5/10 - tonight @ the local watering hole

Hero: Mid thirties, white guy. Reg at this cardroom. Villains in hand have limited play vs. hero.

Villain UTG+1: Mid thirties, white guy. Nice jacket, nice watch. Overheard him talking about recent trip to out of state casino to hang & gamble with buddies. Said they collectively brought 50K+. all I really know about this guy. Was talking about sports betting. Evidently enjoys gambling. Watched him river two gutshots, taking the initiative every street OOP.

Villain UTG+2: Twenties / early thirties, white guy. 1st time playing with him. Not relevant to this hand.

Main Villain: Late thirties / early forties, white guy. Have played alongside this villain numerous times, although I don't think he recognizes / remembers me. Pretty sure he's a pro, semi-pro. Competent player, arguably the best player among these villains from what I've seen. Tight agg, no fear. NEVER seen him get out of line.

Asian Villain: No good reads. Seems competent. Within the last orbit, he doubled through another villain with the stone cold nuts (KQ) vs. KQos. Flop was A 10 J. They ran it twice & AV hit the flush on both boards.

HAND IN QUESTION:

HERO UTG ($1750) - JJ
V UTG+1 ($3200) - ? ?
V UTG+2 ($1500) - ? ?
MAIN VILLAIN MP ($1850) - ? ?
ASIAN VILLAIN HJ (COVERS) - ? ?

PRE

No straddle. Hero raises to $35. V UTG+1 calls. V UTG+2 calls. MAIN VILLAIN calls. AV raises to $210. blinds fold. HERO tank calls. V UTG+1 semi-insta calls. V UTG+2 folds. MAIN VILLAIN tank shoves. AV folds.

POT ~$715 + MV's stack = $2530

Hero has $1540 behind.

Hero's move?

With the information we have this is a fist pump fold. I'd expect the main villian to show up with QQ+ AK the vast vast majority of the time.

Fold. MV has you beat. At the very least he has AKs.

Tough spot. If the game has been 3 betting a lot I say fold.

Given you've played with main villain many times, can you give us an idea of his 3bet/squeeze game? Has the game been playing with so much 3betting that villain would plausibly flat KK+ in this spot?

Why would MV flatcall with QQ+/AK after 3 players, when he can 3-bet and set up a much better SPR for his hand?

That said, I could also ask why would MV ship it with a weak hand after AV shows so much strength. If I am correct about the above (which might not be), the only explanation is that MV has a read that AV is 3betting light.

If there is any history at all that Asian Villain is capable of squeezing here, we have to get it in imo. If not, it's a crying fold

From my experience his 3-bet/squeeze game is solid. There has been a fair amount of 3-betting, but unless he had a soul read on AV, I don't see how he could flat w/KK+. That said, I haven't played with MV in several months (the reason why I said he may not recognize me), so his game could possibly be better now.

[QUOTE=HH2010;46544002]Why would MV flatcall with QQ+/AK after 3 players, when he can 3-bet and set up a much better SPR for his hand?

That said, I could also ask why would MV ship it with a weak hand after AV shows so much strength. If I am correct about the above (which might not be), the only explanation is that MV has a read that AV is 3betting light.

If there is any history at all that Asian Villain is capable of squeezing here, we have to get it in imo. If not, it's a crying fold[\QUOTE]

All excellent points. Will post results if interested. My first instinct was to 4-bet after AV 3-bet, but I was 50/50.

If you have never seen MV take this line before with KK+, the fact that you just called AV's squeeze as utg opener with 3 more people let to act, opens up MV range a lot wider and makes it more of a call imo. If he has any hand reading skills, he should know you should never have KK+. If i genuinely believed MV tank shove i would call here given his and your line. if he has it, well played and nice hollywood.

If you called the 3b quickly I'd call off here and feel good about it but since you tanked I'd fold

What does this mean? Seriously, I always wondered...

QQ is the only hand that makes sense unless he's tilting.

This is one of those spots I sometimes level myself into calling and am never ever good.

+1. I think the worst hand villain has here is AKs.

EQ vs KK+ = 18.7%
EQ vs AK = 56.2%
EQ vs QQ/JJ = 22.6%
EQ vs TT/99/AQ = 67.2%

You call 1540 to win 2415, so you need 38.9% equity to call.

Your equity vs his range is complex because some hands are more likely than others. Your ability to play this spot depends on the accuracy with which you can discount parts of his range.

