I wanted to post without admitting this, but I know it's influencing my decisions and urgency to examine every aspect of my play... I'm on the worst downswing of my live career. Past ~85 hrs I've dropped 12bi. Nothing too extraordinary , but the worst I've experienced in a meager 700hrs. Mostly by getting cracked/coolered and some (hopefully no more than 33%) from poor play. I'd appreciate as much detail as you can on every street & my thought process on adjusting to the following scenario.

5/5 100bi cap. Table is limp/flat happy. I've found that opening bets in unstraddled pots <$50 will go multi-way about 75% of the time, other 25% getting all folds. Over $50 has gotten me all folds. I've been rather card-dead and appear nitty.

Villain: Older gentleman. Handicapped with personal assistant. Has dealer pull his chips out and fold his cards for him. Sort of a whale. Has been limping basically every hand recently as he's been connecting with boards. Gets very sticky post flop with any connection/potential or even high cards. Shifted to more LAgy post over the past hour. Has shown aggression post to give up river in several spots in a pissing match with a player to his left. He recently lost FH over FH by flatting a MW pot for 2 streets and calling a 2xPS overbet on river.

Not sure if he's watching, but my only two showdowns have been AQ from EP. Both times I c-bet flop, checked turn, and lead OTR. First time was a bluff, second was value.

Eff stacks ~$760

Hero KQ $75 in sb faceing UTG straddle and 5 limpers, only V calls.

Thoughts on flatting pre & sizing if raising is best.

Flop $195 SPR~3.5

T65

Hero..? Thoughts on planning the rest of the hand appreciated. Our showdown equity is decent, but most turns aren't going to be great.

B/shove $125

I'm sorry to hear this. The best advice is to move down. That's hard to do for many people. The game isn't as exciting. You're conditioned yourself to thinking you're a 5/5 player. Players who survive in poker move up and down regularly.

If you insist on staying at 5/5, you'll want to tighten up your game both pf and post flop. This isn't just because you may be leaking with the bottom of your range, but also because your villains that know you also know you're losing. When that happens, your fold equity goes down. They'll call you even if they think they are behind because they believe you're running bad. You want to gather every advantage you can on every hand.

So we move on to the hand. Let's look at our advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that we have KQs. It is a top 5% hand. Given the other villains would likely raise hands like QQ+, we're likely to have the best hand going into the flop. The disadvantage is that we're in the worst position to play it. We'll have little ability to pot control. Even if you limp in, the SPR is going to be no more than 11. It is going to be difficult not to commit to the pot quickly if we have something.

What is left to decide is whether you want to seize initiative or not. If you don't, you are giving up an advantage. Since you likely have the best hand at the moment, raising makes more sense than calling. The reason many people limp instead of raising is that they lack confidence in their hand and their ability to play it without being way ahead. If that is the case, you're better off folding it. Don't show anyone you folded KQs in this situation.

Therefore, I agree with the raise. The next question is the amount. I think you need to think of the straddle as just an extra blind. You're playing a 5/5/10 game. There's nothing wrong with just using the 3+1 rule and anything up to a PSB isn't outrageous. Therefore, I'd pop it to $100. If everyone folds, you just collected $70, which is a couple of hours profit in one hand. That isn't bad. If you get a caller, the SPR is under 4. Being oop isn't going to means as much because the hand isn't going to be multi-street with lots of decisions to make.

As played, the pot is $195 and you have $685 left. Let's think for a minute about what is the worst hand we're likely to be against. It isn't a big over pair. The villain would have raised QQ+ somewhere pf. We're about even against a pocket pair with our two overs. Even against a set, we have decent outs. What we should be scared about is an Ace high flush draw. If we're up against that, we're cooked. We're behind and if we hit our flush, we're even more behind.

So what is it going to take to get an ace high flush to fold? Lots of weak players think that they are 2:1 to hit a flush on after the flop, forgetting that they need to see both cards for that amount. That means a bet of at least $200 on the flop.

We don't want it to look close to him, so you'll need to make it more than that. I'd go $350. With that much, we probably will fold out some TP type of hands that have to worry that you have AA and they're drawing dead.

If he calls, the pot is about $900 and we have $335 left. We're hoping we've folded out the FD and are now up against made hands. Now we can shove our hand in getting about the odds to hit our FD if we missed. If we hit, it will be hard for him to fold getting 4:1 especially since we haven't played this like he would expect a FD to play it.

As you can see, this gets ultimately back to the decision of playing KQs in the SB. If we don't hit our hand hard, we're going to have to risk a lot to win the hand. That's why it isn't a horrible decision to fold it.

Obviously cbet $100-$125, continue on any turn you pick up equity (akqj9/club)

Not sure what Venice is talking about but that is truly terrible advice

FYP

Why are you guys so nitty? It's sickening.

Honestly I don't see anything really wrong with this hand. It's just a high variance situation both pre and post.

Preflop you can both flat or raise. Flatting is hoping for a good flop but your getting great odds. Raising is fine with a good hand but it's more squeeze then value in this situation because you would rather take it down preflop. OOP with a trivial SPR you will have trouble post if you don't connect with the flop.

