HOC addresses the idea of being possibly outmatched at the table, in which case our goal is to end the hand preflop with these big TP type hands. So a huge raise, which would likely end the hand preflop (and we take $31 uncontested / untaxed), is an acceptable result. One quibble I have with HOC's take on simply raising preflop with TP type hands when we feel outmatched postflop is it's guess that this will take things down a lot preflop, but in the majority of games I play in (especially with deeper stacks at the table) this won't be successful at all and will actually create a much worse situation (i.e. a very bloated multiway pot with a hand that will likely remain mediocre against difficult opponents); I don't think HOC really anticipated these types of tables, but in 3bet pots we can often raise enough to take down pots preflop (or charge our opponents *far* too much to see a flop).

However, anything other than a huge raise will likely have our opponent continue in the hand, like it did here. In this case, yeah, we got in $50 with the best of it. But the problem was that was only for 7% of our stack, and his final call of the $35 was only for 5% of his stack, which at the time gave him fairly awesome 20:1 IO. *Almost* a no-brainer call for our good Villain, who has position and probably has a pretty good handle on what our range is (we haven't played a hand in 1.5 hours and just 3bet in the blinds, it's pretty obvious).

Regarding the various SPRs, yeah the 3bet gets us into a smallish SPR ~6 situation whereas a limp gets us into a large SPR ~15 situation. On the surface, the smaller SPR might look better. But, as I say, that smaller SPR, that at this time might tie us to the pot for commitment, still offered our opponent 20:1 IO, in position, with our face up hand. NLT+P addresses this a bit: more-or-less, if we're going to turn our hand face up OOP and put ourselves to an easy commitment spot postflop, we'd better damn well not offer good IO. 20:1 is pretty good IO. So now the large SPR ~15 is looking a little better. We're not tied to the pot and horrendous run-outs, we have some room to move, and we've severely underrepped our hand against a knowledgeable / difficult opponent who has position on us. Yeah, 3ways ain't ideal, but in the end by flatting we end up playing a much smaller pot, which is what we want to do in *this* situation with these big stacks (at least, imo). If we were playing a hurp durp face up ABC fish who isn't going to put us in any difficult situations, or stacks were much smaller such that a stack committing 3bet (that is small enough that it is still likely to get called) isn't going to offer good IO, by all means, lean towards the 3bet.

In anticipation of some responses, my guess is one of them will be to widen our 3bet range so that we're not so face up in these situations, and that's a valid point. But my guess (and OP can correct me if I'm wrong) is that if this is like any typical 1/3 NL table I sit at, there's a bunch of shorter stacks (<< 100bbs and < 100bbs). Tight is right against these stack sizes (imo), as is a pretty tight 3bet range, so if we start opening that range up just because of the one or two other deepstacks at the table, we very quickly begin to spew against the shortstacks (who will often be the opponent we end up facing in the hand).

In response to Lapi's setmining joke, I'm obviously not just setmining here by flatting. There's lots of ways to get value from your big TP type hands. Against ABC face up clueless fish, the best way to get value is to simply bet them and get called down by a worse hand. But we're not up against a ABC face up clueless fish, and on top of that we probably have a fairly nit image (which is fine if we're playing a bunch of shortstacks, as the nit method is a decent method against shortstacks). We're also deep, and I'm kinda shocked at how often posts on this forum treat 300bb stacks exactly the same as 100bb stacks. The shorter we are, the more we should be raising/3betting our big TP hands preflop in order to setup plays for stacks postflop (which due to small SPRs will often be over by the flop/turn where TP hands rule); but the deeper we are, the less we *have* to do raise preflop (although we of course are still welcome to, but it is no longer as mandatory as in the shortstack case). Every piece of poker literature I've read goes over this stuff. HOC (or is in PNLHE?) states how the difference in preflop hand values gets closer and closer as stacks go up; NLT+P states how raising TP type hands might not be for the "value" you think it is if you're playing deep. Anyhoo, a bluffcatching / passively underrepping line is a line that will also get you value. Will it get more value than other lines? Debatable, and maybe not (the previous poster has made a pretty good argument for 3betting preflop and then calling down for stacks, which may end up more profitable, although it will definitely be higher variance and it also risks leaving us with a much shorter stacks than deep fish at the table which should also be part of the equation). But in the end we're up against a player that is better than us, OOP, and deep; not exactly a fistpump profitable situation regardless of our cards, so we just do the best we can.

