I'm not sure whether I've fully grasped your point here, but a shove to me was the only way to continue with this hand; that is, it clearly was a shove or fold situation.

Of course, the shove depended on some precise ranging because mypethybridge needed FE in conjunction with his pot equity, especially as there wasn't much implied value from V1 or V2. And the best way of maximizing FE was a shove (there was no real possibility of a re-raise due to the stack-sizes).

Am I right in thinking that you're saying that a shove makes mypethybride unbalanced; that is, it's bad in the long-run because he's only showing up with semi-bluffs when shoving a flop over a re-raise? In my mind, the shove was necessary on this occasion, but there's no reason why mypethy couldn't also shove in similar situations with nuttish hands, and thus take advantage of his unbalanced image, if indeed such a thing exists at 1/2.

Shoving any 2 I show up with would be pretty standard. My range may be weighted toward semi-bluffs in this situation, but it is not only semi-bluffs.

Also, at 1/2, ranges get really nutty as the bets get big. It is very rare, almost unheard of, for someone to ship 170bb on a draw, both because it is rarely even arguably correct to do so, and because people who make big bets usually show up with the nuts. So it's not like everybody automatically assumes my shove is a semi-bluff.

So I disagree with the premise that my shove had to be a semi-bluff, and I strongly disagree that it would be read as such by most players.

I think you underestimate how often he can have a 2 here. A2s definitely in his range, as well as wheel cards including a 2. Live players, even good ones, get bored and play suited garbage.

And I really hate your table talk here, because villain clearly has an 8, and if you really had a 2 you'd know he'd have 2 outs so you wouldn't be talking as if you were letting him know he was beat. I don't like your play here and I think you just got lucky he had the bottom of his range and gave you credit.

I'm also never shoving a duece in this spot, because:

1) V1 has a re-shoving stack. If he doesn't fold, you're very likely getting the chance to re-open.
2) You have position and the pot is already getting big. Any turn that isn't an 8 or a flush card means you're still happy with your hand. In this spot I'm happy to underrep and rep a flush draw with trips. Even if the flush hits, they'll probably check to you.

I disagree with not shoving a deuce here. In this situation, with 3-way action and 2 short-stacks, a shove is most likely, with any hand except 88 and 22.

If I had a deuce I would be shoving here primarily for VALUE. V1's likely to call with any piece of the board, whether a draw or overpair, and V3 appears committed, and, given the whiskey etc., is only really folding his air and worse than TPTK (and still maybe calling with a draw). In other words, I would question mpethy NOT shoving with a deuce in this spot.

Even if V3's range is 80% weighted to trips or an overpair, the shove is +EV, given mpethy's pot equity of between 30-45%, the precise amount of which depends largely on whether his A is live. So, really, once mpethy ranges V3 on a number of hands without a 2 and 88 (p/p, draws, overpairs etc.), this shove has more "semi" in it than "bluff".

I skimmed through this thread an this was the most interesting part of the hand for me:

I had been keeping quiet, but I decided to talk back with him some. I said, "look, I like you and I think you are solid. You have J8s, ok. You're behind a lot more than just a 2."

I decided to say J8 suited as he had made it pretty obvious that he had an 8, and choosing the J as his kicker guaranteed I wouldn't be too far off in my read.

This is an expert play. OP not only had an excellent read on his opponent, he used table talk to get him to fold a better hand. WP sir!

To clarify: I am not saying anything specific about the way this hand was played. I agree that it is a shove or fold spot, and given the read that the villains were weak (I thought they didn't have to be, but he was at the table and I was not) it was a good play.

I also am not saying anything about mpethy being unbalanced in this spot because I don't know how he'd play a real strong hand here (and I noticed he did say he'd shove a 2).

I was asking a more general question about venice's comment, seemingly tossed off, that he considers this shove a bet that "has to" be weak. Accent on "has to". It seems very weird to me that there could exist any situation, ever, where you interpret a big bet as necessarily meaning weakness when you would interpret a smaller bet (or a check or call) as strength. In other words, "if he had a strong hand, he'd be putting less money into the pot, so this shove has to be a weak hand". That seems fundamentally backwards to me. What about this spot makes it that way, and what about any spot could make it that way?

Thanks, I can see your point more clearly now, and, really, it's up to Venice to respond. But I will say that your point does still relate to balance IMO, that is, the need to be shoving with both semi-bluffs and the top of one's range. It seems that Venice's point about a shove seeming "weak" relates specifically to 1/2 tables, where, I assume, he's saying that 1/2 players tend to shove their draws in these B/N spots in multiway pots. In this respect, a shove often doesn't maximize FE in the way we might assume according to Venice---a point with which I don't fully agree.

I'm going to comment w/o looking at the spoilers. I don't think at all that hero is thinking about semibluffing. He might wait a month to find a wild 1/2 nl game in Vegas with drunk tourists. This is a value situation, the nut flush draw may be better than tptk here. I'd be thinking about how to get more money in on the flop with turn play or FE a secondary concern. Specifically you want to make sure a lower FD stays indrawing nearly dead.

Well, "really lucky" is probably an exaggeration. Give him your range and he is at the bottom of it (holding only a ****ty 8) 40% of the time. But, fair enough. In the ordinary course of business, I would fold in this spot and not think twice. But in the ordinary course of business both v1 and v3 have much stronger ranges. Here, there was a big pile of what appeared to be very, very dead-to-a-shove money in the pot, and it caused me to make a non-standard play.

It's a really interesting situation to me. Immediately after v3 raised to $70, the very first thought I had was " Jesus, there is $160 in the pot and the best hand is a pair of 8s." that thought caused me to keep from auto-mucking, and I started thinking about how often v3 would fold. That thought reminded me that I had seen him fold to a raise a few times already, and I did a very quick combo count, and in went my money. I could very well have screwed it up by over emphasizing in my mind how weak everybody appeared.

There are two areas of v3's range I could have screwed up:

I affirmatively ruled out 32, 42 and 52 suited from his range.

I have no clear memory of considering that he might have A8 offsuit.

In my quick combo count, I think i went " 2 combos of A2, 3 combos of A8, about 18 combos of 8s with a crappy kicker--good enough."

If he has A8o, that adds enough combos to thin this shove out considerably. If he also has wheel cards, I probably get called by most of his range and as you have said, it becomes a pretty clear mistake.

I'll probably do some stoving and such to quantify all this.

I appreciate your thoughts.