I just think we can make more money off this guy post by flatting than by 3betting because he likes to cbet and double barrel. We have to fold to a 4bet, and what's he calling the 3bet with? I think we can even bluff him much easier post-flop by flatting now and using board texture.

If you are planning to fire just about every flop when we miss and play as if we 3bet AA or KK, 3bet is fine. If you are going for FE and hope to take it down pre, 3bet is fine. If we know we are going to nail the flop and he'll gii, 3bet is great

Now, against a lot of players, 3bet is great. It's just against this guy I want to flat. I'd rather 3bet hands like this when I'm in position.

All of this makes way more sense if we have position on him than if we don't. Flatting this hand with position on him is much more clearly correct. From the blinds it's a lot closer to a 3-bet, imo.

Trying to outplay people from OOP is just not a great idea. Unsure why you want to 3-bet more from position and less from OOP. It's the opposite unless we're both really deep.

3bet=call>fold IMO. This guy's aggression frequency will pay off for all the times we wiff the flop completely

If you're comfortable using board texture like Java's planning, then calling is great. If you don't like playing OOP and aren't good at reading boardtextures yet, then 3bet for the reasons I'mAllInNow was saying.

ImAllInNow: So, you are hoping for a fold? Otherwise, seems you are now playing OOP in a bloated pot.

The way I took it was that we can play better OOP vs this guy because we know to expect 2 barrels. Obviously it's better to be IP, but in this case, we actually have a good idea of how V will act.

I would be pretty indifferent with this hand if v2 called or folded to my 3b.

The main reason I want to 3b over flat here is to fold out v1 and not have to play oop vs two opponents. Not because I expect v1 to make our lives difficult on purpose or anything, we are just going to win the pot a lot less 3 ways.

It is a lot easier to win pots when we are heads up, with initiative and have an uncapped range.

edit: plus we just win pre a ton which is nice too.

It's WAY easier to play OOP when the stacks are shallower. But yes, I am expecting to get a fold a good % of the time.

I chose calling, even though I don't like playing OOP due to fact OP has Nit image. If he can bag a nice draw OTF, he might juat win more $$ with a c/r otf.
I don't like playing OOP, but I'm not going to run from poat flop play because of it.

Seems like with a nitty weak tight image, by calling pf, we are just setting outselves up to fold a whiffed flop... if you dont think its strong enough to raise, its not strong enough to call oop. You will likely just whiff and fold to further agression. If you want to rake a stand, 3 bet and try to take it down. The nitty weak tight image may serve you well pre, and It gives you more options post flop.

If you are only trying to out flop the guy, call and hope for the best.

Call on BB. Raise on SB

im not sure i agree with this statement.

Neither am I, but when card dead and weak tight, against a late position over aggro viilan, calling and folding when missing is recipe for loses. So it may work out okay if you flop, but it doesnt sound like op will have the heart to play when flop misses so challenge now or wait for better...(and I don't advocate foldinf)

Alright, i think were ready for the next street after some interesting preflop discussion- wich i believe is indeed a very interesting decision point in this hand.

In game i felt it was really really close between flatting and 3 betting, and part of my own thought process was to weighten the arguments for flatting or 3 betting up against eachother right. At the time it was some arguments that seemed most important to me wich made me decide flatting, all of them touched upon in this thread. As mentioned i also think both options are clearly +EV, but i am still not sure of wich is most +EV to be quite honest.

1) I dont know how the guy responds to 3 bets yet and how he plays in 3 bet pots. However on the other hand i have a very firm grasp of how he plays in single raised pots when he is the preflop aggressor and in charge of the hand, his aggro barrell tendencies and very wide range amongst other things.

2) From what i could observe he was both opening a too wide of a range pre (cause he has gotten away with it this far so make sense), over C-betting (close to 100 percent as the preflop aggressor), and also maybe over barrelling the turn. KJ suited seemed like a hand that flops well enough often enough, that i wanted to aim exploiting his tendencies- and that he will feel compelled to overbarrell on the button and maybe also go over the line with some spazz if i give him the feeling that he can run me over like he does with rest of the table.

He have so much total junk in his opening range, that it felt kind of natural to keep him in the hand with his whole range even OOP when i have a nice playable hand like suited broadways.




So anyway, we see a flop.Villain 1 limps. Villain 2 makes it 15$ and hero calls from the BB. Villain 1 comes along as well so 3 ways to the flop as expected. Pot 46$ (before drop).

Flop comes J94

Hero and villain 1 checks, villain 2 fires out a C-bet of 30$- also as expected. Hero?

I also call preflop. My feeling is that villain will call a 3-bet the majority of the time, and this hand is going to be weird to play if you whiff the flop - stacks are such that we have a PSB flop and 2/3 AI on the turn. But I'll admit that without data points for how villain reacts against a 3b, my concerns of having "king-high d--- in hand" could be unfounded.

