stampler, excellent explanation and analysis, thank you!

1/2 live NL 9-handed

Villain: thin asian guy in mid 30's with ~$350 chips
Hero: $300

The hand in question was played during my first orbit, therefore I have no reads on any of these guys and they don't have much on me. I'm an overweight asian male in his 30's if that matters.

Folds to hero on BTN with 95 who raises to $10, BB calls.

Flop: 678
Villain leads with $15, hero raises to $45, villain shoves with ~$300 remaining. Hero?

What could villain have here that we can beat? I don't see him just calling PF with 10-AA. I put him on mid suited connector, and 1-gapper, and T9.

Call. This is a set that is afraid of a straight draw as often as it's 9T, and it's also often 89 that is semi-bluffing.

I always thought the opposite...I try to play small ones oop...am I wrong?

I kind of wanted to start a thread about this hand, but decided not to.

I'm not a big fan of 0 equity bluffs, but every play has a time and a place. This spot looked to me like a potential candidate:

I just sat down at the table maybe 2 orbits ago, so I don't have killer reads.

UTG: a bad aggressive player, as you'll see from this hand. He raises a wide range and then his c-bets telegraph his hand strength. $300 stack.

MP1: Playing a half stack the whole time I've been at the table, tight passive 50+ year old. But he can be aggressive post flop with a good hand, I saw him check/shove a king high flop HU against the guy who is the hijack below (who folded).

HJ: Another bad Lag, but not relevant to the hand.

SB: Complete unknown, He has been at the table less than an orbit and hasn't played a hand. $200 stack.

Hero: $360, I bought in for $300 and won the difference on the button in the previous orbit by flopping top pair and getting 1 street of value from the raiser's c-bet. That's the only hand I have played since sitting in.

I am OTB with 55

UTG raises to $10, MP1 calls, HJ calls, I call, SB calls.

$48 in pot. Flop: KJ6

SB Checks, UTG bets $10, MP1 calls, HJ folds

I want to raise to $60.

Comments, please. Why do you think this is or is not a good spot to turn our hand into a bluff?

Not a good spot because there are a ton of draws

FPS. Fold.

There are too many players in this hand. You're getting called by at least 1 of them, probably shoved on by MP1. If you could fire a second barrel and take it down on the turn a raise might make sense, but there aren't a lot of turn cards that you want to see.

Agree...if u wanna make a move...flat and rep whatever draw hits imo

+1 - villain with TP might feel he has to go with it, putting you on a draw.

multi way stone cold bluff on a wet board with two broadway? No sir, I don't like it. I'd need some huge reads to try this.

shallow game, textured board, bad players.. id fold

What do you coach?

I came up through the online ranks. Was never in spots like this because online players haven't been bad enough to create spots like this since 2006, lol.

MP1 isn't shoving. Who calls $10 when the pot is $60, then reacts to a raise to $60 by shoving for $90???? I have 2k hours live and I think I have never seen anything like that.

I can see being worried that UTG has a draw and maybe will get sticky, and I can see an argument for worrying about SB, who hasn't acted in a meaningful way yet (just a pretty automatic check to the raiser), but MP1 seems to me to be the one who we can be most confident will just fold.

Crazy home game a few good players mostly bad/spewy players with two specific guys who really drive the action and make the game great. One of those two guys just got sucked out on and decides to straddle his remaining $130 from the button, I'm first to act and just sat down with $200 in the SB and I see AKo...considering the entire table is behind me...is shoving still the easiest decision ever?

I think if you win this pot with your $60 bet you are just lucky that none of your three villains has a king, jack, straight draw, OR flush draw.



I think your average 1/2 player with a set could take that line (those sneaky bastards).

I don't like a raise here. Even if UTG/MP1 are just on a draw and want to draw for cheap, their draw (OESD or flush or both plus overcards) is doing quite well against us, and they ain't folding if we pop it (with the preflop raise, pot is now "too big too fold"). And that's the best case scenario, with another scenario being that MP1 has a great hand and doesn't want to blow out the three players behind him (although maybe that is unlikely since he'd also like to protect his hand on this drawy board), plus SB is still to react, plus UTG might just be doing a ******o bet with a biggish hand. I dunno, maybe I'm too straightforward in my setmining plays, but with two people already interested in the pot plus the drawyness of the board (i.e. little chance a raise is taking this down now, even if we do happen to have the best hand) I'm just playing ABC here.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yes

Just making sure..I snap shoved and a friend of mine wouldn't shut up about how bad it was but it seemed like an incredibly easy decision to get it in regardless of how many people are left to act. Got called by QTss and the straddle had 93o and mhwg for a nice pot.

mwhg?

My hand was good

Well regardless of the results, u were up against QT and 93...we know UHWG...
U won 44.5% of the time

UTG bet $10 into $50. That is weakness. MP1 called $10 at $60. That is weakness. SB checked. That is weakness, although it is the weakness that is most likely at this point to be false.

If we raise here, it has essentially the same effect as a pre flop squeeze. SB can't call because without a monster. UTG can't have a monster, as he telegraphs his hand strength with his c-bets. MP1 has something he considers marginal--that's why he only flatted a ridiculously weak bet by UTG. our hand looks like a monster, because we are raising a bet and a call.

By raising to $60 when there's $70 in the pot, we are making a play that breaks even if they all fold about 45% of the time. When all 3 of them have displayed weakness, I think we have enough FE to squeeze here. So it's not just luck if we raise and everybody folds--it's listening to the fact that they have all already said that they dint want to play a big pot with whatever they are holding, even if it connected somewhat with the board.

Ordinarily, I hate bluffing with no equity. But in this spot, I think we're better off with no equity. If we had a hand that had a reasonable chance to improve, we'd want to call getting 7 to 1. So the only hands it makes sense to bluff with are hands that don't have either SDV or a reasonable chance to improve.

So, I'm not sure that raising here is actually bad. The mote I think about it, the more I think that we get folds >45% of the time.

alright.

Live tards will play like this with a wider range than you think, and never fold any of it. Don't worry about your red line in these games.