V - $675. Brand new table & this is maybe the 5th hand. No real reads, but player already seems fishy. Has played every hand, getting sticky post. Won about $200 from hero in 1st hand after multiway pot where hero flopped FD and turned OEDS as well. V got value on 2 streets where hero folded to river shove. In another hand has shown that pf range is wide as facecard + trash and will overvalue TP.

Hero covers.

V limps EP, Hero $35 w/ AK in MP, sb calls, v flats.

Flop $104

Q32

x, V $40, Hero $140, fold, call

Turn: $384

J

V shoves $500, Hero needs 36.1%

If I range to

Board: 2dQh3hJc
Equity Win Tie
V 64.05% 64.05% 0.00% { 33-22, Q2s+, KQo, Q7o+ }
H 35.95% 35.95% 0.00% { AhKh }

I'm kinda there. Not sure if I should treat an unknown a bit more snugly though or if I can throw in a "spazz" factor that makes calling a bit easier. Thoughts on all streets appreciated.

What were you trying to accomplish with the flop raise?

As played, you have 11 outs against 2p. Not quite a good enough price, but I probably just call it off.

We're likely in a coinflip situation with dead-money in the pot. However, that equity might not get realized if we're forced of the hand OTT/R. We also have some FE and can win w/out connecting by showdown.

I wouldn't raise a player like this, and would like to have more equity to call it off vs a fish.

Just fold.

Easy in hindsight, but you really want to plan to get it allin in two streets here. V has 600 left after the bet, if you make it 240 (just a bit more than a pot raise) the pot will be 580ish if he calls, then it'll be a comfortable 400 jam OTT. If he folds the flop, that's fine too.

Not raising the flop seems crazy, if villain bets three streets and we brick out we can't really call, but if we fold the river we could be folding to some nonsense like a worse FD, 54, etc. We need to realize our equity now while it's still hot, fresh and tasty.

I'd also play AA/KK/AQ as a substantial raise here btw, this weakass leadout from V when he's in position to checkraise is a set like 0.01% of the time. Since there's little reason to fear a better hand, I'm not going to let him draw for free.

my bad I didn't notice we had a flush draw.

Your raise set up awkward stack sizes. But you have to fold now because you aren't getting the right price.

Raise bigger otf

Sucks but fold turn

Flop raise is fine maybe go a little bigger.

Fold now. Only made hand we're getting odds to draw against is one pair that doesn't have an A or K kicker. Think your range is too wide and contains too much Qx.

So sick that he jams.

I would fold turn and take a small break before I punch V in the face for owning me three hands in a row.

I think you can flat flop vs villain as described. I think the donk lead here is normally top pair, and they're unlikely to fold - so why coin flip when we can just call with decent direct odds, some implied odds, and the chance for SB to ride along and juice up the pot a bit.

I don't get how this makes money. We wiff turn frequently and get stuck. We don't have a made hand so we need to realize equity OTF when we have it. We're flipping with dead miney in the pot. Gotta print money before Tom Hanks catches us.

There's only $35 dead money in the pot. Taking an aggressive line here against a sticky villain is basically going to make it so that you're flipping EV-wise, with that little $35 bonus for the winner. It's taking on variance for variance's sake.

If we flat here, we're getting 3.5 to 1 on our money. It's plenty good enough to call with just a naked flush draw, as we certainly have at least some positive implied odds. Add in our overcard outs and BD straight possibility, and the fact that we have position, and we should see that calling is very much +EV, while being much lower variance than an aggressive line.

? The pot on the flop is $104. Along with V's flop lead of $40, that gives us $144 of dead money, nearly 29bb.

Can't really count a sticky villain's investment in the pot as "dead money." He'll hold on to his equity, and keep it very much alive regardless of what you bet.

Dead money usually refers to some villain's investment in the pot who has already folded, or is very likely to fold (especially with a raise).

The problem is we don't always actually want other players (SB in this case) to give up their equity - specifically when we have a draw to the nuts, we need to improve to win at showdown, and we have little to no fold equity against one or more villains who we believe are currently ahead. In this case, it's better that SB keeps investing in his equity to beef up our direct and implied odds to hit our draw.

This probably isn't the guy you want to be semi-bluffing off of top pair based on your description of him.

As far as the turn, he's probably not shoving w/ one pair and even if he is, he likely has some of your outs in his hand. I fold.

I prefer maybe flatting otf but raise is obviously not bad. My reasoning being we're ip vs villain and we fold out SBs flush draws that we want in the pot if we raise. But if you're going to raise flop, I like 180ish.

As played I'm not so optimistic that we have a +EV call, but it's not going to be a huge mistake to call it off

I think V is going to show up with exactly QJ here a lot. As Chris says above, the weak lead on the flop tends to be a weak hand. The weak lead with a flat of our raise supports that. The turn jam says it got way strong all of a sudden. I very much doubt V is jamming here with as little as TP, even though he may overvalue it.

We don't have enough outs to draw for it (only 8 hearts and 3 tens) and he's all in. Even with some fudge factor, I still let this go.

I like the flop raise. We have a strong draw, but any made hand has the equity to call so folds are great. But if we're going to raise, let's go ahead and make it threatening. I like roughly potting it; raise flop to 200 looks about right.

The situations being handwaved away with "normally" and "unlikely" here are the important ones. Getting taken off our hand by a villain going bet-bet-bet with a worse draw would be a complete disaster and should factor into our decision making even if rare. Look at the turn here. While I agree we should fold, we could be mucking our hand to T9hh.

I also have a strong suspicion that if I posted this hand saying I had AA or AQ and suggested raising to $200+, people would complain that I was likely to blast villain off his weak top pair hands.