Betting into two opponents

How the preflop raiser bets the flop into two or more opponents: which boards and hands to bet, and how big.

Rail's flop library is heads-up. Multiway flops are read by the analysis' heuristic and the minimum-defence split, with facts and flags but no solver grade (a call or fold facing a bet gets an approximate one), so this lesson's practice is arithmetic and your own hands.

In this lesson

Bet strong hands and strong draws into several players.
Check most medium-strength hands.
Bet smaller than you would heads-up.
Adjust the plan to how wide or tight the callers' ranges are.

Read first: What changes with three or more players · Advice, not a lock: every lesson opens.

Concepts used: Multiway pots, Continuation betting

Betting into two

You raised preflop and two players called. The flop comes, and both check to you. Your range is still the strongest, but a bet now has to get through two players, and the one behind the first has more information.

A pure bluff of a third of the pot needs 25% folds from both together. If each folds 60% of the time, both fold only 0.6 × 0.6 = 36%; at 50% each, exactly 25%. Bluffs need far more folding per player than heads-up.

What bets

Strong hands, top pair with a good kicker and better: they get called by more hands multiway, so value is easier.
Strong draws: they have fold equity and plenty of equity when called.
Not medium hands: with two players to beat, a middle pair is behind more often and gains little from a bet.
Few pure bluffs, and those with backdoors or overcards to improve.

Size smaller than heads-up: a small bet builds the pot with your value hands without asking two players' ranges to fold much.

In Rail

Multiway flops are not in the flop library, so your own hands here carry the analysis' multiway facts and flags rather than a solver grade.

Rail's flop library is heads-up. Multiway flops are read by the heuristic, with facts and flags but no solver grade.

Rules of thumb

A bluff into two needs both to fold: multiply the folds.
Bet strong hands and strong draws; check most medium hands.
Bet smaller than heads-up.

When they break

Against two very tight players who fold too much, bluff more.
When one player is very short, play the pot as if against the deeper one.

Example hands

Examples come from two places only: your own analysed hands in this lesson's spots, and a hand Rail deals and grades itself. Never a hand from outside Rail.

From your own hands

Practice

The lesson is mastered when every exercise below that Rail can grade is passed. Missed items come back later as review cards.

Exercise 1

Pass: 4 of 5 right

Five sums: how often several opponents all fold, and how much each must defend.

Exercise 2

Optional

Your own multiway flops as the preflop raiser, the costliest first.