 – Pouncing on Capped Ranges
Next, I want to talk about when we can pounce multi-way as the preflop caller — and how to really distinguish when players are capped versus when they are uncapped multi-way.
So let's jump into an example.
In this one, lowjack is going to open. Cutoff and button are going to call. And we are in the big blind. We come along with — and look at that sweet baby there.
We check it over to the preflop raiser, and the preflop raiser checks. And now at this point, the cutoff and the button check back.
I want to point out the configuration here because this is very, very, very important.
When the cutoff and the button check back in this situation — they are now going to be capped. They didn't naturally check over to the preflop raiser, because they checked after the preflop raiser checked to them.
So at this point, if they have a strong hand, they have cart blanche. They have a green light to bet.
In our situation, we are the only player left to act here who is uncapped — because in general, most players from our spot in the big blind are just going to check their entire range over to the preflop raiser.
So in this situation, we are uncapped. The rest of the table here is capped.
Does this matter? Are they thinking, "Oh my god, Mark is uncapped in the big blind"? No, no, no, no.
I just want to point out here who is capped and who is uncapped on this board so you guys can start picking up in these same situations.
Hey — the big blind (us). If we weren't the big blind, the big blind can still have some strong hands here. But the preflop raiser, the cutoff, the button — they probably don't have all the strong hands here.
These players are capped.
Example #13 – Multi-Way Donking
All right, let's say a fish limps from the lowjack, a fish limps from the cutoff, a pro ISO-raises to 35 on the button. We're in there with , and both limpers come along. Flop comes .
At this point, what most players do in this spot is they just naturally check, right? We're the preflop caller. We should just be checking here. We check.
And the problem with this spot, if we look at fish one and fish two—what are these players going to do 95% of the time? Well, they are also going to check it over to the preflop raiser and a pro here on the button. How often is he going to bet here into two fish and us? Probably not all that often, right? Unless he has a very strong hand. So this is just going to get checked through a ton.
And even if the pro does bet, we are now in a quandary because if we check-raise here, what we're going to do is we're going to shut out the two fish behind. So it's almost like we have no good option here on the flop.
Instead, what I like to do in this spot—when there are fish in between us and the preflop raiser—I just like to come out and bet myself in this spot. If either of these guys has a or a or a straight draw or a flush draw, they're not folding. Now we have just minimized fold equity. Who cares if we don't get the stab from the pro on the button who's going to be under-stabbing anyway multiway? It doesn't matter.
This is how to maximize value against the two fish in the hand. When there are fish in between us and the preflop raiser, I just like coming out and donking my very, very strong hands myself.
Example #14 – Multi-Way Donking
The situation where I don't want to do this—let's look at this one. Let's say a pro opens from under the gun, and fish call on the cutoff and the button. We come along in the big blind. This is a situation where I don't want to donk, because if we look at this, there are no fish in between us and the preflop raiser.
So if we come out and check here, what happens? Well, the pro has a chance to stab. Probably not going to be stabbing four ways all that much with two fish behind him. Even if the pro checks, now the two fish have carte blanche to stab because the preflop raiser has checked over to them. They are not in the situation where they're just naturally checking over to the preflop raiser.
So if one of these guys stabs, well, maybe another guy calls. Now we can put in the check-raise. We've shut the pro out of the hand. Now we're just playing against the fish.
When there are fish behind the preflop raiser, this is where I like to check. This is where I like to go for a lot of the check-raises. When there are fish in between us and the preflop raiser, this is where I just like to come out and donk my strong hands myself.
Catch the 5 red flags Marc thinks you need to know to navigate multi-way pots – right here on YouTube. (We've timestamped the perfect spot to start.