Anyways, those are just my thoughts on the matter. Nothing written in stone, just things to consider.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yeah, this is pretty much my thinking here exactly. I wish I could have put it that well and that concisely!

FWIW, my most standard line here would be x/c, x/c, x/f altho in this case I folded.

Thanks for the excellent analysis. I should say that it's not quite that extreme, however. I probably didn't set up the problem as clearly as I could have but villain was actually not that laggy post-flop (not much more active than a TAG, but seeing more flops than a TAG would, if that makes sense.) and I actually never saw him show a bluff over those 90 minutes but for sure he was capable of bluffing.

There's little chance you're going to go three streets and bluff-catch, even with AA, if you limp/call pre, GG.

So, IMO, you're telling yourself stories here.

I think you're going to limp all PP this deep and setmine.

(I don't think its the worst line. I just think its far from the best.)

I don't think you're really going to call OTR, unimproved, as described, on most boards. I think you're going to talk yourself into folding if the board is the least bit scary.

And if V is going to barrel 2 streets and then x OTR, then you don't even need anything as strong as AA to call preflop.

Thanks for offering them.

Like I said I'm new here, but I've noticed a theme of plenty of threads where people have found a reason NOT to put in the last bet preflop with Aces or Kings, only to find themselves in a much tougher spot on later streets which would likely have been very different had they put in more money earlier in the hand.

Personally if I feel like I'm outmatched by an opponent, I'd rather my mistakes be those of aggression than passivity. My limited experience at LLSNL suggests bets when checked to tend to mean far less than raises when facing a bet, hence I'm more comfortable with a less passive line than you're recommending. I think passivity also forces me to play my hand more than my range too, and allows them to exploit that.

In the current hand for example, I'm FAR more comfortable check calling to the river with AA in a 3 bet pot on that runout than I would be in a single raised pot. Many more combos of Kx and 6x folded to the 3 bet than would have for a single raise. This strengthens my hand against the overall range they could be betting.

Again, I'm happy for much more experienced players to find the leaks in my thinking.

You're welcome.

My opponents often assume I don't bluff because I look conservative and never show bluffs, but in reality I'm barreling them like crazy and repping the nuts whenever I think I can get away with it. If this guy has a VPIP of 50 and is both active and sticky post flop he's probably doing the same. But even if he isn't, you need to call at least the turn bet and reevaluate on river. Even good TAGs will double barrel in this spot, though most TAGs don't seem capable of firing the third bullet with air.

So if villain is not actually super aggressive post-flop, then call the turn bet and if he bets again you're probably beat. But if he's capable of triple barreling air or hands like QQ/JJ here you should call down all the way.

There are metagame benefits to calling down light against a LAG. He will be less prone to bluffing you in the future, as will other players at the table paying attention. Don't know if that's enough to make it a call on the river, but if you're on the fence I'd suggest calling for this reason.

Thanks to me sucking, you're absolutely right: by the time he fires that third barrel on the river I might talk myself into folding a decent amount of the time (such as on this board here). But if I'm going to do that, I'd *much* rather do that in a smaller pot than a bigger pot. I mean, look at this case here: our 3bet preflop changed nothing with regards to how often we end up folding postflop (I would actually argue we end up folding more in the 3bet pot since we've defined our hand more and there should be less chance of our opponent attempting to barrel us off that), and yet if we're incorrect in the fold the magnitude of the error is enhanced greatly due to bloating the pot preflop.

Still not remotely close to setmining, as obviously I'm always going to the turn with AA UI plus I'm often going to showdown (things I'm never doing if I'm just setmining).

In the end, it's simply an alternative way of getting value with big pair hands. The nittier our image and the more aggressive our opponent is, the more reasonable it is to get value by passively underrepping our hand and letting our opponent drive the action. Obviously this would be a fairly meh line against a passive non-bluffy calling station.

GcluelessNLnoobG