I recently started playing again and have found the 2/3 with a max buy-in of $300 as the best low limit NL game in Los Angeles (all of the other games have super low buy-ins and I am an east coaster until the last couple of years and I am used to deeper buy-in NL games.)

I had been playing for a few hours and was in the game for three-buy-ins. I had rebuilt my stack a bit and had just over $500.00 in chips in front of me. My table image was probably a bit tight/passive. I had certainly played too tentatively at first as I am just starting to play again after a long work imposed break.

Here is the hand:

Villain: Deepstack ($600 plus), middle position, relatively LAG, had made some goofy plays earlier in the session (a big 3-bet with 7-2 of clubs among others.) Open Raises to $16.00, gets two callers.

Hero: Button, A8 flat calls

BB also calls

Flop: 467

BB checks, Villain bets $35, one of the callers calls (stack size of around $250)

Hero calls.

I feel confident that flatting preflop was fine. I tanked a little bit on the flop call mainly because if I hit my ace it might wind up costing me money but I felt the stack sizes dictated a call here. Thoughts?

You are deep enough that calling from the button is OK but just. You would be a lot happier limping behind with a mediocre suited aces. Keep in mind that calling a LAG with these super speculative hand is actually worse then a TAG opponent. A LAG will have air more often and a decent one will refuse to pay you off when you do hit more often.

Flop call is bad. When you play this sort of hand your looking for good implied odds or a good flop, neither is really good here. The pot is already getting big and your draw isn't that good. The ace may not be good, your gutshot draw isn't the nuts and puts 4 to a straight on board, everything is is runner/runner.

Pre is OK since it is multi-ways. Two callers in front of you and one behind.

But with this hand, you are hoping for the nut flush, or 2-pair+ on the flop. Drawing to one over (w weak kicker), gutshot, and back door FD is spew. Fold.


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Pre is OK from button. Fold flop. You have three clean outs and a player still to act. You will have to fold almost every turn or might just cost yourself more if the right (wrong) card falls.

That all sounds correct to me. I wound up getting caught up in the fact that one of the other deeper stacks was in the hand and looking to get paid off. When I made the call it felt like a mistake and I hesitated a lot. Thanks for the thoughts guys. My next post will hopefully be more interesting

OP, I think your flop call is actually OK with the gutshot + BDNFD, but only if you're capable of taking the pot away on the turn / river when the opportunity presents itself. If you're calling flop just to hit your hand, then you should fold the flop instead.

My plan was to try to take the pot if it checked to me on the turn unless I hit the ace which I would probably check through as it has showdown value and I would want to get to the showdown cheap.

Pre is fine. You could bluff 3! if you want. That's a little risky against 3 opponents.

The smart move is to fold the flop. You have a couple overs, a gutshot, and a back door flush draw. Your overcard outs aren't good. The 8 makes a straight and there are only 2 non-spade A. You also have a crap kicker and an ace could make two pair. You're not drawing to the nuts on your straight and could be crushed by 98. The four straight would be really obvious and it'll be hard to get paid by worse.

I think calling is only acceptable because it's a cheap float. Villain's <1/2 pot cbet is super weak. You might pick up a good bluffing card on the turn.

Fold flop, and welcome to Los Angeles! The Bike is the only 2/3 game in all of LA that allows 100bb buy-ins as you've likely figured out, which is why I'm there every weekend. Actually, Normandy has a 1/2 for $200, but I only played there once. Small casino, and the 1/2 game I was in (weekday afternoon) played more like a 3/5 because $25 raises still led to multi-way flops. The $7 rake + bbjackpot @bike sucks, so if you feel like taking a drive, Pechanga, in Temecula usually has great 1/3 games going. Usually much more passive fish than at the Bike. See ya at the tables (if I haven't already).

I am usually in a blue/black hoodie and jeans and have earbuds in. Right now I am trying to play 10-20 hours a week and I am splitting my time between the 2/3 at Bike and 8/16 LHE at Hollywood Park or Hustler. About a decade ago I was playing full time and playing mostly the 25/50 LHE at Hustler. Now I focus a lot more on my job and haven't built back up to a comfort level to play the bigger games yet.

I'd be fine with the call if you were heads up but you have a caller in front with BB left to act. Easy fold. BB can squeeze here with a lot of draws since this board hits his range so hard. Heads up you can float and try to take it away on the turn but with multiple players you likely need to barrel turn and river and hope they brick, which is a tough sequence of events.

Do you wear glasses? Did you apologize to me for putting in those earbuds to watch a baseball game on your phone? I'm the late 20's white guy with black hair. You might have seen me spew A5s with an AI semi-bluff, and I might have seen you call me IP with AK. I asked why you didn't 3bet when you showed me the hand.

Nope that wasn't me. I usually have earbuds in but its just to listen to music rather than irate fish scream at one another and the dealers.

Mm... i think it depends on villain's and your reads ofc.

I don't like it in this spot MW esp once some other guy calls, it's going to be really hard to bluff them out later in the hand esp on this board and our just flat call on this flop.

I'm also flatting preflop. We're in great relative and absolute position, we'll be going at least 4ways to the flop, and we're getting a relatively cheap price with a nutmaking hand. I'm not playing for TP.

I'd fold the flop. We only have 3 clean outs to the gutshot and low IO due to it putting 4-to-a-straight on board. With the other guy in the hand, we might have difficulty repping the spade draw (if that was our plan against the raiser) cuz the other guy might have that. Our A outs could easily be no good and could have poor RIO.

GcluelessNLnoobG

IMO Flop is a pretty good spot to raise, but thats just how i play

cold caller is a little bit too short and board hits limp/callers ranges just too well to do it imo, but certainly interesting.

flop call isn´t all that bad OP, calling 35 to win 140, gs, overcards, bdnfd, ace high, position. it´s actually a pretty standard peel imo.

Being over 150bb effective and multiway, I think a call pre is good with suited aces. If we were shallower this would be a nice spot to consider a squeeze.

Consider 3bet pre if villain has a fold button.

Pretty good flop for your hand, again would consider a raise depending on image and villains but I would usually call. Folding seems way too nitty to me.

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I could see 3betting here but did not consider it at the time. I didn't like a raise on the flop because I had seen him make weird 3-bet bluffs before (on one hand he 3bet shoved on the flop with overcards + gutshot and showed it after the hand.) I felt like my best move if I was going forward in the hand was to evaluate on the turn.