I'm not sure if a thread to cover three-handed situations is worthwhile, but personally, this seems to be where I make the most mistakes or wind up in awkward spots.

(I'm talking about full or near-full games where the hand winds up 3-ways, not shorthanded play)

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UTG limps, folded to me on button, I raise TT, folded to SB who 3! and UTG now limp-4-bets (5-bet cap). Both players are unknown to me and while UTG's move is a big pair a lot of the time, I can't automatically assume this is the case. I cc.

Flop: J83

SB bets, UTG raises, what are we doing, and if we continue, what is the plan?

Shrug, fold and take note of what they show down?

That's what I'd do. What stakes?

Calling and raising seem bad, soooooo

I pretty much snap fold.

983, it's a lot closer as we've more backdoor equity and occasionally have the best hand v 9x and random tilt spaz.

I did indeed fold and I think that is correct given the action (this was at 6-12 and the LRR is AA a lot of the time IME). What got me thinking was being in the middle in a scenario like this...personally, I don't have a LRR range UTG, but if you do, those times when you are led into, does it become correct to raise virtually all of your hands knowing that the button will be placed in a really tough spot a lot of the time?

Only if you hate money, imo. It reads like UTG is terrible and didn't raise for strategic reasons. The raise was 'THAT guy (thinking of you) is going to raise anyway, I'm not folding my 5's, I might as well raise myself.' It's an idiot's play esp at 6-12. He should fold, instead he re-pops. I've seen it often enough. But you're still in a tough spot, playing a guessing game. So you lost this pot but, boy, are you EVER going to get them in the end.

A player who LRR in early position gets AA 1/221 of the time and gets "any pocket pair" 1/17 of the time. Maybe he only goes nuts rarely and doesn't LRR or limp/cap every time he gets a PP? Still, the chances are that if his LRR range is as wide as to include 55 that he's going to be LRR much more often than the standard expert slowplayer of AA. You made a general read for the limit and it failed.
Your action is missing the rest of the PF part of the hand. You raise the UTG limper, SB 3!, UTG 4! and both of you call? Then the SB donk leads the J-high flop?

I don't think this happens very often, but if it did you need to wonder if SB and UTG are friends. The hand is exactly played to bloat the pot and drive you out. They get HU and check down. I assume they're just bad at poker, but the action is strange. Now if the SB actually capped preflop, cbet and then called a single flop raise, the hand makes more sense from a "I wasn't folding to that idiot but I didn't want to put in more money" pov.

As others have pointed out, the UTG line is lighting money on fire. This especially if he can't count on the SB to donk his unimproved overcards. You don't want to add this to your game.

The important question is what kind of game is this where people in between the BTN and SB are folding?

Probably a non 0% chance they are/were colluding as that's only way hands are even remotely reasonable, especially Sb flop Donk.

Edit: read dougs post after and agree

maybe tacit collusion then?

I just wonder where these guys come up with such genius ideas as "oh, now I'll randomly back-4-bet pocket fives." no, really, it's such genius, I wish I could do this sometimes and have it work out

I can't be the only one who's disappointed with the subject of this tread.



Anyway, I'm folding. Not sure what the standard play is where you are, but around here, when someone in early position limp-re-raises, it usually means they have a big pair. Typically AA.

I really don't think there are shenanigans at 6-12 and, besides, how often does this situation come up for them to pull this move if they were colluding.

I've played in games with this sort of collusion, and the answer is "quite often". Basically, they're looking for a standard TAG player or non-SD monkey one who the team can isolate. Two is OK as well. They just want to put in enough action that opponent will fold most of his range, they can live with worse than top pair. It is hard to make good hands in LHE, say TPTK+. If they win the rest, they crush. The problem is that it is obvious that they're cheating or at the least that they're maniacs. Then people stop folding.

These guys didn't play correctly to cheat, imo. They were too obvious and the softplay HU doesn't fit -- they ended up showing both hands. So my first thought is "they're probably not cheating, unless I have more evidence". However, I've seen this in smaller games and much bigger ones. I've been in games where the clueless tourist is calling the floor over, because even he knows he's getting whipsawed. I'd keep my eye out and be aware the next time I was in a HU pot with these two. This hand goes in my "that's odd, pay attention" folder.

My original reply included something like 'they should've tossed in a bet or two to make it look better' but then I realized that I've never seen collusion of that sort at small stakes. I've seen UTG's raise many, many times and it's always a bad player, simply a bad player making a bad play. And if we further consider the pf action, SB made it 3-bets as many of us would w/ A-Qo so the whole 'squeeze the button out' thing is diminished. If offTopic had seen some bs hand from SB then, ok, but it WAS a reasonable hand, and so was UTG's 'I'ma gamble!' hand.

So, no, offTopic made the right fold and gained info which he will use to squish 'em in the future.

He got limp 4 bet pf, then donks into the 4 bet on J83 flop with AQ?
You think that's reasonable?
It's pretty reasonable, if somebody can raise 55 behind, but it's otherwise absurdly unreasonable

It's 6-12. I've seen much worse and so must've you when you were starting out. And I see it a lot at 8-16, esp the 5's 4-bet. On the flop A-Q bets bec he doesn't know what else to do, 5's raise bec every raiser has A-K including SB and OP and there's no Ace or King on the flop plus he's a gambler, OP folds, SB calls bec he's got to see another card, etc, etc. This happens over and over at 8-16 and it's a yawn to me.

offTopic says both are unknowns so he folded to the pressure. Next time he won't and, of course, he'll be up against AA and KK, lolololol………..

I don't squish anyone, but I did get to take advantage of a lot of players' bad promotion practice in a different session (that's for the LC thread tho)

Make a mental note of the two players and continue to watch. I really doubt collusion though.

Today at 8-16 hj opens, i 3bet co, and 40ish lady caps. T88ss. Bet, I'm going to fold but before I do I see lady grab 8 chips. As soon as I start to let it go she beats me into the muck. Of course collusion runs through my mind for a second as there are 0 hands that I play the same as lady. Ultimately though, just because any rational player wouldn't make a certain play, doesn't mean a small stakes player wouldn't make a certain play.

JTO. Calling all bets. Until an ace hits.

I don't think the most likely answer is that they were colluding, but it certainly is possible. But yeah... people are bad, both of these guys played the hand bad. I'm also calling the flop. Why? Because people are bad.

I think the fact you didn't 5 bet pre flop may have played a role in their "thinking" for the flop action (for better or for worse)

I'm going to get some **** for this one for sure, but here goes:

Both villains are playing bad...I don't know either of them enough to say they are bad players, but right now they're playing bad. Stuck, too loose, sticking around with too much, difficult to put either on a range, V2 recently won a pot with 84o played UTG + 1.

V1 limps in mp, I raise KK, V2 calls BB

QQ4, I bet, both call

QQ44 (I think there is now one flush draw), I bet, both call

I am going to call one bet on the river.

If checked to, I am going to check behind unless river is a K or Q.

Let me have it.

You wouldn't even bet a river 4 when checked to?

Ah yes, 4 as well