I would like to hear your thoughts on a hand a played in a life 5/5 NLH game a couple nights ago.

Villain has a stack of just under $500. Villain is a fairly loose player who drifts between passive and aggressive. He tends more toward aggressive, but doesn't usually go full maniac. He is however having a bad night and seems to be playing more LAGgy than usual. I've got about $1600. Other players have similar stacks to mine.

Villain straddles on the button for $10. There are 5 callers to me in the CO and I've got KQs. I was going to make a raise when I noticed the Villain looks like he's going to raise. So I call because I want to see how everyone else reacts to his raise.

Villain raises the pot another $100. (pot is now $170)

3 players called by the time the action got back to me (pot is now $470). None of the callers looked happy about it. All three of them are used to playing in higher stakes games. Two of them are also loose players so I wasn't putting them on particularly good hands. The third is a pretty tight player and is pretty good. The fact that he didn't raise indicated to me that he didn't have a premium hand.

I chose to go all in essentially expecting this to be a cross between a squeeze play and an isolation play. I was hoping that everyone would fold, but figured there was a 50/50 chance the villain would call and only a small chance that anyone else would call even if villain did make the call.

What are your thoughts on my play here. Does the thinking seem reasonable? Is KQs a good hand to try this with given the fact that I was facing a villain who had shown strength as well as several others? My main concern is that the others seeming to have mediocre hands could well have been sitting on hands that contained K's and Q's thus removing some of my outs should I get any callers.

Thanks for your time.

.
.
.

In the end, Villain did call after much thinking and was the only caller. He had AJo and won the hand by making broadway on the river.

I will sometimes limp pre in this spot for deception at 5/10 or 10/20 but at lower levels I will generally just raise it myself because people are bad and playing wide ranges we dominate and can get 3 streets from.

Given your description of villain on tilt I think the pre shove is fine but I'd def take a flop with some frequency depending on stack sizes for everyone else

Thanks for your reply. I did forget to say that pretty much everyone in the hand is someone that regularly plays 5/10 (or higher if they've gone to one of the bigger cities). It's just that on that night during the week the biggest game any of the local card rooms spread is 5/5.

I appreciate your comments.

Meh. KQs is pretty awful hand against the short-stack's stacking range here. If he folds anything, great. If someone else calls, this hand is really, really bad; I would rather have JTs at that point. Given your reads, this is EV+ play, but generally I rather raise myself with this particular hand and do this with something like 99-JJ. How deep are the other players?

Thanks for your comments. I agree with you about KQs not being a particularly good hand for this sort of situation. That's why I made this thread to get other peoples thoughts. It's not something I feel comfortable with on a regular basis. Especially if the villain actually wakes up with a strong hand that dominates me which is certainly possible even if he is tilting.

The other stacks were pretty similar to mine. Around $1500. The villain was the only one short stacked. That actually was part of why I decided to make this play. I considered it VERY unlikely that the other players would call with such large stacks which meant even if the villain did call there would be a lot of dead money in the pot to help cover any equity I was giving up. Of course if I am dominated I'm not getting enough equity, but against his entire range I was thinking I would be okay. Knowing the player and his mindset at the time I think he would have made that $100 raise with any pair greater than 7's any Axs with x being 9 or greater and any Axo with x being 10 or better. He also might have done it with any KQ or KJ.

I should add that among the pool of players in my area making a big raise like $100 to steal from all the limpers happens fairly often and works often enough not to require people to only have premium hands to do it.

If I'm reading your comment right you are saying you would have raised preflop even with the tell I had that the villain was going to raise right behind me? What is the line you are hoping for here? I raise and villain reraises / shoves and everybody else folds? I raise and villain and everyone else calls?

Thanks again for your comments. It's really helpful to have someone to discuss these marginal situations with.

Cheers!

I rather raise and go from there even with the read. If villain shoves, I put my thinking hat on. My hope is that everybody folds or get some flats, most definitely not hoping to getting reraised

I think this is EV+ and not bad, but I feel like it's not more EV+ than raising yourself.

Edit: I think even 77 is a better candidate for this play, 66 is close :/

I see. You are largely interested in seeing how the villain responds to a raise. That would be good information to have.

Thanks for your thoughts. I appreciate it.

I think the jam is definitely defensible given your reads here and the dead money, but I also think this is a great spot to flat call. You have the best position postflop (directly to the right of the pfr) so you get to do the same thing as preflop and see how everyone else reacts before you act (assuming pfr c-bets).

Either option is ok.

Thanks for that.

As the hand played out I probably would have won if I'd flat called as you suggest. I flopped top two pair and would have likely been able to get the villain to fold before he made his straight on the river.

*sigh* but that's results oriented thinking.

Cheers!