Post flop you have a good draw and two over cards that are reasonably likely to be good against a villain that is sticky. Venice gave you the high variance option of betting to commit yourself when your hand should have 50%+ equity. Eholeing gave you the more normal play it like a value hand option. Both will be +EV but which is better is hard to judge.

Because SPR is low and villain is sticky checking is also reasonable. It's mostly check/fold because you won't be getting odds but when villain does check behind or bets small you can get to the turn cheaply.

I would complete the sb.

otf if youre going more than $100 just stuff. Id probably stuff or x/stuff

You may not be fully aware of this, but a 100cap 5/5 is just straight gambling. So, if that's your regular game, you're going to experience wicked DS even if you're playing perfectly. Now, taken one step further, if you're in the business of 2b any non AA hand to $75 pre, you're taking a gamblers game to it's max and you're gonna swing even harder.

What you ought to do is polish up your sizing and reduce playing what you identify as marginal spots. Sure, those spots are a big part of going from a good player to a great player to a crusher to a robot, but that's only if you're truly playing those marginal spots for +EV. That isn't always the case, and likely tough to identify w only 700hrs.

I appreciate everybody's advice. @Venice... I have been mixing in some 2/3 sessions. However, it's hard to find a 2/3 game near me where people don't by in short, so I've been trying to avoid it for those reasons but I might need to swallow my pride. I also stopped playing in deepstack 5/5 games in favor of $500/$600 capped games. Luckily, since I've been playing weekends at many venues, no one is really aware that I'm going through some turbulence.

Anyways, I ended up c-betting $175, V shoved, and I called, wanting to commit on this flop vs this V. Based on responses, I took a high variance, but hopefully +EV option. Just wanted to make sure I'm not doing anything too atrocious... Thank you all again. I've benefited immensely from this community & hope to give back as much as I've taken.

I meant 100bb cap/$500 max buy-in. Hopefully we're not considering playing mid-stacked straight gambling.

I mean exactly that. 500 cap is a gamblers game.

no wrong way to play this , you can size it any way you want but vs a limp/cally showdown monkey table i tickle the pot to 40 or 30

this is an interesting hand because KQs OOP is still even money vs the deck...you should breakeven with KQs from the small blind. if you are making $$ with it u prob win overall

i dont like the iso sizing here, you have the nut mw hand

stealing the dead money is fine in a vacuum tho but these players will make huge mistakes post so give em rope

as played i would size it to shove all turns...150

Do you mean just high variance, or unbeatable? This particular table was far looser than any 100 cap I've experienced. First time I played in this place in years. Most 100 cap games I've come across tend to play really weak/tight, where isoing and bluffing at a higher frequency work. The 200bb cap games I've played are obviously looser pf, but the table in the hand hist. was the loosest/semi-aggro table I've come across.

why is this a bloated pot? It's 5/T with the straddle so youre 76BB effective now and you got it HU with an appropriate raise. Just cbet/get it in any opportunity.

High variance. Usually it's a passive pre/aggro post/showdown heavy game where there's no room for much of anything/little play/you're often committed on the flop. If you're playing that game well, the chips are flying.

I'm going to have to call BS on this one. 100BB cap game is standard in more places than not. How is it a gamblers game? I play in a 100BB cap game and there may be 1 hand every couple hours where people each get 100BBs all in.

You make it sound like everyone hits TP and stacks off for 100BBs. That almost never happens where I play....or anywhere Ive played for that matter.

You're claiming shorter games are higher variance? This doesn't make sense unless players are just generally looser, but that's up to the players.

The majority of 100BB games I've played aren't anything like what you describe. 100BB is plenty of room to play three street poker.

^^^Totally agree.

If you think someone will bet, then x/shove. Otherwise, $125 and GII if raised.

I won't go nuts on this debate, but the high variance comes from the games relative lack of FE not from a bunch of spews getting in 100bb each. You also tend to have shorter average stacks relative to the cap than 200-300bb capped games, and any straddled pots you can nearly play with a snapshove app. Also, with 4-5x opens and multiple callers, equities are more often realized in so many 2b pots whether play is passive or aggressive.

Against a guy that is running hot and starting to get frisky. I like a check/shove here.

Shorter games are most certainly higher variance and amanaplan is correct that a 5/5 $500 cap game is gonna be straight gambol. That doesnt mean its not insanely profitable.

Mike, you play in what I would consider the worst 2/5 in the country. Im not being facetious.

A manand a plan is right. 500 cap game just go nuts and gambol. I like the sizing pre for this structure. But you have to understand and accept the variance in this game. It helps the bad players in the short term because it's such high variance so you need a bigger br

Nice hand, wp

Yeah all of this. Your pot odds are so different in this structure. You are priced in to all rivers when you call the flop. By the turn you have to call with bare draws,that have 20% eq, and you have reduced FE. Starting your FE early pre flop and playing strong draws aggressively is the,way to go. Good sizing pre imo

This was true maybe 10 years ago, but not in 2017.