On the other hand, when you connect with the flop, it's easier to play had you 3-bet. Now we're in the awkward spot of having TP2K and not sure what to do against an aggro villain. Well, this is what you played for...checkraise and set up for a turn shove.

Call flop, call turn. We don't want to C/R a LAG which will simply get him to fold.

I feel we need a mix of calls and raises here. I prefer to raise with the jack since there are more over cards that can come than when I hit the king. I'd make it $130 to go. Villain would have to have a tell so strong that he may as well show me his hand for me to fold now. We played this hand to make top pair and GII with him.

I was having trouble deciding between call and 3! pre until I read the bold section above.

The problem with this is, if he really is any good, he will not continue barreling at us ott the way he did the rest of the table, and will probably fold to a c/r otf when behind or without good equity. We are the nit. If all of a sudden we start calling/raising, he is going to catch on. I don't think we get paid for our big hands and I think it's far more likely we find ourselves dominated with our one pair hands if any significant $ goes into the pot.

With stacks at this depth I think 3! pre is better because vs. our perceived 3! range we're not deep enough for him to continue with a ton of his opening range. Also it just makes things easier ie: heads up, initiative, smaller SPR

Now after seeing the flop I kinda hate my pair but I guess ap c/r $135/...gii? ? Even if that wins us the pot uncontested (most likely scenario?) I feel like it never makes up for the times we whiff/fold or call with worse/value-own. Flat call feels way too passive with this board texture 3 ways. V1s range is capped but suuuuper wide and loves this board.

3b pre is silly in this game.

Routine ck-c flop.

Check/call flop, x/evaluate turn. If turn is a brick I'll probably x/r since I don't expect this villain to fire three streets. I would need a rock solid read he will b/b/b for me to x/c turn.

The combo draws on board are a double-edged sword because it could lead villain to firing the river when everything bricks out trying to make us fold our "busted draws," but it also allows him to get there at his own price when he actually has drawing hands.

But poker is a game of small edges so I think the EV of x/c will be reasonably higher than x/r which sways me to take the riskier x/c line.

Never raising flop, calling all day

I like the check/call, but I'm OK w/ check/raise, too. It's a fairly drawy board, and now that I've got a little more money from him (and other V), I don't mind taking it down.

However, if he really is barreling most turns, call is good. Let him hang himself.

check/call flop obv

There are a lot of things that I don't agree with regarding your decision to flat.

1. Since you don't know how he responds to 3bets from tight people in the blinds, that's a great opportunity for you to 3bet, since it would be the first one he's seen from you so he will likely put you on a narrow range of AA, KK, and maybe QQ or AK.

2. Since he is opening very wide will all kinds of junk, that's a perfect opportunity to 3bet him. And KJ doesn't flop well enough often enough to make the flat pre +EV. You're depending on his tendencies to cbet 100% and barrel away when you flop top pair+ which doesn't happen often enough to depend on. Basically you're just playing fit-or-fold, which is what all the recreational and losing players do (call to try and hit the flop).

fwiw some people might wanna flat pre to play creative and bluff his cbet or donk out otf, but when our stack is close to 100bb's deep it's much better to just take the initiative away from him right from the start and put the pressure on him to flop a hand to continue. Once we c/r his cbet and he flats, what do we do without any equity and not enough money to take the pot away from him.

I dont wanna interrupt too much into the discussion as the OP, but i want to clarify couple of things during your disagreement in point number 2.

The difference between me and rec/losing players is that i am not just calling without a plan, i am not flatting without being zoomed in on how my villain is playing, his opening range, and his tendencies- and i am not gonna overfold like many recs does to the aggression of these types of villains, neither am i scared money or afraid to stackoff with 1 pair or raise the flop or the turn with a draw like for example a flushdraw or open ender (if the situation dictates it).

So i think youre too eager to make the flat pre simplistic/comparing it with what losing recs do, and not putting it into context.

But besides that, its fair to agree on disagreeing that flatting pre is +EV. The guy is in there with an open raising range of probably 80-90 percent of hands dealt (routinely raising limpers every single time on the cutoff and button every orbit ive seen), he is probably only dumping the worst garbage like 8-2 off or 10-3 off.

but you are the OP

the only time I wold flat is if he knows I 3bet light or there's a dynamic going or I think he would 4bet/fold me.

Once you flat, and he starts putting money in the pot post, as I said:

So you flat, 3 people see a flop with 46 in the pot. He cbets 40. You raise to 120, he calls (assume UTG folds, actually we need to pray he folds) now the pot is 280 and you have approx a half pot size bet left ott with king high... do you think this is a good position to be in?

I'm coming in late.

Pre: I don't mind either 3! Or flatting. I don't mind playing KJs OOP because 1/3 players will rarely exploit it plus we want this specific V to stay as wide as possible.

Flop: standard check/call imo. No reason to blow him off his bluffs