KK+ = 12 combos discounted by x%
QQ/JJ = 7 combos not discounted at all
AK = 16 combos discounted differently by y%
TT/99/AQ = 28 combos discounted heavily by z%

EQ = (0.187*12*x + 0.562*16*y + 0.672*28*z + 0.226*7)/(12*x + 16*y + 28*z + 7)

For example, if he had 50% of KK+, 75% of AK, and 5% of TT/99/AQ, then you plug those values for the variables as follows:

EQ = (0.187*12*0.5 + 0.562*16*0.75 + 0.672*28*0.05 + 0.226*7)/(12*0.5 + 16*0.75 + 28*0.05 + 7)
EQ = 39.35%, a marginal call

You can also solve for breakeven given two of the variables and an unknown third. If you believe he has 66% of his KK+ and 50% of his AK, how often does he need to be shoving 99+ AQ?

0.389 = (0.187*12*0.66 + 0.562*16*0.5 + 0.672*28*z + 0.226*7)/(12*0.66 + 16*0.5 + 28*z + 7)

Plug into a solver like www.wolframalpha.com to figure out z.

z = 0.171, so he needs to decide to shove AQ TT 99 17.1% of the time for it to be a breakeven call under the hypothetical conditions.

I think it is probably a close call, and I'd actually expect to see the case jacks pretty frequently here, but I'd expect most of your wins will be vs AK.

Much maths.

Against QQ+/AK, you lose $100 by calling. I call.

I hear ya DGAF...

& I assume you're being a touch sarcastic....but FWIW what I mean is that I have NEVER seen this particular villain spew chips with poor plays/hands, donk off chops with loose/passive calls, or entitlement tilt off chips because he just had a bad beat. His play, from my perspective, has been solid from start to finish. That, of course, doesn't mean he doesn't make poor plays occasionally, but if/when he did/does, I wasn't there to see it.

Guys I really appreciate all the responses on this one. MV did flip over his cards after we all folded...

AKs

Kicked myself for not calling there. Put MV on QQ/KK, although I truly believe he would've 3-bet w KK. My gut tells me other villains would've folded had I called MV's shove.

Special thanks to Renton555...will def be using your math post as a template for future hands.

I was being serious. "Aggro" to me means someone gets out of line quite a bit...

How he doesn't 3b AK the first time around is pretty mind bottling to me, unless of course AV pre-loaded his 3b or something. Pretty big blunder imo if it just goes to flop a zillion ways for 2 bets and villain is oop. If he were the first person to flat your open that would be a lot different...

As far as him not 3b first time around as well as being oop for 2b, I agree 100%. He did some serious tanking the 2nd time around & then I think just decided, 'F it, I shove'. Think he'd ruled out AA by then & most likely had a decent read on AV.

Yeah, pretty much no excuse for 'aggro' to be flatting AK here

So it's a mis-read? At the moment, it sounds like I need to work on profiling a little more than hand reading. Suggestions?

He might just be a clicker, idk. I mean the beauty of live poker is he may very well have picked up on something at the table where he knew AV was gonna squeeze. In that case, his play was pretty awesome. Absent of that, not 3betting his AK in that spot was pretty horrific. And ofc you will prob never get a big enough sample on him to really know what he's all about/this one hh is going to **** with you pretty good moving forward against him...

Most winning players at live 5-10 and lower are not aggro imo. "Aggro" to me means balanced with bluffs and value bets, super thin, super creative. Most winning players are just "solid". They play good hands, they hand-read fairly well, they don't tilt/spew, and almost all their big bets are for value. Often they look/talk/act all "aggro", but really they are just as nitty as the old guy at the table with a military medallion hold em protector and his chips stacked perfectly- when it comes to putting real money in the pot. <--- is a very logical, strategic, profitable way to play live full ring midstakes nl.

When you start playing bigger or shorter-handed, you have to actually be "aggro" for real, or you are dead...

cliffs: almost no1 who wins at 5-10 and lower is really aggro/balanced with value hands and bluffs. It's wasted energy at these stakes and it requires a ton of skill and fortitude. So just fold in all close spots against them and profit greatly imo.

I've thought about it a lot and I really don't think he had any kind of soul read on AV. I think it was one those shove & pray plays that he makes like twice a year or something.

I'll definitely keep an eye out for the military medallion.

Well said. Thanks for the feedback DGAF, much appreciated. Good luck.

I think it's much more likely that he's a clicker since he showed his hand.